In the middle of this work I finished my fourth year in this place, and
kept my anniversary with the same devotion, and with as much comfort, as
ever before; for by a constant study, and serious application of the
word of God, and by the assistance of his grace, I gained a different
knowledge from what I had before; I entertained different notions of
things; I looked now upon the world as a thing remote; which I had
nothing to do with, no expectation from, and indeed no desires about: in
a word, I had nothing indeed to do with it, nor was ever like to have;
so I thought it looked as we may perhaps look upon it hereafter; viz. as
a place I had lived in, but was come out of it; and well I might say,
as father Abraham to Dives, "Between me and thee there is a great
gulf fixed."

In the first place, I was removed from all the wickedness of the world
here: I had neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, or the
pride of life: I had nothing to covet, for I had all I was now capable
of enjoying; I was lord of the whole manor, or, if I pleased, I might
call myself king or emperor over the whole country which I had
possession of: there were no rivals: I had no competitor, none to
dispute sovereignty or command with me; I might have raised
ship-loadings of corn, but I had no use for it; so I let as little grow
as I thought enough for my occasion: I had tortoises or turtles enough;
but now and then one was as much as I could put to any use: I had timber
enough to have built a fleet of ships; I had grapes enough to have made
wine, or to have cured into raisins, to have loaded that fleet when they
had been built.

But all I could make use of, was all that was valuable: I had enough to
eat, and to supply my wants, and what was all the rest to me? If I
killed more flesh than I could eat, the dog must eat it, or the vermin;
if I sowed more corn than I could eat, it must be spoiled. The trees
that I cut down were lying to rot on the ground, I could make no more
use of them, than for fuel; and that I had no occasion for, but to
dress my food.

In a word, the nature and experience of things dictated to me upon just
reflection, that all the good things of this world are no farther good
to us, than as they are for our use: and that whatever we may heap up
indeed to give to others, we enjoy as much as we can use, and no more.
The most covetous griping miser in the world would have been cured of
the vice of covetousness, if he ha