This Doctrine concerns those that Rashly Change their Condition and
Fortune, and commonly fall into the Inconveniences that they thought
to Avoid. He that’s Well, already, and, upon a Levity of Mind, Quits
his Station, in hope to be Better, ’tis Forty to One he loses by the
Change; for This Lightness is both a Vice, and a Disease, and rather the
Wallowing of a Sickly Qualm, then any Reasonable Agitation of Councel and
Debate. The Fault is not in the Place, or Bus’ness, but in the Stomach;
and the Quitting of such a Course of Life, is but shifting Posture in
a Fit of Sickness: Let a Man turn which Way he will, he is still as
Restless and uneasie One way as Another. Not but that ’tis Reasonable
for a Man, under any Calamity, to use the Best Means he can, Honestly,
to get Clear on’t. Let it be Pain of Body, Distress of Mind, Loss of
Liberty, Pinching Necessity of Fortune; Nay let it be Gout, Stone, or
Torments, there’s Matter yet left for Industry, Councel, Generosity, or
when All fails, for Philosophy, and Constancy of Mind to Work upon; and
to Emprove All the Methods of Providence to our Advantage. Now All This
is only an Honourable and Warrantable Conflict, with such Accidents and
Circumstances as Providence is pleas’d to make use of, for the Tryal of
our Faith and Virtue. So that These Strivings are not to be taken for a
Contending with superior Powers; but they are Cases Excepted from the
Uneasiness here in the Fable; which arises from a Dissatisfaction in such
a Lot, as might make us abundantly happy if we would but keep our Desires
within Those Bounds which God and Nature have Prescrib’d us. But Men
under These Irregular Appetites, can never think themselves Well, so long
as they fancy they Might be Better: And then from Better, they must Rise
to be Best; and when That Best it self falls short of what they Expected
from it, they are still as Poor and Miserable as if they had just Nothing
at all. The _Husbandman_ Envies the _Soldier_; The _Soldier_ Envies the
_Merchant_, and when he has try’d All Turns, and Projects, what with the
Chance of War, Storms, and Pyrates, he sees his folly too late, and in
Vain Wishes himself with his Hinds and his Flocks again. To say All in a
Word, This Levity is both Attended, and Punish’d, with an Impossibility
of Mending our Condition; for we Apply to our Bodies, and our Fortunes,
when the Distemper lies in our Minds.