f contentment on earth, and the means of
attaining everlasting happiness in heaven.

CHAP. II. Of HONESTY.

Honesty is a virtue beloved by good men, and pretended to by all other
persons. In this there are several degrees: to pay every man his own is
the common law of honesty: but to do good to all mankind, is the
chancery law of honesty: and this chancery court is in every man's
breast, where his conscience is a Lord Chancellor. Hence it is, that a
miser, though he pays every body their own, cannot be an honest man,
when he does not discharge the good offices that are incumbent on a
friendly, kind, and generous person: for, faith the prophet Isaiah,
chap. XXXII. ver. 7, 8. _The instruments of a churl are evil: he
deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when
the needy speaketh right. But the liberal soul deviseth liberal things,
and by liberal things shall he stand_. It is certainly honest to do
every thing the law requires; but should we throw every poor debtor into
prison till he has paid the utmost farthing, hang every malefactor
without mercy, exact the penalty of every bond, and the forfeiture of
every indenture, this would be downright cruelty, and not honesty: and
it is contrary to that general rule, _To do to another, that which you
would have done unto you_. Sometimes necessity makes an honest man a
knave: and a rich man a honest man, because he has no occasion to be a
knave. The trial of honesty is this: Did you ever want bread, and had
your neighbour's loaf in keeping, and would starve rather than eat it?
Were you ever arrested, having in your custody another man's cash, and
would rather go to gaol, than break it? if so, this indeed may be
reckoned honesty. For King Solomon tells us, _That a good name is better
than life, and is a precious ointment, and which, when a man has once
lost, he has nothing left worth keeping_.

CHAP. III _Of the present state of Religion in the world_.

I doubt, indeed, there is much more devotion than religion in the world,
more adoration than supplication, and more hypocrisy than sincerity; and
it is very melancholy to consider, what numbers of people there are
furnished with the powers of reason and gifts of nature, and yet
abandoned to the grossest ignorance and depravity. But it would be
uncharitable for us to imagine (as some Papists, abounding with too much
ill nature, the only scandal to religion, do) that they will certainly
be in a s