*The man of _pride_ has a thousand wants, which only his own pride has _created_; and these render him as full of trouble, as if God had created him with a _thousand appetites_, without creating any thing that was proper to satisfy them. _Envy_ and _ambition_ have also their endless wants, which disquiet the souls of men, and by their contradictory motions render them as foolishly miserable as those that want to _fly_ and _creep_ at the same time.
Let but any complaining, disquieted man, tell you the ground of his uneasiness, and you will plainly see that he is the author of his own torment; that he is vexing himself at some imaginary evil, which will cease to torment him as soon as he is content to be that which God, and nature, and reason, require him to be.
5. *If you should see a man passing his days in disquiet, because he could not _walk_ upon the _water_, or _catch birds_ as they fly by him, you would readily confess that such an one might thank himself for such uneasiness. But now, if you look into the most tormenting disquiets of life, you will find them all thus absurd. People are only tormented by their own folly, and vexing themselves at such things as no more concern them, nor are any more their proper good, than _walking_ upon the _water_, or _catching birds_.
*What can you conceive more silly and extravagant, than a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly? Wandering from his own house and home, wearying himself with _climbing_ upon every ascent, _cringing_ and _courting_ every body he meets, to lift him up from the ground, bruising himself with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck? And all this, from an imagination that it would be glorious to have the eyes of people gazing up at him, and mighty happy to _eat_, and _drink_, and _sleep_, at the top of the highest trees in the kingdom. Would you not readily own that such a one was only disquieted at his _own folly_?
If you ask, what it signifies to suppose such silly creatures as are no where to be found in human life?
It may be answered, that wherever you see an _ambitious_ man, there you see this _vain and senseless flyer_.
6. *Again, if you should see a man that had a large _pond_ of _water_, yet living in _continual thirst_, not suffering himself to drink _half a draught_, for fear of lessening his pond; if you should see him wasting his time and strength, in _fetching more_ water to his pond, always _thirsty_, yet always carrying a _bucket_ of water in his hand, watching early and late to catch the _drops_ of rain, gaping after every cloud, and running greedily into every _mire_ and mud, in hopes of water, and always studying how to make every _ditch_ empty itself into his _pond_. If you should see him grow _grey_ and _old_ in these anxious labours, and at last end a _careful_, _thirsty_ life, by falling into his own _pond_: would you not say, that such a one was not only the author of his own disquiets, but was foolish enough to be reckoned amongst _ideots_ and _madmen_? But yet foolish and absurd as this character is, it does not represent half the follies and absurd disquiets of the _covetous man_.
I could now easily proceed to shew the same effects of all our other passions, and make it plainly appear, that all our miseries, vexations, and complaints, are entirely of our own making, and that in the same absurd manner, as in these instances of the _covetous_ and _ambitious_ man. *Look where you will, you will see all _worldly vexations_, but like the vexation of him that was always in _mire_ and _mud_ in search of water to drink, when he had more at home than was sufficient for an _hundred horses_.