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21 the one week, had scaree bread to eat the next ; and in the time of war many are unavoidably losers. But these must not be reckoned the common and ordinary ways that make and keep men poor. We know, indeed, that by the divine providence, in the body of a commonwealth there must be both poor and rich, even as a human body cannot subsist withont hands and feet to labour, and walk about to provide for the other members ; so the rich being the belly, which devour all, yet do no part of the work ; but the cause of every man's poverty is not one and the same ; some are poor by condition and content with their calling, and neither seek nor can work themselves into better condition ; yet God raised up, as by a miracle, the children and posterity of these, oftentimes, to possess the most eminent places either in church or commonwealth, as to become Archbishops, Bishops, Judges, Commanders-general in the field, Secretaries of State, Statesmen, and the like ; so that it proveth not always true which the poet says,

" If poor thou art, then poor thou shalt remain

Rich men alone do now rich gifts obtain."

Of this condition are the greatest number in every kingdom ; others there are, who have possessed great estates, but these estates have not thriven or continued, being gotten by oppression, deceit, usury, and the like, which commonly lasteth not to the third generation, according to the poet-

" It seldom is the grandehild's lot,

To be the heir of goods not justly got."

Others come to want and misery, by spending their fair estates in ways of vicious living, as on drink and women ; for Bacchus and Venus are inseparable companions ; and he that is familiar with the one, is never a stranger to the other.

" In same way, manner, and end,

Both wine and women do offend."

Some again live in perpetual want, being naturally wholly given to idleness. These are the drones of a commonwealth, who deserve not to live. " He that laboureth not, should not eat. Labour night and day, rather than be burthensome," saith the Apostle Paul ; both country and city swarm with this kind of people; " The diligent' hand," saith Solmon, " shall make rich ; but the sluggard shall have a scarcity of bread."

I remember when I was in the Low Countries, there were three soldiers, a Dutchman, a Scot, and an Englishman, who, for their misdemeanours, were condemned to be hanged ; yet