Baxter - Houston-Packer Collection BT770 .B39 1670

462 The Life of Faith. tclves withmany rhinns,_while the one thing needful is the more neglected (Luke to, 42.) but all about them mutt be parta- kers of the trouble. What abundance of trades doth Pride maintain? and how many are continually at work to (cave it ? But the lowly who mind not vain oftentation, do fave ti5ern- felves.all this unprofitable pains : They can avoid undecent fordidnefs, at a cheaper rate than byproud curiofity. They are accurate and curious in greater matters, in doinggood, in fe- curing their titivation, in cfcaping fin, and in pleafing God ; which will one day prove a wirer curiofity, than to be curious incourtthip, and complements, and dreffings, and other imper- tinent childith things : Though the leaff juft decency is not to be neglceted in its place, it is foolifh pride to prefer it before things of importance and necefiìty. Mans mindand time are not tofficient for all things : Somewhat muff be omitted ; and its wifdom which chufeth to omit the !aft, and folly which chufeth to omit the greatcft. As in Learning, they prove the foundett Scholars who fpend their (Indies on the molt excellent and ufeful parts of learning; whilft thofe that too much (tudy things fuperf(uour, are ever empty ofnecrffary knowledge : It is fo alto in the actions ofour lives : As Paul fo vehemently condemneth vain jangling about unnecffary and unedifying queçfions, though yet truth was not contemptible in thofemat- ccrs : fo alto vain curiofity, and unedifying diligence (though about things not altogether contemptible) is but the perilous diverjon of the mind, from greater thirg=, I Tim. 1,Z, 7, &C. ro. Thehigb- mindedcannot endure to be beholden (unlefs nectfïry or covctoufnefs prevail again(t their Pride.) But they would have all others beholden to them, that they may Rem as petty Deities in the world. O how it puffcth them up to have the people depend upon them, and acknowledge theta for theirbenefaétors, and to have crouded facri:ices of thanks and praife tobe offered them as they go about theftreets: If they were accounted fuch as the world could not live, nor be .happywithout them, as being the moft neccffary parts or pil- lars thereof, nothing couldmore content their humour. But *lowly mind dcfireth rather to do'good, than to be known

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