blessings to be dealt among those who are unworthy, we may certainly
conclude that He intends them only as a punishment to an evil world,
as well as to the owners. It were well if those would consider
this, whose riches serve them only as a spur to avarice or as an
instrument of their lusts; whose wisdom is only of this world, to
put false colours upon things, to call good evil and evil good
against the conviction of their own consciences; and lastly, who
employ their power and favour in acts of oppression or injustice, in
misrepresenting persons and things, or in countenancing the wicked
to the ruin of the innocent.

Fourthly, The practice of this duty of being subject to one another
would make us rest contented in the several stations of life wherein
God hath thought fit to place us, because it would, in the best and
easiest manner, bring us back, as it were, to that early state of
the Gospel when Christians had all things in common. For if the
poor found the rich disposed to supply their want, if the ignorant
found the wise ready to instruct and direct them, or if the weak
might always find protection from the mighty, they could none of
them, with the least pretence of justice, lament their own
condition.

From all that hath been hitherto said it appears that great
abilities of any sort, when they are employed as God directs, do but
make the owners of them greater and more painful servants to their
neighbour and the public. However, we are by no means to conclude
from hence that they are not really blessings, when they are in the
hands of good men. For, first, what can be a greater honour than to
be chosen one of the stewards and dispensers of God's bounty to
mankind? What is there that can give a generous spirit more