but they pass no further they never arrive so far as the Spirit nor there where your greatest needs and immortal desires are they send there only their figure Of so many felicities heaped round about you and kept together with so much pain their shadow alone is the share that belongs to your heart Meditate a little and if you can understand the cries complaints which during pastime and pleasure resound from the bottome of this miserable heart bewail your selves and confess that it is worthy of compassion So long as it hath searched ever since its birth and that without ceasing with utmost desires it asks the Truth of truths to be happy not to find in himself but this vanity of vanities this shadow of shadows this image of appearances and illusions Vanitas vanitatum afflictio spiritus To comfort it do not direct it to its self And hope not to give it rest and to render it happy by the Maxims of Pride and the Philosophy of the Word Il know well that human wisdom and the policy of Sapiens ad beatè vivendum se ipso contentus est Seneca Nullam sui partem extra se quaerit Transivi ad contemplandam sapientiam locutus quae cum meute mea animadverti Eccl. 2. But animadverti quod hoc quoque esset vanitas self love would that a man to be happy should renounce both Creator and Creatures and seek no other happiness then to be to himself to enjoy his own entertainmeuts That this possession were the true Felicity to please a mans self a better fortune then to please Kings and Angels Remember that since your Spirit is the most perfect and noblest Image of the first Being when it is deprived of grace it is the vilest of vanities All that is vast enough and capable of containing God cannot be seperated from God but must be so void as God is great That is to say that when our Soul is reduced to love nothing nor possess any thing but its self The greatness of this spiritual and immortal Soul is no other thing but an immense privation and endless grief Our Soul is so divine a thing and so excellent that assoon as God is no more with it it becomes what they call damnation and is its own hell The difference between two sinful Souls the one damned and the other living upon the Earth and enclosed in a Body is this that one sees its self clearly and feels the substance which is its evil and the other neither yet sees or feels it When that your Soul seperated from God by sin and from thence infinitly unhappy shall feel its self and see it self by the fire the motions of his despair and the cries of his grief shall be those that the Prophet heard from far and that he repeated by these words Redidit me quasi vas inane It shall say God had made me a Vessel large and precious capable to enjoy his Glory and to possess his Divinity nevertheless he hath withdrawn himself and left me empty I am no more then my self and that 's the affliction of afflictions and the true Hell to be Spirit and alone to be an immortal Soul and vanity Vanitas afflictio Spirâ—tus IV. MAXIM God shall bring every work into judgement whether it be good or evil Eccl. 12. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom Prov. 1. PARAPHRASE THe fear of God is the principle of true Wisdom That which comes from the fear of offending men or from desire to please them is false and deceitful and although there are in the World abundance of Wise men and Politicians the number of Fools is no less There is not a greater folly than to be wise towards all if not towards God and to offend no body but him alone REFLECTION THe first and chief Maxim Timor Domini principium sapientiae Prov. 1. that you ought to chuse to Conduct you wisely is that you must fear your Master and your Judge If you would that this saving fear should be born Memorare novissima tua in aternum non peccabis in your Souls and that it should destroy all that remains in you of an inclination to sin the best means is to remember the first and last truths and to understand well by continual and devote reflections from whence you come and whither you go what hath been your Original and what shall be your end from whom you have received and unto whom you are responsible what you owe to your Creator and what your Judge owes you Your debts and obligations to the bounty of the Creator are not the Subject of a long discourse but a long meditation and although there were but one word to each point there is matter of admiration and silence on each word for too many years and ages That which seems more wonderful and which we ought particularly to consider is that those debts which have not ceased to increase ever since you have been born and do yet encrease every day with your age have preceeded your birth and are more ancient than your self You have begun to live but you have not begun to mind your self Before the beginnings and before time God was and you were loved Consider also you who were in nothing of what fashion you are taken thence and with how much honour are you come out of that eternal reproach when he was fain to produce you in the person of the first man The Creator made Heaven and Earth that is to say two Worlds and two Paradises and has not made them but for you The top of all favours is that he hath not made you but for himself and that he has not given you a Being but to the end that you may be eternally united to him having even willed that the most Divine employ of his Eternity which is to know and to love God should be the employ of your time and your mortal life Oh unspeakable favour Oh Soveraign and infinit honour But it is a very terrible thing in this so glorious life that each moment where you live without any love of God is a moment of sin and that all the moments of sin and ingratitude shall be reckon'd and examined at the hour of your death God hath begun by favours he will finish by judgement He who seeks you so many years to save you will suddenly call you to be judged and the business of his justice shall be when you shall be before his eyes to consider in your person what comes on his part and on yours what he hath done in you and what you have done there and are yet doing this day He will compare your actions with his own and he will oblige your Conscience it self to Adducet in judicium sive bonum sive malum sit compare them and to contemplate the works of his Holiness and the works of your Malice assembled in one and the same heart
to good and make him bend to that side without breaking any thing and without doing any violence to his honour Do in such sort as that he may loose nothing neither of respect during familiarity nor love during corrections nor time during play let him always learn somthing that may help him to become Wise and let every accident that happens to him he made a lesson of Wisdom and Piety let him have all his pleasures in the presence of his Father and Mother and although one suffer him not to commit faults there yet nevertheless he cannot suffer to be kept elsewhere Let him know that the reproofs that you give him come from good will let his Mother appear as lovely during threatnings as caresses let severities bear so well the marks of a true affection as that he may hold himself thereby obliged as by gratifications and recompences Let him accustom himself to take the little discontents of his Mother for the greâ—test misfortune and let him have no ruder punishment than the sadness of her countenance and her silence Let him with the milk suck the first sweetness of devotion and let this Maxim be imprinted in his Soul betimes That on eâ—rth there is no other felicity then to live according to the Laws of Reason and Justice let them often say again the same things to him after different Methods and with that weariness and address as that he may not loath to hear it And that to tell him one good word let the proper time be made use of whilst that he plays and that his heart is open by tenderness to the end that words may enter sweetly and that he may feel nothing but pleasure in learning what he ought to learn II. MAXIM He that loveth his Son causeth him often to feel the rod Eccl. 30. PARAPHRASE HE that loves his Son ceaseth not to instruct him according to the needs of his age and he regulates all the motions of his body and mind by perpetual and judicial advices REFLECTION BEgin to apply your self to the instruction of your Children assoon as they are able to hearken and forget not that education ought to follow soon after the birth since corruption and the inclination to evil comes with it For little as a Child can be since that he hath a spiritual and an immortal Soul 't is scandalous to let them live brutishly and to expect that reason should be throughly awake before you speak to him of his duty is to wait very long Whilst that nature is soft and flexible it is necessary to bend it and give it the first folds of the affections and habits that it ought to have in the time of its strength It is necessary that your Child practise good before he knows it ' it's necessary that he accustom himself thereto by obedience or necessity before he chuse it by judgement and that without knowing what he doth he should do nothing but according to the rules of reason and honesty Infancy has its perfections and its vertues order it so that they appear in the infancy of your Son Assoon as nature teaches him to will and to speak teach him to will and to speak as is necessary and do so well that any of his humane actions may not have the air and appearance of the actions of a Beast The Child that is happily and well brought up is he in whom the passions are subdued and obedient before reason is awake in such manner as that when 't is awake it has nothing else to do but to reign in peace and to enjoy the victory that education has won III. MAXIM He that teacheth his Son shull have joy in him and shall rejoyce of him among his aâ—quaintanoe Eccl. 30. PARAPHRASE THe Father who teacheth his Son and hath care himself of his education shall draw honour from thence and shall with much joy see him dearly beloved of his Parents and esteemed of his fellow citizens A Son nursed by the Mother and instructed by the Father shall be the joy of their House and the happiness of their Town REFLECTION THe negligence of the one and the affairs of the other have introduced the custom of confiding in Masters for instructing of their Children This is not what Nature intended When it gave milk and tenderness to the Mother and intelligenâ—e and prudence to the Father its design was to accomplish the glory of their fruitfulness and to render them Father and Mother of a Son who was entirely theirs and who owed his nourishment and his Wisdom but to their pains and conduct A Mother that lets not her Child go out of her arms but when reason is come to him A Father who lets him not go out of his House but when that reason shall govern him and that he hath contracted the habits of acting by judgement and of loving honour tasts the true pleasures of paternal authority and no man is perfectly happy in having a Son but he who hath given him life science and vertue If your Son holds his vertue from another and not from you he is not yours by one half and you have no right to attribute to your self any of his fine actions He holds from you the power to eat and sleep and from the Master the power to act wisely and to live as an honest Man IV. MAXIM He that teacheth his Son grieveth the enemy and before his friends he shall rejoyce of him Eccl. 30. PARAPHRASE HE who brings up his Son carefully labours as well for others as himself He can boast amongst his kindred and neighbours that he is their good friend since he is a good Father and one who prepares them a successor and a faithful heir who shall revive the friendship that he had for them and the good examples that he hath given them REFLECTION A Man has not much wealth when he hath none for his Children But he hath yet less vertue if he hath not enough of it to make an Inheritance and to hinder that this vertue does not die with him If you aspire unto immortality and if you are touched with the laudable desire of acquiring it do so as that all the most precious and excellent things that you possess may remain after you and let each remain in the place proper to them to be immortal and glorious Your Soul in Heaven your vertue in the heart of your Children your reputation and your name in the memory of your friends in fine your silver in Gods Treasury in the hands of the poor But observe that vertue is not bestowed as wealth in saying I leave Touching this Article To say at the hour of death or by the hand of a Notary in ones Will I give and bequeath unto my Son my Devotion and my Wisdom c. is to do nothing at all your Son shall not have them thereby If you would that he possess them do so in the time of your health as may put him in possession of
heap up â—iches Fear and Prudence which makes you to â—oresee future needs are a true folly if they â—â—erest themselves in preserving the Innoence and Tranquility of your soul aswell as â—e making your revenue increase REFLECTION YOu give your selves disquiet this day and you labour hard to be rich to rest your selves some years hence Do better then that Take you rest to day and put off giving your self grief and disturbance till that day Rid your self of the ambition of acquiring much wealth and know by the experience of others that 't is to acquire much trouble To have too much silver in ones Coffers and too much nourishment in the stomack are two commodities equally dangerous Rest and pleasure increase not with wealth when Goods are arrived to a sufficiency or to a middle condition you have attained to the utmost limits of pleasure You may be more rich but never more content nor more at ease When you shall be a great Lord and that you shall see your self in the middest of a multitude of Officers All the advantage above Persons of a middle degree shall be That you shall have more trouble and importunity about you more unprofitablenesses in your moveables more vanities and follies in your cloaths more company aâ— your Table more noise in your House and more trouble in your mind With all the millions you can possess you can't buy a second Body and whilst you have but one you shall have no need of two Houses nor three Tables and yet less need of forty hands to serve you All this multitude of pains and unrest shall be for other Persons that you shall nourish and certainly one may say that those who labour most to enâ—ich themselves are the very Persons who least enjoy the pleasure of their own labours IV. ARTICLE MAXIMS For the Conduct of a Wise Man towards his Friends FIRST MAXIM A faithfull Friend is a strong defence and he that hath found such an one hath found a Treasure Eccles 6. PARAPHRASE A Faithfull Friend is a fortress that defends and a Treasure that enriches He that possesseth it is happy and his happiness is secure REFLECTION KEep this Treasure carefully and if there remains in your Soul any remembrance of its Heavenly extraction and any stroaks of its resemblance with God never live without friendship It sufficeth even to live To know that there is in us a necessity to love For as our Souls are created after the Image of the Creator they must of necessity have a goodness which drives them as it were to go out of themselves and that all their substance should be no other thing then a Divine and an immaterial flame which raiseth it self towards Heaven and who in aspiring to God seeks another heart then its own as a Companion and an help to be assisted in its elevations and to arrive more easily at its soveraign happiness Each spirit is but the one half of another Not that these are divided in the making and two made of one But they are formed with a proportion and a sympathy which inspires them with desire and gives them power to joyn themselves and to act so by their intimate communications that they become as one But before all may be accomplished there are formed in the Soul of Man much anguish and doleful melancholly and several sorts of distempers and miseries because it is the Image of God the eternal felicity of which consists in this that neither of those persons is ever alone One part of a wise Mans skill is to know that the most of the miseries of our mind come from inward solitude and that their remedy is a true friendship Amicus fidelis medicamentum vitae II. MAXIM Well is him that hath found Prudence or a Friend and he that speaketh in the ears of him that will hear Love thy friend and be faithfull to him Eccl. 25. 27. PARAPHRASE TO find a good Friend and ears capable either to hearken to profitable truths or to retain secrets of consequence is an happy rencounter Love your like and content your Soul in joyning your self with him by a perfect confidence without having any thing upon the heart which may not be common to him REFLECTION THat which our Souls would trust and that which they would draw out of themselves to transport it into other Souls are three things Their Knowledge their Secret and their Person When they communicate their Science viz. Their Knowledge that they have acquired by study or the News that they have learn'd by fame or the Light that they come by from public affairs and other occasions In one word When they communicate their indifferent thoughts with pleasure 't is familiarity When they pass further and that they communicate their secret thoughts 't is friendship When they go even to the utmost pitch and that they aspire to the communicating themselves and to transport their heart into another heart and as far as is possible to nature and grace of two spirits to make but one 'T is properly and precisely what we call Love Good will follows Love and that follows Friendship We will the welfare of the object assoon as we love it Our own wellfare is common to him What belongs to a Man belongs to his Friend To gain a faithfull and a sincere Friend is to acquire in a moment all that which he possesseth and that he hath been many years in getting Beatus qui invenit verum amicum III. MAXIM Nothing countervails a faithful Friend and his excellency is invaluable Eccl 6. PARAPHRASE THere is nothing more precious in the World than a good Friend In the ballance of the wise it weighs heavier than all the gold and silver in the World REFLECTION MEn speak this day excellently of friendship but 't is a subject whereon men seem very ill to proportion the good they do to what they say Our age is the most eloquent that has been thereupon and the happiest in words and thoughts Never has there been so many Admirers of this fair vertue nor never so many Panegyricks and pieces composed in honour of it In Books in all Societies in the Court and amongst the People men speak not but of friendship One sees nothing else on the countenances and lips it is every where but in mens hearts Friendship pleaseth us but interest is our Master and there is no loss with which we are less touched or less afflicted then that of a good Friend V. MAXIM A faithfull Friend is the medicine of Life and they that sear the Lord shall find it Eccl. 6. PARAPHRASE OUr Bodies have distempers which shorten our mortal Life Our Soul has those which render its immortality unhappy The remedy of the one and the other is a good Friend but you must fear God to find it Have many Friends but have no more then one confident Be much with all the World but be single with one alone Let your House your Treasures your Hands your Ears
Conscience FIRST MAXIM Of making many Books there is no end Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter Fear God and keep his Commandmens this is the whole duty of Man Eccles 12. PARAPHARASE MUch is the Counsel that 's given and many are the Books that are written to help Man to become great and to render him perfect Wisdom has but one word thereupon and this word is the Compendium of all that wise Men have said the end of all that which its self said since the beginning of ages It hath never spoken nor ever writ but to make Men understand how to love God and obey his Will this is to be the whole duty of Man REFLECTION WHen the Creator formed the project of our nature and that he conceiv'd the Idaea of Man as he pretended that this was the chief and most excellent Piece he conceived not onely a Body and a Soul He saw well that as the Body separated from the Soul would be but rottenness even so the Soul seperated from God would be another deformity infinitely more frightfull and instead of the being chief of the work he contrived he should but make a monster Not to fail in his design at the same time that he joyned the Body with the Soul he judged that it was necessary to joyn the Soul with God by the means of Grace and he would that this Grace entred into his workmanship and that these three together were the whole Man Stop a moment and consider well the Wisdom of God when he proposed to himfelf the meeting of these three so different things and to form thereof the chief of his work How many marvels in Man when they are united How many misfortunes when they are seperated Grace repelled and withdrawn the Soul there 's reprobation and sin The Body separate from the Soul there 's death The Soul separated from the Body and from Grace there is Hell Three objects of horrour or of fear Rejoyn these and make but one they are three coelestial beauties and the three greatest miracles of divine power united together and that is Man Time Deum hoc est omnis Homo II. MAXIM Let thy glorying be in the fear of the Lord and all thy communication in the precepts of the most High Eccles 9. PARAPHRASE EStablish your Honour by fearing God and being faithful to him If you would that Men should look on you with respect and esteem and always see on your countenance that modesty and in your conduct that force and tranquility of spirit which raises a man above other men have always in your self some thought of the goodness of the Creator and his eternal perfections and accustome your heart not to relye but on him in all its designs and hopes REFLECTION DO not as the proud In timore Domini sit tibi gloriosio man who is ashamed to fear and to worship God because people fear and worship him and who establisheth his honour by making light of his duty Take you heed in forming your opinions and Maxims of taking for a man of nobility and greatness your being less wise then others And do not believe a folly that is particular to be more worth then Wisdom that 's common If because you are noble it 's painful to you to do what mean people do That which is good you ought to do better then they Do not imitate his devotion surpass it Do not follow him in the ways of falvation and in the exercise of righteousness and holiness have regard to your condition March first and serve as an example Keep your rank in the Churches permit not that any should be more devout nor more modest then you Since you are first in quality your place before the Altars and during the sacrifices is to be more near to God and the more raised by Prayer Remember that you have no surer means to put your self above this croud of little people then to abase your self more then they before this supream Majesty and to adore him more perfectly III. MAXIM Vanity of vanities all is vanity and vexation of spirit Eccles 1. PARAPHRASE YOu must love nothing but Universa vanitas God The true good and true pleasure is not to be found but in him alone The good which appears before our eyes deceives us it is nothing but illusion and vanity And this false and apparent good becomes a real evil as soon as it pleases us and that we begin to love it REFLECTION ALl the felicities of this life are vain and deceitful When they present themselves to us we take them for stable and immoveable things Our heart being drawn by this appearance stretcheth out its arms and blindly fastens its self unto them promising its self eternal pleasures in possessing them But it is to embrace running water from the hour that we begin to possess rhem they begin to run away from us During embracements and joys and amidst our mutual promises and hopes of an inseperable tye they escape from between our hands and continue their course we continue ours and we quit our selves we go each where our destiny calls us and where time leads us They to nothing we to death Time goes apace and the end is near it is not far between the pleasures of a moment and the tears of eternity These long years that we figure between the two are very often but a night Perhaps those who shall see us this evening settled in a high and powerful fortune will find us next morning buried in its ruines Today prosperity health riches and honours To morrow all these vanities in the air wind and smoak our Body in a Tomb our Soul in another World there to lament and to say eternally but too late Universa vanitas afflictio spiritus The justest reason we ought Vanitas vanitatum to contemne these runagate felicities for consists in this word Vanitas God alone is the true Good created goods are the productions and shadows of this essential and Infinite Good Consider and open your eyes You are rich but if God withdraws himself from your heart what remains and of what do you boast To be heir and master of the shadow of an house without having any right to the house and without being able to go into it what Patrimony and what sort of inheritance is this for a man To be Master of a Treasure or a Revenue Master of a Kingdom an Empire a part of the World the whole World all the appearances of good Possess all the shadows of God all his works all his gifts but without possessing of himself What a possession is this for a Soul who breaths after the true Good and who cannot be filled or satisfied but by him alone The worst of it is that these shadows of the Creator these Riches and Magnificences which are about us are not in us Gold and Silver enter into the Houses Pleasures enter into your eyes and senses
them and be not so cruel as to refuse them a word of consolation At least let there be some sweetness in your eyes and believe not that this were to abase your self and to forget your Rank to regard the afflicted and to permit them to lament before you Deal with God as his Congregationi pauperum affabilem te facito magnati humilia caput tuum Eccl. 4. Slave With the Simple as your Brother With the Proud as your Master Keep your Rank by these Raise your selves above the insolence of men but abase your selves under the powerful and Divine Majesty Be humble before him who hath made you great adore the hand that can destroy you Have pitty of the miseries that may be common to you And do not despise the Tears which you see run from eyes that resemble yours Be you not in your Province Noli esse sicut leo in domo tua evertens domesticos opprimens subditos Eccl. 4. or in your Land as a Lyon which tears what he meets there Be ashamed that your Family should perish because you live That your House should be unhappy because you are the Master and that those who dwell with you should not dwell there but as the damned and were not there but to suffer the furies and follies of a Devil that possesses you and acts you Live after that manner that a man of honour and vertue ought to live in a perpetual evenness of spirit present to your self attentive to your business at peace during the several motions of fortune equitable and courteous towards your Domesticks officious towards your Friends charitable towards the Poor obliging towards all the World See you nothing more fine in your riches and dignities then being able to serve a greater number of persons and judge that the services and submissions that men pay to you and the friendships which all companies express to you are no honour to you and they are unjust if you endeavour not to do more good then they do you and if you love not at least asmuch as you are loved IX MAXIM A mans pride shall bring him low but honour shall uphold the humble spirit Prov. 29 PARAPHRASE GLory seeks humble spirits and though they hide themselves it will find them The ambitious who seek it shall be humbled Whosoever would raise himself by pride shall find nought but what he flyes he shall fall into reproach and there he shall perish REFLECTION IN this there hath not been excepted neither Men or Angels The most lovely are the most despised and hated assoon as they become proud Insolence mixed with their perfections and their vertues form thereof and I know not what that is intolerable That which in a dead man is rotteness and stink pride is in immortal spirits they are every where insufferable they are not at all regarded in Heaven and on Earth but with horrour both the one and the other World conspire to scorn and to hate them The conspiration is not less common to honour humility The admiration of men the friendship of the Angels the favours of the Son of God all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and all the honours of time and eternity are for the humble There are not now amongst us others Predestinate then these we shall see no other happy in Paradise Grace and Glory are their lot The only and true secret to be honoured is to abase a mans self Spiritum humilem suscipiet gloria To think meanly of your self learn and know well what you are You shall not learn it in reading of Books nor in hearkning to Masters Your Conscience must tell it you and make you to comprehend it Ask it You shall be humble assoon as you hearken to it and that you give your self the leasure to consider what it knows thereupon and what it will oblige you to believe and confess Humility wholly consists in saying from the heart and with a devout and sincere sentiment that you are of your self nothing but sin frailty and corruption and all the rest which is in your person comes from the Creator And if you had in your birth any advantage above others and any natural qualities These laudable qualities were not the price of your vertue nor the work of your hands but the gifts of his providence and of his love but in truth he hath done you many favours which increase yet every day and your sins increase asmuch as they And that these are the two most remarkable things in your life The one that your miseries have not hindred God from loving you tenderly and heaping of good things on you The other that so many kindnesses and so much love has not hīndred you from being unthankful◠but have been so ever since you knew that he loved you Say that from the Heart think it sincerely and let your humble and respectful looks your gestures and motions and all that appears outwardly of you carry the mark of this lowliness and of this inward contempt of your self Have in your conversation a modesty which were the image of your innocent and humble Soul have it in your Conduct at every occasion and with every body In any place that you are live and speak as a man who evidently knows his own unworthiness When that you are near God at the time of Prayer and the Exercises of a devout life if you would please him and deserve that he should chuse you to glorify you in his power let your principal devotion be to represent to him how much you deserve that he should contemn you In contemplation of his truths confess yours See your darkness in his Light confound your self tremble and lament Unto what condition soever you may be raised by his Grace never cease to adore him by all nullitys proper to a nullity that hath sinned and rendred himself worse and more miserable then he was eternally when he was nothing When that you are in business during the exercise of your Authority among the multitude of those who seek after you and honour you if you would that they should do it sincerely shew them that you well know your self In like manner let it appear on your countenance and by the Conduct of your words and actions that you are not ignorant that in the midst of felicities and honours of fortune as in the middest of the richness of a stately Tomb you are nothing but a shadow or a little ashes hid there under that you hold before them the Rank of a Judge or a Master but that before God you have no other but that of Nothing and Sinner Do not say it with your mouth it is enought to believe it but perfection is what I have said to believe it and think it so well that the thoughts of your Soul appear visibly marked in the modesty of your eyes These are in effect those thoughts mark'd in that manner which have rendred great men so lovely and so powerful
enim malitiam docuit otiositas without employ foâ— Idleness is the Mistress oâ— the School of malice ' Tiâ— she that teacheth it in Hoâ—ses and render all thosâ— learned therein who have the leasure â— study it and who want business If you give your Servant Operatur in disciplina quaerit requiescere laxa manus illi quaeret libertatem work he will give you rest if you spare him he will give you pain When he does nothing he thinks of doing evil and the more at liberty he is the more inclination hath he to loosness and debauchery REFLECTION TAke no body to serve you if you have not wherewith to employ him at all times of the day One quarter of an hours idleness joyn'd to another shall quickly be long enough to give a Servant the will to do no more and to teach you That a Master who nourisheth a sloathful person is very near to nourishing a Traitor and an Enemy II. MAXIM Bread Correction and Work are for a Servant Eccl. 33. PARAPHRASE THere are three things of which your Servant ought not to stand in need â—â—â— Bread Work and Admonition REFLECTION OF Bread because 't is his right of Work because 't is his condition of Admonition or chastisement because 't is your interest Without Admonition he corrects not his own faults without labour he will commit now ones and greater without Bread he will believe that he may commit them and that all his thefts are allowed him In one word when by your indevotion serious advices are wanting in your House aswell as wholesom correction When that by your negligence they are not well imploy'd and when that by your covetousness they are neither well paid or well â—ed Take them for Ungodly Unchast and Theevs all those who are content to dwell with you III. MAXIM If he be not obedient put on more heavy fetters be not excessive towards any and withoâ—â— discretion do nothing Eccl. 33. PARAPHRASE WHen he refuses to obey punish him but do nothing by passion and with out judgement The transports of your wrath do not correct him they pervert your self and render you more blame worthy then him REFLECTION ASsoon as you know him to be incorrigible send him away and beleeve that 't is better to be rid of him a moneth sooner then to employ him this moneth to vex you and make you commit without ceasing faults of impatience and transports of anger But if you judge that he may amend himself and that you have cause to hope for an amendment and service from him distinguish between his faults of sloathfulness or evil will and those of his ignorance and have therein a most judicious conduct and the most just that you are able The most excellent means to be feared and well served in your House is to render your self serious towards your domesticks and to have few words with them Know â—ll that they do but hinder them from knowâ—ng what you think and what you will do They will not have of respect for you but â—s you have of moderation or reserve towards them Heretofore Idols were adored because they were Images of men who had their eyes open but said not a word A Man who sees every thing in his House and who speaks not is respected as a God They tremble without his threatning and the only fear that they have by his noâ— speaking keeps every one in his order and in his duty IV. MAXIM If thou hast a faithful Servant let him be â— thee as thy self and treat him as a Brothâ—â— Eccl. 33. PARAPHRASE WHen you have a faithful ingeniâ—â— and an humble Servant let him beâ— dear to you as your Life Treat him as a Brother or as a Friend Remember not onlâ— that 't is one of the rarest things in the Woâ—â— and that one cannot buy it too dear but â—â—member also that the eternal Wisdoâ— which disposeth of the servitude and libeâ—â— of men hath put him into your hands â—â— 't is a present of his providence and love REFLECTION FEar not to be familiar with a wise Sâ—â—vant who has affection for his duâ— Only have a care that he doth not accustom himself to guess but to ask what your intentions are and what your will is on each occasion Discharge your self on him of your disquiets and houshold business But if you would do that happily it is necessary at least that you take one trouble viz. To look to it and to know all that passes See you all that he doth not so as to have a watch on his fidelity but to hinder him from forgetting his condition If you do not make him remember it he will without doubt forget it and things shall arrive to a pitch that shall necessitate your dependance on him It is very easy to make a good Servant an ill Master And although he commands very wisely and governs your House keeping with much success it is yet shameful for you to obey in your own House You can't loose more then in loosing your authority there 'T is an ill way of understanding either right or policy to recompense the long services of a waiting Gentleman by serving him your self and fearing him in your turn Since he is wise put your goods and your business into his hands But know that you must not communicate power as a Father communicates life but as the Sun communicates Light giving it incessantly and in keeping the Person obliged by a perpetual dependance A Servant to whom one trusts all without taking any notice of what he doth shall quickly be a Thief or the Master of the House V. MAXIM Whereas thy Servant worketh truly intreat him not evil let thy Soul love a good Servant Eccl. 7. PARAPHRASE AFflict not a Servant who doth what he can and who employs heartily all his strength and health to serve you You are unworthy to live if your evil humours make those to suffer who love you and who live not but for you alone REFLECTION DO so well as that one may be conâ—eâ— to serve you when he enters into yoâ— House that one may be faithful and happâ— when he is there and that one may be ricâ— if it be possible when one goes out thence That is your honour for one of the qualities of great Men is to make those great who faithfully serve them with love Do not as some who render themselves easy and good to their Servants provided that their Servants were content to be poor and miserable But on the other neglect not your interest settle things so That the advancement of those who gain with you come no otherwise but your liberality and their Wisdom And that their treasure increase not by your losses For it is very shamefull to see what is every day seen of rich Servants and poor Masters VI. MAXIM Labour not to be rich cease from thine own Wisdom Prov. 23. PARAPHRASE OVer whelm not your self by labour nor loose your health to