of the
Divine Providence, or accuse the public disorder of things, or in his
own infelicity, since God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in
the world, and that is a contented spirit: for this alone makes a man
pass through fire, and not be scorched; through seas, and not be
drowned; through hunger and nakedness, and want nothing. For since all
the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and
the appetite, as when a man hath what he desires not, or desires what he
hath not, or desires amiss; he that composes his spirit to the present
accident, hath variety of instances for his virtue, but none to trouble
him, because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune: and a
wise man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of
a wheel, in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes of posture,
without violence or change, save that it turns gently in compliance with
its changed parts, and is indifferent which part is up, and which is
down; for there is some virtue or other to be exercised, whatever
happens, either patience or thanksgiving, love or fear, moderation or
humility, charity or contentedness, and they are every one of them
equally in order to his great end and immortal felicity: and beauty is
not made by white or red, by black eyes and a round face, by a straight
body and a smooth skin; but by a proportion to the fancy. No rules can
make amiability; our minds and apprehensions make that: and so is our
felicity; and we may be reconciled to poverty and a low fortune, if we
suffer contentedness and the grace of God to make the proportions. For
no man is poor that does not think himself so: but if, in a full
fortune, with impatience he desires more, he proclaims his wants and his
beggarly condition. But because this grace of contentedness was the sum
of all the old moral philosophy, and a great duty in Christianity, and
of most universal use in the whole course of our lives, and the only
instrument to ease the burdens of the world and the enmities of sad
chances, it will not be amiss to press it by the proper arguments by
which God hath bound it upon our spirits; it being fastened by reason
and religion, by duty and interest, by necessity and conveniency, by
example, and by the proposition of excellent rewards, no less than peace
and felicity.

Contentedness in all estates is a duty of religion; it is the great
reasonableness of complying with the Divine Pro