It is not for an honest man to make way to a good office by a crime: as if a pilot should pray for a tempest, that he might prove his skill: or a general wish his army routed, that he may show himself a great commander in recovering the day. It is throwing a man into a river to take him out again. It is an obligation, I confess, to cure a wound or a disease; but to _make_ that wound or disease on purpose to _cure_ it, is a most perverse ingratitude. It is barbarous even to an enemy, much more to a friend; for it is not so much to do him a kindness, as to put him in need of it. Of the two, let me rather be a scar than a wound; and yet it would be better to have it neither. Rome had been little beholden to Scipio if he had prolonged the Punic war that he might have the finishing of it at last, or to the Decii for dying for their country, if they had first brought it to the last extremity of needing their devotion. It may be a good contemplation, but it is a lewd wish. Æneas had never been surnamed _the Pious_, if he had wished the ruin of his country, only that he might have the honor of taking his father out of the fire. It is the scandal of a physician to make work, and irritate a disease, and to torment his patient, for the reputation of his cure. If a man should openly imprecate poverty, captivity, fear, or danger, upon a person that he has been obliged to, would not the whole world condemn him for it? And what is the difference, but the one is only a private wish, and the other a public declaration? Rutilius was told in his exile, that, for his comfort, there would be ere-long a civil war, that would bring all the banished men home again. “God forbid,” says he, “for I had rather my country should blush for my banishment than mourn for my return.” How much more honorable it is to owe cheerfully, than to pay dishonestly? It is the wish of an enemy to take a town that he may preserve it, and to be victorious that he may forgive; but the mercy comes after the cruelty; beside that it is an injury both to God and man; for the man must be first afflicted by _Heaven_ to be relieved by _me_. So that we impose the cruelty upon God, and take the compassion to ourselves; and at the best, it is but a curse that makes way for a blessing; the bare wish is an injury; and if it does not take effect, it is because Heaven has not heard our prayers; or if they should succeed, the fear itself is a torment; and it is much more desirable to have a firm and unshaken security. It is friendly to wish it in your power to oblige me, if ever I chance to need it; but it is unkind to wish me miserable that I may need it. How much more pious is it, and humane, to wish that I may never want the occasion of obliging, nor the means of doing it; nor ever have reason to repent of what I have done?