not so perfectly renounced or hated as they ought the parts of repentance which are left unfinished do sometimes fall upon the heads or upon the fortunes of the children I do not say this is regular and certain but sometimes God deals thus For this thing hath been so and therefore it may be so again we see it was done in the case of Ahab he humbled himself and went softly and lay in sackcloth and called for pardon and God took from him a judgement which was falling heavily upon him but we all know his repentance was imperfect and lame The same evil fell upon his sons for so said God I will bring the evil upon his house in his sons dayes Leave no arreares for thy posterity to pay but repent with an integral a holy and excellent repentance that God being reconciled to thee thoroughly for thy sake also he may blesse thy seed after thee And after all this adde a continual a servent a hearty a never ceasing prayer for thy children ever remembring when they beg a blessing that God hath put much of their fortune into your hands and a transient formal God blesse thee will not out-weigh the load of a great vice and the curse that scatters from thee by virtual contact and by the chanels of relation if thou beest a vicious person Nothing can issue from thy fountain but bitter waters And as it were a great impudence for a condemned Traitor to beg of his injured Prince a province for his son for his sake so it is an ineffective blessing we give our children when we beg for them what we have no title to for our selves Nay when we can convey to them nothing but a curse The praier of a sinner the unhallowed wish of a vitâ—ous Parent is but a poor donative to give to a childe who suck'd poison from his nurse and derives cursing from his Parents They are punished with a double torture in the shame and paines of the damned who dying Enemies to God have left an inventary of sins and wrath to be divided amongst their children But they that can truely give a blessing to their children are such as live a blessed life and pray holy prayers and perform an integral repentance and do separate from the sins of their Progenitors and do illustrious actions and begin the blessing of their family upon a new stock for as from the eyes of some persons there shoots forth a visible influence and some have an evil eye and are infectious some look healthfully as a friendly planet and innocent as flowers and as some fancies convey private effects to confederate and allayed bodyes and between the very vital spirits of friends and Relatives there is a cognation and they refresh each other like social plants and a good man is a * friend to every Good man and they say that an usuter knows an usurer and one rich man another there being by the very manners of men contracted a similitude of nature and a communication of effects so in parents and their children there is so great a society of nature and of manners of blessing and of cursing that an evil parent cannot perish in a single death and holy parents never eat their meal of blessing alone but they make the roome shine like the fire of a holy sacrifice and a Fathers or a Mothers piety makes all the house festivall and full of joy from generation to generation Amen Sermon V. THE Invalidity of a late or death-bed Repentance 13. Jeremy 16. Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or left while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse GOd is the eternall fountain of honour and the spring of glory in him it dwells essentially from him it derives originally and when an action is glorious or a man is honourable it is because the action is pleasing to God in the relation of obedience or imitation and because the man is honoured by God or by Gods Vicegerent and therefore God cannot be dishonoured because all honour comes from himself he cannot but be glorified because to be himself is to be infinitely glorious And yet he is pleased to say that our sins dishonour him and our obedience does glorifie him But as the Sun the great eye of the world prying into the recesses of rocks and the hollownesse of valleys receives species or visible forms from these objects but he beholds them onely by that light which proceeds from himself So does God who is the light of that eye he receives reflexes and returns from us and these he calls glorifications of himself but they are such which are made so by his own gracious acceptation For God cannot be glorified by any thing but by himself and by his own instruments which he makes as mirrours to reflect his own excellency that by seeing the glory of such emanations he may rejoyce in his own works because they are images of his infinity Thus when he made the beauteous frame of heaven and earth he rejoyced in it and glorified himself because it was the glasse in which he beheld his wisedom and Almighty power And when God destroyed the old world in that also he glorified himself for in those waters he saw the image of his justice they were the looking glasse for that Attribute and God is said to laugh at and rejoyce in the destruction of a sinner because he is pleased with the Oeconomy of his own lawes and the excellent proportions he hath made of his judgements consequent to our sins But above all God rejoyced in his Holy Son for he was the image of the Divinity the character and expresse image of his person in him he beheld his own Essence his wisedom his power his justice and his person and he was that excellent instrument designed from eternall ages to represent as in a double mirrour not onely the glories of God to himself but also to all the world and he glorified God by the instrument of obedience in which God beheld his own dominion and the sanctity of his lawes clearly represented and he saw his justice glorified when it was fully satisfied by the passion of his Son and so he hath transmitted to us a great manner of the Divine glorification being become to us the Authour and the Example of giving glory to God after the manner of men that is by well-doing and patient suffering by obeying his lawes and submitting to his power by imitating his holinesse and confessing his goodnesse by remaining innocent or becoming penitent for this also is called in the Text GIVING GLORY TO THE LORD OUR GOD. For he that hath dishonoured God by sins that is hath denied by a morall instrument of duty and subordination to confesse the glories of his power and the goodnesse of his lawes and hath
hath dressed not onely our needs but hath fitted the severall portions of the yeer and made us to go dressed like our mother leaving off the winter sables when the florid spring appears and assoon as the Tulip fades we put on the robe of Summer and then shear our sheep for Winter and God uses us as Joseph did his brother Benjamin we have many changes of raiment and our messe is five times bigger then the provision made for our brothers of the Creation But the providence and mercies of God are to be estimated also according as these provisions are dispensed to every single person For that I may not remark the bounties of God running over the tables of the rich God hath also made provisions for the poorest person so that if they can but rule their desires they shall have their tables furnished and this is secured and provided for by one promise and two duties by our Own labour and our Brothers charity and our faith in this affair is confirmed by all our own and by all the experience of other men Are not all the men and the women of the world provided for and fed and clothed till they die and was it not alwayes so from the first morning of the creatures and that a man is starved to death is a violence and a rare contingency happening almost as seldom as for a man to have but one eye and if our being provided for be as certain as for a man to have two eyes we have reason to adore the wisdom and admire the mercies of our Almighty Father But these things are evident Is it not a great thing that God hath made such strange provisions for our health such infinite differences of Plants and hath discovered the secrets of their nature by meer chance or by inspiration either of which is the miracle of providence secret to us but ordered by certain and regular decrees of heaven It was a huge diligence and care of the divine mercy that discovered to man the secrets of Spagyrick medicines of stones of spirits and the results of 7. or 8. decoctions and the strange effects of accidental mixtures which the art of man could not suspect being bound up in the secret sanctuary of hidden causes and secret natures and being laid open by the concourse of 20 or 30. little accidents all which were ordered by God as certainly as are the first principles of nature or the descent of sons from fathers in the most noble families But that which I shall observe in this whole affair is that there are both for the provision of our tables and the relief of our sicknesses so many miracles of providence that they give plain demonstration what relation we bear to heaven and the poor man need not be troubled that he is to expect his daily portion after the Sun is up for he hath found to this day he was not deceived and then he may rejoyce because he sees by an effective probation that in heaven a decree was made every day to send him provisions of meat and drink and that is a mighty mercy when the circles of heaven are bowed down to wrap us in a bosome of care and nourishment and the wisdom of God is daily busied to serve his mercy as his mercy serves our necessities Does not God plant remedies there where the diseases are most popular and every Countrey is best provided against its own evils Is not the Rhubarb found where the Sun most corrupts the liver and the Scabious by the shore of the Sea that God might cure as soon as he wounds and the inhabitants may see their remedy against the leprosie and the scurvy before they feel their sicknesse And then to this we may adde Natures commons and open fields the shores of rivers and the strand of the Sea the unconfined air the wildernesse that hath no hedge and that in these every man may hunt and fowl and â—â—sh respectively and that God sends some miracles and extraordinary blessings so for the publike good that he will not endure they should be inclosed and made severall Thus he is pleased â—o dispense the Manna of Calabria the medicinall waters of Germany the Musles at Sluce at this day and the Egyptian beans in the marishes of Albania and the salt at Troas of old which God to defeat the covetousnesse of man and to spread his mercy over thâ— face of the indigent as the Sun scatters his beams over the bosome of the whole earth did so order that as long as every man was permitted to partake the bosome of heaven was open but when man gathered them into single handfulls and made them impropriate God gathered his hand into his bosome and bound the heavens with ribs of brasse and the earth with decrees of iron and the blessing reverted to him that gave it since they might not receive it to whom it was sent And in general this is the excellency of this mercy that all our needs are certainly supplied and secured by a promise which God cannot break but he that cannot breake the lawes of his own promises can break the lawes of nature that he may perform his promise and he will do a miracle rather then forsake thee in thy needs So that our security and the relative mercy is bound upon us by all the power and the truth of God 8. But because such is the bounty of God that he hath provided a better life for the inheritance of man if God is so mercifull in making fair provisions for our lesse noble part in order to the transition toward our Countrey we may expect that the mercies of God hath rare arts to secure to us his designed bounty in order to our inheritance to that which ought to be our portion for ever And here I consider that it is an infinite mercy of the Almighty Father of mercies that he hath appointed to us such a religion that leads us to a huge felicity through pleasant wayes For the felicity that is designed to us is so above our present capacities and conceptions that while we are so ignorant as not to understand it we are also so foolish as not to desire it with passions great enough to perform the little conditions of its purchase God therefore knowing how great an interest it is and how apt we would be to neglect it hath found out such conditions of acquiring it which are eases and satisfaction to our present appetites God hath bound our salvation upon us by the endearment of temporall prosperities and because we love this world so well God hath so ordered it that even this world may secure the other And of this God in old time made open profession for when he had secretly designed to bring his people to a glorious immortality in another world he told them nothing of that it being a thing bigger then the capacity of their thoughts or of their Theology but told them that which would tempt
and interest false doctrine upon mistake and upon designe the malice of the Devil and the arts of all his instruments the want of zeal and a wearinesse of spirit filthy examples and a disreputation of piety and a strict life seldome precedents and infinite discouragements have caused so infinite a declension of piety and holy living that what Papirius Massonius one of their own said of the Popes of Rome In pontificibus nemo hodiè sanctitatem requirit optimi putantur si vel levitèr mali sint vel minus boni quam caeteri mortales esse solent No man looks for holines in the Bishops of Rome those are the best Popes who are not extremly wicked the same is too true of the greatest part of Christians Men are excellent persons if they be not traytors or adulterous oppressors or injurious drunâ—ards or scandalous if they be not as this publican as the vilest person with whom they converse Nunc si depositum non inficiatur amicus Si reddat veterem cum totâ aerugine fllem Prodigiosa fides Thuscis digna libellis Quaeque coronatâ lustrari debeat agnâ He that is better then the dregs of his own age whose religion is something above prophanesse and whose sobriety is a step or two from down right intemperance whose discourse is not swearing nor yet apt to edifie whose charity is set out in pity and a gentle yerning and saying God help whose alms are contemptible and his devotion infrequent yet as things are now he is unus è milibus one of a thousand and he stands eminent and conspicuous in the valleys and lower grounds of the present piety for a bank is a mountain upon a levell but what is rare and eminent in the manners of men this day would have been scandalous and have deserved the rod of an Apostle if it had been confronted with the fervours and rare devotion and religion of our fathers in the Gospel Men of old looked upon themselves as they stood by the examples and precedents of Martyrs and compared their piety to the life of Saint Paul and estimated their zeal by the flames of the Boanerges Saint James and his brother and the Bishops were thought reproveable as they fell short of the ordinary government of Saint Peter and Saint John and the assemblies of Christians were so holy that every meeting had religion enough to hallow a house and convert it to a Church and every day of feasting was a Communion and every fasting day was a day of repentance and alms and every day of thanksgiving was a day of joy and alms and religion begun all their actions and prayer consecrated them and they ended in charity and were not polluted with designe they despised the world heartily and pursued after heaven greedily they knew no ends but to serve God and to be saved and had no designes upon their neighbours but to lead them to God and to felicity till Satan full of envy to see such excellent dayes mingled covetousnesse and ambition within the throngs and conventions of the Church and a vice crept into an office and then the mutuall confidence grew lesse and so charity was lessened and heresies crept in and then faith began to be sullied and pride crept in and then men snatched at offices not for the work but for the dignity and then they served themselves more then God and the Church till at last it came to the passe where now it is that the Clergy live lives no better then the Laity and the Laity are stooped to imitate the evil customes of strangers and enemies of Christianity so that we should think Religion in a good condition so that men did offer up to God but the actions of an ordinary even and just life without the scandall and allayes of a great impiety But because such is the nature of things that either they grow towards perfection or decline towards dissolution There is no proper way to secure it but by setting its growth forward for religion hath no station or naturall periods if it does not grow better it grows much worse not that it alwayes returns the man into scandalous sins but that it establishes and fixes him in a state of indifferency and lukewarmnesse and he is more averse to a state of improvement and dies in an incurious ignorant and unrelenting condition But grow in grace That 's the remedy and that would make us all wise and happy blessed in this world and sure of heaven Concerning which we are to consider first what the estate of grace is into which every one of us must be entred that we may grow in it secondly the proper parts acts and offices of growing in grace 3. The signes consequences and proper significations by which if we cannot perceive the growing yet afterwards we may perceive that we are grown and so judge of the state of our duty and concerning our finall condition of being saved 1. Concerning the state of grace I consider that no man can be said to be in the state of grace who retaines an affection to any one sin The state of pardon and the divine favour begins at the first instance of anger against our crimes when we leave our fondnesses and kinde opinions when we excuse them not and will not endure their shame when we feele the smarts of any of their evil consequents for he that is a perfect lover of sin and is sealed up to a reprobate sense endures all that sin brings along with it and is reconciled to all its mischiefes can suffer the sicknesse of his own drunkennesse and yet call it pleasure he can wait like a slave to serve his lust and yet count it no disparagement he can suffer the dishonour of being accounted a base and dishonest person and yet look confidently and think himself no worse But when the grace of God begins to work upon a mans spirit it makes the conscience nice and tender and although the sin as yet does not displease the man but he can endure the flattering and alluring part yet he will not endure to be used so ill by his sin he will not be abused and dishonoured by it But because God hath so allayed the pleasures of his sin that he that drinks the sweet should also strain the dregs through his throat by degrees Gods grace doth irreconcile the convert and discovers first its base attendance then its worse consequents then the displeasure of God that here commences the first resolutions of leaving the sin and trying if in the service of God his spirit and the whole appetite of man may be better entertained He that is thus far entred shall quickly perceive the difference and meet arguments enough to invite him further For then God treats the man as he treated the spies that went to discover the land of promise he ordered the year in plenty and directed them to a pleasant and a fruitful place and prepared bunches of grapes
a childe for playing with flies and preferring the present appetite before all the possibilities of to morrows event But men wondered when they saw Socrates ride upon a cane and when Solomon laid his wisdom at the foot of Pharaohs daughter and changed his glory for the interest of wanton sleep he became the discourse of heaven and earth and men think themselves abused and their expectation cousened when they see a wise man do the actions of a fool and a good man seized upon by the dishonours of a crime But the losse of his reputation is the least of his evil It is the greatest improvidence in the world to let a healthful constitution be destroyed in the surfet of one night For although when a man by the grace of God and a long endeavour hath obtained the habit of Christian graces every single sin does not spoil the habit of vertue because that cannot be lost but as it was gotten that is by parts and succession yet every crime interrupts the acceptation of the grace and makes the man to enter into the state of enmity and displeasure with God The habit is onely lessened naturally but the value of it is wholly taken away and in this sence is that of Josephus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Saint James well renders He that keeps the whole law and offends in one point is guilty of all that is if he prevaricates in any commandment the transgression of which by the law was capital shall as certainly die as if he broke the whole law and the same is the case of those single actions which the school calls deadly sins that is actions of choice in any sin that hath a name and makes a Kinde hath a distinct matter And sins once pardoned return again to al the purposes of mischief If we by a new sin forfeit Gods former loving kindnesse When the righteous man turneth from his righteousnesse and commiteth iniquity all his righteousnesse that he hath done shall not be remembred in the trespasse that he hath trespassed and in the sin that he hath sinned in them shall he die Now then consider how great a fool he is who when he hath with much labour by suffering violence contradicted his first desires when his spirit hath been in agony and care and with much uneasinesse hath denied to please the lower man when with many prayers and groans and innumerable sighs and strong cryings to God with sharp sufferances and a long severity he hath obtained of God to begin his pardon and restitution and that he is in some hopes to return to Gods favour and that he shall become an heire of heaven when some of his amazing fears and distracting cares begin to be taken off when he begins to think that now it is not certain he shall perish in a sad eternity but he hopes to be saved and he considers how excellent a condition that is he hopes when he dies to go to God and that he shall never enter into the possession of Devils and this state which is but the twilight of a glorious felicity he hath obtained with great labour and much care and infinite danger that this man should throw all this structure down and then when he is ready to reap the fruits of his labours by one indiscreet action to set fire upon his corn fields and destroy all his dearly earned hopes for the madnesse and loose wandrings of an hour This man is an indiscreet gamester who doubles his stake as he thrives and at one throw is dispossessed of all the prosperities of a luckie hand They that are poor as Plutarch observes are carelesse of little things because by saving them they think no great moments can accrue to their estates and they despairing to be rich think such frugality impertinent But they that feele their banks swell and are within the possibilities of wealth think it useful if they reserve the smaller minuts of expence knowing that every thing will adde to their heap but then after long sparing in one night to throw away the wealth of a long purchase is an imprudence becoming none but such persons who are to be kept under Tutors and Guardians and such as are to be chastised by their servants and to be punished by them whom they clothe and feed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These men sowe much and gather little stay long and return empty and after a long voyage they are dashed in pieces when their vessels are laden with the spoils of provinces Every deadly sin destroyes the rewards of a seven years piety I adde to this that God is more impatient at a sin committed by his servants then at many by persons that are his enemies and an uncivil answer from a son to a Father from an obliged person to a benefactor is a greater undecency then if an enemy should storm his house or revile him to his head Augustus Caesar taxed all the world and God took no publick notices of it but when David taxed and numbered a petty province it was not to be expiated without a plague because such persons besides the direct sin adde the circumstance of ingratitude to God who hath redeemed them from their vain conversation and from death and from hell and consigned them to the inheritance of sons and given them his grace and his spirit and many periods of comfort and a certain hope and visible earnests of immortality nothing is baser then that such a person against his reason against his interest against his God against so many obligations against his custome against his very habits and acquired inclinations should do an action Quam nisi Seductis nequeas committere Divis Which a man must for ever be ashamed of and like Adam must run from God himself to do it and depart from the state in which he had placed all his hopes and to which he had designed all his labours The consideration is effective enough if we sum up the particulars for he that hath lived well and then falls into a deliberate sin is infinitely dishonoured is most imprudent most unsafe and most unthankful 2. Let persons tempted to the single instances of sin in the midst of a laudable life be very careful that they suffer not themselves to be drawn aside by the eminency of great examples For some think drunkennesse hath a little honesty derived unto it by the examples of Noah and Adultery is not so scandalous and intolerably dishonorable since Bathsheba bathed and David was defiled and men think a flight is no cowardise if a General turns his head and runs Pompeio fugiente timent Well might all the gowned Romans fear when Pompey fled and who is there that can hope to be more righteous then David or stronger then Samson or have lesse hypocrisy then Saint Peter or be more temperate then Noah These great examples bear men of weak discourses and weaker resolutions from the severity
enjoyes is that they keep him warm and clean and modest and all this is done by clean and lesse pompous vestmerâ—s the beauty of them which distinguishes him from others is made to please the eyes of the beholders and he is like a fair bird or the meretricious painting of a wanton woman made wholly to be looked on that is to be enjoyed by every one but himself and the fairest face and the sparkling eye cannot perceive or enjoy their own beauties but by reflection It is I that am pleased with beholding his gayety and the gay man in his greatesâ— bravery is onely pleased because I am pleased with the sight so borrowing his little and imaginary complacency from the delight that I have not from any inherency of his own possession The poorest Artizan of Rome walking in Caesars gardens had the same pleasures which they ministred to their Lord and although it may be he was put to gather fruits to eat from another place yet his other senses were delighted equally with Caesars the birds made him as good musick the flowers gave him as sweet smells he there sucked as good aire and delighted in the beauty and order of the place for the same reason and upon the same perception as the prince himself save onely that Caesar paid for all that pleasure vast summes of money the blood and treasure of a province which the poor man had for nothing 3. Suppose a man Lord of all the world for still we are but in supposition yet since every thing is received not according to its own gteatnesse and worth but according to the capacity of the receiver it signifies very little as to our content or to the riches of our possession If any man should give to a Lion a fair meadow full of hay or a thousand quince trees or should give to the goodly Bull the master and the fairest of the whole heard a thousand fair Stags If a man should present to a childe a ship laden with Persian carpets and the ingredients of the rich scarlet all these being either disproportionate to the appetite or to the understanding could adde nothing of content and might declare the freenesse of the presenter but they upbraid the incapacity of the receiver and so it does if God should give the whole world to any man He knows not what to do with it he can use no more but according to the capacities of a man He can use nothing but meat and drink and cloths and infinite riches that can give him changes of raiment every day and a full table do but give him a clean trencher every bit he eats it signifies no more but wantonnesse and variety to the same not to any new purposes He to whom the world can be given to any purpose greater then a private estate can minister must have new capacities created in him He needs the understanding of an Angel to take the accounts of his estate He had need have a stomach like fire or the grave for else he can eat no more then one of his healthful subjects and unlesse he hath an eye like the Sun and a motion like that of a thought and a bulk as big as one of the orbs of heaven the pleasures of his eye can be no greater then to behold the beauty of a little prospect from a hill or to look upon the heap of gold packt up in a little room or to dote upon a cabinet of Jewels better then which there is no man that sees at all but sees every day For not to name the beauties and sparkling diamonds of heaven a mans or a womans or a haukes eye is more beauteous and excellent then al the Jewels of his crown And when we remember that a beast who hath quicker senses then a man yet hath not so great delight in the fruition of any object because he wants understanding and the power to make reflex acts upon his perception it will follow that understanding and knowledge is the greatest instrument of pleasure and he that is most knowing hath a capacity to become happy which a lesse knowing prince or a rich person hath not and in this onely a mans capacity is capable of enlargement but then although they onely have power to relish any pleasure rightly who rightly understand the nature and degrees and essences and ends of things yet they that do so understand also the vanity and the unsatisfyingnesse of the things of this world so that the relish which could not be great but in a great understanding appears contemptible because its vanity appears at the same time the understanding sees all and sees thorow it 4. The greatest vanity of this world is remarkable in this that all its joyes summed up together are not big enough to counterpoise the evil of one sharp disease or to allay a sorrow For imagine a man great in his dominion as Cyrus rich as Solomon victorious as David beloved like Titus learned as Trismegist powerful as all the Roman greatnesse all this and the results of all this give him no more pleasure in the midst of a feaver or the tortures of the stone then if he were only lord of a little dish and a dishfull of fountain water Indeed the excellency of a holy conscience is a comfort and a magazine of joy so great that it sweetens the most bitter potion of the world and makes tortures and death not only tolerable but amiable and therefore to part with this whose excellency is so great for the world that is of so inconsiderable a worth as not to have in it recompence enough for the sorrows of a sharp disease is a bargain fit to be made by none but fools and mad men Antiochus Epiphanes Herod the great his grand child Agrippa were sad instances of this great truth to every of which it happened that the grandeur of their fortune the greatnesse of their possessions and the encrease of their estate disappeared and expired like Camphire at their arrest by those several sharp diseases which covered their head with Cypresse and hid their crowns in an inglorious grave For what can all the world minister to a sick person If it represents all the spoils of nature and the choicest delicacies of land and sea Alas his appetite is lost and to see a pibble stone is more pleasing to him For he can look upon that without loathing but not so upon the most delicious fare that ever made famous the Roman luxury Perfumes make his head ake if you load him with jewels you presse him with a burden as troublesome as his grave-stone and what pleasure is in all those possessions that cannot make his pillow easie nor tame the rebellion of a tumultuous humour nor restore the use of a withered hand or straighten a crooked finger vain is the hope of that man whose soul rests upon vanity and such unprofitable possessions 5. Suppose a man lord of all this world an
be compared to a wise soul and a prudent spirit and he that wants it hath a lesse vertue and a defenselesse minde and will suffer a mighty hazard in the interest of eternity Its parts and proper acts consist in the following particulars 1. It is the duty of Christian prudence to choose the end of a Christian that which is perfective of a man satisfactory to reason the rest of a Christian and the beatification of his spirit and that is to choose and desire and propound to himself heaven and the fruition of God as the end of all his acts and arts his designes and purposes For in the nature of things that is most eligible and most to be pursued which is most perfective of our nature and is the acquiescence the satisfaction and proper rest of our most reasonable appetites Now the things of this world are difficult and uneasie full of thornes and empty of pleasures they fill a diseased faculty or an abused sense but are an infinite dissatisfaction to reason and the appetites of the soul they are short and transient and they never abide unlesse sorrow like a chain be bound about their leg and then they never stir till the grace of God and religion breaks it or else that the rust of time eats the chain in pieces they are dangerous and doubtfull few and difficult fordid and particular not onely not communicable to a multitude but not diffusive upon the whole man there being no one pleasure or object in this world that delights all the parts of man and after all this they are originally from earth and from the creatures onely that they oftentimes contract alliances with hell and the grave with shame and sorrow and all these put together make no great amability or proportion to a wise mans choice But on the other side the things of God are the noblest satisfactions to those desires which ought to be cherished and swelled up to infinite their deliciousnesse is vast and full of relish and their very appendant thorns are to be chosen for they are gilded they are safe and medicinall they heal the wound they make and bring forth fruit of a blessed and a holy life The things of God and of religion are easie and sweet they bear entertainments in their hand and reward at their back their good is certain and perpetual and they make us cheerfull to day and pleasant to morrow and spiritual songs end not in a sigh and a groan neither like unwholesome physick do they let loose a present humour and introduce an habitual indisposition But they bring us to the felicity of God the same yesterday and to day and for ever they do not give a private and particular delight but their benefit is publike like the incense of the altar it sends up a sweet smell to heaven and makes atonement for the religious man that kindled it and delights all the standers by and makes the very air wholesome there is no blessed soul goes to heaven but he makes a generall joy in all the mansions where the Saints do dwell and in all the chappels where the Angels sing and the joyes of religion are not univocal but productive of rare and accidental and praeternatural pleasures for the musick of holy hymnes delights the ear and refreshes the spirit and makes the very bones of the Saint to rejoyce and charity or the giving alms to the poor does not onely ease the poverty of the receiver but makes the giver rich and heals his sicknesse and delivers from death and temperance though it be in the matter of meat and drink and pleasures yet hath an effect upon the understanding and makes the reason sober and his will orderly and his â—ffections regular and does things beside and beyond their natural and proper efficacy for all the parts of our duty are watered with the showers of blessing and bring forth fruit according to the influence of heaven and beyond the capacities of nature And now let the voluptuous person go and try whether putting his wanton hand to the bosome of his Misâ—â—s will get half such honour as Scaevola put upon his head when he put his hand into the fire Let him see whether a drunken meeting will cure a fever or make him wise A hearty and a persevering prayer will Let him tell me if spending great summes of money upon his lusts will make him sleep soundly or be rich Charity will Alms will increase his fortune and a good conscience shall charme all his cares and sorrows into a most delicious slumber well may a full goblet wet the drunkards tongue and then the heat rising from the stomack will dry the spunge and heat it into the scorchings and little images of hell and the follies of a wanton bed will turn the itch into a smart and empty the reins of all their lustfull powers but can they do honour or satisfaction in any thing that must last and that ought to be provided for No All the things of this world are little and trifling and limited and particular and sometimes necessary because we are miserable wanting and imperfect but they never do any thing toward perfection but their pleasure dies like the time in which it danced a while and when the minute is gone so is the pleasure too and leaves no footstep but the impression of a sigh and dwells no where but in the same house where you shall finde yesterday that is in forgetfulnesse and annihilation unlesse its onely childe sorrow shall marry and breed more of its kinde and so continue its memory and name to eternall ages It is therefore the most necessary part of prudence to choose well in the main stake and the dispute is not much for if eternall things be better then temporall the soul more noble then the body vertue more honourable then the basest vices a lasting joy to be chosen before an eternall sorrow much to be preferred before little certainty before danger publike good things before private evils eternity before moments then let us set down in religion and make heaven to be our end God to be our Father Christ our elder Brother the Holy Ghost the earnest of our inheritance vertue to be our imployment and then we shall never enter into the portion of fools and accursed ill-choosing spirits Nazianzen said well Malim prudentiae guttam quà m foecundioris fortunae pelagus One drop of prudence is more usefull then an ocean of a smooth fortune for prudence is a rare instrument towards heaven and a great fortune is made oftentimes the high-way to hell and destruction However thus farre prudence is our duty every man can be so wise and is bound to it to choose heaven and a cohabitation with God before the possessions and transient vanities of the world 2. It is a duty of Christian prudence to pursue this great end with apt means and instruments in proportion to that end No wise man will sail to Ormus
sure enough 7. You may also watch whether they do not chose their proselyts amongst the rich and vitious that they mâ—y serve themselves upon his wealth and their disciple upon his vice 8. If their doctrines evidently and greatly serve the interest oâ— wealth or honour and are ineffective to piety 9. If they strive to gain any one to their confession and are negligent to gain them to good life 10. If by pretences they lessen the severity of Christs precepts and are easy in dispensations and licencious glosses 11. If they invent suppletories to excuse an evil man and yet to reconcile his bad life with the hopes of heaven you have reason to suspect the whole and to reject these parts of errour and designe which in themselves are so unhandsom alwayes and somtimes criminal He that shal observe the Church of Rome so implacably fierce for purgatory and the Popes supremacy from clerical immunities and the Superiority of the Ecclesiastical persons to secular for indulgencies and precious and costly pardons and then so full of devises to reconcile an evil life with heaven requiring onely contrition even at the last for the abolition of eternal guilt and having a thousand wayes to commute and take off the temporal will see he hath reason to be jealous that interest is in these bigger then the religion and yet that the danger of the soul is greater then that interest and therefore the man is to do accordingly Here indeed is the great necessity that we should have the prudence and discretion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of serpents ut cernamus acutum Quam aut aquila aut serpens Epidaurius For so serpents as they are curious to preserve their heads from contrition or a bruise so also to safeguard themselves that they be not charmed with sweet and enticing words of false prophets who charm not wisely but cunningly leading aside unstable souls against these we must stop our ears or lend our attention according to the foregoing measures and significations but here also I am to insert two or three cautions 1. We cannot expect that by these or any other signes we shall be inabled to discover concerning all men whether they teach an errour or no. Neither can a man by these reprove a Lutheran or a Zuinglian a Dominican or a Franciscan a Russian or a Greek a Muscovite or a Georgian because those which are certain signes of false teachers do signifie such men who destroy an article of faith or a commandment God was careful to secure us from death by removing the Lepers from the camp and giving certain notices of distinction and putting a term between the living and the dead but he was not pleased to secure every man from innocent and harmlesse errors from the mistakes of men and the failings of mortality The signes which can distinguish a living man from a dead will not also distinguish a black man from a brown or a pale from a white It is enough that we decline those guides that lead us to hell but not to think that we are inticed to death by the weaknesses of every disagreeing brother 2. In all discerning of sects we must be careful to distinguish the faults of men from the evils of their doctrine for some there are that say very well and do very ill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Multos Thyrsigeros paucos est cernere Bacchos Many men of holy calling and holy religion that are of unholy lives homines ignavâ operâ Philosophâ sententiâ But these must be separated from the institution and the evil of the men is onely to be noted as that such persons be not taken to our single conduct and personal ministery I will be of the mans religion if it be good though he be not but I will not make him my confessor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If he be not wise for himself I will not sit down at his feet lest we mingle filthinesse instead of being cleansed and instructed 3. Let us make one separation more then we may consider and act according to the premises If we espie a designe or an evil mark upon one doctrine let us divide it from the other that are not so spotted for indeed the publick communions of men are at this day so ordered that they are as fond of their errours as of their truthes and somtimes moct zealous for what they have least reason to be so and if we can by any arts of prudence separate from an evil proposition and communicate in all the good then we may love colleges of religious persons though we do not worship images and we may obey our Prelates though we do no injury to princes and we may be zealous against a crime though we be not imperious over mens persons and we may be diligent in the conduct of souls though we be not rapacious of estates and we may be moderate exactors of Obedience to human laws though we do not dispense with the breach of the divine and the Clergy may represent their calling necessary though their persons be full of modesty and humility and we may preserve our rights and not lose our charity For this is the meaning of the Apostle Try all things and retain that which is good from every sect and communitie of Christians take any thing that is good that advances holy religion and the Divine honour For one hath a better government a second a better confession a third hath excellent spiritual arts for the conduct of souls a fourth hath fewer errours and by what instrument soever a holy life is advantaged use that though thou grindest thy spears and arrows at the forges of the Philistines knowing thou hast no Master but Christ no religion but the Christian no rule but the Scriptures and the laws and right reason other things that are helps are to be used accordingly These are the general rules of Christian prudence which I have chosen to insist upon there are many others more particular indeed but yet worth not onely the enumerating but observing also and that they be reduced to practise For the prudence of a Christian does oblige and direct respectively all the children of the institution * that we be careful to decline a danger * watchful against a temptation * alwayes choosing that that is safe and fitted to all circumstances * that we be wise in choosing our company * reserved and wary in our friendships * and communicative in our charity * that we be silent and retentive of what we hear and what we think * not credulous * not unconstant * that we be deliberate in our election * and vigorous in our prosecutions that we suffer not good nature to discompose our duty but that we separate images from substances and the pleasing of a present company from our religion to God and our eternal interest for sometimes that which is counselled to us by Christian prudence is accounted folly by humane prudence and so it is
the case of conscience into little particles and swallowed the lie by crumbs so that no one passage of it should rush against the conscience nor do hurt until it is all got into the belly and unites in the effect for by that time two men are abused the Merchant in his soul and the Contractor in his interest and this is the certain effect of much talking and little honesty but he that means honestly must speak but once that is one truth and hath leave to vary within the degrees of just prices and fair conditions which because they have a latitude may be enlarged or restrained according as the Merchant please save onely he must never prevaricate the measures of equity and the proportions of reputation and the publike But in all the parts of this traffick let our words be the significations of our thoughts and our thoughts designe nothing but the advantages of a permitted exchange In this case the severity is so great so exact and so without variety of case that it is not lawfull for a man to tell a truth with a collateral designe to cozen and abuse and therefore at no hand can it be permitted to lie or equivocate to speak craftily or to deceive by smoothnesse or intricacy or long discourses But this precept of simplicity in matter of contract hath one step of severity beyond this In matter of contract it is not lawfull so much as to conceal the secret and undiscernable faults of the merchandize but we must acknowledge them or else affix prices made diminute and lessened to such proportions and abatements as that fault should make Caveat emptor is a good caution for him that buyes and it secures the seller in publike Judicature but not in court of conscience and the old lawes of the Romans were as nice in this affair as the conscience of a Christian. Titus Claudius Centimalus was commanded by the Augures to pull down his house in the Coelian mountain because it hindred their observation of the flight of birds he exposes his house to sale Publius Calpurnius buyes it and is forced to pluck it down But complaining to the Judges had remedy because Claudius did not tell him the true state of the inconvenience He that sels a house infected with the plague or haunted with evil spirits sels that which is not worth such a price which it might be put to if it were in health and peace and therefore cannot demand it but openly and upon publication of the evil To which also this is to be added that in some great faults and such as have danger as in the cases now specified no diminution of the price is sufficient to make the Merchant just and sincere unlesse he tels the appendant mischief because to some persons in many cases and to all persons in some cases it is not at all valuable and they would not possesse it if they might for nothing Marcus Gratidianus bought a house of Sergius Orata which himself had sold before But because Sergius did not declare the appendant vassalage and service he was recompenced by the Judges for although it was certain that Gratidianus knew it because it had been his own yet Oportuit ex bonâ fide denunciari said the law it concerned the ingenuity of a good man to have spoken it openly In all cases it must be confessed in the price or in the words But when the evil may be personal and more then matter of interest and money it ought to be confessed and then the goods prescribed lest by my act I do my neighbour injury and I receive profit by his dammage Certain it is that ingenuity is the sweetest and easiest way there is no difficulty or cases of conscience in that and it can have no objection in it but that possibly sometimes we lose a little advantage which it may be we may lawfully acquire but still we secure a quiet conscience and if the merchandise be not worth so much to me then neither is it to him if it be to him it is also to me and therefore I have no losse no hurt to keep it if it be refused but he that secures his own profit and regards not the interest of another is more greedy of a full purse then of a holy conscience and prefers gain before justice and the wealth of his private before the necessity of publike society and commerce being a son of earth whose centre is it self without relation to heaven that moves upon anothers point and produces flowers for others and sends influence upon all the world and receives nothing in return but a cloud of perfume or the smell of a fat sacrifice God sent justice into the world that all conditions in their several proportions should be equall and he that receives a good should pay one and he whom I serve is obliged to feed and to defend me in the same proportions as I serve and justice is a relative terme and supposes two persons obliged and though fortunes are unequal and estates are in majority and subordination and men are wise or foolish honoured or despised yet in the entercourses of justice God hath made that there is no difference and therefore it was esteemed ignoble to dismisse a servant when corn was dear in dangers of shipwrack to throw out an unprofitable boy and keep a fair horse or for a wise man to snatch a plank from a drowning fool or if the Master of the ship should challenge the board upon which his passenger swims for his life or to obtrude false moneys upon others which we first took for true but at last discovered to be false or not to discover the gold which the merchant sold for alchimy The reason of all these is because the collateral advantages are not at all to be considered in matter of rights and though I am dearest to my self as my neighbour is to himself yet it is necessary that I permit him to his own advantages as I desire to be permitted to mine Now therefore simplicity and ingenuity in all contracts is perfectly and exactly necessary because its contrary destroys that equality which justice hath placed in the affaires of men and makes all things private and makes a man dearer to himself and to be preferred before Kings and republicks and Churches it destroyes society and it makes multitudes of men to be but like heards of beasts without proper instruments of exchange and securities of possession without faith and without propriety concerning all which there is no other account to be given but that the rewards of craft are but a little money and a great deal of dishonour and much suspicion and proportionable scorn watches and guards spies and jealousies are his portion But the crown of justice is a fair life and a clear reputation an inheritance there where justice dwells since she left the earth even in the kingdome of the just who shall call us to judgement for every word
much troubled that he missed the dignity but he saw himself blessed that he scaped the death and the dishonour of the overthrow by that time the sad news arrived at Rome The Gentleman at Marseilles cursed his starres that he was absent when the ship set sail to sea having long waited for a winde and missed it but he gave thanks to the providence that blest him with the crosse when he knew that the ship perished in the voyage and all the men were drowned And even those virgins and barren women in Jerusalem that longed to become glad mothers and for want of children would not be comforted yet when Titus sacked the City found the words of Jesus true Blessed is the womb that never bare and the paps that never gave suck And the world being governed with a rare variety and changes of accidents and providence that which is a misfortune in the particular in the whole order of things becomes a blessing bigger then we hoped for then when we were angry with God for hindring us to perish in pleasant wayes or when he was contriving to pour upon thy head a mighty blessing Do not think the Judge condemns you when he chides you nor think to read thy own finall sentence by the first half of his words Stand still and see how it will be in the whole event of things let God speak his minde out for it may be this sad beginning is but an art to bring in or to make thee to esteem and entertain and understand the blessing They that love to talk of the mercies of the Lord and to recount his good things cannot but have observed that God delights to be called by such Appellatives which relate to miserable and afflicted persons He is the Father of the fatherlesse and an avenger of the widowes cause he standeth at the right hand of the poor to save his soul from unrighteous Judges and he is with us in tribulation And upon this ground let us account whether mercy be not the greater ingredient in that death and deprivation when I lose a man and get God to be my Father and when my weak arm of flesh is cut from my shoulder and God makes me to lean upon him and becomes my Patron and my Guide my Advocate and Defender and if in our greatest misery Gods mercy is so conspicuous what can we suppose him to be in the endearment of his loving Kindnesse If his vail be so transparent well may we know that upon his face dwels glory and from his eyes light and perpetuall comforts run in channels larger then the returns of the Sea when it is driven and forced faster into its naturall course by the violence of a tempest from the North. The summe is this God intends every accident should minister to vertue and every vertue is the mother and the nurse of joy and both of them daughters of the Divine goodnesse and therefore if our sorrows do not passe into comforts it is besides Gods intention it is because we will not comply with the act of that mercy which would save us by all means and all varieties by health and by sicknesse by the life and by the death of our dearest friends by what we choose and by what we fear that as Gods providence rules over all chances of things and all designes of men so his mercy may rule over all his providence Sermon XXVI The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Part II. 7. GOD having by these means secured us from the evils of nature and contingencies he represents himself to be our Father which is the great endearment and tye and expression of a naturall unalterable and essentiall kindnesse he next makes provisions for us to supply all those necessities which himself hath made For even to make necessities was a great circumstance of the mercy and all the relishes of wine and the savourinesse of meat the sweet and the fat the pleasure and the satisfaction the restitution of spirits and the strengthening of the heart are not owing to the liver of the vine or the kidneys of wheat to the blood of the grape or the strength of the corne but to the appetite or the necessity and therefore it is that he that sits at a full table and does not recreate his stomack with fasting and let his digestion rest and place himself in the advantages of natures intervals he loses the blessing of his daily bread and leans upon his table as a sick man upon his bed or the lion in the grasse which he cannot feed on but he that wants it and sits down when nature gives the signe rejoyces in the health of his hunger and the taste of his meat and the strengthening of his spirit and gives God thanks while his bones and his flesh rejoyce in the provisions of nature and the blessing of God Are not the imperfections of infancy and the decayes of old age the evils of our nature because respectively they want desire and they want gust and relish and reflections upon their acts of sense and when desire failes presently the mourners go about the streets But then that these desires are so provided for by nature and art by ordinary and extraordinary by foresight and contingency according to necessity and up unto conveniency until we arrive at abundance is a chain of mercies larger then the Bowe in the clouds and richer then the trees of Eden which were permitted to feed our miserable father Is not all the earth our orchard and our granary our vineyard and our garden of pleasure and the face of the Sea is our traffique and the bowels of the Sea is our vivarium a place for fish to feed us and to serve some other collaterall appendant needs and all the face of heaven is a repository for influences and breath fruitfull showers and fair refreshments and when God made provisions for his other creatures he gave it of one kinde and with variety no greater then the changes of day and night one devouring the other or sitting down with his draught of blood or walking upon his portion of grasse But man hath all the food of beasts and all the beasts themselves that are fiâ— for food and the food of Angels and the dew of heaven and the fatnesse of the earth and every part of his body hath a provision made for it and the smoothnesse of the olive and the juice of the vine refresh the heart and make the face cheerfull and serve the ends of joy and the festivity of man and are not onely to cure hunger or to allay thirst but to appease a passion and allay a sorrow It is an infinite variety of meat with which God furnishes out the table of mankinde and in the covering our sin and clothing our nakednesse God passed from sig-leaves to the skins of beasts from aprons to long-robes from leather to wool and from thence to the warmth of furres and the coolnesse of silks he
natural and therefore health and life was to descend upon him from Heaven and he was to suâ—k life from a tree on earth himself being but ingraffed into a tree of life and adâ—pted into the condition of an immortal nature But he that in the best of his dayes was but a Cien of this tree of life by his sin was cut off from thence quickly and planted upon thorns and his portion was for ever after among the flowers which to day spring and look like health and beauty and in the evening they are sick and at night are dead and the oven is their grave And as before even from our first spring from the dust of the earth we might have died if we had not been preserved by the continual flux of a rare providence so now that we are reduced to the laws of our own nature we must needs die It is natural and therefore necessary It is become a punishment to us and therefore it is unavoidable and God hath bound the evill upon us by bands of naturall and inseparable propriety and by a supervening unalterable decree of Heaven and we are fallen from our privilege and are returned to the condition of beast and buildings and common things And we see Temples defiled unto the ground and they die by Sacrilege and great Empires die by their own plenty and ease full humors and factious Subjects and huge buildings fall by their own weight and the violence of many winters eating and consuming the cement which is the marrow of their bones and Princes die like the meanest of their Servants and every thing findes a grave and a tomb and the very tomb it self dies by the bignesse of its pompousnesse and luxury Phario nutantia pondera saxo Quae cineri vanus dat ruitura labor and becomes as friable and uncombined dust as the ashes of the Sinner or the Saint that lay under it and is now forgotten in his bed of darknesse And to this Catalogue of mortality Man is inrolled with a Statutum est It is appointed for all men once to die and after death comes judgement and if a man can be stronger then nature or can wrestle with a degree of Heaven or can escape from a Divine punishment by his own arts so that neither the power nor the providence of God nor the laws of nature nor the bands of eternal predestination can hold him then he may live beyond the fate and period of flesh and last longer then a flower But if all these can hold us and tie us to conditions then we must lay our heads down upon a turfe and entertain creeping things in the cells and little chambers of our eyes and dwell with worms till time and death shall be no more We must needs die That 's our sentence But that 's not all We are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again Stay 1. We are as water weak and of no consistence alwaies descending abiding in no certain place unlesse where we are detained with violence and every little breath of winde makes us rough and tempestuous and troubles our faces every trifling accident discomposes us and as the face of the waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles it self that it makes upon its fore-head furrows deep and hollow like a grave so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age and then they dig a grave for us And there is in nature nothing so contemptible but it may meet with us in such circumstances that it may be too hard for us in our weaknesses and the sting of a Bee is a weapon sharp enough to pierce the finger of a childe or the lip of a man and those creatures which nature hath left without weapons yet they are armed sufficiently to vex those parts of men which are left defenselesse and obnoxious to a sun beam to the roughnesse of a sower grape to the unevennesse of a gravel-stone to the dust of a wheel or the unwholesome breath of a star looking awry upon a sinner 2. But besides the weaknesses and natural decayings of our bodies if chances and contingencies be innumerable then no man can reckon our dangers and the praeternatural causes of our deaths So that he is a vain person whose hopes of life are too confidently increased by reason of his health and he is too unreasonably timorous who thinks his hopes at an end when he dwels in sickness For men die without rule and with and without occasions and no man suspecting or foreseeing any of deaths addresses and no man in his whole condition is weaker then another A man in a long Consumption is fallen under one of the solemnities and preparations to death but at the same instant the most healthful person is as neer death upon a more fatal and a more sudden but a lesse discerned cause There are but few persons upon whose foreheads every man can read the sentence of death written in the lines of a lingring sicknesse but they sometimes hear the passing bell ring for stronger men even long before their own knell calls at the house of their mother to open her womb and make a bed for them No man is surer of to morrow then the weakest of his brethren and when Lepidus and Ausidius stumbled at the threshold of the Senate and fell down and died the blow came from heaven in a cloud but it struck more suddenly then upon the poor slave that made sport upon the Theatre with a praemeditated and foredescribed death Quod quisque vitet nunquam homini satis cautum est in horas There are sicknesses that walk in darknesse and there are exterminating Angels that fly wrapt up in the curtains of immateriality and an uncommunicating nature whom we cannot see but we feel their force and sink under their sword and from heaven the vail descends that wraps our heads in the fatal sentence There is no age of man but it hath proper to it self some posterns and outlets for death besides those infinite and open ports out of which myriads of men and women every day passe into the dark and the land of forgetfulnesse Infancie hath life but in effigie or like a spark dwelling in a pile of wood the candle is so newly lighted that every little shaking of the taper and every ruder breath of air puts it out and it dies Childhood is so tender and yet so unwary so soft to all the impressions of chance and yet so forward to run into them that God knew there could be no security without the care and vigilance of an Angel-keeper and the eyes of Parents and the arms of Nurses the provisions of art and all the effects of Humane love and Providence are not sufficient to keep one childe from horrid mischiefs from strange and early calamities and deaths unlesse a messenger be sent from heaven to stand sentinel and watch the very playings and the sleepings the eatings and
that she might for ever be so far distant from a vice that she might onely see it and loath it but never tast of it so much as to be put to her choice whether she would be vertuous or no. God intending to secure this soul to himself would not suffer the follies of the world to seize upon her by way of too neer a trial or busie temptation 3. She was married young and besides her businesses of religion seemed to be ordained in the providence of God to bring to this Honourable family a part of a fair fortune and to leave behinde her a fairer issue worth ten thousand times her portion and as if this had been all the publick businesse of her life when she had so far served Gods ends God in mercy would also serve hers and take her to an early blessednesse 4. In passing through which line of providence she had the art to secure her eternal interest by turning her condition into duty expressing her duty in the greatest eminency of a vertuous prudâ—nt and rare affection that hath been known in any example I will not give her so low a testimony as to say onely that she was chast She was a person of that severity modesty and close religion as to that particular that she was not capable of uncivil temptation and you might as well have suspected the sun to smell of the poppy that he looks on as that she could have been a person apt to be sullyed by the breath of a foul question 5. But that which I shall note in her is that which I would have exemplar to all Ladies and to all women She had a love so great for her Lord so intirely given up to a dear affection that she thought the same things and loved the same loves and hated according to the same enmities and breathed in his soul and lived in his presence and languished in his absence and all that she was or did was onely for and to her Dearest Lord Si gaudet si flet si tacit hunc loquitur Coenat propinat poscit negat innuit unus Naevius est and although this was a great enamel to the beauty of her soul yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the vertue of her Lord For she would often discourse it to them that conversed with her that he would improve that interest which he had in her affection to the advantages of God and of religion and she would delight to say that he called her to her devotions he encouraged her good inclinations he directed her piety he invited her with good books and then she loved religion which she saw was not onely pleasing to God and an act or state of duty but pleasing to her Lord and an act also of affection and conjugal obedience and what at first she loved the more forwardly for his sake in the using of religion left such relishes upon her spirit that she found in it amability enough to make her love it for its own So God usually brings us to him by instruments of nature and affections and then incorporates us into his inheritance by the more immediate relishes of Heaven and the secret things of the Spirit He only was under God the light of her eyes and the cordiall of her spirits and the guide of her actions and the measure of her affections till her affections swelled up into a religion and then it could go no higher but was confederate with those other duties which made her dear to God Which rare combination of duty and religion I choose to expresse in the words of Solomon She forsook not the guide of her youth nor brake the Covenant of her God 6. As she was a rare wife so she was an excellent Mother For in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was and in so great a kindnesse towards her children there hath seldom been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons their deportment their nature their disposition their learning and their customs And if ever kindnesse and care did contest and make parties in her yet her care and her severity was ever victorious and she knew not how to do an ill turn to their severer part by her more tender and forward kindnesse And as her custome was she turned this also into love to her Lord. For she was not onely diligent to have them bred nobly and religiously but also was carefull and solicitous that they should be taught to observe all the circumstances inclinations the desires and wishes of their Father as thinking that vertue to have no good circumstances which was not dressed by his copy and ruled by his lines and his affections And her prudence in the managing her children was so singular and rare that when ever you mean to blesse this family and pray a hearty and a profitable prayer for it beg of God that the children may have those excellent things which she designed to them and provided for them in her heart and wishes that they may live by her purposes and may grow thither whither she would fain have brought them All these were great parts of an excellent religion as they concerned her greatest temporal relations 7. But if we examine how she demeaned her self towards God there also you will finde her not of a common but of an exemplar piety She was a great reader of Scripture confining her self to great portions every day which she read not to the purposes of vanity and impertinent curiosities not to seem knowing or to become talking not to expound and Rule but to teach her all her duty to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her Neighbours to make her more humble and to teach her to despise the world and all its gilded vanities and that she might entertain passions wholly in designe and order to heaven I have seen a female religion that wholly dwelt upon the face and tongue that like a wanton and an undressed tree spends all its juice in suckers and irregular branches in leafs and gumme and after all such goodly outsides you should never eat an apple or be delighted with the beauties or the perfumes of a hopefull blossome But the religion of this excellent Lady was of another constitution It took root downward in humility and brought forth fruit upward in the substantiall graces of a Christian in charity and justice in chastity and modesty in fair friendships and sweetnesse of society She had not very much of the forms and outsides of godlinesse but she was hugely carefull for the power of it for the morall essentiall and usefull parts such which would make her be not seem to be religious 8. She was a very constant person at her prayers and spent all her time which Nature did permit to her choice in her devotions and reading and meditating and the necessary offices of houshold government every one of which is an action of religion