_How the imprudent use of an estate corrupts all the tempers, and fills the heart with poor and ridiculous passions; represented in the character of |Flavia|._
1. IT has already been observed, that a religious care is to be used in the manner ♦of spending our _money_ or _estate_; because the manner of spending our estate makes so great a part of our common life, and is so much the business of every day, that, according as we are wise or imprudent in this, the _whole course_ of our _lives_ will be wise, or full of folly.
♦ duplicate word ‘of’ removed
Persons that receive instructions of piety with _pleasure_, often wonder that they make no farther progress in that religion which they so much _admire_.
Now the reason is this: religion lives only in their _head_, but something else has possession of their hearts; and therefore, they continue from _year_ to _year_ mere _admirers_ and _praisers_ of piety, without ever coming up to its precepts.
2. If it be asked, why religion does not get possession of their hearts? It is not because they live in _gross sins_ or _debaucheries_; but because their _hearts_ are constantly _employed_, _perverted_, and kept in a wrong state, by the _indiscreet use_ of such things as are _lawful_.
The use and enjoyment of their estates is _lawful_, and therefore it never comes into their heads to imagine any danger from that quarter. They never reflect that there is a _vain_ and _imprudent_ use of their estates: which, though it does nor destroy like _gross sins_, yet so _disorders_ the heart, and supports it in such _sensuality_ and _dullness_, as makes it incapable of receiving the life and spirit of piety.
For our souls may be rendered incapable of all virtue, merely by the use of _innocent_ and _lawful_ things.
3. What is more innocent than _rest_? And yet what more dangerous than sloth and idleness? What is more lawful than _eating_ and _drinking_? And yet what more destructive of all virtue, and fruitful of all vice, than _sensuality_.
Now, it is for want of exactness in the use of these _innocent_ and _lawful things_, that religion cannot get possession of our hearts: and it is in the right management of ourselves, as to these things, that the _art_ of holy living chiefly consists.
4. _Gross sins_ are plainly seen, and easily avoided by persons that profess religion: but the _indiscreet_ use of innocent and lawful things, as it does not _shock_ our consciences, so it is difficult to make people at all sensible of the danger of it.
A _gentleman_ that expends all his estate in _sports_, and a _woman_ that lays out all her fortune upon herself, can hardly be persuaded that the spirit of religion cannot subsist in such a way of life.
These persons may live free from debaucheries; they may be friends of religion, so far as to _praise_ and _speak_ well of it: but it cannot govern their hearts, and be the spirit of their actions, till they change their way of life.
For a _woman_ that loves _dress_, that thinks no expence too great to bestow upon the _adorning_ of her person, cannot stop there; for that temper draws a _thousand_ other follies along with it, and will render the whole course of her life, her _business_, her _conversation_, her _hopes_, her _fears_, her _taste_, her _pleasures_ and _diversions_, all suitable to it.
5. *_Flavia_ and _Miranda_ are two maiden sisters, that have each of them _two hundred pounds_ a year: they buried their parents twenty years ago, and have since that time spent their estate as they pleased.
*_Flavia_ has been the wonder of all her friends, for her excellent management, in making so surprizing a figure in so moderate a fortune. Several _ladies_ that have twice her fortune, are not able to be always so _genteel_, and so constant at all places of _pleasure_ and _expence_. She has every thing that is in the _fashion_, and is in every place where there is any _diversion_. _Flavia_ is very _orthodox_; she talks warmly against _heretics_ and _schismatics_, is generally at _church_, and often at the _sacrament_. She once commended a _sermon_ that was against the _vanity_ of dress, and thought it was very just against _Lucinda_, whom she takes to be a great deal finer than she need be. If any one asks _Flavia_ to do some thing in charity, if she likes the person that makes the proposal, or happens to be in a right _temper_, she will toss him _half a crown_, or a _crown_; and tell him, if he knew what a _long millener’s bill_ she had just received, he would think it a great deal for her to give. A _quarter_ of a year after this, she hears a _sermon_ upon the _necessity_ of charity; she thinks the man preaches well; that it is a very _proper_ subject; that people want much to be put in mind of it; but she applies nothing to herself, because she remembers that she gave a _crown_ some time ago when she could so ill spare it.