Some general directions for a comfortable walking with God delivered in the lecture at…Some generall directions for a comfortable walking with God deliuered in the lecture at…

5. Curiosity, an itching humour, and needless inquisitiveness to know every thing that is done or said. If a man will needs be so meddling; he shall find matter enough to fill his gall. Some men, out of this humour, are ⟨p. 97⟩eager to know what is said against them, in such and such company, listen to hear what their servants talk concerning them, and if a letter fall into their hands wherein they think themselves to be mentioned, they will make no bones, against the laws of humanity, to break it open. Busy-bodies in this kind never want wrath and woe. Antigonus, as it is said of him, was wise to abandon this vanity. For when he heard two of his subjects speaking ill of him in the night near his Tent, willed them to go further off, lest the King should hear them.

5. Curiositie, an itching humour, and needlesse inquisitiuenesse to know euery thing that is done or said. If a man will needs bee so meddling; he shall finde matter inough to fill his gall. Some men, out of this humour, are ⟨p. 97⟩eager to know what is said against them, in such and such company, listen to heare what their seruants talke concerning them, and if a letter fall into their hands wherein they thinke themselues to bee mentioned, they will make no bones, against the lawes of humanitie, to breake it open. Busie-bodies in this kind neuer want wrath and woe. Antigonus, as it is said of him, was wise to abandon this vanitie. For when he heard two of his subiects speaking ill of him in the night neere his Tent, willed them to goe further off, lest the King should heare them.

6. Covetousness, the Cut-throat of Grace, and canker of the soul, like an eating insatiable Wolfe, will either still feed upon gain, or else gnaw upon the heart with fretting: and therefore the very loss of a penny, sometimes the omission of a good bargain, the miscarriage of some domesticall trifle, the death of a beast, &c. will presently put a covetous man into choler: for his eyes are so earthly, that they look only upon the secondary, not upon the supreme cause.