The gallants burden A sermon preached at Pauls Cross, the twenty nine of March,…The gallants burden A sermon preached at Paules Crosse, the twentie nine of March,…

Beatus ille qui procul negotijs,¹ Paterna rura bobus exercet suis.

1. 1Horace.

More happy are those poor wretches confined and contented with a rural charge: whiles they know not so much of good, they know less of ill: they skill not what the studying of oaths, the tricks of pride, the policy of Atheism means: they make not sense the rule of their belief with the Gallant, but their Catechism: Religion is their Queen, the Gallants drudge: they have not so much of reason, therefore abuse the less: their sins proceed most from ignorance, the Gallants from knowing wilfulness: Now, which of these shall be beaten with most stripes? they work out a poor living with the sweat of their brows and nerves, these can play out a rich one from the quickness of their wits: they know not the detractions of slander, underminings of envy, provocations, heats, enluringes of lusts: the foul secrecies of Idolatry, hypocrisy, sacrilege, cleave not to their consciences: they have a kind of happiness, in that they are not so miserable: our impudent, imprudent, insolent Youngsters look on these, betwixt contempt and anger, call them Clowns, Idiots, and the dregs of Nature, and think themselves Angels, if these be men; (Quorum prae• crdia Titan de priore luto sinxit) as if God had tempered them of a baser mould. But whiles Actaeon's Bondslave grinds securely (though laboriously) at the Mill,¹ his brave riotous, gallant, Hunting-master is turned to a beast, and for his sensuality eaten up of his own lusts: you all know the Story, this is the Moral. Thus, this is the proper cause, that the ancient Houses fall; ⟨p. 18⟩and what the long Industry of the progenitors have gotten, the short Riot of the Gallant, wastes: We are loth to hear of this; but it is too true, he needs not drink up all the Sea, that will judge of the aste: hence young gentlemen by wild unthriftiness become sports to Theatres, and cannot sit on their Fathers seats to do good in the Common-wealth: they abound with the gifts of Nature, but like Fig-trees growing over deep Waters, full of Fruit, but the Jays eat them: Ruffians, Harlots, vicious Companions enjoy those Graces, that might honour God.