and whatsoever is beautiful and fair, is referred to them, or any way to be desired. [4507]"To profitable is ascribed health, wealth, honour, &c., which is rather ambition, desire, covetousness, than love:”  friends, children, love of women, [4508]all delightful and pleasant objects, are referred to the second.  The love of honest things consists in virtue and wisdom, and is preferred before that which is profitable and pleasant:  intellectual, about that which is honest. [4509]St. Austin calls “profitable, worldly; pleasant, carnal; honest, spiritual. [4510]Of and from all three, result charity, friendship, and true love, which respects God and our neighbour.”  Of each of these I will briefly dilate, and show in what sort they cause melancholy.

Amongst all these fair enticing objects, which procure love, and bewitch the soul of man, there is none so moving, so forcible as profit; and that which carrieth with it a show of commodity.  Health indeed is a precious thing, to recover and preserve which we will undergo any misery, drink bitter potions, freely give our goods:  restore a man to his health, his purse lies open to thee, bountiful he is, thankful and beholding to thee; but give him wealth and honour, give him gold, or what shall be for his advantage and preferment, and thou shalt command his affections, oblige him eternally to thee, heart, hand, life, and all is at thy service, thou art his dear and loving friend, good and gracious lord and master, his Mecaenas; he is thy slave, thy vassal, most devote, affectioned, and bound in all duty:  tell him good tidings in this kind, there spoke an angel, a blessed hour that brings in gain, he is thy creature, and thou his creator, he hugs and admires thee; he is thine for ever.  No loadstone so attractive as that of profit, none so fair an object as this of gold; [4511]nothing wins a man sooner than a good turn, bounty and liberality command body and soul: 

       “Munera (crede mihi) placant hominesque deosque;
          Placatur donis Jupiter ipse datis.”

       “Good turns doth pacify both God and men,
        And Jupiter himself is won by them.”

Gold of all other is a most delicious object; a sweet light, a goodly lustre it hath; gratius aurum quam solem intuemur, saith Austin, and we had rather see it than the sun.  Sweet and pleasant in getting, in keeping; it seasons all our labours, intolerable pains we take for it, base employments, endure bitter flouts and taunts, long journeys, heavy burdens, all are made light and easy by this hope of gain:  At mihi plaudo ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.  The sight of gold refresheth our spirits, and ravisheth our hearts, as that Babylonian garment and [4512] golden wedge did Achan in the camp, the very sight and hearing sets on fire his soul with desire of it.  It will make a man run to the antipodes, or tarry at home and turn parasite, lie, flatter, prostitute himself, swear and bear false witness; he will venture his body, kill a king, murder his father, and damn his soul to come at it. Formosior auri massa, as [4513] he well observed, the mass of gold is fairer than all your Grecian pictures, that Apelles, Phidias, or any doting painter could ever make:  we are enamoured with it,