title. But to come clofer yet: what is it that makes up the comfort of human life? A quiet ftate, faithful friends, good wives and good children? If we confider it, we shall find the life of man little beholden to wealth in these points: in all changes of time are not the rich the greateft fufferers? the mark of envy, the prey of violence and ufurpation? Have they not more enemies, as well as more friends, than other men? friends did I fay? they have none. They have dependents, flatterers, companions, and minifters of their pleasures; no friends. Hence is it, that nothing is more common than for thofe above us to wish for the content, the ease and enjoyment of thofe below them: for the truth of it is (if we proceed) relations, which are the pleasure of men of middle fortune, are the burthen and incumbrance of the rich and great for in all their contracts and difpofals, they are fervants to their fortune, not their inclination; marriages among these are the matches of estates, not minds; and therefore they attend not the temper or the honour of the families they link with; nay, what is worse, they have no regard to their education, or virtue, or wifdom: but money weighs all down, whatever objections are put in the oppofite fcale: in the whole method of their lives they are flaves to their fortune, and to their reputation in the world, judging themselves obliged to live, not according to their reafon, but their quality and the humour, that is, the folly of the age, and of the acquaintance they converfe with: nor dare they walk by any other maxims in the

govern

The admiration of wealth whence.

government of the nearest to them, or in the education of their children: in all these things they must do what becomes men of their figure in the world, not what becomes true wifdom. Who fees not now, that upon the whole there is in this ftate or condition of life more incumbrance, and lefs true freedom? more fhew, and lefs enjoyment, than in any other? If all this be true, you will be apt to conclude mankind is mad: if wealth neither makes us more wife nor more healthy, more free in our felves, nor more fortunate in our relations, what bewitches man into this extravagant dotage? What makes the world gaze upon, and envy the rich, as the only happy creatures? What makes us fawn upon them, and flatter them, as the only powerful and great things the world has? Something there is in it, and that is this; we fee the outside, the pomp and pageantry of wealth; we fee the gilt coaches, the rich liveries, the little town of buildings, gay furniture, and a whole squadron of dishes; and together with all this, the gawdy trappings the happy man's bedight with; the port, the grace, the confidence that all this gives to ignorance and nonfenfe: but if you'll confider this truly, you will find all this mere pageantry and apparition, nothing folid nor real in it. As for gay cloathing, 'tis an advantage not worth the fpeaking of, 'tis the pride of children, and the weakness of women: the little foul that converfes no higher than the looking-glass, and a fantastick dress, may help to make up the fhew

་

of the world; but must not be reckon❜d amongst the rational inhabitants of it; ferving only as painture, images and ornaments to the stage, not actors on it. As to all the reft, they seem to enjoy fome pre-eminence, but do not: the mean man eats his morfel with more pleasure, because more appetite; and fleeps with more delight, because with more eafe, neither opprefs'd in body by luxury, nor in mind by care: The fleep of a labouring man is fweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not fuffer him to fleep, Ecclef. 5. 12. All the reft, as numerous attendants, many dependents, flocks of parafites, and the like, are but mere incumbrance, the unweildinefs of a grofs and heavy body. All these serve to encrease the noise and hurry, the care and the pomp, but not the pleasure or enjoyment of the wealthy: hence was that obfervation of Solomon, Ifriches increafe, they are increas'd that eat them: and what profit has the owner thereof, faving the beholding of it with his eyes? Ibid. A moft extraordinary happiness this, to be the hoft of their neighbourhood, to have one's house the rendezvous of the idle and the gluttonous, of buffoons and flatterers; and yet, if the rich live otherwife, presently they grow infamous and stink; they are look'd upon as Indian graves, where wealth is not laid up, but loft and buried; they are loaded with the curses of fome, with the hatred of others, and with the cenfures of all; and this is almost as bad as to be pefter'd with impertinencies and flattery. This is the whole of the matter, if people gaze

and

and admire, 'tis there ignorance; if they fawn or flatter, 'tis their baseness; but ftill remember, 'tis the people, 'tis the croud that doth this. Should a man of letters or of spirit be over-aw'd by the laws of cuftom or fome unhappy neceffity, into the commiffion of this idolatry, he could not but defpife the idol he bow'd down to, and fee it a mere lump of wood or stone, notwithstanding its gaudy dreffes; tho' I acknowledge, I comprehend not what can reduce a philofopher to this piece of fhameful diffimulation; the foul that is great in it felf, is fo in defpight of fortune; he that can live virtuously, can live happily in the lowest ftate: and he that defires but little, has no need of much he that can defpife riches, can despise the infolence and pride of the rich: in one word, he that can command himself, needs be a flave to none.

After all, I think it were poffible to evince the mischievoufness of wealth as plainly as I have its uselesnefs; but that were to prefs the point further than my present design requires: for my business was to fhew, either that fortune was not neceffary to our happiness, or as far as it is, that 'tis in our own power; both which I may now presume my felf to have fufficiently perform'd. I will therefore pafs on to the ob jection from fate.

CHAP. V.

Of FAT E.

The notion of fate ftated. Man's fondness. Fate from Spiritual pride and looseness. Fate impugned. 1. By authority. Various opinions about it, and its caufes. The extent of its empire. The mind exempt. The true differences between the Pythagorean and Stoic fate-different opinions about the neceffity implied in fate-Chriftian fate worse than Pagan. 2. By reafon and revelation. Fate cannot derive it felf from matter nor from God: 'tis repugnant to fenfe and experience, the confequences of fate. Scripture clear'd from countenancing fate. Demonftrated from the nature of God, his declar'd will and government.

A Mongft the many fhifts and devices men

ftated.

have invented to quiet confcience, and

at once to excufe and enjoy The notion of fate their lufts, this is none of the leaft, that they impute all to fate; not only the events that befal them, but even their crimes and follies, as Juvenal did the diffoluteness of Peribomius; that is, they believe, or would be thought to do fo, that all our affections and actions, and all events that befal us, are inevitable; that no prudence can prevent, no induftry fruftrate the decrees of fate, against which we ftruggle but in vain.