Kindnesses must not originate from unkindnesses. honour of taking his father out of the fire. It is the scandal of a physician to make work, and irritate a disease, and to torment his patient for the reputation of his cure. If a man should openly imprecate poverty, captivity, fear, or danger, upon a person that he has been obliged to, would not the whole world condemn him for it? and, what is the difference; but that the one is only a private wish, and the other a public declaration? Rutilus was told, in his exile, that, for his comfort, there would be ere long a civil war, that would bring all the banished men home again. "God forbid," says he, "for I had rather my country should blush for my banishment, than mourn for my return." How much more honourable is it to owe cheerfully, than to pay dishonestly? It is the wish of an enemy to take a town, that he may preserve it, and to be victorious, that he may forgive, but, the mercy comes after the cruelty; beside, that it is an injury both to God and man, for the man must be first afflicted by Heaven, to be relieved by me. So that we impose the cruelty upon God, and take the compassion to ourselves; and, at the best, it is but a curse, that makes way for a blessing; the bare wish is an injury, and, if it does not take effect, it is because Heaven has not heard our prayers. Or, if they should succeed, the fear itself is a torment; and it is much more desirable to have a firm and unshaken security. It is friendly to wish it in your power to oblige me, if I ever chance to need it; but it is unkind to wish me miserable, that I may need it. How much more pious is it, and humane, to wish that I may never want the occasion of obliging, nor the means of doing it, nor ever have reason to repent of what I have done! Of Ingratitude. OF INGRATITUDE. INGRATITUDE is, of all crimes, that which we are to account the most venial in others, and the most unpardonable in ourselves. It is impious in the highest degree, for it makes us fight against our children and our altars. There are, there ever were, and there ever will be, criminals of all sorts, as murderers, tyrants, thieves, adulterers, traitors, robbers, and sacrilegious persons, but there is hardly any notorious crime without a mixture of ingratitude. It disunites mankind, and breaks the very pillars of society. And yet, so far is this prodigious wickedness from being any wonder to us, that even thankfulness itself were much the greater of the two. For men are deterred from it by labour, expense, laziness, business, or else diverted from it by lust, envy, ambition, pride, levity, rashness, fear; nay, by the very shame of confessing what they have received. And the unthankful man has nothing to say for himself all this while; for there needs neither pains, or fortune, for the discharge of his duty; beside, the inward anxiety and torment, when a man's conscience makes him afraid of his own thought. To speak against the ungrateful, is to rail against mankind, for even those that complain are guilty; nor do I speak only of those that do not live up to the strict rule of virtue, but mankind itseif is degenerated and lost. We live unthankfully in this world, and we go struggling and murmuring out of it, dissatisfied with our lot; whereas we should be grateful for the blessing we have enjoyed, and account that sufficient which Providence ་ has appointed for us. Causes of Ingratitude. A little more time may make our lives longer, but not happier, and whensoever it is the pleasure of God to call us, we must obey; and yet all this while we go on quarrelling at the world, for what we find in ourselves; and we are yet more unthankful to heaven, than we are to one another. What benefit can be great now to that man that despises the bounties of his Maker? We would be as strong as elephants, as swift as bucks, as light as birds, and we complain that we have not the sagacity of dogs, the sight of eagles, the long life of ravens, nay, that we are not immortal, and endued with the knowledge of things to come. Nay, we take it ill, that we are not gods upon earth; never considering the advantages of our condition, or the benignity of Providence in the comforts that we enjoy. We subdue the strongest of creatures, and overtake the fleetest; we reclaim the fiercest, and outwit the craftiest; we are within one degree of heaven itself, and yet we are not satisfied. Since there is not any one creature which we had rather be, we take it ill that we cannot draw the united excellencies of all other creatures into ourselves. Why are we not rather thankful to that Goodness, which has subjected the whole creation to our use and service? The principal causes of ingratitude are pride and selfconceit, avarice, envy, &c. It is a familiar exclamation, "It is true, he did this or that for me, but it came so late, and it was so little, I had even as good been without it; if he had not given it to me, he must have given it to somebody else; it was nothing out of his own pocket.” Nay, we are so ungrateful, that he that gives us all we have, if he leaves any thing to himself, we reckon that Causes of Ingratitude. he does us an injury. It cost Julius Cæsar his life, the disappointment of his unsatiable companions; and yet he reserved nothing of all that he got to himself, but the liberty of disposing it. There is no benefit so large, but malignity will still lessen it; none so narrow, which a good interpretation will not enlarge. No man shall ever be grateful, that views a benefit on the wrong side; or takes a good office by the wrong handle. The avaricious man is naturally ungrateful, for he never thinks he has enough, but without considering what he has, only minds what he covets. Some pretend want of power to make a competent return, and you shall find in others a kind of graceless modesty, that makes a man ashamed of requiting an obligation, because it is a confession that he has received one. Not to return one good office for another, is inhuman; but to return evil for good, is diabolical. There are too many even of this sort, who, the more they owe, the more they hate. There is nothing more dangerous than to oblige those people, for when they are conscious of not paying the debt, they wish the creditor out of the way. It is a mortal hatred, that which arises from the shame of an abused benefit. When we are on the asking side, what a deal of cringing there is, and profession?" Well, I shall never forget this favour, it will be an eternal obligation to me." But, within a while, the note is changed, and we hear no more words on it, till by little and little it is all quite forgotten. So long as we stand in need of a benefit, there is nothing dearer to us, nor any thing cheaper when we have received it. And yet a man may as well refuse to deliver up a sum of money that is left to him in trust without a suit, as not to return a good office G People follow their interest. without asking; and when we have no value any further for the benefit, we do commonly care as little for the author. People follow their interest; one man is grateful for his convenience, and another man is ungrateful for the same reason. Some are ungrateful to their own country, and their country no less ungrateful to others, so that the complaint of ingratitude reaches all men. Doth not the son wish for the death of his father, the husband for that of his wife, &c. But who can look for gratitude in an age of so many gaping and craving appetites, where all people take, and none give? In an age of licence to all sorts of vanity and wickedness, as lust, gluttony, avarice, envy, ambition, sloth, insolence, levity, contumacy, fear, rashness, private discords and public evils, extravagant and groundless wishes, vain confidences, sickly affections, shameless impieties, rapine authorized, and the violation of all things, sacred and profane: obligations are pursued with sword and poison; benefits are turned into crimes; and that blood most seditiously spilt, for which every honest man should expose his own. Those that should be the preservers of their country, are the destroyers of it; and it is a matter of dignity to trample upon the government: the sword gives the law, and mercenaries take up arms against their masters. Among these turbulent and unruly motions, what hope is there of finding honesty or good faith, which is the quietest of all virtues? There is no more lively image of human life than that of a conquered city; there is neither mercy, modesty, nor religion; and if we forget our lives, we may well forget our benefits. The world abounds with examples of ungrateful persons, and no less with those |