experience of the wisest Heathen But forasmuch as this equall poise is hardly attainable by any man is more proper for our wishes and speculation then for our hopes true wisdom must teach us so to compose our selves that we may be fit to entertain the discontentments dangers of those excesses and effects which we cannot but meet with in the course of our mortall life And surely we shall finde that both extreams are enemies to this good temper of the soul prosperity may discompose us as well as an adverse condition The Sunshine may be as troublesome to the Traveller as the winde or rain neither know I whether is more hard to manage of the two a dejected estate or a prosperous whether we may be more incommodated with a resty horse or with a tired one Let us begin with that which nature is wont to think most difficult that contrary to the practice of learners we may try to take out the hardest lesson first Let us therefore learne in the first place how to want SECT III. How many doe not know how to want COld we teach men how not to want we should have Disciples enow every man seeks to have hates to lack could we give an Antidote against poverty it would be too precious And why can we not teach men even this lesson too The Lord is my shepherd saith David therefore can I lack nothing and most sweetly elsewhere O fear the Lord ye that be his Saints for they that fear him lack nothing The Lions do lack and suffer hunger but they which seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good Let God be true and every man a lyer Certainly if we were not wanting to God in our fear of him in our faithfull reliance upon him in our conscionable seeking of him he whose the earth is and the fulnesse of it would not suffer our carefull endeavours to go weeping away But if it so fall out that his most wise providence findes it better for us to be held short in our worldly estate as it may be the great Physitian sees it most for our health to be kept fasting it is no lesse worth our learning to know how to want For there is many an one that wants but knows not how to want and therefore his need makes him both offensive and miserable There are those that are poor and proud one of the wise mans three abominations foolish Laodiceans that bear themselves for rich encreased with goods and lacking nothing when they are no other then wretched and miserable and poor and blinde and naked These men know not how to want their heart is too big for their purse and surely pride though every where odious yet doth no where so ill as in rags There are those that are poor and envious looking with an evill eye upon the better fare of others as surely this vice dwels more cōmonly in Cottages then in Palaces How displeasedly doth the begger look upon the larger almes of his neighbour grudging to another what ever fals besides himself and misliking his own dole because the next hath more whose eye with the discontented Labourers is evill because his Master is good Neither doe these men know how to want There are those that want distrustfully measuring the mercifull provision of the Almighty by the line of their own sense as the Samaritan Peer when in the extremity of a present famine he heard the Prophet foretell a sudden plenty Behold if the Lord would make windows in heaven might this thing be There are those that want impatiently repining at Gods dealing with them and making their own impotent anger guilty of a further addition to their misery as the distressed King of Israel in a desperate sense of that grievous dearth Behold this evill is of the Lord what should I wait on the Lord any longer And those wretched ones who when the fourth Angell had poured out his phiall upon the Sunne being scorched with the extremity of the heat blasphemed the God of heaven In this kinde was that sinfull techinesse of Jonah when I see a poor worme that hath put it selfe out of the coole cell of the earth wherein it was lodged and now being beaten upon by the Sun-beames lies wrigling upon the bare path turning it self every way in vain and not finding so much as the shade of a leafe to cover it I cannot but think of that fretting Prophet when wanting the protection of his gourd he found himself scalded with that strong reflection and looking up wrathfully towards that Sun from whom he smarted could say to the God that made it I do well to be angry even to the death Lastly there are those that are poor and dishonest even out of the very suggestion of their want It was the danger hereof that made Agur the sonne of Jakeh pray against penury Lest I be poor and steal and by forswearing it take the Name of God in vain SECT IV. Who they are that know how to want THese and perhaps others do and must want but in the mean time they do that which they know not how to do there is a skill in wanting which they have not Those onely know how to want that have learnt to frame their minde to their estate like to a skilfull Musitian that can let down his strings a peg lower when the tune requires it Or like to some cunning Spagirick that can intend or remit the heat of his furnace according to occasion Those who when they must be abased can stoop submissely like to a gentle reed which when the winde blowes stiffe yeilds every way those that in an humble obeysance can lay themselves low at the foot of the Almighty and put their mouth in the dust that can patiently put their necks under the yoak of the Highest and can say with the Prophet Truly this is my sorrow and I must beare it Those that can smile upon their afflictions rejoycing in tribulation singing in the Gaole with Paul and Silas at midnight Lastly those that can improve misery to an advantage being the richer for their want bettered with evils strengthened with infirmities and can truly say to the Almighty I know that of very faithfulnesse thou hast afflicted me Never could they have come out so pure metall if they had not passed under the hand of the Refiner never had they proved so toward children if they had not been beholden to the rod These are they that know how to want to be abased and have effectually learned to be content with the meanest condition to which happy temper that vvee may attain there will be use of 1. Certaine Considerations 2. Certain Dispositions and 3. Certain Resolutions These three shall be as the grounds and rules of this our Divine Art of Contentation SECT V. The Consideration of the ficklenesse of life and all earthly commodities THE first Consideration shall
O let my soul live and it shall praise thee In way of Thankesgiving Oh God wonderfull art thou in thine holy places Oh Lord how glorious are thy works and thy thoughts are very deep Oh God who is like unto thee The Lord liveth and blessed be my strong helper Lord thy loving kindnesse is better then life it self All thy works praise thee O Lord and thy Saints give thanks unto thee Oh how manifold are thy works in wisedome hast thou made them all Who is God but the Lord and who hath any strength except our God We will rejoyce in thy salvation and triumph in thy Name O Lord. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodnesse Oh how plentifull is thy goodnesse which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee Thou Lord hast never failed them that seek thee In thy presence is the fulnesse of joy and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore Lord what is man that thou art mindful of him Not unto us Lord not unto us but unto thy Name give the praise SECT VIII OCcasionall Ejaculations are such as are moved upon the presence of some such object as carries a kinde of relation or analogy to that holy thought which we have entertained Of this nature I finde that which was practised in S. Basils time that upon the lighting of candles the manner was to blesse God in these words Praise be to God the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost which that Father says was anciently used but who was the Authour of it he professeth to be unknown to the same purpose was the Lucernarium which was a part of the evening office of old For which there may seem to be more colour of reason then for the ordinary fashion of apprecation upon occasion of our sneesing which is expected and practised by many out of civility Old and reverend Beza was wont to move his hat with the rest of the company but to say withall Gramercy Madame la Superstition Now howsoever in this or any other practice which may seem to carry with it a smack of superstition our devotion may be groundless and unseasonable yet nothing hinders but that we may take just and holy hints of raising up our hearts to our God As when vve doe first look forth and see the heavens over our heads to think the Heavens declare thy glory O God When we see the day breaking or the Sun rising The day is thine and the night is thine thou hast prepared the light and the Sun When the light shines in our faces Thou deckest thy self with light as with a garment or Light is sprung up for the righteous When we see our Garden imbellisht with flowers The earth is full of the goodnesse of the Lord. When we see a rough sea The waves of the sea rage horribly and are mighty but the Lord that dwelleth on high is mightier then they When we see the darknesse of the night The darknesse is no darknesse with thee When we rise up from our bed or our seat Lord thou knowest my down-sitting and my uprising thou understandest my thoughts afar off When we wash our hands Wash thou me O Lord and I shall be whiter then snow When we are walking forth Oh hold thou up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not When we hear a passing bell Oh teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart to wisdome or Lord let me know my end and the number of my days Thus may we dart out our holy desires to God upon all occasions Wherein heed must be taken that our Ejaculations be not on the one side so rare that our hearts grow to be hard and strange to God but that they may be held on in continuall acknowledgement of him and acquaintance with him and on the other side that they be not so over-frequent in their perpetuall reiteration as that they grow to be like that of the Romish votaries fashionable which if great care be not taken will fall out to the utter frustrating of our Devotion Shortly let the measure of these devout glances be the preserving our hearts in a constant tendernesse and godly disposition which shall be further actuated upon all opportunities by the exercises of our more enlarged and fixed Devotion Whereof there is the same variety that there is in Gods services about which it is conversant There are three main businesses wherein God accounts his service here below to consist The first is our addresse to the throne of Grace and the pouring out of our souls before him in our prayers The second is the reading and hearing his most holy Word The third is the receit of his blessed Sacraments In all which there is place and use for a setled Devotion SECT IX TO begin with the first work of our actuall and enlarged Devotion Some things are pre-required of us to make us capable of the comfortable performance of so holy and heavenly a duty namely that the heart be clean first and then that it be clear clean from the defilement of any known sin clear from all intanglements and distractions What doe we in our prayers but converse vvith the Almighty and either carry our souls up to him or bring him down to us now it is no hoping that we can entertain God in an impure heart Even we men loath a nasty and sluttish lodging how much more will the floly God abhorre an habitation spiritually filthy I finde that even the unclean spirit made that a motive of his repossession that he found the house swept and garnished Satans cleanlinesse is pollution and his garnishment disorder and wickednesse without this he findes no welcome Each spirit looks for an entertainment answerable to his nature How much more will that God of spirits who is purity it self look to be harboured in a cleanly room Into a malicious soul wisdome shall not enter nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin What friend would be pleased that we should lodge him in a Lazar-house or who would abide to have a toad lie in his bosome Surely it is not in the verge of created nature to yeeld any thing that can be so noisome and odious to the sense of man as sin is to that absolute and essentiall Goodnesse His pure eyes cannot endure the sight of sin neither can he endure that the sinner should come within the sight of him Away from me ye wicked is his charge both here and hereafter It is the priviledge and happinesse of the pure in heart that they shall see God see him both in the end and in the way injoying the vision of him both in grace and in glory this is no object for impure eyes Descend into thy self therefore and ransack thy heart who ever wouldst be a true Client of
Devotion search all the close windings of it with the torches of the law of God and if there be any iniquity found lurking in the secret corners thereof drag it out and abandon it and when thou hast done that thy fingers may retain no pollution say with the holy Psalmist I will wash my hands in innocence so will I goe to thine Altar Presume not to approach the Altar of God there to offer the sacrifice of thy Devotion with unclean hands Else thine offering shall be so far from winning an acceptance for thee from the hands of God as that thou shalt make thine offering abominable And if a beast touch the Mount it shall die SECT X. AS the soul must bee clean from sin so it must be clear and free from distractions The intent of our devotion is to welcome God to our hearts now where shall we entertain him if the rooms be full thronged with cares and turbulent passions The Spirit of God will not endure to be crowded up together with the vvorld in our strait lodgings An holy vacuity must make way for him in our bosomes The divine pattern of Devotion in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily retires into the Mount to pray he that carried heaven with him would even thus leave the world below him Alas how can we hope to mount up to heaven in our thoughts if we have the clogges of earthly cares hanging at our heels Yea not onely must there be a shutting out of all distractive cares and passions which are professed enemies to our quiet conversing with God in our Devotion but there must be also a denudation of the minde from all those images of our phantasie how pleasing soever that may carry our thoughts aside from those better objects We are like to foolish children who when they should be stedfastly looking on their books are apt to gaze after every butterfly that passeth by them here must be therefore a carefull intention of our thoughts a restraint from all vain and idle rovings and an holding our selves close to our divine task Whiles Martha is troubled about many things her devouter sister having chosen the better part plies the one thing necessary which shall never be taken from her and whiles Martha would feast Christ with bodily fare she is feasted of Christ with heavenly delicacies SECT XI AFter the heart is thus cleansed and thus cleared it must be in the next place decked with true humility the cheapest yet best ornament of the soul If the wise man tel us that pride is the beginning of sin surely all gracious dispositions must begin in humility The foundation of all high and stately buildings must be laid low They are the lowly valleys that soak in the showers of heaven which the steep hils shelve off and prove dry and fruitlesse To that man will I look saith God that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Hence it is that the more eminent any man is in grace the more he is dejected in the sight of God The father of the faithfull comes to God under the style of dust and ashes David under the style of a worm and no man Agur the son of Jakeh under the title of more brutish then any man and one that hath not the understanding of a man John Baptist as not worthy to carry the shooes of Christ after him Paul as the least of Saints and chief of sinners On the contrary the more vile any man is in his own eies and the more dejected in the sight of God the higher he is exalted in Gods favour Like as the Conduict-water by how much lower it fals the higher it riseth When therefore we would appear before God in our solemn devotions we must see that we empty our selves of all proud conceits and find our hearts fully convinced of our own vilenesse yea nothingnesse in his sight Down down with all our high thoughts fall we low before our great and holy God not to the earth only but to the very brim of hell in the conscience of our own guiltinesse for though the miserable wretchednesse of our nature may be a sufficient cause of our humiliation yet the consideration of our detestable sinfulnes is that which will depresse us lowest in the sight of God SECT XII IT is fit the exercise of our Devotion should begin in an humble confession of our unworthinesse Now for the effectuall furtherance of this our self-dejection it wil be requisite to bend our eyes upon a threefold object To look inward into our selves upward to heaven downwards to hell First to turn our eyes into our bosomes and to take a view not without a secret self-loathing of that world of corruption that hath lyen hidden there and thereupon to accuse arraign and condemn our selves before that awfull Tribunall of the Judge of heaven and earth both of that originall pollution which wee have drawn from the tainted loyns of our first parents and those innumerable actuall wickednesses derived there-from which have stayned our persons and lives How can we be but throughly humbled to see our souls utterly overspread with the odious and abominable leprosie of sin We finde that Vzziah bore up stoutly a while against the Priests of the Lord in the maintenance of his sacrilegious presumption but when he saw himself turn'd Lazar on the suddain he is confounded in himself and in a depth of shame hastens away from the presence of God to a sad and penitentiall retirednesse Wee should need no other arguments to loath ourselves then the sight of our own faces so miserably deformed with the nasty and hatefull scurfe of our iniquity Neither onely must we be content to shame and grieve our eyes with the foule nature and condition of our sins but we must represent them to our selves in all the circumstances that may aggravate their hainousnesse Alas Lord any one sin is able to damn a soul I have committed many yea numberlesse they have not possessed me single but as that evill spirit said their name is Legion neither have I committed these sins once but often Thine Angels that were sinned but once and are damned for ever I have frequently reiterated the same offences where then were it not for thy mercy shall I appear neither have I only done them in the time of my ignorance but since I received sufficient illumination from thee It is not in the dark that I have stumbled and faln but in the midst of the clear light and sun-shine of thy Gospel and in the very face of thee my God neither have these been the ships of my weaknesse but the bold miscarriages of my presumption neither have I offended out of inconsideration and inadvertency but after and against the checks of a remurmuring conscience after so many gracious warnings and fatherly admonitions after so many fearfull examples of thy judgements after so infinite obligations of thy favors And thus having
familiarity can abate of his aw nor fear abate ought of his love To whom the gates of heaven are ever open that he may goe in at pleasure to the throne of grace and none of the Angelicall spirits can offer to challenge him of too much boldnesse Whose eies are well acquainted with those heavenly guardians the presence of whom he doth as truly acknowledge as if they were his sensible companions He is well known of the King of glory for a daily suitor in the Court of heaven none so welcome there as he He accounts all his time lost that fals beside his God and can be no more weary of good thoughts then of happinesse His bosome is no harbour for any known evill and it is a question whether he more abhorres sin or hell His care is to entertain God in a clear and free heart and therefore he thrusts the world out of doors and humbly beseeches God to welcome himself to his own He is truly dejected and vile in his own eies Nothing but hell is lower then he every of his slips are hainous every trespasse is aggravated to rebellion The glory and favours of God heighten his humiliation He hath lookt down to the bottomles deep seen with horror what he deserved to feel everlastingly His crys have been as strong as his fears just he hath found mercy more ready to rescue him then he could be importunate His hand could not be so soon put forth as his Saviours for deliverance The sense of this mercy hath raised him to an unspeakable joy to a most fervent love of so dear a Redeemer that love hath knit his heart to so meritorious a deliverer and wrought a blessed union betwixt God and his soul That union can no more be severed from an infinite delight then that delight can be severed from an humble and cheerfull acquiescence in his munificent God And now as in an heavenly freedome he pours out his soul into the bosome of the Almighty in all faithfull suits for himself and others so he enjoys God in the blessings received and returns all zealous praises to the giver He comes reverently to the Oracles of God and brings not his eye but his heart with him not carelesly negligent in seeking to know the revealed will of his maker nor too busily inquisitive into his deep counsels not too remisse in the letter nor too peremptory in the sense gladly comprehending what he may and admiring what he cannot comprehend Doth God call for his ear He goes awfully into the holy presence and so hears as if he should now hear his last Latching every word that drops from the Preachers lips ere it fall to the ground and laying it up carefully where he may be sure to fetch it He sits not to censure but to learn yet speculation and knowledge is the least drift of his labour Nothing is his own but what he practiseth Is he invited to Gods feast he hates to come in a foul and slovenly dresse but trims up his soul so as may be fit for an heavenly guest Neither doth he leave his stomach at home cloyed with the world but brings a sharp appetite with him and so sâ—eds as if he meant to live for ever All earthly delicates are unfavoury to him in respect of that celestiall Manna Shortly he so eats and drinks as one that sees himself set at Table with God and his Angels and rises and departs full of his Saviour and in the strength of that meal walks vigorously and cheerfully on towards his glory Finally as he well knows that he lives and moves and hath his beeing in God so he referres his life motions and beeing wholly to God so acting all things as if God did them by him so using all things as one that enjoyes God in them and in the mean time so walking on earth that he doth in a sort carry his heaven with him THE FREE PRISONER OR The COMFORT of RESTRAINT Written Some while since in the Tower BY I. H. B. N. The Free Prisoner OR The Comfort of Restraint SECT I. SIR WHiles you pity my affliction take heed lest you aggravate it and in your thoughts make it greater then it is in my own It is true I am under restraint What is that to a man that can be free in the Tower and cannot but be a prisoner abroad Such is my condition and every Divine Philosophers with me Were my walls much straiter then they are they cannot hold me in It is a bold word to say I cannot I will not be a prisoner It is my Soul that is I my flesh is my partner if not my servant not my self However my body may be immured that agile spirit shall flye abroad and visit both earth and heaven at pleasure Who shall hinder it from mounting up in an instant to that supream region of blisse and from seeing that by the eye of faith which S. Paul saw in extasie and when it hath viewed that blessed Hierarchy of heaven to glance down through the innumerable and unmeasurable globes of light which move in the firmament and below it into this elementary world and there to compasse seas and lands without shipwrack in a trice which a Drake or Cavendish cannot doe but with danger and in some years navigation And if my thoughts list to stay themselves in the passage with what variety can my soul be taken up of severall objects Here turning in to the dark vaults and dungeons of penall restraint to visit the disconsolate prisoners and to fetch from their greater misery a just mitigation of mine own There looking in to the houses of vain jollity and pitying that which the sensuall fools call happinesse Here stepping in to the Courts of great Princes and in them observing the fawning compliances of some the trecherous underworking of others hollow friendships faithlesse ingagements fair faces smooth tongues rich suits viewing all save their hearts censuring nothing that it sees not There calling in at the low cottages of the poor and out of their empty cupboard furnishing it self with thankfulnesse Here so over-looking the Courts of Justice as not willing to seerigour or partiality There listing what they say in those meetings which would passe for sacred and wondring at what it hears Thus can and shall and doth my nimble spirit bestir it self in a restless flight making onely the Empyreall heaven the bounds of it's motion not being more able to stand still then the heavens themselves whence it descended Should the iron enter into my soul as it did into that good Patriarchs yet it cannot fetter me No more can my spirit be confined to one place then my body can be diffused to many Perhaps therefore you are mistaken in my condition for what is it I beseech you that makes a prisoner Is it an allotment to the same room without change without remove What is that still to a minde that is free And why is my body then