ways equal to it; never light or amorous, discovering a nakedness through a thin veil, which thou pretendest to hide, never to lay a snare for a soul; but re member what becomes a Christian, professing holiness, chastity, and the discipline of the holy Jesus : and the first effect of this let your servants feel by your gentleness and aptness to be pleased with their usual. diligence, and ordinary conduct*. For the man or woman that is dressed with anger and impatience, wear pride under their robes, and immodesty above. 8. Hither also is to be reduced singular and affected walking, proud, nice and ridiculous gestures of body, painting and lascivious dressings: all which together God reproves by the Prophet, The Lord saith, Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and walk with stretched 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 scab of the crown of the head, and will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments. (Isa. iii. 16, 17.) And this duty of modesty in this instance is expressly enjoined to all Christian women by St. Paul, That women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearl, or costly array, but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. (1 Tim. ii. 9.) * Tuta sit ornatrix; odi quæ sauciat ora Unguibus, et raptâ brachia figit acu. Devovet, et tangit Dominæ caput illa, simulque Ovid. 9. As those meats are to be avoided which tempt our stomach beyond our hunger, so also should prudent persons decline all such 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 girls, wander into markets and theatres without just employment; but when they are sent abroad by reason, return quickly with their errand, and remain modestly at home under their guide, till they be sent 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 of fend who expose to others their own, or pry into others nakedness beyond the limits of necessity, or where a leave is not made holy by a permission from God. It is also said that God was pleased to work a miracle about the body of Epiphanius, to reprove the immodest curiosity of an unconcerned person, who pried too near when charitable people were composing it to the grave. In all these cases and particulars, although they seem little, yet our duty and concernment 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. * Qedipum curiositas in extremas conjecit calamitates. Plut. SECT. VÍ. Of Contentedness in all Estates and Accidents. VIRTUES 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 sorrows and sad accidents: and in this sense no man that is virtuous can be friendless; nor hath any man reason to complain of the Divine Providence, or accuse the public disorder of things, or his own infelicity, since 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 desires not, or desires what he hath not, or desires amiss he that composes his spirit to the present ac eident hath variety of instances for his virtue, but none to trouble him, because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune and a wise man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a wheel in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes of posture, without violence or change, save that it turns gently in compliance with its changed parts, and is indifferent which part is up, and which is down; for there is some virtue 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 amiability, our minds and apprehensions make that; and so is our felicity: and we may be reconciled to poverty and a low fortune, if we suffer contentedness, and the grace of God to make the proportion. For no man is poor that doth not think himself so*. But if in a full fortune with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his beggarly condition. But because this grace of contentedness was the sum of all the old moral philosophy, 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 fastened by reason and religion, by duty and interest, by necessity 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 * Non facta tibi est, si dissimules, injuria. angry because dogs and sheep need no shoes, 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, shoes 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 possessions. God is the Master of the scenes, we must not choose what part we shall act; it concerns us only to be careful that we do it well, always saying, If this please 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 wherever they are sent, and refuse no circumstances; and if their employment be crossed by a higher degree, they sit down in peace, and rejoice in the event: and when the angel of Judæa 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 ecstacy in |