minds, we should not thus post to get, nor care to hide and keep such a mean and impotent thing. O that the cross of Christ, which is the Spirit and power of God in man, might have more place in the soul, that it might crucify us more and more to the world, and the world to us; that, like the days of paradise, the earth might again be the footstool, and the treasure of the earth a servant, and not a god to man!--Many have written against this vice; three I will mention. XX. William Tindall, that worthy apostle of the English reformation, has an entire discourse, to which I refer the reader, entitled, "The Parable of the Wicked Mammon." The next is-- XXI. Peter Charron, a famous Frenchman, and in particular for the book he wrote of wisdom, hath a chapter against covetousness; part of which take as followeth: "To love and affect riches is covetousness: not only the love and affection, but also every over-curious care and industry about riches. The desire of goods, and the pleasure we take in possessing them, are grounded only upon opinion: the immoderate desire to get riches is a gangrene in our soul, which with a venomous heat consumeth our natural affections, to the end it might fill us with virulent humours. So soon as it is lodged in our hearts, all honest and natural affection, which we owe either to our parents, our friends, or ourselves, vanisheth away: all the rest, in respect of our profit, seemeth nothing; yea, we forget in the end, and condemn ourselves, our bodies, our minds, for this transitory trash; and as our proverb is, We sell our horse to get us hay. Covetousness is the vile and base passion of vulgar fools, who account riches the principal good of a man, and fear poverty as the greatest evil; and not contenting themselves with necessary means, which are forbidden no man, weigh that which is good in a goldsmith's balance; when nature hath taught us to measure it by the ell of necessity. For, what greater folly can there be than to adore that which nature itself hath put under our feet, and hidden in the earth, as unworthy to be seen; yea, rather to be contemned, and trampled under foot? This is that which the sin of man hath only torn out of the entrails of the earth, and brought unto light to kill himself. We dig out the earth, and bring to light those things for which we would fight: we are not ashamed to esteem those things most highly which are in the lowest parts of the earth. Nature seemeth even in the first birth of gold, after a sort, to have presaged the misery of those that are in love with it; for it hath so ordered the matter, that in those countries where it groweth there groweth with it neither grass nor plant, nor other thing that is worth anything: as giving us to understand thereby, that in those minds where the desire of this metal groweth, there cannot remain so much as a spark of true honour and virtue. For what thing can be more base than for a man to degrade, and to make