let me remember you of this Advice which was long since given me by a good man NOT TO BIND YOUR SELF UNALTERABLY TO VOLUNTARY CUSTOMS Since these are imposed upon us by our selves we may grant our selves a release when we we see it most convenient and not tye our selves unto them as if there were an indispensible obligation lying upon our conscience The rigorous observance of these doth alwayes hinder the freedom of the heart in the Love of Jesus when a better course to promote us in it doth present it self to our choice And therefore do not think there is any necessity that you should alwayes pray in the same way or pray so long or read so many Chapters in a day or study such a Book whereby you have reaped much benefit or think every day of the very same things but you are at liberty to do in these matters as shall most conduce to the ends for which they serve and that is The quickning of you to live agreeably to the Rules of Sobriety Righteousness and Godliness Be not timerous and fearful of stepping aside out of your ordinary course when you only leave what you have bound upon your self by your own will and go to do the Will of God If we can do well what matter is it though it be not in the form that we have prescribed If our business be effected why should we trouble our heads because it was not done in the order and method that we appointed Is it not a madness to deny our selves a natural happiness because we cannot have it according to the precepts of Art It is just as if a man would not speak nor hear Reason unless it be in mode and figure or as if a man would not be saved from drowning unless a friend would bring a Boat to fetch him out of the water or as if a captive Prince should refuse to satisfie his hunger unless all his servants and attendants were admitted to wait upon him What a sottish obstinacy is this thus to adhere to our Rules What a rigorous Justice is it that makes us unjust to our selves What shall we do with this scrupulous Piety which claps fetters and bolts upon our own leggs We should wonder if a man to observe some unnecessary terms of Law should suffer all Laws to perish and it is no less strange if to maintain some free impositions we sustain a loss in the most necessary improvements of our souls This extreme right is an extreme injury It would be an offence against reason not to offend here against a form And we should very much depart from God if we did not here depart a little from our selves To this let me add another thing which it will be profitable to you to be advised of which is that when you are following Jesus in acts of Justice or Charity or any of the rest you do as strongly attract and draw down the blessing of Heaven upon you as by the best devotions which you perform upon your knees You do not think I believe that they are the words which you speak that have any virtue to charm the caelestial Powers but that the Love to God which is expressed in Prayer invites him to come and dwell with you Now this Love is testified as much in other actions of an Holy Life especially when we deny our selves any sensible good in the performance of them and therefore they cannot chuse but re-inforce our Prayers and redouble our Petitions and call still for new Grace to make us able to do better Besides it is to be considered that doing of good being the use and improvement of that Grace of God which we obtain by our Prayers it must needs intitle us to the right which the Promise of God gives us of more Grace to be added unto that which we have already received We render to God hereby his own with Usury and Increase and so cannot miss of procuring more Talents to be lent unto us And indeed if you enter into a strict Examination of things you will find that every act of Virtue hath the very same effect upon the Understanding and Will which I attributed to Prayer it self For there is nothing more inlightens the Mind in the knowledge of good than the experience and taste which the practice of it gives us and the Will is so effectually determined hereby to the choice of it that it gets an habit and naturally propends unto it There is nothing can more dispose the soul to well doing than the doing well and we are never more secure of the help of Gods good Spirit than when we follow the motions of it Behold then what a dangerous Rock doth here discover it self upon which many have dasht and split themselves and perished Men think there is no Communion with God but what is held by Prayer and such like holy duties Nay as if this was all we have to do for maintaining friendship with him it hath ingrossed the name of duty and inclosed the greatest part of Religion in it self A strange conceit As if in the constant exercise of an Holy Life we did not keep a fellowship with him by doing the same that he doth and shewing forth his Virtues to the World Is there any thing more visible than that by Righteousness Charity Patience and such like we approach to God and are made partakers of him Do we not feel him by these things Are we not made one Spirit and Nature with him Doth not he dwell in us and we in him What is the reason then that men confine Divine Communion to Prayer and receiving of the Sacrament as if we never enjoyed him but in these immediate addresses to him What is it that makes them imagine God is here to be found and no where else They know not sure what it is to pray and partake of those holy My steries They fancy it is but the pouring out such a number of words or the stirring of some devout affections in them These they conceive wil put them in the favour of God and secure them there without any further labor Which hath caused it is like the corrupted Church to increase the number of Sacraments and create a great many more than God hath made For it is an easie matter to receive these Seals of Grace and there is no such repugnance to them in our fleshly nature as there is to the life of Jesus Hence it is that men would have the whole summ of Religion to be contained in these small volumes They would have all Piety cloistered up in these narrow walls and are loath to give it a larger compass Within these limits they would willingly have it confined and not have it walk abroad in our common conversation in the World But if they had any true rellish of vertue they would soon discern that these Holy Duties are preparations for whatsoever else we have to do They are so far from excluding all the
a spiritual sense This therefore breeds an absolute necessity of constant holy Meditation and devout Prayers By the one of which our mind being abstracted from and elevated beyond the things of corporeal sense is brought to a converse and familiarity with heavenly notions and by the other our Will is possessed with spiritual inclinations nay ravished into the embraces of a Divine Good Meditation furnishes our Understanding with right opinions and noble thoughts and Prayer carries our Will to the love of them and joyns our affections fast unto them By the one we are tyed in our mind and by the other in our choice to the better World This it is manifest is the natural and true use of these devout exercises to dispose our souls by drawing them away from these inferiour enjoyments to receive communications from above and to be made partakers of a Divine Nature There is no question to be made of it that God loves to impart himself to rational Beings But in what manner I beseech you can he do it unless it be by our Understandings and Wills rightly disposed And what other end therefore can these two have which put us in a fit disposition and capacity for him than to bring us to that true knowledge and love of him whereby we partake of his nature In these you must employ your self and they are to be thought more necessary than any other business but yet you see they are but the means and way to a Divine State and have something beyond themselves which they are to effect and that is the bringing of us to the life of the blessed Jesus If Prayer be not thus designed and do not produce such fruit it is so far from procuring us acceptance with God though it be top full of that Faith which relyes upon Christ that it proves a thing very fulsome and displeasing unto him It is a meer noise and clamour in his ears than which there cannot be any thing more troublesome and offensive He loves not to be disturbed with such sounds as have nothing in them but flattery and nauseous commendations of him He cares not for being extolled by such unhallowed mouths It is a great injury to him to be praised and magnified by evil doers He hates the pretences of their Friendship and loathes the complements which they load him withall He cannot indure to have his Courts filled with these impudent people lest he should be thought such an one as themselves As the Sacrifices of old were esteemed no better than Murders and all the offerings but so many butcheries which were committed when they left themselves behind and brought not their hearts and affections to be offered up to God So are all mens confident Prayers and Devotions now no better than prophanations of his Name and a kind of blasphemy or evil-speaking of him while they are enemies to the Life of God and despisers of good works They do most basely reproach him in the world by taking upon them the title of his greatest Favourites They expose him to scorn by appropriating to themselves the name of his servants There cannot be a greater wrong to him than to make men believe that he is a lover of such filthy Hypocrites You have observed no doubt that the Sacrifices in ancient times were called the Meat of God and the Food or provision that was made for his House And yet in the company of evil works they are said to be an Abomination to him and he professes that he had as lief they had brought him a Dog as offer a Lamb and that a Swine would have been as acceptable as the fattest of their Bullocks He protests that his soul abhorred their New Moons and solemn Assemblies that their Incense was an unsavoury stink and that the Fat and Blood of their Beasts were no better than their Dung and Ordure He bids them bring him no more vain oblations He saith that he was full of them and nauseated the Table that they spread for him And in plain terms he lets them know that it was to no purpose to multiply their Prayers for he could not hear them And so truly may you assure your self that though pious Prayers are now most prevalent and forcible with him yet the grunting of Swine or the howling of Wolves are altogether as welcome as the clamorous petitions of those who sue for his Love without any thorow amendment of their lives He detests those bawling worshippers who intend nothing else but to drown the cry of their sins and to make him deaf to the accusations which their iniquity brings against them Their breath is an unwholesome and infectious vapour which poisons the World and is the Pest of Religion Their meetings and assemblies are so many conspiracies against the Authority and Life of God Their words do but wound his ears and their loud cryes are but so many assaults and batteries against Heaven He hates to see those hands lifted up unto him which will instantly be lifted up against him He cannot indure they should lay hold on him and esteems such rude attempts to be the committing of a rape upon his mercy and an indeavour to force his favour He hath opened no way for such bold access unto him He rever intended to incourage such impudence Their zeal is a strange fire which kindles another in Heaven against them And notwithstanding all their fawnings upon him the Dogs which follow them to the place of their assemblies shall as soon be accepted as themselves And therefore be sure to make your Prayers touch your own heart before you expect they should reach Heaven Let them work upon your self before you assume a considence that they will have the desired effect upon God And now I have little to say concerning the hearing of Sermons reading of the Bible and other good Books which you say there are many think do compose the whole of a Religious life for it is plain enough they can have no other end than to furnish your mind with pious Meditations and dispose your will to Prayer and all other holy duties You cannot well think that these have any other place in the godly life than that of Instruments and Helps whereby to arrive at it And it is very easie to know from what hath been discoursed what Sermons are most to be regarded Not those which give your fancy a pleasure and tickle your imagination but those which powerfully enlighten your understanding and move your will to the choice of that which is right and Good There are too many of those frivolous Hearers who are more pleased with little gingles and the tinkling of words than with the most perswasive arguments which the most piercing reason in the world can urge upon their hearts But their punishment is heavy enough for this levity they being condemned for ever to be fools or children whose minds are inchanted with the Rhiming of words or with their countermarching and the ringing of
making me stand still unless you stay to obtain my consent that you may go forward in your discourse This will be the only grievous thing that can befall me while I am in your company and if you have a mind to exercise my patience it must be by suspecting me impatient of your wholesome counsels Go on Sir I beseech you and give me reasons for what I am to do but not for what I am to hear Tire me if you can with your Precepts but not with any more of your Petitions to me You shall have no cause hereafter replyed the Director to complain of that matter For a pledge of which promise you shall receive no other answer to what you have said but only this new promise That if I cannot serve you by the truth of what I say yet the liberty and freedom of my speech shall make you know that I intend to do you service by revealing to you my very heart CAP. IX A more particular Discourse of Resolution and of the manner how to form such an one as will be sound and firm LEt it be observed then that the placing of this Discourse concerning Resolution at the end of my other Counsels was not without design for I would give you to understand that it is not of any worth if it be not ushered in by precedent consideration This must lead the way or else no solid purposes will follow after You must first be well acquainted with your duty before you can resolve to contract a perpetual friendship with it Do not think that this is a note too trivial and vulgar to have a place among my instructions for I tell you truly there are but too many who when they are best disposed will resolve to do they know not what who make large promises of those things for the performance of which they are furnished with little power less will and scarce any knowledge at all They will undertake a Pilgrimage to the Holy Land before they know a foot of the way or make enquiry how far it is thither They will levy war against an enemy of whose numbers strength and policy they are utterly ignorant And what wonder then is it if they afterward let fall an enterprize that was begun rashly and to which they were not carried by their judgment but hurried by their blind and precipitant passion Of this sort the man in the Gospel seems to have been who said at the first word that he would go whither his Father bade him but afterward his fervour cooled and he thought good to take his ease and rest himself I fancy such a person to bear some resemblance to a Child who having offended his Father comes and falls upon his knees for a pardon to the grant of which the good man is already inclined But then he saith My Son you must be careful hereafter of your duty in such things as I shall require a proof of your obedience and I must injoyn you such a course of life as will keep you in my favour and finally leave you my blessing And before he can have finished half a sentence of what he hath to give him in charge the youth takes the words out of his mouth and replyes Yes Sir All shall be punctually done which you desire You shall never take me in any fault again nor have cause to complain of my disobedience I am resolved to be as observant of you in every thing as any Child in the world can be Let me but have your pardon and doubt not of my conformity to your pleasure But all this while it is the pardon upon which he hath fixed his mind and he hath so little regard to the conditions upon which it is to be bestowed that he hath not the patience to hear them particularly remembred The joy which he conceives from the hope of his Fathers love throws him headlong into a consent before he consider the instances wherein the fincerity of his heart will be tryed and brought to the test These may prove as cross to his will as to enjoy his Fathers good affection is agreeable to it and that which was so hastily resolved will not be so speedily put in execution Though he fancied that he would not stick at a thousand things to please his Father yet when he hears them named perhaps there is not one of them that will be so pleasing to himself as to find him ready to performance Such truly are the motions which many men feel in their souls while the treaty is managed between God and them concerning their return to him to Jerusalem They are very glad to hear of a truce and their hearts leap for joy to think of returning into his favour and seeing his face in that Royal City As long as the Proposals run in general terms that they must do the will of God and run the waies of his Commandments they find no difficulty to accord him his desires They readily yield to submit to his precepts and say it is pity they should live who will not serve such a Master Jerusalem is a place of such glory that while their thoughts post thither they easily leap over all the difficulties which are in their way to it But if you descend from hence to those particular differences which have been between Heaven and them if you stop them a while in their Carriere to acquaint them severally with every thing that will exercise their patience in the journey They appear as desirous in some cases to retain their own will as before they seemed forward in all to be resigned to his and it is manifest there are some courses to which their hearts are more wed than to Jerusalem They do not like things so well in the pieces as in the lump They do with their duty as men do with bitter Pills which they can swallow whole but if they chaw them prove so distastful that they are ready to spit them out again These good motions indeed enjoy the name of holy purposes and men think that now their hearts are fully set towards God but they deserve rather to be called Natural Propensions than Voluntary Purposes and are to be esteemed the Inclination of the soul rather than the Resolution For the forming therefore of this I must leave with you these three directions in which I shall comprize the safest advice that I can think of in a business of this moment First You must know that a good Resolution is never founded but upon a particular consideration of every thing that is undertaken by you after you have weighed them and proposed them to your will severally one by one And therefore you having it in your heart to go to Jerusalem think seriously how many mile it is thither and get an exact information of every step of your way to it Set down in writing every thing that is to be done and all the events which are like to meet you in every
by the help of Heaven instantly to set forth in this way which you have described If I had been born your Son I could not have thought my obligations greater to you than now I feel them Nay I shall take the liberty to say That I stand more indebted to your Piety than I do to Nature For fancy oft-times makes Parents but it is only reason truth and goodness which have tyed my heart to you And therefore since I am the issue of your mind you may justly expect a greater reverence love and obedience to your commands than if I was the issue of your body I have heard your discourse Sir with great attention I have markt every particular passage of it with diligence and care and such a gust hath every word given me which dropt from your mouth that it hath seemed to me not many minutes long It is not to be expressed how your Golden Sentence pleaseth me which you have put into my mouth I am resolved to go along this Journey chaunting it continually with no less delight than the Birds are wont to do their Melodies Nay I cannot forbear and be not weary I beseech you Sir if I hold you longer than I thought but I must here before you renounce my own proper will and protest that I desire nothing but to be what Jesus would have me and to be where Jesus you say will bring me O thou enemy of God! my self-will that hast reigned so long come down from thy Throne I proclaim War against thee and am resolved from this day forward to oppose all thy desires I set my self here in open defiance to thee I will have no peace with thee for one moment because thou-art no friend of God to whom I now deliver my self Let him be pleased to come and reign in my heart for I am absolutely his May it be his will to accept of a poor Slave that devotes all his powers to his service This I will beg of him perpetually that he would vouchsafe to let me know what his will is and that shall be my Guide though my own will be never so desirous to hold a contrary course Let it pain me or let it please me I am resolved to bind my self fast to God that he may carry me not whither I would but whither himself thinks good Say the word O my God and it is enough I am prepared to be conducted by thee Lead me whither thou wilt O thou blessed Providence thou shalt have a faithful follower of thy wise Counsels I am no longer affraid of any dangers Those terrible Monsters Poverty Reproach and all the rest do strike no dread at all into me Farewell offices and honours if you must be the recompence of crimes Farewell my friends if I must be the companion of your sins Farewell all the world if it must be the price of my soul But as for you Sir I am loath to bid you farewell I must be snatched rather than go from your company For you are my Father my Oracle a Messenger sent from God to bring me to him And if you will go to Heaven without me I pray you once more to receive my acknowledgements which testifie that I would thank you if I were able both for your former Directions and for this Patience Truly replyed the Father I think my self rather obliged to thank you most heartily that you would come to me and being come that you would hear me not only with Patience but Acceptance For there is nothing I am so greedy of as to meet with a soul that is sincerely desirous to know the way to Jerusalem neither do I know any pleasure equal to that of pouring out my heart into such thirsty minds unless it be this of seeing them rellish those Waters of Life which flow from Wisdome's lips And that same Jesus who I see hath touched your heart already with his Love and excited you to take this Journey give you his Blessing and send his Spirit the Comforter to accompany you in your travels and assign you to some good Angel of his that may conduct you to that happy place the Heavenly Jerusalem where he lives In the way to which I am so desirous you should enter that I will not be your hinderance by any further discourses but shall be very glad as I told you to find you in safety arrived there where we shall never part more nor have any cause to say this sad word Farewell Must I part then with you said the Pilgrim Here he made a pause and tears spoke the rest of his mind for I could hear never a word he said till after a great many sighs hee thus proceeded Well let it be so It is part of my duty you say to be contented with every thing And therefore I now freely resume my former resolution and say in the words I hope in the Spirit also of Jesus Not my will O Lord but thy Will be done Onely let me again renew my desires that you would accompany me ever with your good Prayers for I hope it is not too great a gratification of my self to be pleased in your friendship and in the belief that you remember me Nor will it be accounted a crime that I am not willing to be left out of your thoughts especially when they are addressed in devout supplications to Jesus I have been long perswaded that I use to prosper the better in all my designes for the good wishes of pious persons and it hath been some support to me also when I have had no great store of good desires in my own heart or been but cold in those I had to think that the concerns of my soul were presented to God by some Friend or other in their more fervent Devotions And therefore it will be at the most but a pardonable error if I do with some Passion beg the prayers of such a person as you are and if I comfort my self sometimes with the interess I have in you and them Especially since I see by your charitable instructions and the patience you have used towards me that you have an heart so full of Love and Goodness that it will neither suffer you to remember me coldly nor to be weary in recommending me to the Grace of God The Father would not make any long reply to these words for fear they should never break off but be alwayes linkt together by the chains of this pleasing conversation and the delight which he perceived began to spring up in him by the interchanging so many expressions of their mutual Love But after he had assured him by a solemn promise that he would never fail to commend him to the love and care of Jesus they took their leave one of the other not without a great many embraces and hearty wishes to see each other again in peace at Jerusalem You may be sure the Pilgrim could not but often reflect with a sad heart upon this
that he is our Lord and we his Subjects and that after all our search we find our Happiness to lye in him alone and in separation from him the best condition in the world will leave us miserable And he had not long pondered upon these things with much satisfaction before those words of the Psalmist came into his mind He that offereth praise glorifieth me Psal 50.21 and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the Salvation of God Which made him fall into the praises of God and to resolve that he would do so every day and early design all the imployments of it to his service concluding that whilst he held this course and ordered his wayes aright he exalted God in the world by lifting up his Will into a preheminence and command over his own subjecting himself unto it both as most supreme and also wise and good And after a great many thoughts of this nature at last he made a short reflection upon the person who had made him this visit in the night And when he remembred that he fancied it was his Friend who came to his Bed-side he had a new pleasure to think of the benefits of Sleep The praises of which he could not upon this occasion forbear though at certain times he wished his thoughts might never be intermitted by it What an heavenly power said he is this for so I am ready to call it how much am I beholden to it for its silent refreshments That which useth to part the dearest friends hath now brought them together That which separateth those who touch each other hath made those near who are far asunder O Divine Gift O beloved Rest which God bestows upon us How great are these charms which lock our doors to all the World and now have opened them to my friend How much better are these dreams then many of my waking thoughts How much rather had I be in the arms of the brother of death then in the feeble injoyments of many parts of my life I am content just now to be restored to his embraces if my Friend will but meet me there again in this manner At least I hope I may conclude that when we are Dead indeed he will not fail to meet me whose Image finds me out when I am in the Images of death CAP. XXVII How the Pilgrim fell into a great sadness and how strangely it was cured by an unexpected meeting with his Guide Who discourses of the nature of sensible joyes And at last upon his desire contracts a particular Friendship with the Pilgrim IN such thoughts or rather dreams as these he spent a little portion of his time with great delight And now having vanquished so many enemies and impediments in his way of divers sorts he was willing to believe that he should be molested no more but pass in perfect peace to the Vision of Peace A great many dayes he remained in these pleasant expectations and went a good way onwards to his resting place without the least weariness of any part about him He seldome departed from meditation but either with his mind illuminated with new light from heaven or his will inflamed with a new ardor or his whole heart steeped in new sweetness And though sundry new enemies also attempted him yet such a profound peace seemed to have taken possession of his heart that they could not move the least disturbance there The joyes that he felt made him despise all baits of pleasure which lay in his way The Conquests which he had got made him think himself above the scorn and laughter of the World And though he was sometimes bitterly reproached yet he comforted himself with this that they did but prepare him matter for new triumphs But he could never be drawn to any other contests wherein the Generality of men were then very zealously ingaged nor did he affect any Victories among the disputers of the World He lived in love and peaceableness with all his fellow-travellers He thought himself so rich also in these graces that it was no trouble to him to be poor And he had such a sense from whence he received them that they were no temptation neither to be proud But yet for all this it chanced that some exercises of Devotion to which he had bound himself being one day omitted either through indisposition or by reason of some lawful if not necessary occasions which diverted him he was cast into such a pensiveness of mind as proved at last a great affliction to him For he indulged to himself those thoughts because they pleased him at first but by too frequent reflections they grew to a melancholy mood and from thence proceeded to a dull and listless temper of Spirit In this condition you must needs think his joyes were again abated which added very much to the trouble of his mind and indeed they fell in time to so low an ebb that he feared they would never rise again but leave him at last quite dry and without one drop of comfort And so truly in the issue of things it proved for as they forsook him so he was tempted again to forsake his way which was now become but irksome to him without those refreshments The pleasure and rellish that he was wont to feel in holy duties was quite gone In stead of clearness there succeeded darkness dryness of spirit took the place of affection and in the room of joy and gladness he was loaded with nothing but groans and heaviness He often professed that he could feel nothing at all but remained as a man that had lost the use of his soul And therefore though he continued for a while to pray and perform his duty in other things as well as he could yet finding that he was but like a man that drinks very much when the liquor hath no tast and gives him no pleasure in the going down he was tempted to throw it all away and thought he had as good not do those things at all as do them with no delight And accordingly he gave up himself wholly to be tortured by his own thoughts which imployed themselves in nothing else but making sad representations of the misery of this state which you must needs think was so grievous that it is not possible to draw a picture of it For since the soul is of far greater force then the body the pains and anguish which arises in it must needs be far more pungent and afflictive then those which touch the outward man He suffered a kind of Martyrdom every day or rather he was continually crucified and had nothing but Gall and Vinegar given him to drink He thought he had reason when he complained of greater pains then the Martyrs endured For they being inwardly illuminated and touched from heaven found the highest comforts in their torments the greatest liberty in their imprisonments and in the midst of flames the divinest ardors of Love in their hearts
there is no small satisfaction unless it be no pleasure to be united to his Will which is inseparably united to the highest pleasures You must give me leave to wonder a little that you should be so forgetful And I must tell you it was very mis becoming your condition to take it ill that you were not treated ever since I left you according to your own desires Might it not have satisfied your mind to find your self in the direct way to abiding and never-fading Joyes Could you not have thought it Happiness enough to look for perfect peace and repose at last in Jerusalem Nay might it not seem very reasonable for a sinner to submit to so small a punishment if you will have it so termed as to travel sometimes in a rainy day What arrogance is this that we who have so oft offended should take offence if we be remembred of it But that which seems more strange to me than any thing else is that after you had resigned your self to your Saviours Will in this particular you should fall into the same trouble if not fault again You have tought me this by it that I must expect to find my Patients sometimes afflicted with the same disease which I had cured and persecuted with the same scruples which they themselves had satisfied For else you that travelled thorow a sandy and barren desart once before would not have been so dejected at the sight of a new one and when you could find no water in it you would have refreshed your thoughts as you were wont to do with the remembrance of Jerusalem But that I may never find you cast upon your Bed by a relapse into this sickness any more let me give you a larger account of these Joyes the want of which hath been so grievous to you I remember once that I met with a man that thought he wanted not above two or three steps of the Gate of Jerusalem though afterward I much questioned whether he knew any thing of the place yea that imagined himself now and then to be caught up into Paradise He was Angelical in his discourse and more than Angelical in his own conceit for he spoke of nothing but Extasies and Raptures and such like things that are by some men much exalted above the trifles as they esteem them of Obedience I endeavoured to learn of him what might be the ground of such an high confidence of his nearness to God and all that he was able to tell me amounted to no more but this that he was so full of Joy that his soul was ready to burst its prison and escape to Heaven Now though you are not of this Enthusiastical temper yet perhaps you think there are no finer or more desirable things than these Joyes for Heaven to bestow upon you judging of their worth and the divineness of them by the delight wherewith they entertain you But I must teach you another Lesson and instruct you to set a price upon them by another measure and that is The good they make you do If these Joyes do not spur you to Obedience and make you fruitful in every good work they are not of such value as you imagine and if in the absence of them you mind your duty and do the Will of God it is as well if not better because you do the same that you did before only you have less encouragement to do it Nay more than this I must let you know that these are things which God bestows upon the most imperfect souls who are as yet not able to go but only to creep in the way to Heaven They are the sweet Milk which he sends us out of his breasts when we are as yet but Babes and in the infancy of Religion He consults our weakness in these gifts and considers that as a child while it wants teeth and strength to feed it self must be nourished with Milk so the Soul till it be able to understand the Gospel and feed upon the solid Truths thereof must be entertained a while with this thinner dyet which is most agreeable to its affectionate part And withall he provides hereby that the heart which hath left the pleasures of the world may not be discouraged at the first entrance into his wayes for want of some other pleasures which it cannot well be without because it hath been so long used to them and which it cannot yet find in Religion it self because that is a thing of which it hath but a very childish understanding And can you think now that God is not good to such a person as you who have been so long a servant to him You see he is so far from letting grown souls be without comfort that it is a thing he doth not deny to the most puling creatures and those who are but Novices in the Spiritual Life Or Do you think that he loves those best to whom he grants this kind of Consolation I might as well imagine that the Gardner which I passed by the other day in my Travels loved the young Plants best which brought him no profit because I observed him to water and fence and underprop those tender things whilst he exercised no such care about the well-grown Trees which used to load themselves and him every year with their fruit Alas it is their weakness that requires this attendance upon them and God powres these things upon imperfect souls when others have none of them not because he loves them more but because they have more need So you remember your Mother used to deal with your little Infant Sister to swaddle her and dandle her and kiss her and sing to her and find out a thousand little toyes to please her when you were left to dress your self and study better satisfactions which yielded you the more pleasure because you contributed something by your own labour to the finding of them For the Love of God let us not accuse him in this fashion of unkindness nor fancy that he frowns and scouls upon us because we have not those smiles with which in our feeble age he was wont to look upon us and cherish us You are past these things and want nothing but this understanding to make you a grown man in Christ Jesus But consider I beseech you do you not feel him do far better things for you than all the Joyes that ever you had amount unto He feeds you perhaps with harder meat than Milk but it gives you more nourishment and greater strength with more spirit and vivacity also if heartily imbraced Do you not understand more by a thousand parts than formerly you did Are you not able with greater constancy to beat off all Temptations of the flesh and the world Have you not your passions in a better command And are not your Faith and Hope more rational things so that you are able to render to any body an intelligent account of them Be contented then for what greater thing
deceive and cheat you with its dissimulations while you are in this state endeavouring to slubber over negligence under the pretext of I cannot do any more It is true we are not tyed to that which we cannot do but yet the flesh will sometimes juggle and complain of impotence when there is nothing hinders us but only Sloth Here you must look upon your self with a great many eyes you must become your own spy and narrowly watch the most secret motions of your heart For this Eve that is within us is so desirous to be cherished and pleased to be walking up and down the Garden and to be eating of the forbidden fruit that she wants not a thousand inventions to make us believe that her demands do not extend to superfluities but only to things necessary for us that she doth not desire ease and pleasure so much as rest from hard labours and she is in a mighty chafe if we will not give a perfect credit to her She perswades us sometime that we are much weaker than in truth we can affirm our selves to be She tells us that we cannot with safety think of any thing else but her and is not willing to let us make a tryal She bids us attend only to her quiet and satisfaction and not suffer the mind to disturb her repose at all And the more we humour and gratifie her desires the more still she bemoans her self to move our pitty towards her It concerns us therefore to be careful in observing what good it is that we can then perform without a manifest prejudice to our health and to make provision that it be not neglected by means of the heavy complaints of laziness and sloth Look up unto Jesus as often as you can Tell him in the secrets of your soul that you heartily love him Open your very bosome to him and shew how desirous you are to be more conform'd unto him by this affliction Pray him to come and ransack your heart and to throw out of doors whatsoever is offensive to him Let him know that you had rather not only be sick but dye a thousand times than not be friends with him And so entreat him to take pitty upon you Promise him to do whatsoever he would have you And exhort all others of your acquaintance that they would love and serve him more than you can do And this let me add for your comfort that sometimes he bestows more favours upon sick men in their Beds who can pray in no other manner but by the humiliations and prostrate submissions of their Wills to him than he doth upon some others who spend many hours on their bended knees in that holy exercise And do not despair I beseech you of receiving this mercy though you think your self never so unworthy of it since it costs him no more but only his Will to bestow it With these and such like Discourses the Good man entertained his friend in this sickness for many dayes which put the time into a speedier pace than otherwise it would have pass'd away Though he kept his Bed for some weeks yet the hours did not seem at all tedious to him but rather fled away as fast as he used before to do himself So happy a thing it is to have a partner in our troubles and the assistance of another shoulder beside our own to bear our griefs Good Discourses are like the breath of Heaven which when the burdned Vessel feels she cuts her way through all the waves and never complains of the greatness of her burden Nay they proved to him like the cool Air which refreshes the gasping Traveller in a hot day making his very body feel its leggs the sooner by the delicate touches which they gave unto his Spirit All the Art of his Doctors and an whole Apothecaries shop had not been able to restore his consumed flesh so easily and in such a little space of time as these Soveraign Cordials which distilled from the Good mans lips and were drawn he felt from the very bottome of his heart I have wondred sometimes when I considered the suddenness of his recovery for though he lay some weeks in a feeble condition it was because he did not at first receive these Medicines which so soon as he tasted he became another man and seemed to have a New Essence infused into him It is no new piece of Philosophy but an Axiome older than Hippocrates and which calls Solomon that great Physician its Father Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop Pro. 12.25 but a good word maketh it glad And in another place of his Aphorisms we read that A merry heart doth good to a Medicine Pro. 17.22 but a broken spirit dryeth the bones CAP. XXIX Of the trouble which the Pilgrim was in about some business which had layn neglected during his sickness Of his desires after a contemplative Life Of Solitude The Profit of it especially at the beginning of our Christian course And how they that enjoy it do not find all the satisfaction which they expected in it BEing able therefore by the good inspirations of his friend whose mouth he acknowledged was a Well of Life to go about the house Pro. 10.11 He spent as much time as he was able in praising God instructing the servants and doing good to all his neighbours not neglecting any duty which God or man required of him But so it was that having been long sick there were some necessary businesses in which both he and his friend were concerned that had layn as long as himself without any regard These called very importunately upon him for his attendance and being very weighty and requiring quick dispatch would not cease to sollicite more of his thoughts than he was willing to allow them It will be of no use to tell you what they were but it may be sufficient to let you know that they were of such moment that without a manifest wrong both to himself and others he could by no means put them off nor make them rest contented with a cold and slow management of them And yet from hence his mind took occasion to spring a new doubt which he had not power to remove himself till he had made it known to his Friend though his affairs were not so urgent but that they left him a little leisure to consider of that which might have given him some satisfaction For whensoever a crowd of little occasions throng'd in upon him and would not be denyed his company then he began to frown upon himself because he did not find so much vacancy as his heart desired for private Prayer and Recollection To this the Father said as soon as he had eased himself of the scruple by telling of it that for his part he was very glad to find he had such a vehement love for retired thoughts and secret converse with God and that he sighed so much after it as far more delightful to
sayes and Faces are but a Gallery of Pictures and Talk but a Tinkling Cymbal where there is no love Nay so natural is this to us and withall so sweet that I believe there is no man in the World who for all the wealth in it would be bound to love no body and to be beloved of none He was going on to some further discourses on this subject when the other cryed out Hold do not wholly impoverish this argument but leave something for me to say who am abundantly satisfied that there is nothing comparable to this which hath been the cause of my trouble I will never blame my self more for exceeding too much in this sort of love I plainly see that Mediocrity which every where else is counted a Vertue doth here become a Vice I am more then converted by your excellent discourse I must turn Proselyte to him who said That he would have the Affection of Friends appear rather a Passion then a Vertue That Friendship hath nothing more excellent in it then excess and that it doth rather offend in the Moderation then in its Violence and extremity And here he began to invent all the Praises he could of Friendship which he called The top and perfection of Love the Soul of the World the Spirit of Nature the bond of Society the marriage and happy union of agreeing minds the life and joy of mankind the relief of our sorrows the Physitian of all our secret griefs our Buckler in all assaults our Oracle in our doubts the Governor and Tutor of a prosperous condition the Comforter of a declining fortune without which the greatest happiness would be irksome to us and in whose company the greatest affliction cannot make us miserable He reflected also very happily on this that it was one of the last things that Jesus himself did in this world to make a Friendship between two great persons his blessed Mother and his beloved Disciple These he remembred our Lord would have to live together like Mother and Son which he thought imported such a dearness between them as would justifie the height of his affection And then he cryed out Thou O Divine Love art the nature of God the life of Angels the employment of Heaven By knowing thee I know what it is that I owe to God and I now also know Jerusalem better where they exercise the Noblest Friendships I will never fear thee any more for I see thou wilt secure my duty to God and it will be strange if my Neighbours be not better for thee who art alwayes instigating me to do good What though I be chained more to one person then another you need not think O sons of men that I shall thereby become less charitable to you For my love finding here a continual employment and constant exercise for it self I am the more disposed and ready when occasion serves to express it to you all My retirements cannot work its decay but in the greatest privacy this friendship keeps any rust from growing over it and preserves it pure and bright for the use of others too I love you all wheresoever you dwell on the face of the whole earth I stretch out my hands to you from one Pole to the other wishing I could do you good And though I cannot reach you every one yet my love gives me the comfort of this assurance that God is with you who as he hath a greater love so a greater ability to help you all But his Guide who was better acquainted with his duty then himself thought it best to bring him out of this Rapture because he saw that he would immerse himself too far in the pleasure of this contemplation and likewise thought it was not safe to gratifie themselves with too much of this Honey at once He prayed him therefore to lay aside this discourse a while and to divert himself with the observation of some of those flowers and plants wherewith they saw the earth strewed as they went along For sure said he these were not made for us to tread upon nor only to feed our eyes with their grateful Variety or to bring a sweet odor to our Noses but there is a more internal beauty in them for our minds to prey upon did we but let them penetrate beyond the surface of these things into their hidden properties You are a Christian it is confessed but doth that make you cease to be a Man You read the Gospel of our Saviour but must that give a discharge to all our rational inquiries into the Book of Nature Doth the new Creation intend to destroy the old Or because we behold God in the face of Christ must we look upon him no where else No such matter there is a more antient obligation upon you to study the Works of God of which you ought to quit your self while you study his Word It is an honour to the School of Christ when his Disciples are skill'd in all Wisdom He is such a Master as would not have us know other things the less but the more by knowing him And so they began to pry into many curiosities which several of the Creatures they met withall presented to them not without a great astonishment at that infinite understanding that was the Contriver of them And having once tasted of this kind of Learning he often wished that it was in his power to understand more of his own Body of the motions of the Sun Moon and other Stars with many things besides in this great Fabrick wherein he knew God had hid great treasures of Wisdom and ingraven a fair Image of himself Yea he conceived the whole World sometimes a great Temple and himself one of the Priests that God had placed therein to offer up the Praises of all the Creatures and acknowledge his Wisdom his Power his Goodness which are conspicuous in the frame of them And though he could acquire but a very small knowledge of some of them yet it was a great pleasure to see that there were many more intelligent Priests then himself and more acquainted with Natures Mysteries who rendred to God continually better Praises and called upon all his works in all places of his Dominion to bless his Holy name CAP. XXXVII How after this the Pilgrim fell into a conceit that he did not profit in Vertue and how his Guide rid him of it That we must not make too much haste to perfection but go leisurely in our way How afterward he feared that he should never hold out to the end of his journey Of the confident zeal which some men are possessed withall A beginning of a new discourse about Faith AND now would you think after he had gone thus farr that he should be troubled with such an odd fancy as this That he did not profit at all in Vertue Yet so it was that one day he seriously told his Friend He could not perceive that he had done any thing worthy of himself or