SECTION 8.

The causes and means of Poverty.

THOU art very poor :-Who made thee so? If thine own negligence, improvidence, or rash engagements, thou hast reason to bear the burden which thou hast laid upon thine own shoulders: and if thou be forced to make many hard faces under the load, yet since thy own will hath brought upon thee this necessity, even that should induce thee to trudge away as lightly and as fast as thou canst, with that pressing weight.

If the mere oppression and injury of others, thou shalt the more comfortably run away with this cross, because thine own hand hath not been guilty of imposing it. How easy is it for thee here, to see God's hand chastising thee by another man's sin; and more to be grieved at the sin of that other's wrong, than at thine own smart.

How sad a thing it is for any pious soul to see brethren a prey to each other; that neighours should be like the reed and the brake, set near together, for one to starve the other; that we should have daily occasion to renew that woeful comparison betwixt the friends and enemies of Christ, That Jews do not suffer beggars, but that Christians make beggars!

In the mean time, if God think fit to send poverty to thy door upon the message of men, bid it welcome, for the sake of him that sent it; and entertain it not grudgingly for its own sake, but as that which if well used will repay thee with many blessings: the blessings of quiet rest, safe security, humble patience, contented humility, contemptuous valuation of earthly things, all which had missed thy house in a prosperous condition.

SECTION 9.

Examples of Voluntary Poverty.

THOU art stripped of thy former conveniences for diet, for lodging, for attendance :- How many have done that out of choice, which has fallen upon thee from necessity. Some from considerations of philosophy, others of religion.

Attalus, the philosopher, might have lain soft; yet he calls for and praises the bed and the pillow that will not yield to his presure; and Nero's great and rich master brags of his usually dining without a table. I could also mention the uneasy couches and penal garments of the Pharisees, the mats of the elect Manichees, the austere usages of some of the antient Christians; their rigorous abstinences, their famishing meals, their nightly watchings, their cold ground-lyings, their sharp disciplines.

Thou art in ease and delicacy, in comparison of these men, who voluntarily imposed upon themselves these severities, which thou wouldst be loth to undergo from the cruelty of others. It was a strange word of Epicurus, the philosopher, not savouring of more contentment than presumption: Give us but water, give us but barley-meal, and we shall vie with Jupiter himself for happiness.' But if this heathen could rest so well pleased with a mess of water-gruel, what a shame were it for us christians, not to be well paid with a much larger, though but homely, provision.

CHAP. IX.

COMFORTS AGAINST IMPRISONMENT.

SECTION 1.

Nature and power of true Liberty.

THOU art restrained of thy liberty:-I cannot blame thee for being sensible of such an affliction. Liberty may hold a competition with life itself, and many have even lost their lives to purchase their liberty.

But take heed lest thou be either mistaken, or guilty of thine own complaint; for certainly thou canst not be bereaved of thy liberty, except thou wilt. Liberty is a privilege of the will: will is a sovereign power, that is not subject to constraint. Hast thou therefore a freedom. within, a full scope to thine own thoughts? It is not the cooping up of these outward parts that can make thee a prisoner.

Thou art not worthy of the name of a man, if thou thinkest this body to be thyself; and that is only it which human power can affect. Besides, if thou art a christian, thou hast learned to submit thy will to God. God's will is declared in his actions, for what he doth, that he wills to do. If his will be then to have thee restrained, why should it not be thine; and if it be thy will to keep in, why dost thou complain of restraint.

SECTION 2.

The sad objects of a free beholder's eye.

THOU art restrained:-Is it such a matter that thou art not suffered to come abroad? How ill hast thou

spent thy time, if thou hast not laid up matter, both of employment and contentment, in thine own bosom.

And what such goodly pleasure were it for thee to look over the world, and behold those objects which thine eye shall there meet withal. Here, men fighting; there, women wailing; here, plunders; there, riots; here, fields of blood; there, towns and cities flaming; here, some scuffling for patrimonies; there, others wrangling for religion; here, some famishing for want; there, others abusing their fulness; here, schisms and heresies; there, rapines and sacrileges. What comfortable spectacles these are, to attract or please our eyes! Thy closeness frees thee from those sights, the very thought of which is enough to make a man miserable; and instead of them, presents thee only with the face of thy keeper, which custom and necessity have divested of its first horror.

SECTION 3.

The invisible company, that cannot be kept from us.

THOU art shut up close within four walls, and all company is secluded from thee:-Content thyself, my son. God and his angels cannot be kept out: thou hast better company in thy solitude, than thy liberty afforded thee. The jollity of thy freedom robbed thee of the conversation of these spiritual companions, which only can render thee happy. Those who before were strangers to thee, are now thy guests; yea, thy inmates, if the fault be not thine, to dwell with thee in that forced retirement.

What if the light be shut out from thee? This cannot hinder thee from seeing the Invisible. The darkness hideth not from thee, saith the psalmist, but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. Psal. cxxxix. 12. I hesitate not to say, God hath never been so clearly seen as in the darkest dungeons. The outward light of prosperity distracts our visive beams, which are strongly contracted in a deep

obscurity. He must descend low, and be compassed with darkness, that would see the glorious lights of heaven by day. They ever shine, but are seen only in the night.

May thine eyes be blessed with this invisible sight, thou shalt not envy those that glitter in court, and look daily upon the faces of kings and princes; yea, though they could see all that the tempter represented to the view of our Saviour upon the highest mountain, all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.

SECTION 4.

The inward disposition of the Prisoner.

THOU art forced to keep close:-But with what disposition, both of mind and body? If thou hadst an unquiet and burdened soul, it were not the open and free air that could refresh thee; and if thou have a clear and light heart, it is not a strict closeness that can dismay thee. Thy thoughts can keep thee company, and cheer up thy solitude. If thou hadst an unsound and painful body, if thou wert laid up with the gout, or some rupture or luxation of some limb, thou wouldst not complain of confinement thy pain would make thee insensible of it. But if God have favoured thee with health of body, how easily mayest thou digest a harmless limitation of thy

person.

A wise man, as one well observed, doth much while he rests; his motions are not so beneficial as his sitting still. So mayest thou bestow the hours of thy close retiredness, that thou mayest have cause to bless God for so happy an opportunity.

How memorable an instance hath our age yielded us, of an eminent person,* to whose imprisonment we are beholden, besides many philosophical experiments, for

* Sir Walter Raleigh.