True contentment in the gain of godliness, with its self-sufficiency A meditation on 1.…True contentment in the gaine of godlines, with its self-sufficiencie A meditation on 1.…

First, to inform us, what cause they have to be thankful unto God, be they rich or poor, whom he hath vouchsafed this grace unto, whom ^khe hath taught, in whatsoever estate they are, therewith to be content. For even the poorest man that liveth content with his present estate, is richer than the richest ⟨p. 49⟩man in the world that hath not a contented mind: he is happier than Adam and Eve were sometime in Paradise, when they longed to eat of the fruit forbidden them: ^lhe is a greater man than great Alexander himself, and in far better plight than he, even for the present. For ^mhe, for want hereof, when he had won the whole world, yet as if he had bin pinched and straitened for room, or penned up in a corner or in a prison, as if the whole world were not able to hold him, (whereas ⁿhe could not take up so much as ten foot of ground, as ^ohis Father Philip saw, when he fell in the wrestling place, and viewed the print and proportion of his body there in the dust) ^phe sa• weeping and wailing, like a forlorn person, that he could not find out a new world to be winning. Whereas, by benefit hereof many a poor Child of God, that hath not half that that he had, yea that hath not a patch of land in the world, but liveth from hand to mouth by his daily labour, yet passeth his time as merrily, (as that Cynic sometime told his host at Athens) as if ^qevery day were Holiday, or a Festival day with him: According to that also which Solomon saith, that

First, to informe vs, what cause they haue to be thankfull vnto God, be they rich or poore, whom he hath vouchsafed this grace vnto, whom