making men virtuous, that nothing is more dangerous to virtue, than a full condition; if men have not a great degree of grace, as well as difcretion, to manage it. Solomon tells us, that the profperity of fools deftroyeth them. And yet how do most of us court this temptation, and are forward to thrust and venture ourselves upon it? There are a great many other things, in which most men make a right judgement of themselves, and will readily acknowledge that they are altogether unfit for them. Every man will not take upon him to be a phyfician or a lawyer, to prefcribe medicines in dangerous cafes, and to give counfel to men in knotty and difficult points about their eftates; but every man thinks himself fit enough to be rich, and fufficiently qualified to manage a great eftate, if he can but get it; when perhaps there are few things in the world which men are more infufficient for, than to wield and govern a great fortune, nor wherein there is greater danger of mifcarriage. It is not every body's talent to be wealthy and wife, rich and innocent. 2dly, As for the outward evils of this life, fuch as want and contempt, bodily pains and diseases, unhappiness in friends and relations, a great eflate is by no means a fufficient fecurity or remedy to a covetous man against these. (1.) As for want: and furely one would think, that if riches were good for any thing, they are a very proper remedy against this evil, and a most certain and infallible cure of it; but experience tells us quite otherwife. Socrates was wont to fay, that, To want nothing is the privilege of the deity, "and proper to God alone; but to stand in need of "as few things as may be, is the privilege of a wife "and good man, and a ftate of happiness next to that of God himself; because he that hath the "feweft wants, is the moft eafily fupplied, and is next "to him that is felf-fufficient." Now a man of moderate defires hath infinitely fewer wants than a covetous man; and because his defires are moderate, a moderate estate will fatisfy them: but the wants of VOL. V. H covetous mind are never to be fupplied, because it hath ordered the matter fo cunningly, as to want even that which it hath. Such a man does not get riches to fupply his wants, but is content to want that he may be rich; infomuch that he hath not the heart to use his eftate for the fupply of his real neceffities. How many do almost starve themselves in the midst of plenty and abundance ? There is no greater fign of poverty than to be deeply in debt; now the covetous man lives and dies in debt to himself. Some men have been fo fhamefully penurious, and ftingy to themselves, as even to die to fave charges: which yet perhaps is the most generous thing they ever did in their whole lives, in refpect to the world; because by this means fomebody may come to the enjoyment of their eftates; and that great dunghill which they have been fo long raking together, may by this means come to be spread abroad for the public benefit. So that if a covetous man were poffeffed of the wealth of both the Indies, all this would not free him from want. A poor man's wants may be fatisfied, when he hath obtained what he wants: but the covetous man labours of an incurable want; because he wants that which he hath, as well as that which he hath not. (2.) As for contempt, riches will not fecure a covetous man against this neither; nay, fo far is it from that, that he is commonly the more ridiculous and defpifed for living poor in the midst of abundance, than if he were really fo. Did I fay, really fo? He is the most really poor of all other men for as one fays well, The rich poor man is emphatically poor. (3.) Neither will riches free men from bodily illnefs and pain. The rich are liable to as many difeases, and as fharp pains, as the poor; and they have commonly lefs patience to bear them than the poor; because they have not been inured to other forts of evils. They that have been accustomed to labour, are generally beft fitted to bear pain; the rich are commonly more tender and delicate, and have a quicker fenfe of pain, more matter, and greater quan tity of humours to feed a difeafe, and to inflame it to a greater height, : I must not here forget, that there is a fort of rich men, I mean the penurious mifers, who starve themfelves more than the poor, and fare many times more hardly and for this reafon, tho' they be not in danger of the difeafes that come from intemperance and a plentiful table; yet they are liable to the diseases which proceed from ftarving and emptiness; which the phyficians fay are more dangerous than the other a fo that neither the prodigal nor the niggardly rich man is fecured from bodily pains and difeafes, by a great eftate. (4.) Neither will riches fecure a man from being unhappy in his friends and relations. A great estate will not make a man's children either more dutiful or wife, than the children of meaner perfons; and if they be not fo, his estate cannot be fo great an hap. piness to him, as they may prove an affliction. Solomon tells us, that the very fear and apprehenfion of this did very much imbitter the fruit of all his labour; and be feems to fpeak it fenfibly, and very probably with a melancholy reflection upon his fon Rehoboam, Ecclef. ii. 18. 19. Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the fun, because I fhould leave it unto the man that shall be after me; and who knows whether he shall be a wife man or a fool? Yet fhall he have rule over all my labour, wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have fhewed myself wife under the fun. Who knows whether he fhall be a wife man or a fool? He feems to speak doubtfully: but he had a very fhrewd guess what kind of man his fon would make; for he fpeaks more defpondingly in the next words, ver. 20. 21. Therefore I went about to caufe my heart to defpair of all the labour which I took under the fun; that is, when I thought feriously of it, I began to think, that all the pains I had taken to get an eftate, would be but to little purpole; for there is a man (faith he) whofe labour is in wifdom, and in knowledge, and in equity, (that is, who by wife and honeft means hath raifed a great eftate), yet to a man that hath not laboured therein, H 2 (that (that is, to a man who is endued with none of these qualities), hall he leave it for his portion; this alfo is vanity, and a great evil. And as for friends, though the rich man have many that will call themfelves fo, yet he had almost as good have none; for he can hardly ever know whether they be fo or not, unless he chance to fall into poverty, and then indeed the change of his condition may give him that advantage and opportunity, which otherwife he is never like to have, of difcerning between his friends and his flatterers. Thus you fee that riches are no fecurity against the most confiderable evils which attend us in the courfe of our lives. 2. When we come to die, nothing will minifter less comfort to us at that time than a great eftate. It is then a very small pleasure to a man, to reflect how much he hath gotten in the world, when he fees that he must leave it; nay, like the young man in the gofpel, he goes away fo much the more forrowful, becaufe he hath great poffeffions. All the things of this world feem very inconfiderable to a man, when he approaches to the confines of the other: for when he fees that he must leave this world, then he would fain make a virtue of neceffity, and begins to change his apprehenfions of these things, and to have very flight and mean thoughts of them, when he is convinced he can enjoy them no longer. What the phi lofopher was wont to fay of the pleafure of this world, is as true of riches, and all the other enjoyments of it, That "if they did but put on the fame countenance, and look with the fame face, when they "come to us, that they will do when they turn from us, and take their leave of us, we fhould hardly "entertain them." Now if a man have placed his chief happiness in this world, as the covetous man does in his riches, his great trouble when he comes to die will be, that he must leave them. Nothing could be more feverely faid to the covetous man, than that which God fays to the rich man in the parable, Thou fool, this night hall thy foul be required of thee, and then whofe fhall these things be? For of all things in the world, world, fuch men cannot endure to think of parting with thefe things, or that what they have got with fuch great care and labour, should come to the posfeffion of another. And therefore when we are fo hot and eager in the pursuit of these things, we should do well to confider, how they will appear to us in a dying hour. And this confideration well imprinted upon our minds, would make us very careful to treasure up other kind of comforts to ourselves against fuch a time, and to labour after thofe things which we fhall never grow out of conceit withal, but fhall value them to the faft, and then moft of all when we come to die, and leave this world. For as a Poet of our own fays excellently, "Tis not that which first we love, Thus I have done with the fourth thing, whereby the evil and unreasonableness of covetousness doth appear, namely, that the happiness of human life doth not confift in a great estate: The life of man doth not confift in the abundance of the things which he poffeffeth. The great ends of religion, and cove toufnefs, are very different. The great end which religion propofeth to itself, is happinefs: but the great end which covetoufnefs propofeth, is riches; which are neither a neceffary nor a probable means of happinefs. I fhould now have proceeded to the fifth and last particular.; namely, that riches are fo far from being the happiness of human life, that they ufually contribute very much to our mifery and sorrow; as will appear, if we confider thefe four things: First, The labour and care which covetous men are at in the getting of a great estate. Secondly, The anxiety of keeping it, together with the fears of lofing it." Thirdly, The trouble and vexation of having loft it; and, Fourthly, The dreadful and heavy account which every man must give of a great estate. But these H 3. par |