Of peace and contentment of minde. By Peter Du Moulin the sonne. D.D.

CHAP. IX. Of Poverty.

THere be many degrees of civill poverty ac∣cording to the diversity of conditions and businesses. To a Soveraigne prince, it is Poverty to have lesse then a hundred thousand pounds a yeare; but to a husbandman it is riches to have twenty pounds a yeare rent free. In all conditi∣ons those are truly poore that have not where∣with to maintaine that course of life which they have set up, and all men that cannot satiate their cupidity. Thus very few rich men will be found in the world, since there are but few that aspire not to greater things then they can compasse, and desire no more then they have. All that finde want are poore, whether their want be of things necessary or superfluous, and among many degrees of poore men, there is but one Po∣verty.

Yet those are the poorest that finde want of superfluous things, because that kinde of pover∣ty is made worse by the increase of riches. To such men, God is just and merciful together, when he healeth that wanton-need, with a pinch∣ing need of things necessary.

Need is the thing that is generally most feared of all men: Certainly it is most incommodious, even to the wisest. Wherefore the Wiseman in the 30. of Proverbs besought God that he would not send it him. It is an ordinary theme for elo∣quence and flourishes of wit to maintaine that Need is not evill; and they that descant more upon it are they that lesse feele it; as Seneca, a man of prodigious wealth, who many times com∣mends extream poverty, or the condition that is not farre from it. They say indeed that it is to the wise onely, that need is not evill; but because that must be proved by the experience of a true and perfect wiseman, we would have the testi∣mony of such a man: but such a man we finde not, neither do all the sects of Philosophers that profest poverty, afford such an example. For we will not stand to the arbitrement of that sawcy begger Diogenes, a vaine sordid and affected man in all his words and actions, who tooke a nasty pride in an impudent mendicity. If poverty did not make him evill he made poverty evill, turning it into a profession; and instead of mak∣ing it an exercise of vertue, using it as a pretence of idlenesse and licentiousnesse.

To the ordinary sort of minds, Need is a gulfe of misery. Prov. 14.20. The poore is hated even of his own neighbour. Every one hides himselfe from him. Need makes men ashamed, and shame increaseth their need. Some also by Need are made shamelesse, and in the end bold theeves. Qui paupertatem timet, timendus est. Need is an ill counsellor: It makes men murmure against God and finde fault with the distribution of his goods. It beates down the courage, stupefyeth or sowreth the wit, and clips the wings of con∣templation. It is hard for one to have high con∣ceits, when he wants bread.

Yet, to speake properly, Want doth not all that evill, but the evill disposition of men, that have not weaned their heart from the world, nor sought their only treasure in heaven, & have not chosen God for their portion: No wonder that their spirit is beaten down as well as their fortune, when the worldly ground, which they had built upon, sinkes under their feet.

But he that despiseth the world and the life of the world, despiseth also Want so much feared by others. For, take things at the worst, (a per∣petual rule of wisedome about casual future things) the worst that can come to him that is without bread, is to be without life, which a thousand other accidents may take from us. Life is a depositum which God hath committed to our keeping: No lawful diligence and industry must

be omitted that we may preserve it and give a good account of it to God; And himselfe having trusted us with it, assists us to keepe it. Very seldome it is heard, that any persons dye for lack of bread. But precious in the sight of God is any death of his Saints, Psal. 116.15. Neither is there any more curse in dying of hunger, then of a surfet.

Of all kinds of death, but the suddaine, I hold death for want of food to be the easiest. It is no more but letting the lamp quietly to go out. Atticus after a long fast to overcome an acute sicknesse, having lost the appetite of meat, lost al∣so the appetite of life, and refusing to take any more meat, dyed without paine. And so Tullius Marcellinus, after an abstinence of three dayes Mollissime excessit et vitae elapsus est, he departed most quietly and escaped from life, saith Seneca. He spake better then he meant, saying that he escaped; for such a volutary death was an escape from the station, where God hath placed him. He went from life without commission, for God had given him wherewith to keep it: But he to whom God giveth no more wherewith to keep himselfe alive must acknowledge that his commission is out, & depart cheerefully. For to prevent death by sordid and unlawfull wayes is more then God calls him unto, and more then life is worth. To say, necessity compels me to these wayes, and otherwise I cannot live, is an ignorant or wilfull mistake of Necessity; The wayes cannot

be necessary, when the end is not so: And before a man conclude that such wayes are necessary because without them he cannot live, he should consider whether it be necessary for him to live. It is necessary for us to be righteous and gene∣rous; not, to live. Who so conceiveth no neces∣sity in life, and no evill in death (which to Gods children is the end of all evills, and the beginning of all happinesse) will soon rid his heart of that cowardly fear of dying for want, and reject the temptations to lead an ill life that he may keep life.

The feare of Want is for want of obeying Christs command, Matth. 6.34. not to take thought for the morrow; and for want of observing the course of his providence which provideth for his creatures that cannot provide for themselves: Beasts sleep quietly not knowing and not think∣ing where they shall get meat the next day. You will say, it is because they have no reason and no foresight; and were it not better to have no reason, then to make no use of it but for our vexation! Were it not better to be incapable of thinking on God as beasts are, then to think on him onely to mistrust and murmure against his providence?

A poore man to whom God giveth health & in∣dustry to get his living is possest of a great trea∣sure, and a stock yeelding him a daily rent. His condition is incomparably more happy then that

of the noble and wealthy. The labour that gets him bread, gets him also an appetite to eate it, and sleep to refresh him when he is weary, and health to continne his labour; Eccl. 5.12. The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eate little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep: His many children give him lesse care, then fewer children to the rich, and lesse paine also to provide for them. For where∣as in noble houses the c••arge groweth alwayes as the children grow; in poore families that live by labour the charges grow lesse as the chil∣dren grow; the Sonnes serve the Father in his worke, the Daughters spin by their Mother. Children are the riches of poore people, and the impoverishing of the rich. Then to give them portions; the Father that hath no land is not troubled to engage the Lordships of the eldest Sonne for the marriages of his Daughters, nor to charge the land with annuityes for the younger Brothers. Each of them hath the whole succession, which is their Fathers labour. No doubt, but that is the most tranquil condition of all.

The examples are many, of those that lived merrily and sung at their worke as long as they were poore; but an inheritance unlooked for, being fallen into their lap, they have given over singing, and turned sad and full of thoughts. Anacreon came once to that trouble, but he rid

himselfe of it. He was a Poet, and consequent∣ly poore. Polycrates the rich Tyrant of Samos be∣stowed two or three thousand Crownes upon him. But Anacreon after he had kept them three dayes restored them to his benefactor, be∣cause, said he, that-money would not let him sleep. Which action was not the production of a Philosophical minde, for by his Poemes now extant it appeareth that wine and women were the highest spheres of his contemplation; but the true cause was, that he found riches heavier to beare then poverty.

I was saying that Poverty beates down the courage and stupefyeth the wit; but it is onely with them that had no great courage and no great wit before, and they would have bin more beaten down and stupefyed by riches, but in a∣nother way: for riches swell indeed the cour∣age with pride, but they beat it down at the same time with feare, and make it soft with voluptu∣ousnesse; they slacken diligence, & blunt the edge of industry, but poverty whets it, & awakens and sharpens the wit, if there be any. Riches in a competent measure are more accommodate to the operations of the speculative understanding; for high and curious contemplations require a minde free of cares, and rested with plenty. A man that wanteth bread hath no thoughts of finding longitudes and the pole of the load-stone, or the exquisiteness of eloquence: Magnae mentis

opus, nec de lodîce parandâ Attonitae. Poverty is fitter for the operations of the practical understanding, for necessity is the mother of arts. Magister artis ingenîque largitor venter: We owe most part of mechanique inventions to men put to their shifts.

The best thing that is in Poverty is, that meet∣ing with a sound and godly mind, it helps to weane it from the world, and raise it up to God, which is the great worke of a Christian, to which riches are a great hindrance. He that hath but little in the world, finds in his poverty a great motive to lay up treasure it heaven, to which he is invited by the example of the Lord Jesus, who made himselfe poore to make us rich in God. To the poore was the Gospel first preacht, and when it was preach to the rich and poore to∣gether, the poore were the first that embraced it, because they were lesse tyed unto the world, and at more liberty to go to God.

It is most observable that all persons admit∣ted by God to salvation are received in the quali∣ty of poore, and the rich must make themselves poore before God through humility and meek∣nesse, that they may be capable of that high blessing whereby Christ began his sermon, Mat. 5 Blessed are the poore in spirit, for theirs is the King∣dome of God. To that Poverty in spirit the pover∣ty in worldly goods is a great help. A wise and godly man, that knoweth how to get advantage

by all things will prudently manage all the helps to heaven which poverty affords, when he shall be brought to that condition. He will become more serene in his devotions, more resolute in his dangers, more undaunted to maintaine the truth, lighter to flee from one Citty to another in time of persecution, and better disposed at all times to welcom death, casting no back-look upon the world where he hath nothing to lose. If he had once riches, and hath lost them, he will acknowledge that they were none of his, since they could not stay with him; for the true goods of a man are inseperable from him, as being within him. These goods are, a right reason, integrity of conscience, the love of God, faith in his promises, and an appetite led by reason and piety. With that patrimony he may say with more reason then Bias, in what condition soever he be, I carry all my goods along with me. The goods of fortune deserve not the name of goods.

To him that desireth nothing but what is suffi∣cient to Nature, poverty doth no harme; and to him that desireth more, poverty doth good; for it brings him to sobriety. To have little and to be contented with it, is a great wealth.

Poverty and riches having their commodities and incommodities, the most desireable tempo∣ral estate is the midlemost, which is neither, and holds of both. That state the wise man requested at Gods hands, Prov. 30.8. Give me neither po∣verty

nor riches, feed me with food convenient for me; Lest I be full and deny thee, and say who is the Lord? and lest I be poore and steale and take the name of my God in vaine. But our condition is not in our choice. Vertue and tranquillity of minde may be had in any fortune, because they depend not of fortune.