AVING now passed through all those considerations at first proposed, I may trust the considering reader to make his own collections; yet because im

patience is the vice that has been all this while arraigned, I am to foresee, if possible, that those who have the greatest degree of that may be the least willing to attend the whole process; and therefore I think it may not be amiss for their ease to suit and reduce all into some short directions and rules for the acquiring contentment.

2. The first and most fundamental is, the mortifying our pride, which as it is the seminary of most sins, so especially this of repining. Men that are highly opinioned of themselves are commonly unsatisfiable; for how well soever they are treated, they still think it short of their merits. Princes have often experimented this in those who have done them signal services; but God finds it in those who have done him none; and we expect he shall dispense to us according to those false estimates we put upon

ourselves. Therefore he that aspires to content must first take truer measures of himself, and consider that as he was nothing till God gave him a being, so all that he can produce from that being is God's by original right, and therefore can pretend to nothing of reward; so that whatever he receives is still upon the account of new bounty; and to complain that he has no more, is like the murmurs of an unthankful debtor, who would still increase those scores which he knows he can never pay.

3. In the second place, let every man consider how many blessings (notwithstanding his no claim to any) he daily enjoys, and whether those he so impatiently raves after be not much inferior to them. Nay, let him ask his own heart, whether he would quit all those he has for them he wants; and if he would not (as I suppose no man in his wits would, those wits being part of the barter), let him then judge how unreasonable his repinings are, when himself confesses he has the better part of worldly happiness, and never any man living had all.

4. In the third place, therefore, let him secure his duty of thankfulness for those good things he hath, and that will insensibly undermine his impatiences for the rest, it being impossible to be at once thankful and murmuring. To this purpose it were very well, if he would keep a solemn catalogue of all the bounties, protections, and deliverances he has received from God's hand, and every night examine what accessions that day has brought to

the sum; and he that did this would undoubtedly find so many incitations to gratitude, that all those to discontent would be stifled in the crowd. And since acknowledgment of God's mercies is all the tribute he exacts for them, we must certainly look on that as an indispensable duty; and therefore he that finds that God shortens his hand, stops the efflux of his bounty towards him, should reflect on himself, whether he be not behind in that homage by which he holds, and have not by his unthankfulness "turned away good things from him" (Jer. v. 25). And if he find it so (as who, alas, is there that may not?), he cannot, sure, for shame, complain, but must in prudence reinforce his gratitude for what is left, as the best means to recover what he has lost.

5. But his murmurs will yet be more amazingly silenced, if, in the fourth place, he compares the good things he enjoys with the ill he has done. Certainly this is a most infallible cure for our impatiences, the holiest man living being able to accuse himself of such sins as would, according to all human measures of equity, forfeit all blessings, and pull down a greater weight of judgment than the most miserable groan under. Therefore, as before I advised to keep a catalogue of benefits received, so here it would be of use to draw up one of sins committed. And, doubtless, he that confronts the one with the other, cannot but be astonished to find them both so numerous, equally wondering at God's mercy in

sures.

continuing his blessings, in despite of all his provocations, and at his own baseness in continuing his provocations, in despite of all those blessings. Indeed, it is nothing but our affected ignorance of our own demerits that makes it possible for us to repine under the severest of God's dispensations. Would we but ransack our hearts, and see all the abominations that lie there, nay, would the most of us but recollect those barefaced crimes which even the world can witness against us, we should find more than enough to balance the heaviest of our presWhen, therefore, by our impatient strugglings, we fret and gall ourselves under our burdens, let us interrogate our souls in the words of the prophet, "Why doth a living man complain,--a man for the punishment of his sin?" Let us not spend our breath in murmurs and outcries, which will only serve to provoke more stripes; but "let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord" (Lam. iii. 39, 40); diligently seek out that accursed thing which has caused our discomfiture (Jos. vi. 18), and by the removal of that, prepare the way for the access of mercy. But, alas, how preposterous a method do we take in our afflictions! We accuse every thing but what we ought, furiously fly at all the second causes of our calamity, nay, too often at the first, by impious disputes of Providence; and in the meantime, as Job says, "the root of the matter is found in us" (Job xix. 28). We shelter and protect in our bosoms

the real author of our miseries. The true way, then, to allay the sense of our sufferings, is to sharpen that of our sins. The prodigal thought the meanest condition in his father's family a preferment, "Make me one of thy hired servants" (Luke xv. 19). And if we have his penitence, we shall have his submission also, and calmly attend God's disposals of us.

6. As every man in his affliction is to look inward on his own heart, so also upward, and consider by whose Providence all events are ordered: "Is there any evil (i. e. of punishment) in the city, and the Lord hath not done it?" (Amos iii. 6.) And what are we worms that we should dispute with him? Shall a man contend with his Maker? "Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth" (Isa. xlv. 9). And as his power is not to be controlled, so neither is his justice to be impeached: "Shall not the Judge. of all the earth do right?" (Gen. xviii. 25.) And where we can neither resist nor appeal, what have we to do but humbly to submit? Nor are we only compelled to it by necessity, but induced and invited by interest, since his dispensations are directed not barely to assert his dominion, but to evidence his paternal care over us. He discerns our needs, and accordingly applies to us. The benignity of his nature permits him not to take delight in our distresses; "he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. iii. 33); and therefore, whenever he administers to us a bitter cup, we may be sure the ingredients are medicinal, and such as our