impatience wear pride under their robes, aud immodesty above.

18.

8. Hither also is to be reduced fingular and effected walking, proud, nice and ridiculous gestures of body, painting and lafcivious dressings: all which together God reproves by the Prophet, The Lord faith, Be-Ifa. 3. 16. cause the daughters of Sion are haughty, and walk with 17. ftretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and make a tinkling with their feet. Therefore the Lord will smite her with a fcab of the crown of the head, and will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments. And this duty of Modesty in this instance is expresly enjoyned to all Christian women by S. Paul, That women adorn themselves in modest apparel 1 Tim. 2, 9. with shamefac'dness and fobriety, not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearl, or costly array, but (which becometh women profeffing godliness) mith good works.

1

9. As those meats are to be avoided which tempt our stomach, beyond our hunger; so also should prudent persons decline all fuch spectacles, relations, theatres, loud noises and out-cries which concern us not, and are besides our natural or moral interest. Our senses should not, like petulant and wanton Oedipum girls, wander into markets and theatres without just curiofras in employment; but when they are fent abroad by Rea-extremar conjecit ca. fon, return quickly with their errand, and remain amitates, modestly at home under their guide, till they be sent Plut. again.

10. Let all persons be curious in observing Modesty towards themselves in the handsome treating their own body, and such as are in their Power, whether living or dead. Against this Rule they offend who expose to others their own, or pry into others nakedness beyond the limits of neceffity, or where a leave is not made holy by a permiffion from God. It is also said that God was pleased to work a miracle about the body of Epiphanius, to reprove the immodeft curiosity of an unconcerned person who pried too near when charitable people were composiug it to the grave. In all these cases and particulars, although they seem little, yet our duty and concern

ment is not little. Concerning which I use the

words of the Son of Sirach, He that despiseth little

things, shall perish by little and little.

SECT. IV.

Of Contentedness in all Estates and Accidents.

1

Vertues and Discourses are like Friends necessary in

all Fortunes; but those are the best which are Friends in our sadnesses, and support us in our forrows and sad accidents: and in this fence no man that is vertuous can be friendless; nor hath any man reason to complain of the Divine Providence, or accuse the publick disorder of things, or his own infelicity, fince God hath appointed one remedy for all the Evils in the World, and that is a contented Spirit. For this alone makes a man pass through fire, and not be scorched; through seas, and not be drowned; through hunger and nakedness, and want nothing. For since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and the appetite, as when a man hath what he defires not, or defires what he hath not, or desires amiss; he that composes his Spirit to the prefent accident hath variety of instances for his Vertue, but none to trouble him, because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune: and a wife man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a wheel in the midst of all the curcumvolutions and changes of posture, without violence or change, save that it turns gently in compliance with its changed parts, and is in different which part is up, and which is down; for there is some Vertue or other to be exercised whatever happens, either Patience or Thanksgiving, Love or Fear, Moderation or Humility, Charity or Contentedness, and they are every one of them equally in order to his great end and immortal felicity; and beauty is not made by white or red, by black eyes, and a round face, by a straight body, and a smooth skin; but by a proportion to the fancy. No rules can make amability, our Minds and apprehenfions make that; and so is our felicity: and we may be reconciled to poverty poverty and a low fortune, if we fuffer Contentedness, Non facta and the Grace tibi eft, fi of Gad to make the proportion. For diff diffimules, no man is poor that doth not think himself fo. But if injuria. in a full fortune with impatience he defires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition. But because this Grace of Contentedness was the sum of all the old moral Philofophy, and a great Duty in Christianity, and of most universal use in the whole course of our lives, and the only instrument to ease the burthens of the world, and the enmities of sad chances, it will not be amiss to press it by the proper arguments by which God hath bound it upon our spirits, it being fastned by Reason and Religion, by Duty and Interest, by Neceffity and Conveniency, by Example, and by the proposition of excellent Rewards, no less than Peace and Felicity.

1. Contentedness in all Estates, is a duty of Religion; it is the great reasonableness of complying with the Divine Providence which governs all the world, and hath so ordered us in the administration of his great family. He were a strange fool that should be angry because dogs and sheep need no shooes, and yet himself is full of care to get some. God hath supplied those needs to them by natural provisions, and to thee by an artificial: for he hath given thee reason to learn a trade, or some means to make or buy them, so that it only differs in the manner of our provision: and which had you rather want, Shooes or Reason? And my Patron that hath given me a Farm is freer to me than if he gives a Loaf ready baked. But however all these gifts come from him, and therefore it is fit he should dispense them as he pleases; and if we murmur here, we may at the next melancholy be troubled that God did not make us to be Angels or Stars. For if that which we are or have do not content us, we may be troubled for every thing in the world, which is besides our being or our poffeffions.

God is the Master of

Εἰ τῦτο τῷ

the Scenes, we must not chuse which part we shall act; it concerns us only to be τῦτο γιγί careful that we do it well, always saying, If this please do. God, let it be as it is: and we who pray that God's

will may be done in Earth as it is in Heaven, must remember that the Angels do whatsoever is commanded them, and go where-ever they are sent, and refuse no circumstances; and if their employment be crossed by a higher degree, they sit down in peace, and rejoyce Dan, 10. 13. in the event: and when the Angel of Judea could not prevail in behalf of the people committed to his charge; because the Angel of Persia opposed it, he only told the story at the command of God, and was as content, and worshipped with as great an ecstasie in his proportion, as the prevailing Spirit. Do thou fo likewife: keep the station where God hath placed you and you shall uever long for things without, but fit at home feasting upon the Divine Providence and thy. own Reason, by which we are taught that it is necessary and reasonable to submit to God.

For, is not all the world God's Family? Are not we his Creatures? Are we not as clay in the hand of the Potter? Do we not live upon his meat, and move by his strength, and do our work by his light? Are we any thing but what we are from him? And shall there be a mutiny among the flocks and herds, because their Lord or the Shepherd chuses their pastures, and fuffers them not to wander into desarts and unknown ways? If we chuse we do it so foolishly that we cannot like it long, and most commonly not at all: but God, who can do what he pleases, is wise to chuse safely for us, affectionate to comply with our needs, and powerful to execute all his wife decrees. Here therefore is the wisdom of the contented man, to let God chuse for him: for when we have given up our wills to him, and stand in that station of the battel, where our great General hath placed us, our spirits must needs rest, while our conditions have for their security the power, the wisdom, and the charity of God.

2. Contentedness in all accidents brings great peace of spirit, and is the great and only inftrument of temporal felicity. It removes the sting from the accident, and makes a man not to depend upon chance and the uncertain dispositions of men for his well-being, but only

σε αυτό λάβε. Arrian. Ep.

only on God and his own Spirit. We our selves Ὁ θεός τί make our fortunes good or bad, and when God θεικε, καὶ φη σὶν εἴ τι μὰ. lets loose a Tyrant upon us, or a sickness, or scorn, rαθὸν θέ or a lessened fortune, if we fear to die, or know λεις, παρά not to be patient, or are proud, or covetous, then the calamity fits heavy on us. But if we know how to manage a noble principle, and fear not death so much as a dishonest action, and think Impatience a worse evil than a Fever, and Pride to be the biggest disgrace, and Poverty to be infinitely defirable before the torments of Covetousness; then we who now think vice to be so easie, and make it so familiar, and think the cure so impoffible, shall quickly be of another mind, and reckon these accidents amongst things eligible.

But no man can be happy that hath great hopes and great fears of things without, and events depending upon other men, or upon the chances of fortune. The rewards of vertue are certain, and our provisions for our natural support are certain, or if we want meat till we die, then to die of that disease, and there are many worse than to die withan Atrophy or Confumption, or unapt and coarfer nourishment. But he that suffers a transporting paffion concerning things within the power of others, is free from forrow and amazement no longer than his enemy shall give him leave; and it is ten to one but he shall be smitten then and there where it shall most trouble him: for so the Adder teaches us where to strike, by her curious and fearful defending of her head. The old Stoicks when you told them of a fad story, would still answer Τί πρὸς μέ; What is that to me? Yes, for the Tyrant hath sentenced you also unto prison. Well, what is that? He will put a chain upon my leg, but he cannot bind my foul. No: But he will kill you. Then I'll die. If presently, let me go, that I may presently be freer than himself: but if not till anon or to morrow, I will dine first, or fleep, or do what reason and nature calls for, as at other times. This in Gentile Phi- Phil. 4. losophy is the fame with the discourse of S. Paul,

12.

1 Tim. 6.6:

bave learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be Heb. 3.1,