nature, and the earth and the fountainf with little trouble minister food to us, and God's common providence and daily dispensation eases the cares, and makes them portable. But the cares and businesses of rich men are violences to our whole man; they are loads of memory, business for the understanding, work for two or three arts and sciences, employment for many servants to assist in, increase the appetite, and heighten the thirst; and, by making their dropsy bigger, and their capacities large, they destroy all those opportunities and possibilities of charity, in which only riches can be useful. 4. But it is not a mere poverty of possession which entitles us to the blessing, but a poverty of spirit; that is, a contentedness in every state, an aptness to renounce all when we are obliged in duty, a refusing to continue a possession, when we for it must quit a virtue or a noble action, a divorce of our affections from those gilded vanities, a generous contempt of the world; and at no hand heaping riches, either with injustice or with avarice, either with wrong or impotency, of action or affection. Not like Laberius, described by the poets, who thought nothing so criminal as poverty, and every spending of a sesterce was the loss of a moral virtue, and every gaining of a talent was an action glorious and heroical. But poverty of spirit accounts riches to be the servants of God first, and then of ourselves, being sent by God, and to return when he pleases, and all the while they are with us to do his business. It is a looking upon riches and things of the earth, as they do who look upon it from heaven, to whom it appears little and unprofitable. And because the residence of this blessed poverty is in the mind, it follows that it be here understood, that all that exinanition and renunciation, abjection and humility of mind, which depauperates the spirit, making it less worldly and more spiritual, is the duty here enjoined. For if a man throws away his gold, as did Crates the Theban, or the proud philosopher Diogenes, and yet leaves a spirit high, airy, fantastical, and vain, pleasing himself, and with complacency reflecting upon his own act, his poverty is but a circumstance of pride, and the opportunity of an imaginary and a secular greatness. Ananias and Sapphira renounced the world by selling their possessions; but because they were not "poor in spirit," but still retained the affections to the world, therefore they "kept back part of the price," and lost their hopes. The church of Laodicea was possessed with a spirit of pride, and flattered themselves in imaginary riches; they were not poor in spirit, but they were poor in possession and condition. These wanted humility, the other wanted a generous contempt of worldly things; and both were destitute of this grace. 5. The acts of this grace are: 1. To cast off all inordinate affection to riches. 2. In heart and spirit, that is, preparation of mind, to quit the possession of all riches, and actually so to do when God requires it, that is, when the retaining riches loses a virtue. 3. To be well pleased with the whole economy of God, his providence and dispensation of all things, being contented in all estates. 4. To employ that wealth God hath given usk, in actions of justice and religion. 5. To be thankful to God in all temporal losses. 6. Not to distrust God, or to be solicitous and fearful of want in the future. 7. To put off the spirit of vanity, pride, and fantastic complacency in ourselves, thinking lowly or meanly of whatsoever we are or do. 8. To prefer others before ourselves, doing honour and prelation to them, and either contentedly receiving affronts done to us, or modestly undervaluing ourselves. 9. Not to praise ourselves, but when God's glory and the edification of our neighbour is concerned in it, nor willingly to hear others praise us. 10. To despoil ourselves h Apocal. iii. 17. 1 Ἐγὼ οὔτ ̓ Αμαλθείης βουλοίμην κέρας, οὔτ ̓ ἔτεα πεντήκοντα ἑκατὸν Ταρτήσου βασιλεῦσαι. Anacreon. k Non possidentem multa vocaveris Rectè beatum: rectiùs occupat Nomen beati, qui deorum Muneribus sapienter uti, Duramque callet pauperiem pati, Pejusque letho flagitium timet, &c.— Hor. lib. iv. Od. 9. of all interior propriety, denying our own will in all instances of subordination to our superiors, and our own judgment in matters of difficulty and question, permitting ourselves and our affairs to the advice of wiser men, and the decision of those who are trusted with the cure of our souls. 11. Emptying ourselves of ourselves, and throwing ourselves wholly upon God, relying upon his providence, trusting his promises, craving his grace, and depending upon his strength for all our actions, and deliverances, and duties. 6. The reward promised is "the kingdom of heaven. Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's pleasure to give you a kingdom'." To be little in our own eyes is to be great in God's; the poverty of the spirit shall be rewarded with the riches of the kingdoms, of both kingdomsm: that of heaven is expressed. Poverty is the highway of eternity. But, therefore, the kingdom of grace is taken in the way, the way to our country; and it, being the forerunner of glory, and nothing else but an antedated eternity, is part of the reward as well as of our duty. And, therefore, whatsoever is signified by kingdom, in the appropriate evangelical sense, is there intended as a recompense. For the kingdom of the Gospel is a congregation and society of Christ's poor, of his "little ones:" they are the communion of saints, and their present entertainment is knowledge of the truth, remission of sins, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and what else in Scripture is signified to be a part, or grace, or condition of the kingdom. For "to the poor the Gospel is preached";" that is, to the poor the kingdom is promised and ministered. 7. Secondly: "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." This duty of Christian mourning is commanded not for itself, but in order to many good ends. It is in order to patience: "Tribulation worketh patience;" and therefore" we glory in them," saith St. Paul; and St. James, "My brethren, count it all joy when ye enter into divers temptations, knowing that the trial of your faith (viz. 1 Latiùs regnes avidum domando Serviat uni. — Hor. lib. ii. Od. 2. Serviet æternùm, qui parvo nesciet uti. — Hor. m Matt. xi. 11. aud xviii. 4. " Matt. xi. 5. • Rom. v. 3. Gaudet patientia duris. . by afflictions) worketh patience P." 2. It is in order to repentance: "Godly sorrow worketh repentance 9." By consequence it is in order to pardon; for " a contrite heart God will not reject." And after all this it leads to joy; and therefore St. James preached a homily of sorrow: "Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep," that is, in penitential mourning; for he adds, "humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up." The acts of this duty are: 1. To bewail our own sins. 2. To lament our infirmities, as they are principles of sin, and recessions from our first state. 3. To weep for our own evils and sad accidents, as they are issues of the Divine anger. 4. To be sad for the miseries and calamities of the church, or of any member of it; and, indeed, to "weep with every one that weeps ;" that is, not to rejoice in his evil, but to be compassionate, and pitiful, and apt to bear another's burden. 5. To avoid all loose and immoderate laughter, all dissolution of spirit and manners, uncomely jestings, free revellings, carnivals, and balls, which are the perdition of precious hours, (allowed us for repentance and possibilities of heaven,) which are the instruments of infinite vanity, idle talking, impertinency, and lust, and very much below the severity and retiredness of a Christian spirit. Of this Christ became to us the great example; for St. Basil reports a tradition of him, that he never laughed, but wept often. And if we mourn with him, we also shall rejoice in the joys of eternity. 8. Thirdly" Blessed are the meek; for they shall possess the earth :" that is, the gentle and softer spirits, persons not turbulent or unquiet, not clamorous or impatient, not over-bold or impudent, not querulous or discontented, not brawlers or contentious, not nice or curious, but men who submit to God, and know no choice of fortune, or employment, or success, but what God chooses for them, having peace at home, because nothing from without does discompose their spirit.. In some, meekness is an indifference to Sic enim per oculos cùm notas turpes trahat, Egressione ut eluat quæ ingressa sunt. Dum dolemus admissa, admittenda excludimus; et fit quædam de condemnatione; culpæ disciplina innocentiæ. S. Ambros. any exterior accident, a being reconciled to all conditions and instances of Providence, a reducing ourselves to such an evenness and interior satisfaction, that there is the same conformity of spirit and fortune by complying with my fortune, as if my fortune did comply with my spirit. And, therefore, in the order of beatitudes, meekness is set between mourning and desire, that it might balance and attemper those actions by indifference, which, by reason of their abode, are apt to the transportation of passion. The reward expressed is "a possession of the earth," that is, a possession of all which is excellent here below, to consign him to a future glory, as Canaan was a type of heaven. For meekness is the best cement and combining of friendships, it is a great endearment of us to our company. It is an ornament to have "a meek and quiet spirit "," a prevention of quarrels, and pacifier of wrath *; it purchaseth peace, and is itself a quietness of spirit: it is the greatest affront to all injuries in the world; for it returns them upon the injurious, and makes them useless, ineffective, and innocent; and is an antidote against all the evil consequents of anger and adversity, and tramples upon the usurping passions of the irascible faculty. : 9. But the greatest part of this paysage and landscape is sky and as a man, in all countries, can see more of heaven than of the earth he dwells on; so also he may in this promise. For although the Christian hears the promise of "the inheritance of the earth," yet he must place his eye, and fix his heart, upon heaven, which, by looking downward also upon this promise, as in a vessel of limpid water, he may • Πρᾳεῖς εἰσιν οἱ κατεσταλμένοι τὰ ἤθη, καὶ παντὸς πάθους ἀπηλλαγμένοι, ὡς μηδε μίαν ἔχειν ταραχὴν ἐνοικοῦσαν αυτῶν ταῖς ψυχαῖς. - S. Basil. in Psal. 33. t Mansuetus et æquus secundum Arist. est εὐτυχῶν μέτριος, et εὐτυχῶν μεγαλόψυχος. Όσσα τε δαιμονίησι τύχαις βροτοὶ ἄλγε ̓ ἔχουσιν, Ων ἂν μοῖραν ἔχῃς, πράως φέρε, μηδ' ἀγανάκτει. Equam memento rebus in arduis Servare mentem; non secùs in bonis Ab insolenti temperatam Pythag. Carm. Aur. Lætitia, moriture Deli. — Horat. Carm. lib. ii. Od. 3. Quem res plùs nimio delectavere secundæ, Mutatæ quatient. " 1 Pet. iii. 4. Ad Fusc. * Ὁ θυμὸς φόνων αἴτιον, συμφορᾶς σύμμαχον, βλάβης σύνεργον καὶ ἀτιμίας, χρημά των απώλεια, ἔτι δὲ καὶ φθορᾶς ἀρχηγόν. — Aristot. |