AN ARGUMENT FOR CONTENTMENT. 188

as much comfort as ever before; for by a constant study and serious
application of the Word of God, and by the assistance of his grace,
I gained a different knowledge from what I had before. I enter-
tained different notions of things. I looked now upon the world
as a thing remote, which I had nothing to do with, no expectation
from, and indeed no desires about : in a word, I had nothing indeed
to do with it, nor was ever like to have. So I thought it looked
as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter—namely, as a place I
had lived in, but was come out of it; and well might I say, as
Father Abraham to Dives, “ Between me and thee is a great gulf
fixed.”

In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the
world here; I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye,
nor the pride of life. I had nothing to covet, for I had all that I
was now capable of enjoying. I was lord of the whole manor; or,
if I pleased, I might call myself king or emperor over the whole
country which I had possession of. There were no rivals; I had
no competitor, none to dispute sovereignty or command with me.
I might have raised ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it;
so I let as little grow as I thought enough for my occasion. I had
tortoise or turtles enough; but now and then one was as much as
T could put to any use. I had timber enough to have built a fleet
of ships. I had grapes enough to have made wine, or to have cured
into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when they had been built.

But all I could make use of was all that was valuable. I had
enough to eat and to supply my wants, and what was all the rest
tome? IfTI killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat
it, or the vermin. If I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must
be spoiled. The trees that I cut down were lying to rot on the
ground; I could make no more use of them than for fuel, and that
T had no occasion for but to dress my food.

In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me,
upon just reflection, that all the good things of this world are no
further good to us than they are for our use; and that whatever
we may heap up indeed. to give others, we enjoy just as much as
we can use, and no more. The most covetous griping miser in
the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness if he