Rule 1

Rule 1. If you would not mourn excessively for the loss of creature comforts, then beware that you do not set your delight and love excessively or inordinately upon them while you have them.

Strong affections make strong afflictions. The higher the tide, the lower the ebb. According to the measure of our delight in the enjoyment is our grief at the loss of these things. The apostle links the two graces of temperance and patience together in the precept (2 Peter 1:6). And it is very observable how intemperance and impatience are inseparably linked in experience — yes, even in the experience of the best men. We read in Genesis 37:3 how Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age, and made him a coat of many colors.

This was the darling; Jacob's heart was exceedingly set upon him; his very life was bound up in the life of the lad. Now when the supposed death of this child was brought to him, how did he carry it? Genesis 37:34-35: Jacob tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his loins and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted and said: I will go down to my son in the grave mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

Here, as in a mirror, the effects of excessive love to a child are displayed. Here you may see what work immoderate love will make, even in a sanctified heart.

Therefore let your moderation be known to all in your delights and sorrows about earthly things, for ordinarily the proportion of the one answers to the other.