Let but any complaining, disquieted man, tell you the ground of his uneasiness, and you will plainly see that he is the author of his own torment; that he is vexing himself at some imaginary evil, which will cease to torment him as soon as he is content to be that which God, and nature, and reason, require him to be.
5. *If you should see a man passing his days in disquiet, because he could not walk upon the water, or catch birds as they fly by him, you would readily confess that such an one might thank himself for such uneasiness. But now, if you look into the most tormenting disquiets of life, you will find them all thus absurd. People are only tormented by their own folly, and vexing themselves at such things as no more concern them, nor are any more their proper good, than walking upon the water, or catching birds.
*What can you conceive more silly and extravagant, than a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly? Wandering from his own house and home, wearying himself with climbing upon every ascent, cringing and courting every body he meets, to lift him up from the ground, bruising himself with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck? And all this, from an imagination that it would be glorious to have the eyes of people gazing up at him, and mighty happy to eat, and drink, and sleep, at the top of the highest trees in the kingdom. Would you not readily own that such a one was only disquieted at his own folly?
If you ask, what it signifies to suppose such silly creatures as are no where to be found in human life?
It may be answered, that wherever you see an ambitious man, there you see this vain and senseless flyer.
6. *Again, if you should see a man that had a large pond of water, yet living in continual thirst, not suffering himself to drink half a draught, for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength, in fetching more water to his pond, always thirsty, yet always carrying a bucket of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the drops of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every mire and mud, in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every ditch empty itself into his pond. If you should see him grow grey and old in these anxious labours, and at last end a careful, thirsty life, by falling into his own pond: would you not say, that such a one was not only the author of his own disquiets, but was foolish enough to be reckoned amongst ideots and madmen? But yet foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets of the covetous man.
I could now easily proceed to shew the same effects of all our other passions, and make it plainly appear, that all our miseries, vexations, and complaints, are entirely of our own making, and that in the same absurd manner, as in these instances of the covetous and ambitious man. *Look where you will, you will see all worldly vexations, but like the vexation of him that was always in mire and mud in search of water to drink, when he had more at home than was sufficient for an hundred horses.
7. *Cælia is always telling you how provoked she is, what intolerable shocking things happen to her, what monstrous usage she suffers, and what vexations she meets with every where. She tells you that her patience is quite worn out, and there is no bearing the behaviour of people. Every assembly that she is at, sends her home provoked; something or other has been said or done, that no reasonable, well bred person ought to bear. Poor people that want her charity, are sent away with hasty answers; not because she has not a heart to part with any money, but because she is too full of some trouble of her own, to attend to the complaints of others. Cælia has no business upon her hands, but to receive the income of a plentiful fortune: but yet by the doleful turn of her mind, you would be apt to think that she had neither food nor lodging. If you see her look more pale than ordinary, if her lips tremble when she speaks to you, it is because she is just come from a visit, where Lupus took no notice at all of her, but talked all the time to Lucinda, who has not half her fortune. When cross accidents have so disordered her spirits, that she is forced to send for the doctor to make her able to eat; she tells him, in great anger at providence, that she never was well since she was born, and that she envies every beggar that she sees in health.
This is the unquiet life of Cælia, who has nothing to torment her but her own spirit.
If you could inspire her with Christian humility, you need do no more to make her happy. This virtue would make her thankful to God for half so much health as she has had, and help her to enjoy more for the time to come. This would keep off tremblings and loss of appetite, and her blood would need nothing else to sweeten it.