are, will call such owners (as they are pleased to call themselves) to strict accounts for their disbursements. And by this account, the possession or dominion is but a word, and serves a fancy, or a passion, or a vice, but no real end of nature. It is the use and spending it that makes a man, to all real purposes of nature, to be the owner of it; and in this the lord and master hath but a share.

2. But, secondly, consider how far short of the whole world the greatest prince that ever reigned, did come. Alexander, that wept because he had no more worlds to conquer, was, in his knowledge, deceived and brutish as in his passion he overran much of Asia; but he could never pass the Ganges, and never thrust his sword in the bowels of Europe, and knew nothing of America. And the oixovun, or the whole world,' began to have an appropriate sense; and was rather put to the Roman greatness, as an honourable appellative, than did signify that they were lords of the world, who never went beyond Persia, Egypt, or Britain.

But why do I talk of great things in this question of the exchange of the soul for the world? Because it is a real bargain which many men (too many, God knows,) do make, we must consider it as applicable to practice. Every man that loses his soul for the purchase of the world, must not look to have the portion of a king. How few men are princes; and of those that are not born so, how seldom instances are found in story of persons, that, by their industry, became so! But we must come far lower yet. Thousands there are that damn themselves; and yet their purchase, at long-running, and after a base and weary life spent, is but five hundred pounds a year: nay, it may be, they only cozen an easy person out of a good estate, and pay for it at an easy rate, which they obtain by lying, by drinking, by flattery, by force; and the gain is nothing but a thousand pound in the whole, or, it may be, nothing but a convenience. Nay, how many men hazard their salvation for an acre of ground, for twenty pound, to please a master, to get a small and a kind usage from a superior! These men get but little, though they did not give so much for it: so little, that Epictetus thought the purchase dear enough, though you paid nothing for it but flattery and observance : Οὐ προσεκλήθης ἐφ ̓ ἑστίασίν τινος; οὐ γὰρ ἔδωκας τῷ καλοῦντι πὅσου

πωλεῖ τὸ δεῖπνον· ἐπαίνου δ ̓ αὐτὸ πωλεῖ, θεραπείας πωλεῖα • Ob servance was the price of his meal;' and he paid too dear for one that gave his birthright for it; but he that exchanges his soul for it, knows not the vanity of his purchase nor the value of his loss. He that gains the purchase and spoil of a kingdom, hath got that, which to all, that are placed in heaven, or to a man that were seated in the paths of the sun, seems but like a spot in an eye, or a mathematical point, so without vastness, that it seems to be without dimensions. But he whose purchase is but his neighbour's field, or a few unjust acres, hath got that which is inconsiderable, below the notice and description of the map: for by such hieroglyphical representments, Socrates chid the vanity of a proud Athenian.

3. Although these premises may suffice to show that the supposed purchase is but vain, and that all which men use really to obtain, is less than trifles; yet even the possession of it, whatsoever it be, is not mere and unmixed, but allayed with sorrow and uneasiness; the gain hath but enlarged his appetite, and, like a draught to an hydropic person, hath enraged his thirst; and still that which he hath not, is infinitely bigger than what he hath, since the first enlargement of his purchase was not to satisfy necessity, but his passion, his lust or his avarice, his pride or his revenge. These things cease not by their fuel; but their flames grow bigger, and the capacities are stretched, and they want more than they did at first. For who wants most, he that wants five pounds, or he that wants five thousand? And supposing a man naturally supported and provided for, in the dispensations of nature there is no difference, but that the poor hath enough to fill his belly, and the rich man can never have enough to fill his eye. The poor man's wants are no greater than what may be supplied by charity; and the rich man's wants are so big that none but princes can relieve them; and they are left to all the temptations of great vices and huge cares to make their reparations.

Dives eget gemmis, Cereali munere pauper:

Sed cum egeant ambo, panper egens minus est.

If the greatness of the world's possessions produce such fruits, vexation, and care, and want; the ambitious requiring

d Enc. c. 32.

• Auson. 134. 3.

of great estates is but like the selling of a fountain to buy a fever, a parting with content to buy necessity, and the purchase of an unhandsome condition at the price of infelicity.

4. He that enjoys a great portion of this world, hath most commonly the allay of some great cross, which, although sometimes God designs in mercy, to wean his affections from the world, and for the abstracting them from sordid adherences and cohabitation, to make his eyes like stars, to fix them in the orbs of heaven and the regions of felicity, yet they are an inseparable appendant and condition of humanity. Solomon observed the vanity of some persons, that heaped up great riches for their heirs, and yet " knew not whether a wise man or a fool should possess them; this is a great evil under the sun." And if we observe the great crosses many times God permits in great families, as discontent in marriages, artificial or natural bastardies, a society of man and wife like the conjunction of two politics, full of state, and ceremony, and design, but empty of those sweet caresses, and natural hearty complications and endearments, usual in meaner and innocent persons; the perpetual sickness, fulness of diet, fear of dying, the abuse of flatterers, the trouble and noise of company, the tedious officiousness of impertinent and ceremonious visits, the declension of estate, the sadness of spirit, the notoriousness of those dishonours which the meanness of lower persons conceals, but their eminency makes as visible as the spots in the moon's face; we shall find him to be most happy that hath most of wisdom and least of the world, because he only hath the least danger and the most security.

5. And lastly, his soul so gets nothing that wins all this world, if he loses his soul, that it is ten to one but he that gets the one, therefore shall lose the other; for to a great and opulent fortune, sin is so adherent and insinuating, that it comes to him in the nature of civility. It is a sad sight to see a great personage undertake an action passionately and upon great interest; and let him manage it as indiscreetly, let the whole design be unjust, let it be acted with all the malice and impotency in the world, he shall have enow to tell him that he proceeds wisely enough, to be servants of his interest, and promoters of his sin, instruments of his malice, and actors of revenge. But which of all his relatives shall dare to tell him

of his indiscretion, of his rage, and of his folly? He had need be a bold man and a severe person that shall tell him of his danger, and that he is in a direct progress towards hell. And indeed such personages have been so long nourished up in softness, flattery, and effeminacy, that too often themselves are impatient of a monitor, and think the charity and duty of a modest reprehension to be a rudeness and incivility. That prince is a wise man that loves to have it otherwise; and, certainly, it is a strange civility and dutifulness in friends and relatives, to suffer him to go to hell uncontrolled, rather than to seem unmannerly towards a great sinner. But, certainly, this is none of the least infelicities of them who are lords of the world, and masters of great possessions.

I omit to speak of the habitual intemperance which is too commonly annexed to festival and delicious tables, where there is no other measure or restraint upon the appetite, but its fulness and satiety, and when it cannot or dare not eat more. Oftentimes it happens, that the intemperance of a poor table is more temperate and hath less of luxury in it than the temperance of a rich. To this are consequent all the evil accidents and effects of fulness, pride, lust, wantonness, softnesses of disposition, and dissolution of manners, huge talking, imperiousness, despite and contempt of poor persons; and, at the best, it is a great temptation for a man to have in his power whatsoever he can have in his sensual desires. Who then shall check his voracity, or calm his revenge, or allay his pride, or mortify his lust, or humble his spirit? It is like as when a lustful young and tempted person lives perpetually with his amorous and delicious mistress: if he escapes burning that is inflamed from within and set on fire from without, it is a greater miracle than the escaping from the flames of the furnace by the three children of the captivity. And just such a thing is the possession of the world; it furnishes us with abilities to sin and opportunities of ruin, and it makes us to dwell with poisons, and dangers, and enemies.

And although the grace of God is sufficient to great personages and masters of the world, and that it is possible for a young man to be tied upon a bed of flowers, and fastened by the arms and band of a courtesan, and tempted wantonly, and yet to escape the danger and the crime, and to triumph gloriously; (for so St. Jerome reports of a son of the king

of Nicomedia;) and riches and a free fortune are designed by God to be a mercy, and an opportunity of doing noble things, and excellent charity, and exact justice, and to protect innocence, and to defend oppressed people: yet it is a mercy mixed with much danger; yea, it is like the present of a whole vintage to a man in an hectic fever; he will be shrewdly tempted to drink of it, and, if he does, he is inflamed, and may chance to die with the kindness. Happy are those persons who use the world, and abuse it not; who possess a part of it, and love it for no other ends but for necessities of nature, and conveniences of person, and discharge of all their duty and the offices of religion, and charity to Christ and all Christ's members. But since he that hath all the world, cannot command nature to do him one office extraordinary, and enjoys the best part but in common with the poorest man in the world, and can use no more of it but according to a limited and a very narrow capacity; and whatsoever he can use or possess, cannot outweigh the present pressure of a sharp disease, nor can it at all give him content, without which there can be nothing of felicity; since a prince, in the matter of using the world, differs nothing from his subjects, but in mere accidents and circumstances, and yet these very many trifling differences are not to be obtained but by so much labour and care, so great expense of time and trouble, that the possession will not pay thus much of the price; and, after all this, the man may die two hours after he hath made his troublesome and expensive purchase, and is certain not to enjoy it long. Add to this last, that most men get so little of the world, that it is altogether of a trifling and inconsiderable interest; that they who have the most of this world, have the most of that but in title and in supreme rights and reserved privileges, the real use descending upon others to more substantial purposes; that the possession of this trifle is mixed with sorrow upon other accidents, and is allayed with fear; and that the greatness of men's possessions increases their thirst, and enlarges their wants, by swelling their capacity; and, above all, is of so great danger to a man's virtue, that a great fortune and a very great virtue are not always observed to grow together. He that observes all this, and much more he may observe, will see that he that gains the whole world, hath made no such great bargain of it, although he had it for