_Direct._ II. If you would be peaceable, be not covetous lovers of the world, but be contented with your daily bread. Hungry dogs have seldom so great plenty of meat, as to content them all, and keep them from falling out about it. If you over-love the world, you will never want occasions of discord: either your neighbour selleth too dear, or buyeth too cheap of you, or over-reacheth you, or gets before you, or some way or other doth you wrong; as long as he hath any thing which you desire, or doth not satisfy all your expectations. Ambitious and covetous men must have so much room, that the world is not wide enough for many of them: and yet, alas! too many of them there are: and therefore they are still together by the ears, like boys in the winter nights, when the bedclothes are too narrow to cover them; one pulleth, and another pulleth, and all complain. You must be sure that you trespass not in the smallest measure, nor encroach on the least of his commodities, that you demand not your own, nor deny him any thing that he desireth, nor get any thing which he would have himself, no nor ever give over feeding his greedy expectations, and enduring his injustice and abuse, if you will live peaceably with a worldly-minded man.
_Direct._ III. If you will be peaceable, love your neighbours as yourselves. Love neither imagineth, nor speaketh, nor worketh any hurt to others: it covereth infirmities; it hopeth all things; it endureth all things, 1 Cor. xiii. 7. Selfishness and want of love to others, causeth all the contentions in the world. You can bear with great faults in yourselves, and never fall out with yourselves for them; but with your neighbours you are quarrelling for those that are less! Do you fall out with another because he hath spoken dishonourably or slightly of you, or slandered you, or some way done you wrong? You have done a thousand times worse than all that against yourselves, and yet can bear too patiently with yourselves! If another speak evil of you, he doth not make you evil: it is worse to make you bad than to call you so: and this you do against yourselves. Doth your neighbour wrong you in your honour or estate? But he endangereth not your soul! he doth not forfeit your salvation! he doth not deserve damnation for you, nor make your soul displeasing to God! But all this you do against yourselves, (even more than all the devils in hell do,) and yet you are too little offended with yourselves. See here the power of blind self-love! If you loved your neighbours as yourselves, you would agree as peaceably with your neighbours almost as with yourselves. Love them more, and you will bear more with them, and provoke them less.