3. Remedies against Covetousness, the third Enemy of Mercy.

Covetoufnefs is also an Enemy to Alms, though not to all the Effects of Mercifulness: But this is to be cured by the proper Motives to Charity before mentioned, and by the proper Rules of Justice, which being fecured, the Arts of getting Money are not eafily made criminal. To which alfo we may add,

1. Covetoufnefs makes a Man miferable; becaufe
Riches are not Means to make a Man happy: And
unless Felicity were to be bought with Money, he is a
vain Perfon who admires Heaps of Gold and rich Pof-
feffions. For what Hippomachus faid to fome Perfons
who commended a tall Man as
fit to be a Champion in the
Olympick Games, It is true,
(faid he) if the Crown hang fo
high that the longest Arm could
reach it. The fame we may fay
concerning Riches, they were excellent Things, if the
richest Men were certainly the wifeft and the best:
But as they are, they are nothing to be wondered at,
because they contribute nothing toward Felicity:
Which appears, because fome Men chufe to be mife-
rable that they may be rich, rather than to be happy
with the Expence of Money and doing noble Things.

Quid refert igitur quantis fumenta fatiger.
Porticibus, quanta nemorum vistetur in
umbra,
Jugera quot vicina foro, quas emerit æ-

des?

Nemo malus felix. Juv. Sat. 4.

2. Riches are ufelefs and unprofitable: For beyond our Needs and Conveniences Nature knows no Ufe of Riches: And they fay, that the Princes of Italy when they fup alone, eat out of a fingle Difh, and drink in a plain Glafs, and the Wife eats without Purple: For nothing is more frugal than the Back and Belly, if they be used as they fhould: But when they would entertain the Eyes of Strangers, when they are vain and would make a Noife, then Riches come forth to fet forth the Spectacle, and furnish out the Comedy of Wealth, of Vanity. No Man can with all the Wealth in the World buy fo much Skill as to be a good Lutenift; he must go the fame Way that poor People do,

he must learn and take Pains: Much lefs can he buy
Conftancy, or Chastity, or Courage; nay, not fo
much as the Contempt of Riches: And by poffeffing
more than we need, we cannot obtain fo much Power
over our Souls as not to require more. And certainly
Riches muft deliver me from no Evil, if the Poffe1-
fion of them cannot take away the longing for them.
If any Man be thirsty, Drink cools him; if he be
hungry, eating Meat fatisfies him: And when a
Man is cold, and calls for a warm Cloak, he is plea-
fed if you give it him; but you trouble him if you
load him with fix or eight Cloaks. Nature refts and
fits ftill when fhe hath her Portion; but that which
exceeds it is a Trouble and a Burthen; and there-
fore in true Philofophy, no Man is rich but he that
is poor, according to the common Account: For
when God hath fatisfied those Needs which he made,
that is, all that is natural, whatfoever is beyond it
is Thirst and a Difeafe, and unless it be fent back
again in Charity or Religion, can ferve no End but
Vice or Vanity: It can increafe the Appetite, to
reprefent the Man poorer, and full of a new and ar-
tificial, unnatural Need; but it never fatisfies the
-Need it makes, or makes the Man richer. No Wealth
can fatisfy the covetous Defire of Wealth.
3. Riches are trouble fome; but the Satisfaction of
thofe Appetites which God and
Nature have made are cheap
and eafie: For whoever paid
Ufe-Money for Bread and O-
nions and Water to keep him alive? But when we co-
vet after Houses of the Frame and Defign of Italy, or
long for Jewels, or for our next Neighbour's Field, or
Horfes from Barbary, or the richest Perfumes of Ara-
bia, or Galatian Mules, or fat Eunuchs for our Slaves
from Tunis, or rich Coaches from Naples, then we can
never be fatisfied till we have the best Thing that is
fancied, and all that can be had, and all that can be
'defired, and that we can luft no more: But before we
come to the one half of our first wild Defires, we are
the Bondmen of Ufurers, and of our worfe Tyrant
Appe-

Ergò follicite tu caufa, pecunia, vitæ es.
Per te immaturum mortis adimus iter,
Propert.

Appetites, and the Tortures of Envy and Impatience. But I confider that those who drink on ftill when their Thirft is quenched, or eat after they have well dined, are forced to vomit not only their Superfluity, but even that which at firft was neceflary: So thofe that covet more than they can temperately ufe, are oftentimes forced to part even with that Patrimony which would have fupported their Perfons in Freedom and Honour, and have fatisfied all their reafonable Defire.

:

4. Contentednefs is therefore Health, because Covetoufnefs is a direct Sickness: And it was well faid of Ariftippus, (as Plutarch reports him,) If any Man after much eating and drinking be ftill unfatisfied, he hath no Need of more Meat or more Drink, but of a Phyfician; he more needs to be purged than to be filled And therefore fince Covetoufness cannot be fatisfied, it must be cured by Emptinefs and Evacuation. The Man is without Remedy, uplefs he be reduced to the fcantling of Nature, and the Measures of his perfonal Neceffity. Give to a poor Man a Houfe and a few Cows, pay his little Debt, and set him on Work, and he is provided for and quiet: But when a Man enlarges beyond a fair Poffeffion, and defires another Lordship, you fpite him if you let him have it: For by that he is one Degree the farther off from Reft in his Defires and Satisfaction; and now he fees himself in a bigger Capacity to a larger Fortune; and he shall never find his Period, till you begin to take away fomething of what he hath ; for then he will begin to be glad to keep that which is left : But reduce him to Nature's Measures, and there he fhall be fure to find Reft: For there no Man can defire beyond his Belly-full, and when he wants that, any one Friend or charitable Man can cure his Poverty; but all the World cannot fatisfie his Covetoufness.

5. Covetoufnefs is the most phantastical and contradictory Disease in the whole World: It must therefore be incurable, because it strives against its own Cure. No Man therefore abftains from Meat, because he is hungry; nor from Wine, because he loves it and needs it: But the covetous Man does fo; for he defires it paf

fionately

Sect. 8. fionately, because he fays he needs it; and when he hath it, he will need it ftill, because he dares not use it. He gets Cloaths because he cannot be without them; but when he hath them then he can: As if he needed Corn for his Granary, and Cloaths for his Wardrobe, more than for his Back and Belly. For Covetoufnefs pretends to heap much together for fear of Want; and yet after all his Pains and Purchafe, he fuffers that really which at first he feared vainly; and by not using what he gets, he makes that Suffering to be actual, prefent and neceffary, which in his lowest Condition was but future, contingent and poffible. It ftirs up the Defire, and takes away the Pleafure of being fatisfied. It increases the Appetite, and will not content it. It fwells the Principal to no Purpose, and leffens the Use to all Purpofes; difturbing the Order of Nature, and the Defigns of God; making Money not to be the Inftrument of Exchange or Charity, nor Corn to feed himself or the Poor, nor Wool to cloath himself or his Brother, nor Wine to refresh the Sadnefs of the Afflicted, nor his Oil to make his own Countenance chearful; but all these to look upon, and to tell over, and to take Accounts by, and make himfelf confiderable, and wonder'd at by Fools, that while he lives he may be called rich, and when he dies may be accounted miferable, and like the Difh-makers of China, may leave a greater Heap of Dirt for his Nephews, while he himself hath a new Lot fallen to him in the Portion of Dives. But thus the Afs carried Wood and fweet Herbs to the Baths, but was never washed or perfumed himfelf: He heaped up Sweets for others, while himself was filthy with Smoak and Afhes. And yet it is confiderable; if the Man can be content to feed hardly, and labour extreamly, and watch carefully, and fuffer Affronts and Difgrace, that he may get Money more than he uses in his Temperance and juft Needs, with how much Eafe might this Man be happy? And with how great Uneafinefs and Trouble does he make himself miferable? For he takes Pains to get Content, and when he might have it, he lets it go. He might better be

con

content with a virtuous and quiet Poverty, than with an artificial, trouble fome and vicious. The fame Diet and a lefs Labour would at first make him happy, and for ever after rewardable.

6. The Sum of all is that which the Apostle fays, Covetoufnefs is Idolatry; that is, it is an admiring Money for itfelf, not for its Ufe; it relies upon Money, and loves it more than it loves God and Religion. And it is the Root of all Evil; it teaches Men to be cruel and crafty, industrious and evil, full of Care and Malice; it devours young Heirs, and grinds the Face of the Poor, and undoes thofe who fpecially belong to God's Protection, helpless, craftlefs and innocent People; it inquires into our Parents Age, and longs for the Death of our Friends; it makes Friendfhip an Art of Rapine, and changes a Partner into a Vulture, and a Companion into a Thief: And after a'l this it is for no Good to itself, for it dares not fpend thofe Heaps of Treafure which it fnatched: And Men hate Serpents and Bafilifks worse than Lions and Bears; for thefe kill because they need the Prey; but they fting to Death and eat not. * And if they pretend all this Care, and heap for their Heirs, (like the Mice of Africa hiding the Golden Ore in their Bowels, and refufing to give back the indigefted Gold till their Guts be out) they may remember, that what was unneceffary for themfelves, is as unneceffary for their Sons; and why cannot they be without it as well as their Fathers, who did not ufe it: And it often happens that to the Sons it becomes an Inftrument to ferve fome Luft or other; that as the Gold was ufelefs to their Fathers, fo may the Sons be to the publick, Fools or Prodigals, Loads to their Country, and the Curfe and Punishment of their Father's Avarice: And yet all that Wealth is fhort * Η φιλοχρημοσύνη μήτηρ κακότΘ άπάσης Χρυσὸς ἀεὶ δόλΘ ότι και άργυρο ανθρώποισιν Χρυσέ κακών αρχικά, βιοφθόρε, πάντα χαλέπτων, Είθε σε μὴ θνητοῖσι γενέθς πῆμα ποθεινόν. Σε γδ έκητι μάχαι τε, λεηλασίαι τε, φόνοι τε, Εχθες ἢ τέχνα γινεῦσιν, αδελφειοί τε, συναίμοις.

Phocylid. of