This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. Searching, reading, printing, or downloading EEBO-TCP texts is reserved for the authorized users of these project partner institutions. Permission must be granted for subsequent distribution, in print or electronically, of this text, in whole or in part. Please contact project staff at eebotcp-info@umich.edu for further information or permissions.
WEe have sought peace with God, with ourselves, and with our neighbours. To that end we have endeavoured to fortifie our soules against wrong opinions and unruly passions. And that we may walke with an even & steady march
through Prosperity and Adversity, we have stu∣dyed to dye our minds with the right temper of vertue. Our harvest is done. This last Book will be but gleaning in the same field. Let us gather some singular counsells proper for our main end, either omitted before, or worthy to be further insisted upon.
Let the first Counsell be that great preserver of tranquillity, to content ourselves with our condition. This counsell depends of another, much urged before when we spake of the exer∣cise of vertue in adversity, which is to will what God wills; a right Christian & reasonable lesson. To any that is in his right sense this reason ought to be sufficient to make him contented with his condition, that it was so disposed by Gods wise∣dome. He will haveit so. It is rebellion and folly to have a contrary will.
This ought not to be a barre to our industry and keep us from mending the incommodities of our condition; for God putting us in an uneasy con∣dition, doth not oblige us thereby not to seek to be better. Those to whom God hath given no other stock but their industry, have reason to think that God will have them to make the best of that excellent patrimony. Piety and Philoso∣phy are no counsellours of lazinesseand neglect of ourselves. A poore man is content with his con∣dition when he is pleased with that necessity which God layeth upon him to maintaine him∣selfe
by his diligence, and supply by his vertue the want of an inheritance. A condition com∣monly more happy then that of great heires whose intellectuall parts are many times dulled or corrupted with plenty, which puffeth them up with Pride and enflames them with lust. He that is kept in humility and temperance by his short meanes must praise God for it, and make the best of the benefits of poverty, the chiefe whereof is, that it helpes a man to weane his heart from the world, and raise it unto God.
The rich and great having more cause to be contented with their condition have neverthe∣lesse more need to be exhorted unto it, because they are more subject to be discontented, for ease breeds wantonness and makes a man to be in∣commôded with his owne commodities. This is that sore evill which Solomon saw under the Sunne, namely riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. Eccles. 5.17. Many rich men eate their bread in darknesse all their dayes, and with a covetous or envious sorrow make their plenty their crosse.
That ungratefull sorrow proceeds from an ex∣cessive love of ourselves and the world. We love ourselves so much that we think nothing good enough for us; And the world so much that we can never have enough of it. Now al im∣moderate love is accompanied with great care, and that care sowreth all the svveetnesse of our life.
These two loves then must be cut very short. He that will love and esteem himselfe but little will be content with little. And he that with∣drawes his love from worldly things, shall soon have as much of them as he needs.
To weane ourselves from the love of ourselves and the world, we must study to get a strong per∣swasion of the wisedome and goodness of God, and a firme confidence in his love. Suppose that God should spread with his rich and liberall hand all the treasures of the world before us, and give us our free choice to take what we would; Could we do more wisely then to put the choise to him againe, and beseech him to choose for us, because he knowes what is fit for us better then we do, and loves us better then we love our∣selves? Well, this is our condition; God hath chosen for us; Let us stand to his choyce with humility and thankfullnesse, and rest con∣tented.
It is an appurtenance of the condition which God hath allotted us, that we must continually labour to mend it; though we should have no de∣signe to raise it: for our temporal is condition like our houses, which must often be repaired, else they would sinke downe. All humane things are in a continuall decay; But God hath given prudence to man to underprop his tottering for∣tune, or to build it anew, and make it more com∣modious: So much we may do and yet be con∣tent
with our condition, gently submitting our minds to that generall law of the life of our vanity (as Solomon calls it) which binds us to toyle continually to maintaine ourselves. In that toyle if the successe smile upon us and invite us to advance, though we were content with our condition before, we may better it. If notwith∣standing our industry our fortune go back, our desire also must go back with our fortune, and be content with lesse; in both conditions looking up to the good hand of God, whose actions are all mercy to them that love him and trust to him.
To that end we must aske of God a meek, religi∣ous, equall, & constant mind; not seeking content in things that are about us, but in things within us, labouring to have God there; for when all is sayd and tryed it is the onely way to be content in all conditions. God being alwayes the same, he that possesseth God is partaker of that divine attribute in his measure, and in the ebbings and flowings of his temporall condition remaines al∣wayes the same, because the possession that makes him happy is within him and in heaven together, not subject to exteriour changes, not tyed to things under the Sunne.
As he that hath a vigorous body, and the noble parts sound wil eat browne bread & grosse meat with good appetite, but to a sick man pheasants are unsavoury. So to him that hath a sound con∣science,
and God abiding in it, the meanest con∣dition is pleasant; but a man of an ill consci∣ence that hath the burning fever of covetous∣ness and ambition, taketh delight in nothing, though he had all things. He that possesseth God hath this advantage above all other men that he he is content with much, and with little, and with nothing. Therefore, to speake exactly, we should not say that he that possesseth God is con∣tent with, but in his temporall condition; for it is not from his condition that his contentment ari∣seth, it is from God.