the substance that feeds it so love goeth out by too much plenty of aliment But though love and pleasure could maintaine themselves in the excesse neither body nor mind losing any thing of their vigour yet there would be more losse then gaine in it for fervent passion troubleth the serenitie of the soul and any thing that subjecteth the understanding to the appetite degradeth the soule of her excellency especially when the appetite is meerely sensual Because in conjugal life two loves meete the love of the sexe and the love of society It will be a wise course to tye the last with all the bonds of benevolence These bonds are piety sweet conversation tender care of the beloved person patience to beare with her infirmities and a little winking not to see all that might diminish love omitting nothing to make the best of a bargaine which cannot be undone That indissoluble knot which unto fooles makes marriage a heavy yoake is unto the wise a helpe to contentment for by that necessity they are taught to love what they must love to seeke their delight in their duty The greatest fervour of love is not in matrimony for there one hath alwayes at hand wherewith to coole his thirst nor in unlawfull lust where also one knowes how to allay his heat though with the detriment of his conscience but in woing in longing desires tending to mariage That heat is increased by the lawfulnes of the end and the suggestion of a bewitched reason unto the conscience that one that loveth honestly cannot love too much And if that heat meet with opposition it increaseth againe by difficulty and often there is more love where there is lesse hope Quó que minùs sperat hôc magis ille cupit Passion will frame in a mans fancy an advantageous image of the beloved object which stands continually before him appears to him in dreames breakes his sleepe interrupts his best thoughts and his most important businesses makes his spirit a sea in perpetual agitation and his most quiet intervalls are sadnes and a browne study The worst is that God is forgotten and the love of heaven is put out by the love of the world Many not onely of the vulgar sort but of the bravest mindes having split their ship upon this rock there is need of extraordinary care to avoyd it So much greater because our Christian Philosophers have taken lesse care to appropriate their remedies to this sicknesse for when they inveigh against carnal and vicious love those lovers who are persuaded that their love is all vertuous because they would not though they could unlawfully possesse the beloved person esteeme that these censures belong not to them And yet God knoweth that their love is too carnal though they were virgins in their very thoughts for even the immoderate love of a mother to her child is carnal and vicious They need then to be put in mind that their love cannot be pure in the quality as long as it exceeds in the quantity excesse of love for a worldly object being a most impure quality for that Master-love which rules in the soul and brings all other Passions under is due unto God alone who will be loved with all our heart with all our soul with all our strength and with all our understanding This the Lord Jesus calls the first and the great commandement The great because it is the chiefe duty of man which comprehends all other duties And the first because it is a comment upon the first precept of the law Thou shalt have none other Gods but me As then we must adore none but God alone we must love none but God alone with that Master-love which gives to another the soverainty over ourselves for that love is a true adoration whereby all the faculties of the soul bow and prostrate themselves before the beloved object When carnall love is the Master-love in a soul then the soul hath another God then the true God and that Passion makes a burnt-offering of the heart to a false God some weake sinfull creature Certainly those impetuous burning fits of carnal love are violent rapines of the proper rights of God for to him belongeth the heart and upon him those raptures and strong agitations of love should have beene bestowed him onely we ought to love with all our soul and with all our strength O how farre are these violences from those which must take the Kingdome of God by force And how many teares and plaints of smarting remorse must fond lovers powre to doe penance for so many teares and plaints of carnal love that opinatre imbecillity whereby a man pines and torments himselfe for the love of another Sometimes these two sorts of teares proceeding out of such different causes have met together in generous and religious soules who being transported with those violences of humane love were at the same time strongly moved with godly jealousy the conscience grieving and expostulating with the Appetite for yeelding unto any but God the seignory of the heart Then the love of God opprest in the heart under the weight of the world and the flesh powerfully bestirred himselfe and getting strength by opposition overcame that rivall love and became in the end Master of the place But alas one victory doth not end the combat For carnal love when we think that it is shut out will re-enter having the porters of the soul the senses on his side which open the gate to its objects without the leave of reason and help it to make strong impressions upon the fancy Whereas the immaterial beauty of God hath no help from the senses makes no impression upon the imagination but in recompense it doth immediately illuminate the understanding and work upon the affections and so sanctifyeth and strengtheneth them that after many combats carnall love is subdued And if it pleade nature for staying with us yet it is brought to such a subjection that it moveth no more but orderly and within the limits of piety and reason possessing but such a parcel of the affection as it pleaseth the love of God to allow nature to hold under him The limits and rules of reason about the choice of the subject of that love are possibility lawfullnesse and conveniency The measure of love must be according to the price of the subject But when it comes to wedlock another measure is requisite that of oblgiation and duty before wedlock love is prone to overvalue his subject Let lovers remember that the most perfect persons are humane creatures therefore a humane love is fit for them not a divine service for then we serve them as God alone must be served when we make them Mistrisses of our heart Take the best of them their beauty will fade their sweetnesse will sowre and their persons must dye this bates much of their price Faire Diamonds would not be so deare if they could grow pale and weare out Know once the most
it will please them to provoke us to anger Yet a wiseman may expresse indignation without anger and an effectual vigour making others tremble himselfe standing unmooved Out of the anger of others wee may fetch three good uses The first is to learne to hate that passion and take heed of it seeing how it is imperious and servile together ugly unbecomming unreasonable hurtful to others and more to a mans selfe The second use is to gather carefully the wholesome warnings which an angry adversary will give us for he will be sure to tell us all the evill he seeth in us which ourselves see not A benefit not to be expected from our discreet friends The third is the noblest use To study the science of discerning the spirits considering with a judicious eye the several effects of every mans anger for no passion discovereth so much the nature of persons It layeth a man starke naked Ifone be a contemner of God as soone as he is angry he will be sure to wreake his anger upon God with blasphemies If he have piety and ingenuity he will make them pleade for him but lamely as discomposed by anger If he be a coward he will insult over the weake and if he find resistance you shall see him threaten and tremble together like base dogs then barking most when they runne away If he be haughty his anger will expresse it selfe in a malignant smile and he will boast of his blood and valour The occasions of anger will better discover what a man is inclined unto for every one will be sooner moved for those things where he is most interessed As in anger so in reconciliation a discerning eye will reade a character of the several humours The vaine and haughty man after he hath done wrong stands upon reparation The baseminded man is threatened into submissions after the injury received The covetous wretch will have reparation in money and puts a rate upon every bastinado The conscionable meeke and generous man is facile both in giving and receiving satisfaction and easily pardons another mans anger his owne with much adoe From this let us reflect to the first use that wee must make of the anger of others He that will mind well how wrath betrayes a man and layeth open his infirmities and how the man that hath no rule over his owne spirit is like a citty that is broken downe and without walles will fence himselfe against that treacherous passion by Christian meekenes and moderation and will learne to be wise by his neighbours harme To that meekenes we shal be much helped by the remembrance of our sins whereby we daily provoke God and for which wee mought have bin cast headlong into hell long agoe but that he is slow to wrath and abundant in goodnesse Exod. 34.6 To expect that God our father be slow to wrath towards us while we are hot to wrath against our brethren is the extremity of injustice and unreasonablenesse To conclude since we seeke here our tranquility which we have found every where inseparably conjoyned with our duty let us observe our Saviours precept grounded upon his example Matth. 11.29 Learne of me that I am meeke and lowly in heart and ye shall finde rest unto your soules That way the Lord Jesus the great Master of wisedome found rest unto his soul the same way shall wee finde rest to ours CHAP. XII Of Aversion Hatred and Revenge AVersion is the first seed of Hatred and hath a larger extent for hatred regards onely persons or actions but many have Aversions for unreasonable or inanimate things wherefore those Aversions are commonly unreasonable whether it be out of naturall antipathy or out of fancy wantonnesse Persons subject to those Aversions have commonly more Passion then reason and are such as are made tender and are soft spirited by ease Ladies have many antipathyes but among country wives and milkmayds you shall find but few that will swound at the sight of a spider or a frog A wise man must impartially examine those Aversions if he have any whether they consist in fancy or nature and not flatter himselse in such capricious weakenesses He shall do much for his rest and credit if he can weane himselfe altogether from them He that can command himselfe to have no Aversion of which he may not give a reason will traine his passion that way to have no unreasonable Hatred against any person Hatred is an indignation for an injury received or imagined or for an ill opinion conceived of a person or action This description is common to it with anger Herein they differ that anger is sudden and hath a short course but hatred is meditated at leasure and is lasting Also that anger seeks more a mans vindication then the harme of others but hatred studieth the harme of adversaries Hatred as anger is a compound of pride and sadnesse I meane the vicious hatred and the most common It proceeds likewise out of ignorance of ones selfe and the price and nature of things This Philosophy we learne of St. John 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hates his Brother is in darknesse and knowes not whither he goes because that darknesse hath blinded his eyes for ignorance is the darknesse of the soul As then blind men are commonly testy the blindnesse of ignorance will make men prone to hate their neighbours and hatred afterwards increaseth that blindnesse By the same ignorance whereby we love some persons and things without knowledge and reason we hate also some persons and things without reason and many will choose rather to lose a friend then a shilling Hatred is naturally good serving to make us avoyd things hurtfull and it is morally good when we use it to oppose that which is contrary to the Soveraine good which is God When we hate that which God hateth we cannot do amiss so that we be very certaine that God hates it such are the unjust habits and actions condemned by his word and by that law of nature written in mans heart But as for the persons because we have no declaration of Gods love and hatred to this or that man we must love them all and never feare to offend God by loving that which he hateth for we cannot offend him by obeying his commandement Now he commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves No doubt but we must love many persons which God hateth neither will it be time to hate them till we have heard the sentence of Gods personall hatred pronounced against them I say Gods personal hatred because there is a hatred of iniquity in God against those that oppose his glory which obligeth us to hate them also with that hatred of iniquity and to oppose them vigorously as long as they oppose God Of that hatred spake David when he said Psal 139.21 Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect hatred
offereth to signe and seale and the other refuseth it there is no agreement Whosoever then will covenant with God and enjoy his peace must to his power keepe his conscience cleare from all willful violations of the conditions of the agreement For since this covenant is often termed in Scripture a mariage our soule which is the spouse of Christ must give herselfe to him as Christ gives himselfe to her else the mariage is voyd for it is the mutual consent that makes the mariage Whereupon one may say that God is more good then wee are wicked and that while wee breake the contract God remaineth faithfull and leaves us not every time that wee leave him Truly there is great need of that otherwise this spiritual mariage would soon end in divorce But you know that when the faith of matrimony is violated betweene husband and wife although they be not divorced love decreaseth on both sides what remaines of it is sowred with jealous grudges and peace dwells no more in that house It fareth so with us when wee violate the faith and love which wee owe unto God by doing that which is displeasing unto him God doeth not presently give us the Letter of divorce and his constancy stands firme against our ficklenes but he discontinueth the inward testimonies of his love and his peace recedeth from us then wee dare no more seeke our delight in him and cannot finde it any where else pastimes make us sad and when wee take the aire and shift place to find ease we are not eased because we carry our burden along with us a sad weight upon our heart a bosome-accuser within we come to the duty of prayer against stomack and returne from it without comfort It is certain that the eternal covenant of God cannot be disanulled by the sins of men as St Paul saith that the unbeleefe of the Jewes could not make the faith of God without effect Rom. 3.3 But I speak not here of the eternal decree of God but of the offer made of his Covenant unto the conscience by the word of God and his spirit which covenant many lightly embrace and then break it having not maturely considered before upon what conditions it was offered Who so then will keep the peace of his conseience and his confidence with God must carefully keep himselfe from all things that displease his holy eyes and turne away his gratious countenance lest when our need or our duty calls us to draw neere him by prayer we feele our selves pulled back by a guilty feare Let us walk in his presence with such simplicity and integrity that at all times we may say with David Psalm 26.5 I will wash my hands in innocency and compasse thine altar O Lord That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works O Lord I have loved the habitation of thy house See what serenity what liberty of Spirit he had got by his innocency He goeth streight to the Altar of God he rejoyceth in his praise he delighted in his house he will choose it for his habitation Evill consciences are not capable of such a freedom with God David in this Text alluded to the forme of the Sanctuary which had a Laver in the entry where the Priests before they came neere the Altar were to wash themselves We also that we may keep our free accesse unto Christ our Altar must wash our hearts in innocency If we go not through the laver we misse our way to the Altar St. Paul regarded this Figure when he said 1. Tim. 2.8 I will that men pray every where lifting up pure hands It is true that to lift up our hands pure unto God we have need to wash them in a better innocency then our own and the purest have need to be washt in the blood of Jesus Christ David himselfe having said that he would wash his hands in innocency Psalm 26. and soon after but as for me I will walke in mine integrity immediately upon that prayeth to God to redeeme and have mercy upon him Yet God requires our innocency which he examines as a gratious Father not as a severe Judge he lookes more to the sincerity of our hearts then the perfection of our actions giveing his peace to the penitent soules void of hypocrisy Psalm 32.2 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity and in whose spirit there is no guile That walketh before God with feare knowing his infirmities and together in confidence knowing Gods mercy and the certainty of his promises That hath no evil end and corrupteth not his good ends by evill wayes That chooseth rather to miss the advancements of the world then to shrink back from his duty to God ready to suffer the losse of all things that he way keep him That lookes upon his temporal goods without remorse because among them he seeth nothing ill gotten and upon his neighbours goods without envy because he hath taken the Lord for his portion who is rich to all that call upon him Rom. 10.12 His words agree with his heart and his actions with his duty He brings his affections captive under the the feare of God boweth his will under Gods will and makes all his ends to stoope under the interest of Gods glory Hee that doth these things shall never be moved Whatsoever becomes of his temporal condition which is better settled by integrity then by all the tricks of the craftiest pates he shall possesse a firme serene equal and tranquil spirit He shall have peace in warre and calme in the storme knowing that no evil can befall him so long as he is well with God CHAP. X. Of the exercise of Good works TO have a holy and tranquill conscience it is not enough for us not to do evil we must do good These two dutyes may be distinguished but not severed He that doth no good of necessity doth evill for it is ill done to do no good God made us not onely that we should not sinne For that it would have bin sufficient to have given us the nature of plants or stones but he hath given us an intelligent active nature that we might use it to know and love and serve our Maker And since he made us after his image for which reason Adam is called the Son of God Luk. 3. if we wil be like our Father which is in heaven we must study to do good for he doth good continually even when he sends evill which he makes an instrument of good whether it be for justice or mercy Psalm 26.10 All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth and such all our pathes should be To this we are more especially called by our redemption whereby we are restored into the right of Gods children which we had lost and are purchased to be his servants God did not adopt us that we should be idle children Christ did not purchase us that we should be unprofitable
kingdome of God within the soule Blessed and holy is he that hath it and to him is next in happinesse and holinesse he that sincerely endeavoreth to get it and to that end yeelds to God the raines of his affections brings his will under Gods will and humbly invites him to fixe his dwelling beare rule within his breast It is the end that I aim at in this worke And I beseech the God of peace so to blesse and honour it as to make it an instrument to work His peace in the souls of his servants beginning at my soule To that work every Christian ought to put his hand as he loveth God and himselfe To which wee are the more induced and in a manner compelled by the contrariety of the Time While the storme of warre or intestine dissensions is raging in all parts of the world not leaving one safe corner for peace the wise Christian must take sanctuary in that inward peace that peace of God which though it passe all understanding yet will dwell in the understanding and the affections of those that faithfully seek it and keep both hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ Get once God within you you have a shelter at home against all injuryes abroad as he that in a tempestuous raine flyes into a Church and in Gods house finds peace and safety whilst the whole aire abroad is enflamed with lightnings and roaring with thunder and the land floods are hurling down houses drowning sheep and shepheards and destroying the long hopes of the Husbandmans labour For the faithfull soul is Gods Temple which he graceth by his presence and blesseth with his peace not suffering it to be removed though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea This peace at home in which our duty and our happinesse are concentred is an inviting subject for a diligent contemplation Let us examine wherein consisteth the true peace of the soul and contentment of mind and how wee must keepe peace with God with our selves with our neighbours in adversity in prosperity and in all the occurrences of life CHAP. II. Of the Peace of Man in his integrity and the losse of that peace by sinne THe fundamentall rule of great reformations is to bring things to their beginning By that rule that wee may know the true peace of God and how wee may get it wee must cast back our sight upon the beginning how God gave it to man and how he lost it soone after And here wee must use that which the Spirit sayd unto the Churches Rev. 2.5 Remember whence thou art fallen and repent Man newly created after Gods likenes was in perfect peace with him for God making an image of himselfe would not have made it dissenting from him and peace is a prime lineament of Gods Image That first human soule recently breathed out of Gods mouth followed with delight the fresh and pure traces of his divine production and man finding in himselfe the likness of his Creator tooke a great joy and glory to compare that copy with the original That moving image of God did imitate his actions as doth the image of our body in a glasse And whereas in the worke of regeneration St Paul saith that the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and that he is created after God in righteousnes and true holines it followes that the first man was created such since wee learne that such must be the renewing of man to be created againe after the image of God These lively expresses of the image of God knowledge righteousnes and holines could not be in that first man without an entire peace and consonance with his Creator And having peace with God he had it also with himselfe His desires were not at variance with his fears nor his knowledge with his actions His thoughts belyed not his words His cupidity did not draw against his conscience his conscience layd no accusation against him From that good intelligence with God and with himselfe he could not but reape a great content in his mind that content also being a lineament of the image of God to whom as holines so happines is natural and essential For that contentment of mind he got no smal contribution from the beauty and plenty of Nature smiling upon him and the willing submission of all animals flocking about him as loving subjects meeting to wellcome their new Soveraign For his peace with God kept all creatures in peace and obedience under him Abroad the clemency of the aire and the pleasantnes of a garden of Gods planting delighted him And at home his familiarity and free accesse to his Maker filled him with joy and confidence And his original righteousnes if he could have kept it would have perpetuated that blessed peace unto him for peace is the most proper effect of righteousnesse as it is exprest by Isatah The work of righteousnesse shal be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietness assurance for ever Isa 32.17 Truly God forbidding him to eat of that excepted fruit upon paine of death did intimate that as long as he kept in obedience death could take no hold of him nor any of the appurtenances of death for such are all the infirmities of the body all the griefes of the mind and all the crosses of this life Ezekiel in the eighteenth Chapter is copious upon this demonstration that life is inseperable from righteousness and mortality from sinne This last was justified by wofull experience for man going from his righteousnesse forfeited his life and his peace And presently a dark cloud of confusion and misery troubled his golden serenity The voyce of God which was the joy of man suddenly became his terrour Gods presence which was his life became so formidable to him that it went for a currant truth Judg. 13.22 Wee shall surely dye because wee have seene God Man being fallen off from God most part of the creatures fell off from him and that rebellion continued ever since Those that have sense and motion openly deny to yeeld subjection unto him flee away from him when he will come neere them or flye upon him with open hostility And to get service from them he must tame them young before they be able to resist him Other Creatures destitute of sense yet seeme sensible enough to let him know that they yeeld to him a forced service Neither can the earth be wonne to doe any good for him but by great labour and long expectation Diseases enter into his body with the meate that he eateth and the aire that he breatheth Stormes beat upon him Summers scorch him Winters chill him Foxes have holes and birds of the aire have nests their garments are natural warme in winter light in summer To man onely Nature gives not where to lay his head nor so much as a skinne capable to abide his
wee beare to God is the love that he beares to us wee must before all things study to conceive as well as wee may of the great love of God to us-ward Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that wee should be called the sonnes of God 1 John 3.1 This is the principall point of his love where all other testimonies of his love doe beginne and where they end Without this none can say that he is beloved of God For to be the work of Gods hands and maintained by his providence is common to all creatures and to be made after Gods image and by his liberality to enjoy the plenty and service of nature is common to all men good and evill But because creatures without reason and men without goodnesse beare no love to God it cannot properly be said that God loveth them though he be their maker and preserver Love being the bond of perfectnesse Col. 3. Gods love would not be the bond of perfectnesse if he loved those things that never return him love For that love may be a bond the two ends must meet knit together now these two ends knit when a creature beloved of God beares a reciprocal love to him For thereby not onely the man that feareth God joyneth with him but the whole nature also and all the creatures are re-joyned with their principle and Origine And whereas some creatures cannot others will not love God the true child of God because he gets some utility out of them all yea of those that are Gods enemies loveth him and gives him thanks for and in the name of all and so by this meanes love proveth a true bond of perfectnesse which proceeding from God and knitting with God againe embraceth and holds fast together the whole creation and brings it back to its Creator A consideration which cannot but bring a singular content and a great peace to the soule Being perswaded of the love of God to us whereby we are called the sonnes of God we looke upon all creatures as the goods of our fathers house prepared for us And though others which are none of Gods children enjoy them also yet they are for us since the wicked are for the good either to exercise their vertue by tryals or even to serve and sustaine them For as the angry waves roaring and foaming about the ship where Christ was with his disciples yet were bearing the ship likewise the enemyes of God and his Church while they are beating and storming against it beare it up in spite of their hearts The agitations of the great sea of the world make Gods children more sensible of the great love which the Father hath bestowed upon them to have given them his beloved sonne to be in the ship with them to keep them safe in the storm and the dangers that overwhelme others are helps for good unto them that love God All the deliverances that God sends them all the blessings that God powreth upon them they take them as productions of the fatherly love of God who hath adopted them in his Sonne They taste that love in the enjoyment of present goods they breath that love in the enjoyment of future eternall goods they rest upon that love when they sleepe they leane upon that love when they walk they find that love in all the occurrences of their life with what face soever the various accidents of the world looke upon them they see through them the evident love of God being certaine that nothing happens to them but is directed by the good hand of their loving Father These pleasant rivers of the love of God conduct our meditation up the streame to the great Source that love which passeth knowledge that mysterious deepe love which the Angels desire to looke into whereby of his enemyes that wee were he hath made us his children giving for us even to death his owne precious Sonne entitling us by him to his eternal glory and giving us the earnest of it by his good Spirit crying in our hearts Abba Father O incomprehensible love which hath undergone overcome death to give us life and that he might have from us an immortal love That immortal love ought to be the effect of this meditation So that having conceived to our power how much God loves us wee may also to our power apply our heart to love him acknowledging that all our heart all our soule and all our understanding is yet too little to returne him love for his love It it true that this is a debt from which we can never be acquitted and wee owe it even after wee have payd it But as this debt must be payd continually the continual payment yeelds a continual satisfaction to him that payeth it oweth it still For whereas pecuniary debts make the heart sad this debt of love makes it glad when our duty meetes with our inclination and when wee most desire to dok that which wee are most obliged to doe Besides this debt is of that nature that when wee pay it wee make together an acquisition for although the love began by God he takes it upon him to repay us the love that we pay him Ps 91.14 Because he hath set his love upon me saith the Lord therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high because he hath knowne my name Pro. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seeke me early shall finde me But love is due to God not onely for the love that he hath done us and for the good that wee hope from him but for the good that is in him and because he that is the soveraigne beauty and goodnes must be beloved in the chiefest highest manner All that is beautifull and good in Nature the glory of the celestial bodies the fertility of the earth the shady greene of trees the fragrancy of flowers the variety and utility of animals the rational inventive vivacity of intellectual natures the admirable order of the Universe both in disposition and conduct All these are so many productions of the great bottomlesse depth of beauty bounty power and excellency and who so wisely considereth them presently conceiveth that the Authour is possest of an infinite perfection onely worthy to be beloved for his owne sake and that all the good and beautifull things that he hath done must be beloved onely in relation to him and for his sake To which if you adde two other points of which Nature cannot sufficiently informe us and wherein the Word of God supplies the deficiency of Natures teaching which are the justice and the mercy of God towards sinners O who would not love that infinite love and excellency though he had no interest of his owne in it But how can we barely consider Gods excellency in it selfe with an abstraction of our interest Certainly the consideration of our concernment will go along though unsent for with the contemplation of Gods supreme
with sicknesse and age 2 Cor. 5.1 Knowing that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven It is by hope that the Martyrs all that suffer for righteousnesse see the crown layd on the top of their crosse and rejoyce in this promise of their Saviour Matth. 5.11 Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evill against you falsly for my sake rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven By hope we behave ourselves wisely in prosperity 1 Cor. 7.31 using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Hope beats down pride refraines lust and weans our hearts from the world Worldly hope disordereth the soul and makes a man go out of himself depending of the future and losing the present and is alwayes wavering and feaverish But heavenly hope although it transport the soul above herself and make her depend upon future goods sets her neverthelesse in a quiet steady frame because the soul rising to God receiveth God who makes her his home so that a man by hope enjoyes beforehand part of the goods which he aspires unto Hope groweth like rivers more and more as it draweth neerer the end of its course And when it hath brought the godly soul into the Ocean of felicity there it loseth the name of Hope and becomes Enjoyment CHAP. VIII Of the duty of Praising God SInce wee already embrace eternal goods by hope as wee desire to beginne now the joyes of heaven we must resolve to beginne the dutyes of that blessed Estate To seeke the first without the second would be an ungenerous disposition and an impossible undertaking If wee apprehend aright that the felicity of man consisteth in his duty and that the glory of the blessed Saints in heaven consisteth in glorifying God we will seeke in that great duty our felicity and delight to sing our part even in this life in the hymnes of those glorious spirits Nothing gives to the soule so great a peace Nothing elevateth the soule to such a Paradice like Joy The love of God is preferred before faith and hope because these seeke their owne good but that seeketh Gods glory Which to a godly soule being much more considerable then her owne happines yet is found to be the soveraigne happines of him that seekes it before his owne good Neither is there any more certaine and compendious way to get glory to ourselves then to seeke Gods onely glory In this then the godly man must delight and can never want matter for it all things giving him occasion to praise God either for his mercy to his children or his justice to his enemies or his power and wisedome eminently shining in all his workes or the infinite perfection that abideth in himselfe God hath made all creatures for his praise and none of his material creatures can praise him but man onely And of all men none but the godly praise him Or if others doe it for company it becomes them not neither are their praises accepted Then upon the godly lyeth the whole taske to praise God for other creatures that cannot or will not praise him But that taske is all pleasure as nothing is more just so nothing is more delightfull then that duty Look about upon the fields richly clad with the plenty and variety of nature Looke up to heaven and admire that great light of the world the Sun so wonderfull in his splendour vertue and swift nesse When he is set looke upon the gloryes of the night the Moone and the starres like so many bright jewels set off by the black ground of the skie and setting forth the magnificence of their maker See how some of them keep ea certaine distance among themselves marching together without the least breaking of their ranks some follow their particular courses but all are true to their motions equal and infallible in their regulated periods Then being amazed and dazelled with that broad light of Gods greatnes and wisedome let every one make this question to himselfe Why doeth God make me a beholder of his workes Why among so many different creatures hath he made me one of that onely kinde to whom he hath given reason to know and admire the workman a will to love him a tongue to praise him Is it not that I might render him these duties in the name of all his other workes And to this duty I am obliged by the lawes of thankfulnes since all these other workes are for me good reason then that I should be for God lending my tongue and my heart to the whole universe to love praise and blesse the great and good authour of this rich and beautiful Nature O the greatnes the goodnes the wisedome of the incomprehensible Creatour And among all his attributes manifested in this admirable workmanship O how his tender mercies are over all his workes How every part of this great work is compleat How all the parts are well sorted together helping and sustaining one another with a wise Oeconomy O if the worke be so perfect what must the workman be If the streames be so cleare what must the source be Upon these if wee fix our meditation with a holy attention wee shall heare that speech which St John heard being rapt up in spirit Rev. 5.3 I heard saith he every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them saying Blessing honour glory and power unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lambe for ever and ever From Nature looking to Providence let us observe how notwithstanding the opposition of spiritual malices and the preversnesse and blindnesse of men yea and by these very things God advanceth his glory maintaineth his truth and formeth a secret order in confusion For the execution of his decrees a Million of engines are set on work subordinate or co-ordinate among themselves wherby things most remote yet meet in the order of causes to produce the effects appointed in Gods counsel Where the chief matter of wonder is that many of these causes are free agents which doing what they will bring forth most part of the time that which they will not and by the uncertainty of their giddy agitations arrive to the certain End determined by God Who can comprehend the innumerable multitude of the accidents of the world all written in Gods Book and dispensed by his providence that infinitely capacious and ever watchfull wisdom ever in action though ever at rest which by the order he gives to the greatest things is not distracted from the care of the least He makes the heavens to move and the earth to bear and disposeth of peace
servants Now because the life of man is laborious and allwayes in action we learne out of Gods example to examine all our works severally and joyntly to see whether they be good and rejoyce when we find them so Thus God said Let the light be and the light was And God saw that the light was good The like after the workes of every day of the first week And in the end of the creation God made a review of all that he had done And behold all was very good to signifie that God seeing all his works good and compleate took great delight in them and did remunerate his own actions with the satisfaction which he he took in his owne wisdom and goodnesse That we may then imitate God let us do nothing but good and againe when we have done it let us see how good it is Though it cannot be but very defective yet if we find in it sincerity and an ingenuous desire to do good we may in our measure rejoyce as God did for doing good and shall enjoy a sweet peace within representing both in the good that we do and in the delight that we take in well doing the image of him that hath created and adopted us to expresse his likenesse Our confidence in God by the merit of his beloved Sonne is the ground of true peace and content But that confidence is fed by works By faith we beare testimony to our hearts that we are reconciled with God and by workes we beare testimony to our faith As by the respiration we know that a man is alive and by the same respiration the man is kept alive So the exercise of good workes is together the marke of faith and the way to maintaine that spiritual life As God hath wisely ordered that the actions necessary for the preservation of naturall life should be done with delight likewise the exercise of good workes whereby the life of faith is maintained gives a singular pleasure unto the faithfull soul Psalm 40.8 I delight to do thy will O my God said David And the Lord Jesus could say that his meat was to do the will of him that sent him John 4 32. Wherefore as healthful bodies eat their meat with appetite so godly soules apply themselves with a holy appetite to good workes In both it is an inward sence of necessity that provokes the appetite it being as impossible to live with the life of faith without good works as to keep the body alive without meat or drink And as these satisfy the stomack good actions give a sweet satisfaction to the soul But as one cannot live alwayes in the strength of one meale but must take new food every day else the body will pine away and die in a short time likewise the use of good workes must be daily too much intermission will abate the pulse of faith trouble will get into the conscience or a heavy numness which will end in the extinction of spiritual life unlesse the appetite of doing good worke 〈◊〉 awakened by repentance and faith get new strength by good exercises For this exercise the Lord Jesus gave us an example that wee should follow his steps Who did good in the whole course of his life and more in his death Who spent the night in prayer and the day in healing the sick and converting sinners Who for ill words returned saving instruâ—◠〈◊〉 Who overcame contempt with humility and adversities with patience Who did good to them that persecuted him to death healing the eare of Malchus that was come to take him and praying for them that crucifyed him Who to obey God his ather despised his owne life denyed the love of himselfe and made this free and miraculous submission to God in the terrours of death Father not my will but thy will be done The joy and glory which he got by that submission must encourage his Disciples to preferre the obedience to God and the duty of a good conscience before all interesses being sure that to forsake them for God is the way to preserve them and that by suffering for his glory wee get glory The content that accreweth to the soule by tending carefully Gods service and loving nothing like it cannot be exprest but by those that feel it How great was St Pauls satisfaction when he sayd 2 Cor. 1.12 Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not in fleshly wisedome but by the grace of God wee have had our conversation in the world And how sweet was his rapture of joy when he sayd being neere the end of his race 2 Tim. 4.7 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is layd up for me a crowne of righteousnes which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me O what pleasure is comparable to the testimony of a good conscience The joy of a great conquerour who hath newly got an imperial crown is not comparable to St Pauls happines when he rejoyced to have fought the good fight of faith and stretched himselfe towards the crowne of righteousnes layd up for him Increase of worldly goods increaseth sorrow When they are above sufficiency instead of easing the minde they oppresse it Worldly pleasures are shortlived leaving behinde them an unpleasant fare-well and often a sting of crime Worldly honour is winde which either will blow a man downe or puff him up with an unsound tumour But godlines and good actions give a sincere joy a solid content a lasting peace a satisfaction penetrating to the inmost of the soule This is richly exprest by Isaiah in prophetical termes Isa 58.10 If thou draw out thy soule to the hungry and satisfye the afflicted soule then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darknes be as the noone day And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfye thy soule in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters faile not Although Devotion and good conscience and the practise of good workes were sad things as the world imagineth them yet ought wee to undergoe that sadnes in this life of few dayes to make provision for the other life which is eternal since this life is a moment on which eternity depends And wee should sow in teares to reape in joy But seeing that a good conscience active in piety and good workes gets thereby even in the present a serene peace and a heavenly comfort not credible to any but those that feele it is it not a great incouragement to doe well That the way to make us happy is to make us saints It is none of the least arts of Satan for turning men away from the practice of godlines and vertuous actions to represent Devotion and vertue with an austere habit and a sowre face enough to make children afrayd and growne men also many of them having with a gray
beard a childish understanding authoritatem senum vitia puerorum But certainly this is a false ugly vizard set upon a handsome and gracious face there being nothing more serene and pleasant then godlines and a good conscience A good conscience is that merry heart which is a continual feast To doe Gods will with a good will keepes a mans heart cheerefull to God and pleasant to himselfe Will you then make your hope sure of an eternal rest and of those pleasures for evermore at the right hand of God Doe but take the first course to make yourselves content and joyfull in this life which is to walke before God unto all pleasing to your power and to be rich in good workes Was there ever a more winning invitation then this Make yourselfe joyful and contented in this life that you may be eternally joyfull and contented in the next CHAP. XI To redresse ourselves often by Repentance Wee have meditated upon the peace of God and the way how to get it in our souls and keepe it That peace brings a golden serenity and a solid content to our hearts But because the godliest persons in this world are subject to sinne and by sinning to trouble that peace and serenity it is necessary to redresse ourselves often by repentance Of that duty I have spoken in the third chapter of this first booke as the necessary way to embrace by faith our reconciliation with God and a maine part of the great worke of our conversion But after wee are reconciled and converted wee are men still Neither is any conversion so great in this life as to roote out sinne altogether out of mans nature Whosoever then will preserve his integrity and peace for these two commonly goe together must have this warning continually in his mind Lét him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall 1. Cor. 10.12 And if he fall let him take up himselfe presently by a godly repentance The more he esteemeth himselfe advanced and confirmed in piety the more let him mistrust himselfe and beware of the temptations of Satan For after holy resolutions and elevations of zeale and devotion great sins very often are committed because then the conscience is most subject to relent as over-confident of her good estare Much like besieged souldiers who after a brave sallie will remitt of their watchfulnes despising the enemy whom they have beaten and in their security are taken by surprise Conscience will fall asicepe but Satan never sleepeth and never misseth to take advantage of our negligence Heb. 12.1 Sin that doth so easily beset us saith the Apostle to the Hebrewes By saying us he comprehends himself acknowledging that the most perfect are easily beset by sin Some sins are presently felt and leave a sting as the Scorpion doth To that sting the remedy must presently be applyed by repentance and a faithfull recourse to Gods mercy through Christ also the assistance of his Spirit must bee implored else the venome will spread and the wound become mortal Other sins are lesse felt or creep in undiscerned yet leave a heavinesse upon the heart and make it slower to godlinesse and good workes Then the businesses of the life intervening the remembrance of many sins will slip out of our memory which neverthelesse worke their effect upon the conscience blunting the sense of piety and setting the soul further from God Wherefore it is the part of a wise Christian often to revisit the state of his conscience call himselfe to account and by a pious solicitude of repentance pick and sift out even the least dust that sticks to us of the worlds uncleannesse and our own scowring out that rust which conscience like iron will contract if it be not often handled If the uncleane spirit will not dwell in a mans heart unlesse he find the house empty swept and garnisht Matth. 12. that is void of all goodnesse and furnisht for his turne We must not expect that the holy Spirit will dwell in our heart unlesse we bestow our best care to sweepe it for him emptyed of the immundicities of sinne to garnish it with holinesse He will not keep house under the same roofe with the unclean spirit And unlesse we speedily put that enemy out of doores God may in his displeasure leave him the whole house Whereas if you keep it swept for God with daily repentance he will make it his Temple and say Psal 132.14 This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I delight in it But that our hearts may be cleane habitations for him we have need to call for the assistance of his grace Psalm 51. Create in us a cleane heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within us Since the Son of God honours us so much as to call us his friends let us religiously observe the lawes of friendship with him Even in humane friendships if we have sometimes the missorutne to give offence to one whom we especially love and respect we cannot be at rest till we have given him satisfaction And should we be so imprudent as to neglect God our great friend after we have offended him Shall we let the Sunne go down upon his wrath and our offence Let us returne to him without delay and humbly seeke his peace The speediest reconciliations are the best In this returne to God which must be every day let us call to our remembrance all the sins of late date and others of elder date not sufficiently repented of confessing them to God with contrition and craving pardon for them with humility and faith through the merit of his Sonne which to all repenting sinners is an exhaustible spring of mercy open at all times Zechariah meant this by that Fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleannesse And becaure many trespasses of ours are out of remembrance and some we have run into without our knowledge we must beseech God with David to clense us from secret faults Psalm 19.12 and that he be pleased to forget those sins which we have forgotten To that daily returne to God some extraordinary returnes must be added where fasting and alms be joyned to prayer Thereby these clouds shall be cleared off which trouble the serenity of the conscience and the soul shall get a great help to rejoyce in the love of God and glory in his bounty When one is come to that blessed state of the soul he must wipe off the teares of repentance and drowne that sadnesse in a thankfull joy For the sorrow of repentance is good by accident only because there is some evill to be healed It is like a medicine which gives gripings and disquieteth nature therefore not to be used but to recover health Although we cannot repent too much to have offended God there may be excess in the sorrow of repentance To seek merit or ostentation in penitent sorrow which is the face that vulgar soules give to
I count them mine enemies But wee must take heed lest the hatred of iniquity bring the hatred against the persons and the persons must not be afflicted more then needs for the repressing of iniquity The more difficult it is to keep that temper the more earnestly ought we to endeavour to render all offices of charity and personall humanity to them whose party we justly seek to defeate for to love our enemies and to overcome the evill with good is the most ingenuous imitation of the Godhead It is his command joyned with his example Matth. 5.44 Love your enemies blesse them that curse you do good to them which despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven for he makes his Sun to rise on the evill and on the good and sends raine on the just and on the unjust There is need of a great measure of grace and wisedome to observe these two precepts together Psal 97.10 Ye that love the Lord hate evill and Matth. 22.39 Thou shalt love thy neighbour like thy selfe hating iniquity in the wicked and loving their persons and both for Gods sake The chiefe use of hatred is to be incited to good by the hatred of evill For that end it is not necessary that the greatnesse of hatred equall the greatnesse of the evill and we are not obliged to hate evill things as much as they deserve otherwise the great currant of our affection would runne into the channell of hatred and leave the channell of love dry Now it is in loving the Soveraine good with all our strength and with all our soul that our duty and happinesse consisteth not in hating the evill with all our strength and with all our soul The hatred of evill is not requisite of it selfe but by accident as a consequence of the love of good If the hatred of vice perswade us to vertue we shall be more yet perswaded to it by the love of goodnesse Many effects of hatred are the same as the effects of anger for there is no anger without hatred in some degree if not to a person at least to an action But there is some hatred without anger when one forethinks in cold blood the wayes to destroy an adversary All the destructions of the world where the will of man is an agent are wrought immediately by hatred They have many remote causes anbition covetousnesse carnall love emulation and all the violent passions but they destroy not but by accident till some opposition hath driven them into hatred which in the inward polity of the soul hath the same office as the hangman in a Citty for it is the executioner and avenger of wrongs Unto hatred all the cruelty of tyranny and malice must be imputed And yet all the blood spilt all the ruines and inventive torments outwardly wrought by hatred are nothing so grievous as the inward disorder wrought by it in cruell and revengefull souls and the separation which it worketh between God and man It is the finall and most grievous effect of hatred that by hating our neighbours we become Gods enemies 1 Joh. 4.20 If a man say I love God and hates his brother he is a lyer Hatred is a bitter venome which being once diffused soaked into the soul turnes a man into a hell-fury contrary to all good ready and industrious to all evil But with all the paine that such a man takes to doe harme to others he doth more harme to himselfe then to any consuming his spirits with a continual malignant fever banishing from his soul serenity charity and meekness vertues which are the soyle of other vertues and the givers of rest contentment to the soul It is often seene that while a man is gnawing his heart with a fierce hatred the person he hateth is healthfull merry and quiet as if imprecations made him prosper An ill grounded hatred drawes Gods blessing upon the party unjustly hated and persecuted Psal 109.18 It was Davids hope Let them curse but blesse thou Hatred is conceived for one of those two ends Either to avenge ourselves or to avenge injustice which is Gods cause As for the first Before wee think of revenging an injury wee must examine whether wee have received or done the greater injury for it is ordinary that the offender is harder to be reconciled that it may not be thought that he is in the wrong Then we must calmely consider whether the revenge may not doe us more harme then the injury though wee had nothing to doe but to breake our launces against a dead stock incapable to resent it For besides that there is no enemy so little but it is better to let him alone then to provoke him the harme that hatred doth within us cannot be recompensed by any sweetness of revenge though there were no other harme in hatred then to find delight in robbing God of that he hath reserved to himselfe Now he challengeth revenge as his owne exclusively to all others Heb. 10.30 Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompense saith the Lord. To become incapable of rest incapable of doing good incapable of pleasing God are sufficient evils to deterre us from harbouring that inhumane passion enemy of men of God and of ourselves Pro. 11.17 The mercifull man doth good to his owne soul but the cruel troubleth his owne flesh It is a right godly and philosophicall study to strive against that tendernes quick to pick offences slow to take satisfaction And wee must be ingenious to devise causes of patience Are you condemned being guilty acknowledge Justice Are you innocent bow under authority Are you newly offended It is too soone to resent it Is the Sunne gone downe since It is too late Hath any wounded you look to your cure not to your revenge Are you well againe let not your mind be harder to heal then your body Are you offended by a friend remember the friendship more then the offense Are you offended by an enemy Doe your endeavour that he be so no more returning him good for evil Is he too strong for you It is folly to contend with him Is he too weake It is a shame Is he your superiour you must yeeld to him Is he your inferiour you must spare him And since Pride of which none is altogether free represents our enemies to us under a vile and unworthy notion let us fetch some good out of that evill Let contempt help patience to beare with their provocations for if a dogge did bite us wee would not bite him againe nor kicke at a asse that kicks against us Also when some body offends us let us remember that wee have offended some body The fault that wee find in another is in our owne bosome It is too great a flattery of selfe love to looke to be excused and excuse none Wee are evill and infirme and live among persons evill and infirme All have need to put on a
getting our liberty That way plenty pleasure and joy are bought at an easy rate for very little will content a mind weaned of superfluous desires and he hath little or no matter left for sorrow feare anger hatred and envy the tormentors of the soul What is able to disquiet that man that thinkes nothing to be his but God and a good conscience and possesseth the things of the world as not possessing them But to quiet the murmure of love and desire which are querulous and unlimited passions we must do them such equall justice that while we stop them one way we open them another Being kept short for the things of the world let them have free scope towards heavenly things to love God and desire his spirituall and permanent goods without limit and measure The great injuries are those which a man doth to himselfe when to obey lust or anger or coveteousnesse one makes himselfe guilty and miserable when for the love of the world one loseth the love of God when out of miserablenesse the body is denyed his convenient allowance When for things of no worth a man prostitutes his health his life and his conscience When men will sinne for company cast themselves into ruinous courses out of compleasance and damne themselves out of gallantry Who so will seriously think what he oweth to himselfe and what account of himselfe he must give unto God will endeavour to keepe the precious health of his body and the golden serenity of his conscience he will enjoy with simplicity that portion which God giveth him of the contentments of life and above all things he will carefully keep his onely good which is God Justice being well administred within us will be practised abroad with facility and delight Rom. 13.7 Render to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custome to whom custom feare to whom feare honour to whom honour Let the debtour be more hasty to pay then the creditour to receive All the Law-bookes are but comments upon this precept of Justice to render to every one his owne Yet they omit the most essentiall parts of it the duties of charity humanity and gratefulness Which being without the rules of civill lawes have the more need to be learned and observed by ingenuous and religious soules And we must beleeve contrary to the vulgar opinion that they are debts and that doing good to them that stand in need of our helpe is not giving but restoring Therefore the workes of mercy are represented in the CXII Psalm as works of Justice He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore his righteousnesse endureth for ever Let us then be perswaded that when we do all the good of which God giveth us the faculty and the occasion we do but justice Let us pay due assistance to him whose need claimes it counsell to him that is in perplexity kindness to them that have shewed us kindnesse pardon to them that have offended us good for evill to them that persecute us love to them that love us support to the weake patience to the impatient reverence to superiours affability to inferiours All these are debts Let us omit no duty to which we stand obliged by the lawes of civill society Yet that is too scant let us omit no duty to which we have the invitations of piety and generosity All the good workes that we may do are so many duties It is the large extent that St. Paul gives to our duty Phil. 4.8 Finally bretheren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things And the fruit of that study in the following words is that which we seeke in this Book the Peace of the Soul our union with God Do these things and the God of peace shall be with you Truly peace quietness and assurance are the proper effects of righteousness are as naturall to it as the light to the Sunne Isa 33.17 The worke of righteousness shall be peace saith Isaiah and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever Considering Justice as the solid stemme in which lyeth the substance of all vertues as her branches I will not follow every bough of that that tree Two Vertues onely I will stand upon as the preserving qualities of that universall Justice These are meekeness and magnanimity They are the necessary dispositions to frame a right vertue in the soul and peace with it Under meekeness I comprehend humility and docility which are but diverse aspects of the same face that meeke and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 As for great edifices there is need of deepe foundations likewise to edifie the soul and build vertue and peace in it there is need of a profound humility which being joyned with faith is the foundation of the structure and the perfecting also for we must be humble that we may be vertuous and the more we are vertuous the more we are humble With that meekeness the word of God must be receaved which is the doctrine of Vertue and salvation Jam. 1.20 Receive with meekenesse the engrafted word which is able to save your soules saith St. James Isa 61.9 God hath anointed his Sonne to preach good tidings unto the meeke Psal 25.9 The meeke will he guide in judgement and the meeke will he teach his way A mind well-disposed to Vertue and the peace of the Soul will distrust himselfe as a shaking unsound foundation to repose his trust wholly upon God He will labour to heale himselfe of all arrogant opinions and obstinate prejudices being alwayes ready to receive better information and submit himselfe unto reason It belongs to that meekeness to be free from the impetuosity of the appetite for that which St. James saith of the wrath of man that it worketh not the righteousnesse of God Jam. 1.21 may be said of all other Passions they are evill if they be vehement for in a spirit agitated with vehement passions justice cannot settle that very vehemency being an injustice and a violation of that sweete and equall oeconomy of the soul fit for justice and peace Passion goeth by skips and jolts but Reason keeps a smooth even pace and that pace is fit to go on Justice's errand To meekenesse magnanimity must be joyned Meekeness makes reason docile and pliant in goodnesse Magnanimity makes her constant in it Both are the framers and preservers of righteousnesse meekenesse because it humbleth us before God and subjecteth us under his good pleasure magnanimity because it raiseth our minds above unrighteous ends and wayes and makes us aspire to that great honour to have our will conformable unto Gods will and become partakers of his Nature which is Righteousness itselfe St. Paul makes use of magnanimity to sollicite us to holiness Col. 3.10 If ye be risen with Christ seeke those
for felicity but together is impossible to nature For so farre they say true that for a perfect love the soul of a friend must passe into his friends soul But that being improperly and hyperbolically ascribed to love betwen men is true and reall in the friendship between God and man sanctified especially when he is glorified For God graceth man so much as to make him his friend and to call him so I have called you my friends saith Christ to his Disciples Joh. 15.15 And in that friendship there is such a strict union between God and the soul that thereby the soul is refunded into her original being The spirit of God gets into mans spirit and the spirit of man poures it selfe into Gods spirit as the river falls into the Sea and the Sea floweth into the river Their wills become one their interesses one the glory of God and the salvation of man become the same thing Man seeking above all things to glorifie God glorifyeth himselfe and is advanced by debasing himselfe out of his love to God till finally seeing God and being seene of him 2. Cor. 3.18 he is changed into the same image and made partaker of the divine nature 2. Pet. 1.4 When the Pagans from their contemplations upon friendship passe to examples they shew how remote their imaginations are from the nature of things and that their characters of friendship are fitter to be lookt on than copied out For none of these paires of friends which Antiquity extolls is come neere those compleat Ideas which they fancy Most of them that would strive to expresse them in their practice have made themselves miserable and their friendship a bondage Also among the vertuous examples of friendship they set forth vicious presidents as that of Blosius who being convented before the Senate about the sedition of Tiberius Gracchus whose intimate friend he was and asked what he would have done for him answered that he would have done any thing at his request And what sayd the Judges if he would have requested thee to set the Temples on fire wouldst thou have done it I know replyed he that Gracchus would never have had such a will but if he had desired it of me I would have done it I am scandalized to see that answere commended by Christian writers Montagne and Carron Let them comment upon it as much as they please it is certaine that such a deference to a friend's will is the highest homage that the creature can make unto the Creatour whose will is the onely rule of righteousnesse If any preferre his friends will before the observation of that Soveraine will his amity is enmity against God and becomes a plot and a conspiracy to offend him These old characters of perfect friendship perswade some to imitate them but commonly they are young men that know neither how to choose what they ought to love nor how to love what they have chosen and they that choose a friend with most judgement and preserve him with most care soone find that human nature though inricht with grace affords neither the perfect objects nor the firme bond nor the solid content of Friendship Yet since we live in the world we must make friends in it and leaving heroique characters to romances content ourselves with such as the earth beares and neighbourhood presents chusing them such as have at least piety honesty and ingenuity matching ourselves with our equalls or rather a little above us then under preserving their love by respect and good offices and conversing with them with a cheerfull and innocent facility But seeing that a great affection is a great servitude filling the minde with care and feare he that loveth his owne tranquillity will take heed how he engageth himselfe in a friendship whose value doth not recompense the interesse he takes in it and will not suffer his affection for any person to grow to the losse of his liberty and peace of mind It is a great folly for one to make himselfe miserable out of too much good nature and to lose the sweetness of friendship by a perpetuall carefulnesse and allarum Good things become evill to us when we love them beyond measure There is but one friendship where we may love without any measure where the greatnesse of the affection brings rest serenity to the soul It is the friendship with God the only Good perfect and worthy of all our love who being so great yet is able to contract friendship with us that are so little If we have the grace to entertaine that friendship which fills the soul with joy and goodnesse we shall easily be comforted about the rarity and weakeness yea and the losse of humane friendships CHAP. III. Of Gratefulnesse I Have observed two duties of charity which contribute much to the Rest and content of the soul The one is to relieve them that need it the other to love them whose vertue deserves it These two duties require the company of another which is To be gratefull to them of whom we have received some benefit For speaking now to generous soules I may observe that nothing lyeth more heavy upon their heart then this reproach of their own mind that they have not sufficiently shewed their gratefulness unto their benefactor Our first benefactor is God for to him we owe all even what we owe to men We owe him all that we have and all that we are our being and our wellbeing To him then we must do homage for all and our life being well sustained by a continuall influence of his love must also be a continuall course of thankfulnesse That duty we must tend with our words with our thoughts with our actions and more with our affections But because the creature cannot properly give any thing to the Creatour because all is his who gives all and receiveth of none but himselfe our gratefullness to God must be shewed to them whom he hath imployed to do us good We must beginne by paying debts If a friend hath opened his purse to us in our need or hath helped us with his commodities of which he makes profit expecting our conveniency to pay for them It is not only a theft to be slack to satisfie it is ungratefulnes which is farre worse for the plaine theefe abuseth not the goodnes of his friend but the ungrateful man renders evil for good and defraudeth his friend because he had pitty on him One may doe greater and more profitable kindnesses then lending of money Yet there is none where ungratefulnes is more sensible because of the love that every one beares to his money and the trust that is reposed upon it as the staffe of life Wherefore conscience and generosity must sollicite the debtour to pay and be stronger then bonds and compulsions of law to bring him to his duty St Paul enjoines us to owe nothing to no man but to love one another A text full of Philosophie For there are some debts
of curiosity to inquire after the future Whereas we ought to acknowledge that our ignorance of the future is the onely infirmity which we have reason to be well pleased with God hath done much for mankind to have hid the future from them For if besides present afflictions we had distresses to come before our eyes there is no constancy but would breake under that weight Many owe their present tranquillity to their ignorance of the calamities that waite for them But it is not the hope of future wordly content that must hold up our minds The life after this life is the onely future upon which we must depend And after we have sublimated our hopes and untyed our affections from the earth if it please God to send us some worldly prosperity it will be the more welcome because it will come unexpected as a gaine over and above the bargaine CHAP. III To retire within ones selfe HE that hath learned to know the world and himselfe will soone be capable of this counsell The world being foolish and wicked it will be a wise part to retire as much as the duties of conversation will permit from that contagion which may impaire us Persons that have some goodnesse in their soul have a closset where they may retire at any time and yet keep in Society That closset is their owne inside Whereby I understand not all that is within man for the Appetite is not the closet but the outward Court where all the tumult is there the Passions are entertaining the externall objects or quarrelling with them But that inside to which the wiseman must retire is his judgement conscience thence to impose silence to passions and hush all the noyse below that with a calme and undisturbed mind he may consider the nature of the persons and things which he converseth with what interesse he hath in them and how farre they are appliable to Gods service and to the benefit of himselfe and others We judge better of things when we are little interessed in them for then we are lesse apt to forestall our judgement with our affection Then to possesse a cleare free and uningaged judgement among the things of this world we should learne well how little interesse we have in them and that we are strangers in earth whence inferre St. Peters doctrine Dearely beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes abstaine from fleshly lusts 1 Pet. 2.11 For why should we entertaine any eager desire for things that concerne us but little Even among Pagans the wisest lookt upon the goods of this world as things which they needed not and retired within their own breasts which they called their home there to enjoy vertue their onely good The wise Christian having that high advantage that he may enjoy within his breast both vertue and God himselfe hath more reason to keep within that home and look upon things without with an indifferent eye For when as Pagan Philosophers called themselves Cittizens of the world the Christian acknowledgeth himselfe astranger in it for he doth but travell through the earth to his heavenly Country which they knew not A traveller looking out of the window of his Inne upon a country Faire doth but lightly amuse his eyes with the variety of course pedling wares and the buzy stirre of buyers and sellers but his minde is upon his journey and he will not make one in that crowd With the like indifference the wise Christian looks upon the hurry of the world and the confused diversity of humane things not crowding for them or setting his heart upon them for his journy towards heaven calls him away and to heaven he hath already sent his heart before That disinteressed disposition towards the things of this world ought not to make us carelesse and negligent neither must we do any businesse by halfe Keeping that prudent and godly temper to apply our mind not our heart to worldly things never forgetting while we tend them with diligence and industrie that they are unworthy to possesse the whole man who is made for better things There is no possession sooner lost then that of ones selfe The smallest things rob us of it A sight worthy of contempt if not rather of compassion is a man sharp-set upon play whose spirit hurried out of his true home by the greedines of gaine is swelled with hope and quaking for feare hanging upon the chance of the dice. Had one driven us from our house we would cry aloud for justice against him But we dispossesse ourselves from the possession of our reason by our violent passions and refuse to do justice to ourselves How many for a Mistresse or a preferrement lose their meat and their sleep have no other thought all the day long and no other dreame all the night their soules are no more at home but dwell with their neighbours if we may call dwelling a perpetuall running after hopes that flye from them To such men this counsell is most proper Tecum habita Dwell at home Keep possession of your soul Suffer not any thing to steale you away from your selfe There is neither profit nor pleasure worth so much that the soule should goe from home to get it Let none sooth up his eagernes about his sports with the plea of lawfull pastimes Nothing is lawful that steales the soule from God and a mans selfe When I see a man running after his bowle and following it with blessings or curses Another melting with sweat in a tennis-court more overheated yet in his passion then in his body contending with high words about a chase then say I with compassion Alas here is a soule put out of possession of herselfe a man that hath forgotten his origine and his dignity having his reason enslaved to his passion and his passion subjected to things of no value which being in their nature uncapable to be his masters he hath found a way to make them so by his wilful slavery One is allwayes a looser at that game which robbes his soule of serenity It is an unlucky game that gives to the noblest part of man those great irregular motions which should not be pardonable for the conquest or the losse of an Empire Nothing is so great that for it we should set our mind out of frame A wiseman neither in jest nor earnest ought to subject himselfe to any external object or suffer his soule to stirre out of her place and runne into disorder Utility and Pleasure sought by disorderly motions are lost even by seeking Of this counsel to retire within onesselfe this is a branch To keepe company with a few well chosen persons lending ourselves freely to them but giving ourselves to none but God nor suffering friendship to grow to slavery With all sorts of men we must deale ingenuously yet reservedly saying what we think but thinking more then we say least we give power to others to take hold of the rudder of our mind the thing