Make not the Consequences of Vertue the Ends thereof: be not beneficent for a Name or Cymbal of Applause, nor exact and punctual in Commerce, for the Advantages of Trust and Credit which attend the Reputation of just and true Dealing; for such Rewards, tho' unsought for, plain Vertue will bring with her, whom all Men honour, tho' they pursue not. To have other bye Ends in good Actions, sowers laudable Performances, which must have deeper Roots, Motions, and Instigations, to give them the Stamp of Vertues. Tho' human Infirmity may betray thy heedless Days into the popular Ways of Extravagancy, yet let not thine own Depravity, or the Torrent of vicious Times, carry thee into desperate Enormities in Opinions, Manners, or Actions: if thou hast dip'd thy Foot in the River, yet venture not over _Rubicon_; run not into Extremities from whence there is no Regression, nor be ever so closely shut up within the Holds of Vice and Iniquity, as not to find some Escape by a Postern of Resipiscency. Owe not thy Humility unto Humiliation by Adversity, but look humbly down in that State when others look upward upon thee: be patient in the Age of Pride and Days of Will and Impatiency, when Men live but by Intervals of Reason, under the Sovereignty of Humor and Passion, when 'tis in the Power of every one to transform thee out of thy self, and put thee into the short Madness. If you cannot imitate _Job_, yet come not short of _Socrates_,[315] and those patient Pagans, who tir'd the Tongues of their Enemies while they perceiv'd they spet their Malice at brazen Walls and Statues. [315] _Ira furor brevis est._ Let Age, not Envy, draw Wrinkles on thy Cheeks: be content to be envied, but envy not. Emulation may be plausible, and Indignation allowable; but admit no Treaty with that Passion which no Circumstance can make good. A Displacency at the Good of others, because they enjoy it, altho' we do not want it, is an absurd Depravity, sticking fast unto human Nature from its primitive Corruption; which he that can well subdue, were a Christian of the first Magnitude, and for ought I know, may have one Foot already in Heaven.