The Covetous Man is _never well_ (as we say) _neither Full nor Fasting_:
Avarice has a great deal in’t of the _Dog-Appetite_. It is Greedy,
Ravenous and Insatiable; Raving Mad after what it has not, and Sick
of what it has; for it Digests nothing, and the very Success of the
Wickedness is the Plague on’t. Nay, and the Two Extremes of Want and
Abundance are so near a-kin too, that the Misery of both these Opposite
States, takes its Rise in a great Measure from the same Root. Only
Men are Sollicitous in the One Case how to Get, that which they are
as Sollicitous in the other Case how to Keep; and the pain of the
Disappointment, whether in Missing or in Losing, is much the same. For
what is the Difference betwixt having Nothing at all Originally, and
after such or such an Acquisition, having Nothing at all Left? ’Tis but
Nothing against Nothing both ways: And the Case has much in it of what
we find in an Extreme Drought, or a Nauseous Surfeit. Men are ready to
Choak for want of Drink, and when they have Over-charg’d themselves with
more then Nature will bear, they are ready to Dye on that Hand too, till
they have it up again. Now to carry on the Allusion, here’s a Covetous
Man Deliberating betwixt the Qualms of a Wambling Stomach, and an
Unsettled Mind. Here is he a Defying _Fortune_ and all her Works; he’ll
have no more to do with her: he says, and so he Talks and Does on, at
the Rate of Almost _Half a Christian_. But he does not yet know his own
Mind it seems; for while he is Renouncing the World and the Devil on the
One Hand, he strikes a League with them on the other, and in the same
Breath Practises what he pretends to Disclaim, and Couzens the Labourer
of his Hire. We are not therefore to value our Selves upon the Merit of
Ejaculatory Repentances, that take us by Fits and Starts, and look liker
Confessions upon the Torture, then Acts of Piety and Conscience. ’Tis not
for a Desultory Thought, to attone for a Lewd Course of Life; nor for
any thing but the Super-inducing of a Virtuous Habit upon a Vicious One,
to qualifie an Effectual Conversion. We are to Distinguish betwixt this
Miser’s being Weary of the Anxious Condition he was in, and his Repenting
the Iniquity of his Oppression and Extortion: But _Fortune_ will have him
Richer and Richer still, in spite of his Heart: That is to say, for his
Greater Condemnation and Punishment. And the last Touch is to shew us, in
the Churlishness of _Fortune_, what a Poor Honest Man has to Trust to in
this World.