Steward If he suppose the Book may be made a thrifty diversion to keep them from the greater expense of the Taverne or their Game he may perhaps allow something towards a study And be sure he will be carefull enough to give them so much Law as may be sufficient to maintaine their owne rights and rack their Tenants If he go Constantly to Church t is more to serve himselfe then his God Often because he hopes by being his frequent Auditor he may oblige the Parson to let him his tithes at a low rate or to believe him a man of Conscience that so he may defraud him of his dues without suspicion For the most part this Gentleman is the Patron or has the Impropriation and yet whilest he and his family grow fat by feasting upon the bread of the Altar he grudges him who dispenses freely of the bread of life the very Crums that fall from his table The Church of God thus often starves for want of food whilest such Dogs Eat up the Children's bread Such men's whole Lives are but so many Continued Sacriledges and all they can alledge for themselves comes but to this that they hold their sin as their land by right of Inheritance from their Ancestors Their Coffers grow full by robbing the Sanctuary and at every meal with their sacrilegious teeth like so many ravenous wolves or vultures they teare in pieces the Body of Christ's languishing Spouse But let her dye the Provident Gentleman had rather see her Carkasse then his Chests grow Empty and if by her death he may peaceably enjoy her revenues he will hardly mourn but as such enriched heires use to doe at her funeralls It is long since this Good man turn'd Charity out of dores as an unthrifty Hous-wife and one that made it her busyness to throw all away The Poor come and goe about his gates as hungry birds about a painted Vine at best they meet with an hard Crust and harder language He loves not thus to lend his money though it be to the Lord except he would give him bond to returne him Eight in the Hundred here in this world When our Saviour tells him of an Hundred for one here below and eternall life hereafter in Heaven he hath as little faith to believe as patience to waite for such a reward Yet he could almost wish upon Condition the former part of the promise might be made good to him without Persecution that the later might be reserved for such who can Phancy a God in Heaven better then a thousand pound in hand If this Gentleman can but so farre deny himselfe as to do no open violence or Injury to any man if he can arrive at that degree of Christianity which will enable him to reach the Negative part of Iustice and charity he is apt to think he has made a faire progresse in the way to Heaven And yet God knows he ordinarily mistakes this part too For to win another's estate by some quillet in the Law or by bribing a Judge to over-reach his poor neighbour in an hard Bargain to take advantage of a needy person's present necessity and accordingly raise the price of his Commodity to exact first more then he is able to pay and then make him pay use for his disability to send a poore naked soul to bridewell insteed of an Hospitall to the stocks insteed of a Bed to call him knave and Vagabond that he may have a pretence not to relieve him to suffer a languishing Creature to dye in the street whilst he had enough to spare wherewith to feed and cloath him Or to permit a breach in the walls of Ierusalem when a small summe out of his purse would repare it These he can by no means reckon amongst the species of Injustice or as defects in Charity but therefore counts all good duties as things unnecessary and no way obliging indeed because chargable and seemingly Burthensome and such as contradict that thrifty forecast and necessary providence he holds himselfe tyed to maintain He thinks it a greater degree of wisedom to trust God's providence now for some miraculouse reliefe of the present poore then to rely upon it for the after-enrichment of his posterity Certainly this is the thing that passes so Currently for Providence even amongst those who are counted the wiser and more religious sort of our English Gentlemen But if this can belong to Christianity then must Covetousnesse and a Worldly minde be reckoned amongst our Christian vertues It is alas too evident what good friends such vertues and such Gentlemen have been of late to our Ierusalem whilest our richest Gallantry have all along in these calamitous times chosen rather by a kind of Constrained bounty to reward the Demolishers then voluntarily to part with a farthing to pay the builders of our ruinated Sion Besides this it is not a little to be fear'd that those many Contrary Oathes and Engagements Vowes and protestations which with the help of this sauce of providence have been so readily swallowed I fear I may say by the greatest part of our Gentry will at last expose their soules within no lesse to Corruption then the Contrary Qualities do their Bodies without O how happy might this poore Nation have been even to this day had not the Rich Gentleman under a pretence of a Naturall affection and a Necessary Providence set an higher aestimate upon his own Chest then the Arke of God upon his owne Barne then the Lord's Temple Had he not loved his Interest more then his Religion the safety of his Body more then the Salvation of his Soul his Naturall children more then his Heavenly Father and his money above them all §. 4. The Prudent Gentleman By this short view I have given you of the Provident Gentleman I suppose you will grant him to be none of those we may call the best or such as it might be wished wee had many of in our Nation And truly the Prudent Gentleman I mean him who is now adayes knowne by that name is not of a much Nobler dye very often you shall find him to be the very same alwayes very neer of kind to the former Cowardice is as much afraid to be known and therefore as loath to walk without her maske as Covetousness and would as gladly arrogate to her selfe the never more abused names then now of a wise caution and a Christian Prudence as that other of a vertuous thrift and necessary Providence Insteed of being as wisedome commanded his Disciples wise as serpents Gentlemen are become meer Serpents in wisedom and have render'd themselves very capable of that Commendable Character which was long agoe given to the Serpent They are more subtile then all the beasts of the field and the Prudence they boast of and under which they vaile a Carnall mind and a Carking Cowardly soul is nothing else but a worldly Policy or rather a Devillish Subtilty They have made one halfe of the text quarrel with
and justle the other quite out of their Bibles advancing the wisedome of the serpent to so high and Intense a degree that it cannot admit the least proportion of the Holy Doves more necessary Innocence Such a foraminous piece of Net-worke has Christian Prudence been made of late that these Glib serpentine Politicians can soe wind themselves in and out at pleasure as if they meant neither God nor Man should ever know certainly where to have them It is a very famous piece of the Gentleman's prudence to Endeavour to Out-wit an All-wise God and to go about to put Fallacies upon him out of his owne word often makeing even God's most righteous precepts the Topicks of his disobedience How frequently endeavours he to cloak the violation of one law by a pretended obedience to another and by setting God's Commands at variance one with another thinks to steal away his beloved sin and not be taken notice of He dares not take up his Crosse and follow Christ lest he should become Felo de se accessary to his owne death Nor knows he how to forsake Father and Mother for Christ's sake without a breach of the Fifth Commandment which binding him to Honour both he cannot see how he may in any sence forsake either He dares not part with houses and lands for fear he might seem to Dispise God's good Blessings nor hazard his estate in the vindication of his Religion and his Loyalty lest he should be said to have thereby thrown away the opportunities of expressing his bounty and his Charity He knows how much he is obliged not to deny Christ before men and to give an account of his faith to such as demand it of him but then he produces a text which tells him of daies wherein the Prudent shall keep silence and these daies he supposes still present whensoever his person or estate may be endanger'd by an open heart or an Ingenuous tongue He will be ready to suffer Persecution for the Gospell of Christ and with St Paul to be bound and to dye but this must onely bee when his Prudence is at a losse and he can find out no way just or unjust to avoyd all this As long as there are shifts enow left him such as dissembling language Covert Engagements Cunning flatteries treacherous Compositions petty Contributions Vnderhand Compliances in things both Civill and Religious he thinks he wants no honest Evasions to secure both Life and livelyhood Thus he is Content to set him down in quietnesse whilest the Enemies of God's Church advance in troops and Armies against her and thinks it enough when he can say he wishes all well and praies for the Peace of Ierusalem It were no Prudence openly to declare his opinion or to act on any side alas he is but one single man and one's as good as none against the stream of the multitude not Considering that where one does not joyne with one there can be no multitude There are other Champions enow in the world to vindicate her quarrell such as have no estates to look after No families to provide for when if all were of his mind there would not be so much as one and besides who has greater reason to labour then he that has already received so great a share of his wages What though he freely gives away a large portion of his goods to the Enemies of God It is but the way to secure the rest for better purposes What though he be constrain'd with faire speeches to flatter up the transgressors in their Iniquities His heart for all this shall be for God his prayers for the Church and he is as Good a Christian and as Loyall a Subject within as the best Alas 't is no great matter to Comply a little in outward things to lay an hand upon a Bible to invoke the sacred Name of God and seemingly to Renounce Religion and Loyalty God knows he intends no such matter but onely takes this Course to keep his Family from ruine and to preserve himselfe safe and whole to doe God and his Church more service heareafter It is all one with him to goe to Church or Câ—nventicle so he may by frequenting either be thought to favour the Religion in Fashion and so not be suspected an Enemy to the God that rules the man in power with a sword in his hand He can take a great deal of pains rise early and go farre to encourage a seditious Lecture and when Sermon 's done with an Hypocriticall face smile upon the preacher and inviteing him home with him witness his thankes and approbation in a Good dinner But he holds it imprudence to frequent that true worship and service of God which the excellency thereof and the Command of his superiours commends to his Conscience lest he should be thereby thought ill-affected to that Religion which he would have Good men believe his soul abhorres He dares Countenance Rebellion and Sacriledge both with his tongue and Purse but aesteems it dangerous and therefore without all doubt Imprudence to Contribute so much as a Good look to the Encouragement of the truly Religious and vertuous lest he should be suspected by the prosperous sinner an Enemy to Treason and Wickednesse Till we can find a way how to cast out this Prudent Devill which as the Prophet tells us is wise to doe evill but to doe Good has no understanding we shall ever heare this possess'd Gentleman crying out with the Daemoniack in the Gospell what have we to doe with thee Iesus thou son of God Why art thou Come to torment us before our time Such a perfect Gout is this prudent Cowardise that the lame Gentleman ever cries out at the very sight of any thing looks like Religion as if it would come too neer him and touch him upon the sore place So sad a thing is it to stand in feare of health lest it should make us sick to tremble at the sight of what would bring us to Heaven lest we should lose our Earth and to take so much anxious care to praeserve the Body whole for fear a Courteous wound should set open the dore and give the soul leave to fly out into Heaven and be at rest If such men be truely prudent then are all true Christians undoutedly fools Or if this over-warynesse be no more but a prudent and Religious Caution then are most of our English Gentlemen which I have not yet Charity enough to beleeve Prudent Christians But alas Neutrality hangs too much betwixt two ever to come so high as Heaven and a Cold Indifferency comes so farre short of that necessary zeal which is the unfailing Consequent of true Piety that it is impossible it should ever be Crown'd with aeternall Happinesse He that is not deeply in love with his God cannot place his absolute felicity in the fruition of God and he that is afraid to do any thing or think 's it prudence to suffer nothing for him is not in Love
may make the man a fit temple of the Holy Ghost to reside in that this stately and well-wrought Body should be but the externall Embleme of a more Beutifull and Majestick soule If it be his Good luck to find his way to Paradise straw'd all overâ—with Roses whilst other poor soules are forced to run Bare footed through Bryars and thistles stints and Pibbles whereby their feet are often so gall'd that their pace proves slow and so prick'd and scratch'd that you may trace them as they their Saviour into Heaven by their blood he ought wisely to consider that this entertainment should not retard him in his journey neither make him Phancy that he is already in the Garden and therefore may sit down or rolle his soule upon these sweets to a satisfaction alas the more he thus tumbles upon them the sooner will these tender Blossomes fade and wither They are onely scatter'd in his paths that by their fragrancy his decaying Spirits may be restored and cherish'd that he faint not ere he reach that garden where growes the Tree of life and never-perishing Flowers of sweetest pleasures even at God's right-hand for evermore If the Gentleman may boast of his honourable descent from a vertuous and if so a deservedly renowned family how much will it concerne him in Honour and Duty to provide that his Children by his vertues may be enabled to brag of as much as he It will certainly be a greater disgrace to him when his Son shall be constrain'd to say he had a Worthy Grandfather then it can now be his Glory that he himselfe can tell the world he had a Deserving father Can he Imagine it halfe so Creditable to swaggar it out with the Old Name and Title of his rotting Ancestors as to manifest their yet surviving Virtues in himselfe their Genuine off-spring What a pittifull Credit must it needs be for him to show a stranger a firme and substantiall foundation laid by his Ancestors many years agoe towards an intended Heroick and sumptuous building if all this while he have neglected by his own virtues to adde a superstructure proportionable to such a Ground-work I am Confident the Gentleman needs not a remembrancer to mind him of his Name nor any other Herald to perswade him he has a right unto it then his own Ambition and Conceit But how unlikely he is by the means he uses to make the world believe him he seems not so well to Consider Is it a matter of such Credit to show us how well he can put on his Fathers old Cloaths or play his Ape in his Silver Ierkin Is this the main Badg of his Gentilitie that he has never a Coat but what was given him by the Herald or that he lives as Beggars doe upon the Charity and Almes of the Parish Let him say what other title it is he can pretend to who by his own personall merits cannot purchase his name What does he lesse then Pick up his Crumbs under the Old-man's table Nobility without Virtue has just so much life as it can Borrow and onely breaths by the common and Ignoble breath of the People What does the unworthy Gentleman but goe from dore to dore for an Almes of Honour One throws him in a Sir another a Master a third a Good-your-Worship and with these few scraps he makes a shift to preserve alive his meagre and raw-boned Reputation A name that thus feeds onely upon the fragments of charity is not like to grow truly great in hast And a Reputation so long worn allready without mending is too vile and cheap for a true Gentleman to appear abroad withall The Cloak must needs be very thread-bare that is so old and has bin so ill used It were more Noble to weare a New one of his own buying then that of his Great-grandfather which at best he can by his scantling virtues onely fill full of patches His Father's Honour can be his but at Second-hand and to be proud of an Hereditary title onely is but to raunt it in a Dead-man's suit and like him whom he too often Imitates after his father's death to fright the world by appearing in his likenesse for when we come more narrowly to examine the Reallity of what we think we see in him we find nothing but a cheat and Delusion of the sense we catch at a bare Apparition for a substance or at best grasp a senselesse clod of cold clay insteed of a Man What is it to be thus Sollicitous after an Old Coat of Armes but to wish the Herald were a Broaker And that he might buy old scutcheons as he may old Cloaks because his Merits will not amount to the price of New ones Whilest he thus opens his Presse and showes it to be well-lined with the rich apparell of those who lived before him he does no more then what often his father's Page or Lacquey is able to doe Nay I shall be bold to say it whatever the Gentleman may therefore think of himselfe or me that he who showes his Father's Bearing without some Honourable Addition due at lest if not given to his own vertues has but little more reason to boast of his Gentility then his Father's Fool or Fidler whom I have often observed to bear his Master's Coat upon his Livory O that the Gentleman would in good earnest Consider how much all Wisemen laugh at him even in his Finest Cloaths and how much more all Good men doe pitty him when they see him with all his Borrow'd Bravery delight to tumble in the Mire He that will be a Gentleman indeed must look no lesse carefully before him on what yet remains for him to doe to maintain his Honour then behind him on what has been allready done by his Ancestors to purchase it Honour has a very delicate palate and loves to feed upon fresh Diet and very much Nauseates the Moulded Offals of Antiquity No broken Dishes come to her table neither can she subsist by Chewing the Cud after the largest feasting upon the Grandfather's deserts The sharp teeth of Time will at length enter deep into the Marble Monument under which the Fathers Ashes are laid to rest or at least the Injurious Dust will fill up and hide the fair Characters thereupon in which perhaps alone the Honour of the Son stands legible It can be no long-lived Honour where the Patent is onely a Dead-man's Epitaph It will therefore highly concerne the Gentleman in due time at least to lay a New gilt upon the Old letter that so he may transmit an Honourable Memory of his name to late Posterity rather under his own hand then his father's Zeal The Stateliest Pile yields and stoops by little and little to the importunities of Age And 't is rare to see a building left by the father so firme and weather-proof but it will require some repairing before the Death of the Son A Good-husband will therefore make hast even to prevent his fears and not