Definitions:
- Avarice – greed for riches
- Enchiridion – a handbook; manual.
Purpose:
In the preface, Penn states that this “enchiridion” was written to help the reader with life lessons that otherwise would take time and end in regret. He mentions that in reflecting on life, there are things that could have been done better, even if you are not the “idlest man in the world.” Time is the one commodity in which we give freely but should be the thing we guard most closely—”time is what we want most but what we use the worst.”
We misunderstand the works of God, pursue false knowledge, and mistake education. It isn’t until we step back and realize that the “world in great measure is mad” and that “we have been in a sort of bedlam all this while.”
It is never too late to change your life and to correct future conduct. Our future resolve strengthens when we reflect on our past errors.
Part I
Ignorance: few people know themselves or the world in which they live
Education: Men would be better stewards of the world if they took the time to study and understand the creation of it. Creation has the “voice and stamp of deity everywhere.”
Pride: It is hard to value the creator when we don’t understand his creation. We are tenants, even in our own bodies. We have others obey us but we don’t obey God who created us. We are careful to dress ourselves but careless of our souls. God is ultimately the good mans beginning and end; his Alpha and Omega.
Luxury: We must have the best for our bodies while our souls feed on empty or corrupted things.
Disappointment and Resignation: it is our own fault if disappointments are not used to our advantage. “Though our saviors passion is over his compassion is not.”
Censoriousness: “Nothing shows our weakness more than to be so sharp-sighted at spying other Men’s faults, and so purblind about our own.”
Frugality or Bounty: frugality is good if liberality is joined with it. Frugality = leaving off unnecessary expense, liberality = giving your benefit to others. Frugality without liberality = covetousness, Liberality without frugality = prodigality (wastefulness). If this idea were universal we would be cured of want and excess.
Discipline: there is a time and place for everything, be sure to begin and end with God.
Apparel: if you are clean and warm, your clothing is sufficient. Anything more takes from the poor.
Avarice: Covetousness is the greatest of all monsters and the root of all evil. The misery of this pleasure is never being satisfied and a fear of losing what you cannot use.
Friends and Friendship: friendship requires freedom – speak freely, act freely, take no ill where no ill is meant, easily forgive and forget. A true friend:
- advises justly
- assists readily
- adventures boldly
- takes all patiently
- defends courageously
- unbosoms freely
- continues unchangeably
Reparation: if you commit an injury to another, own it rather than defending it
Rules of Conversation: if you think twice before you speak once, you will speak twice the better for it. In all debates, let truth be your aim not victory.
Master (Leader): mix kindness with authority, rule more by discretion than rigor. Remember your employees are your fellow creatures and that it was God’s goodness and not your merit that makes the difference between you and them.
Posterity: if we would amend the world, we should mend ourselves and teach our children to be not what we are but what they should be
A Country Life: it is preferred for there we see the works of God whereas in cities we see works of men.
Balance: It is a common error to make an end of that which is a means and a means of that which is an end. (Satisfying an appetite is not the end of our eating)
Religion: Religion = fear of God and its demonstration on good works. Faith = root of both. Without faith we cannot please God, and we cannot fear what we do not believe. As men in battle are continually in the way of shot, so we in this world, are ever within reach of temptation. All sorts of people agree when they are humbled by the approaches of death: they that live nearest to that which they should die must certainly live best.