consideration of the good tidings of the Gospel What hinders but our Dishes of Meat may be seasoned with a gracious word or two about the Food of our Souls When men are talking of Old Age it would be no great strain if thence our thoughts rise up to Eternal Life Nor any great slight of phancy is requisite to improve all the accidents of our lives to the contemplation of Divine Providence which orders and governs them In a word every thing is capable of improvement if we be not wanting we shall never want opportunity if we embrace it any thing will serve an intent mind and a devout heart to these purposes My second remark is upon the Custom of those several persons in the Gospel that upon divers occasions entred into Conference with our Saviour which I note they always began by way of Question or Doubt as men desirous to be informed rather than affecting to teach or dictate This was not only the way of Nicodemus Joh. 3. of the Woman of Samaria Joh. 4. and of the young rich man Matth. 19. who came in earnest to be instructed but of the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadduces who came to dispute And indeed I have heard this modest way of propounding a Question and expecting and replying to the Answer was the old way of Disputation And certainly this is of great use in our Case for the more easie and acceptable introduction of the serious matters of Religion into ordinary Conversation When we do not violently break in upon the Company but civilly make our way not abruptly obtrude our Sentiments but insinuate them not malapertly reprove other mens errours or superciliously dictate our own Opinions not fall upon Preaching or throw down our Gantlet and challenge the Company to a Combate but modestly appear in the Garb of Learners and propound a Case as to men wiser than our selves for our own satisfaction This course instead of offending exceedingly obliges those we apply our selves to forasmuch as every man is glad to be accounted wise and fit to be consulted with As suppose you should ask the persons you are with what they think of such or such an Argument for the Immortality of the Soul or for the proof of a particular Providence or ask their advice how to answer such an Objection that comes in your way against either of those or any other fundamental Point of Religion And though such Questions may at first seem merely speculative yet if they be pursued wisely and with that intention they will infallibly lead to practice Or suppose you put a Case about Temperance as namely What are the Rules and measures of sobriety so as also to avoid scrupulosity How far is worldly care evil and vicious and how far innocent and allowable What is the predicament of careless and common Swearing and what kind of sins it is reducible to Or more generally How a man may discern his own prosiciency in Vertue and what preparation of a man's self is flatly necessary against the uncertainty of Life and to secure the great stake of an interest in another World Or to name no more What the Company thinks of such or such a passage in a Sermon you lately heard or in such a Book These and a thousand more such easie inlets there are into good Discourse without imputation of pragmaticalness and which a little presence of mind will improve to what purposes we desire Another thing that I have observed in order to this affair is what I have learned from the Custom of prudent men to insinuate that by a Story which would not be so well received if it were directly and bluntly delivered Telling of Stories you know is a common Theme of Conversation and if a man have any graceful way of telling them and especially use any prudence in the choice of them he hath the Company in his power and may lead them to what Discourse he will And besides men will admit of that to be said in the third person which they will not bear in the second Now to this purpose suppose a man should have in readiness a Story of some remarkable judgment of God upon some notorious sin that he would by all means deter those he converses with from no body could take offence at the Story and yet every mans Conscience would make application of it Or suppose a man should in lively Colours describe some excellent person he would not only put all the Hearers into the thoughts of those Vertues that were so described but stir up jointly a modest shame in them for their own shortness and an emulation of so brave an example But to be sure he shall hereby give himself an introduction without affectation of discoursing of which soever of those eminent Vertues he pleases These and many such other ways there are which your own prudence and Observation will represent to you better than I can by which a discreet person may engage any Company in which it is sit for an honest man to be found in good Discourse But I will not omit upon this occasion to tell you a Story which I have from very good hands of two very eminent men both for Learning and Piety in the last Age or rather the beginning of the present the one of them a great Prelate indeed a Primate and the other a Church-man of great note and preferment These two Great Men as they often met together to consult the interest of Learning and the affairs of the Church so when they had dispatched that they seldom parted from one another without such an encounter as this Come Good Doctor saith the Bishop let us now talk a little of Jesus Christ Or on the other side said the Doctor Come my Lord let me hear your Grace speak of the goodness of God with your wonted Piety and Eloquence let us warm one anothers hearts with Heaven that we may the better bear this cold World I cannot tell you the words that passed between them nor can you expect it from me but I am sufficiently assured of the matter of fact And this they performed with that holy reverence and ardent zeal with that delightful sense and feeling that afforded matter of admiration to those of their Friends or Servants that happened to be present or to overhear them Here is now an Example of holy Conference without a Preface and yet without exception a Precedent not only justifying all I have said but easie to imitate where-ever there is a like spirit of piety a few such men would put prophaneness out of countenance and turn the tide of Conversation Phil. Shall I crave of you to tell me the names of those two persons Sebast Their names are so well known that I think you might spare the Question but they were V and P Phil. I guess who you mean and I would to God there were more of them I doubt I shall never be able to imitate but I am resolved to write
by the former viz. that instead of rotten and filthy talk we should tend so earnestly to the contrary that we might turn the stream of mens Discourse to that which is vertuous and profitable And when he adds That it may minister grace to the hearers I think he requires that very thing which I have been recommending to you namely that we should take all fair opportunities of bringing Religion into Plea and of suggesting good Meditations to one another But I can by no means think he restrains all communication to that Subject provided that which is about other matter be not lewd or foolish but savoury and ingenious useful and pertinent And this I am the more confirmed in by another passage of the same Apostle where he directs that our speech be seasoned with grace as with salt Which as I understand it imports as if he said that our most common conversation should have some relish of our Religion not be wholly religious no more thon our meat should be all salt but seasoned with it Moreover when our Saviour forewarns us that for every idle word that men shall speak they shall give an account at the day of judgment I can by no means think his meaning was that every word that hath not immediate relation to Religion should be accounted idle and as such incur damnation Far be such an Interpretation from the merciful and condescending Laws of our Saviour if this were so Christianity was a most anxious thing and the lives of men must be perpetually vexed with scrupulosity But I take it he intended only to represent to us that the Judgment to come shall be very exact and particular so as to take notice not only of our actions and the greater passages of our lives but that our very words also shall come into estimate and consideration You see therefore I am so far from countenancing either an hypocritical Cant or a superstious Melancholy that I do not think Religion ought importunely to thrust it self into conversation to the exclusion of every thing besides it self but that it have place in our Debates and where there is room for choice there it is my opinion that we give it also the precedence Phil. Well so far we are agreed But I pray give me leave to go a little further with you What kind of Religions Conference is it you would be at Would you have men enter into Disputes about Divine matters This I the rather ask because there is another sort of men besides those we now spoke of who seem to be mighty zealous of Religion but their heat breaks out wholly this way and they fill the place where-ever they are with noise and clamour with dust and smoak Nothing can be said in their presence but instantly a Controversie is started the Cudgels are taken up and to it they go Scarcely any Body is Orthodox enough for them for they spin so fine a Thred and have such Cobweb-Divinity that the least brush against it is not to be endured and yet withal they are as positive and decretal in their assertions that the Pope himself is no body to them One would think they were Privy-Counsellors of Heaven they define with so great confidence what will and what will not please God and damn to the Pit of Hell all that come not up exactly to their definitions and determinations These I assure you are men that bear a great part in the World therefore I would fain know your opinion of them Sebast Truly Phil I have no opinion of them at all I phansie neither their Faith nor their Charity the one I account to be a great deal too big and the other as much too little Phil. Agreed again And now I 'll tell you my thoughts a little more fully on this Point I have always lookt upon this Disputative Religiousness as no better than a new-fashioned Knight-Errantry which puts men continually upon quest of Adventures and makes Monsters of every Wind-mill that comes in their way For these men if there do but happen to be an inconsiderate expression let fall by any body presently raise such a tragedy upon it as if Faith consisted wholly of Punctilio's or a Line was made up of Points and that every petty opinion were of moment enough to overturn the World The contrary whereof I take to be so true that I suspect whether that be of any moment in Religion which admits of Dispute for methinks it is not agreeable to the goodness of God to suffer any thing of that universal concern to all men to remain very obscure and controversial I should think therefore this knotty kind of Timber never fit for edification In plain truth if you will pardon a rude Similitude I phansie these great Masters of Dispute to be like the ordinary Professors of Rat-Catching who commonly draw more Vermine to the place than they destroy so these raise more Controversies than they can decide start more Difficulties than they can assoil and so beget schisms gratifie pride inflame differences and foment heart-burnings amongst men that might otherwise live peaceably together here and for ought I know go to heaven hereafter Sebast Most ingeniously spoken Dear Phil and according to my very heart If I thought I could match your wit I would add That whenever I see a Knot of these Disputants together it puts me in mind of a Story or Fable which you will of a Company of Apes that had gotten a Gloworm amongst them upon which they heaped Sticks and other little combustible matter and laying their heads together blow with all their might as hoping to make some strange improvement of that little shining Particle But when they have done all they can are neither able to encrease the light nor much less to warm themselves by it So these busie disputing Wits after all their blustering neither bring any useful truth to light nor warm their own or other mens breasts with any spark of true Piety or Charity but contrariwise frequently obscure the one and extinguish the other It is not therefore disputing in Religion that I would provoke you to but the improvement of the indisputable Rules of it to make your self and those you converse with sensible of the vital Principles and Powers of Christianity not to chafe one another into a passion but to rub up one anothers Sentiments and mutually to warm one anothers hearts with Devotion By wise and affectionate applications to beget an equal fervour of Spirit And in a word that when Friends are met together they should like Flint and Steel raise both light and heat by their mutual and amicable Collisions And why I pray you Dear Phil should not Religion have its turn in our Conversation What reason can be given that pious men should not discourse as freely and favourily of holy things as they or other men concerning common affairs Why should our lesser Concerns for this World our secular business be the
but phansie how they were astonished at the change what a wonder they were to themselves and I am apt to believe that for some time after they could not but suspect they were under a pleasant illusion of phancy and that all their felicity was no better than a Dream So assuredly when we shall first come to Heaven our spiritual Canaan to the enjoyment of an happiness of God's preparing who hath all the Ingredients of felicity in his power and infinite wisdom to contrive and compound them and unspeakable goodness to bestow them and who as the Scripture expresses it hath from the beginning of the World been designing and preparing such a systeme of joy and felicity as may at once both most delight his Creatures and display all his aforesaid Attributes when I say we shall first observe the strange change between a narrow stingy necessitous unquiet sickly peevish and contentious World which we have left behind us and the settlement and peace plenty and glory of that we enter upon it will not be easie for us without larger minds than we have now to know how to behave our selves we shall be apt to be opprest with wonder and if it were possible to dye with excess of joy Sebast You speak bravely and sensibly Dear Phil. You seem to have gone up to Mount Nebo and to have fed your eyes with the prospect of the Holy Land but have you considered the difficulties of the way as well as the happiness of the Journies end Will you not like the Israelites you spake of even now repent and bethink your self of turning back when you encounter difficulty or danger Will not Death affright you when it appears in all its dismal pomp Will you not shrink when you shall come to be stript naked of all your worldly habiliments Will you not have a lingring after your old accommodations your fine House rich Furniture pleasant Gardens sprightly Wines or any other pleasures and entertainments of the Body Phil. No no Sebastian I will go to Heaven whatever come of it what can discourage a man when Heaven is at Stake If the Journey put me to a little trouble there is rest at the end of it What is it to exercise a little patience when a man shall be crowned at last Who would not run strive do or suffer any thing and venture all upon such a wager Shall I be frighted with Death that will come however and I am sure the neglecting eternal life is not the way to escape it Shall I be sollicitous for my estate and worldly accommodations when I know whether I go to Heaven or no I must shortly leave them all behind me And surely if they cannot save me from death they ought not to hinder me of eternal life Or shall I hanker after Onions and Garlick and the Flesh-pots of Egypt as you called the pleasures of the body which will certainly forsake me if I do not forsake them first No I have counted the cost there is nothing shall discourage me by the grace of God I will go to Heaven but I pray let us not part company let us go to Heaven together Sebast With all my heart dear Friend for though I doubt we must not expect much company with us yet perfect solitude is somewhat uncomfortable and there are great advantages of society For if any body should be so absurd as to laugh at us on our journey we can the better despise them If either of us should happen to be heavy and weary in our way we may animate and quicken one another If any difficulty befal that may be too hard for any one of us by our united strength we may be able to encounter and remove it If either of us should swerve a little out of the narrow way towards the right hand or towards the left the other may recal and rectifie him Besides the great additional comfort it will be when we come at our journies end not only that we see one another happy and enjoy one anothers society but especially when we reflect upon the good service we have done to one another in bringing each other thither we shall have our joys redoubled by the reflection and feel not only our own individual shares but that also of each other Phil. Happily thought of Fellow-Traveller but will not Biophilus go with us too what say you Sir Bioph. You are honest Gentlemen and my good Friends but Lord what Romances do you make what Castles do you build in the Air and what shadows do you feed your selves withal You talk of Heaven as confidently as if you had travelled an hundred times through all the regions of it or rather indeed as if you had visited the World in the Moon But when all is done did ever you or any body else see such a place as Heaven For Gods sake therefore leave these Enthusiastical whimseys and talk like men speak of something that is certain and visible or probable at least and do not forego substance for shadows certainties for uncertainties Phil. God help you good Neighbour in requital of the caution you give us assure your self we have the same senses and the same self-love that you have and only wish you had the same faith that we have We are not willing to part with certainties for uncertainties for if Heaven be not certain we are sure nothing else is And as for the things of this world they are so far from it that nothing is more certain than that we must part with them shortly whether we will or no But as for the other world we know whom we have believed Bioph. I tell you all is but dream and phancy there is no proof in the world for it All you have to say is that men must believe as if you should say shut your eyes and see you perswade a man to find the way to Heaven blindfold No give me good proof or I 'le not stir a foot with me seeing is believing Phil. Remember your self good Neighbour are not you a Christian Do not you believe that Jesus Christ came from Heaven on purpose to make discovery to us of those celestial Regions and to shew us the way thither And did not he confirm his report to us by undeniable Miracles Did he not come into the world miraculously and return thither again visibly Did he not from thence send down admirable tokens of his Presence and Authority there especially on the famous day of Pentecost Besides do you not see all wise men provide for another world and that generally good and virtuous men when they come to die are ravished with joy in contemplation of it as if they really saw Heaven open to receive them Bioph. Whether or no I believe as much as you do yet I believe this one thing instead of all the rest that we are born to be cheated For what with the illusions of our own melancholy phancies what by the prejudices
therefore sent for you to audite them before-hand that so by your assistance I may either know my errours and repair whatsoever is amiss â—â—ilst yet I have a little time left me to do it in or if I have stated my matters rightly may appear with the better assurance at that Tribunal I have always found you faithful in your Doctrine and I do not doubt but you will be impartial in this application At this point I offered to go out and leave them private which he perceiving took me by one hand and the Minister by the other and then continued his discourse I will give you said he to the Minister the History of my life at least I will not conceal from you any main passage of it be it for me or against me that so you may pass a judgment upon my spiritual state and I desire you my dear Friend Sebastian to be present who have been privy to the most critical moments of it to the intent that you may witness against me before this Man of God if I falsifie in any thing This said he laid open the course of his life and amongst several other things which either I do not now so well remember or think not fit to repeat he delivered the substance of that whereof I have given you a large account before and then he conjured him in the Name of God to deal freely and plainly with him upon the whole matter The holy Man like a Jury in a manifest case without long deliberation quickly brought in a Verdict of comfort to him Which when Eulabes perceived with his eyes fixed upon him and a countenance somewhat cheared Well said he God be thanked if it be so as I hope it is for I rest assured Almighty Goodness despises not the meanest sincerity But I humbly and earnestly befeech you Sir give me also the Absolution of the Church that I may go out of the World under the comfort of so publick and authentick a Testimony Which when the Minister had solemnly performed he intreated him further to administer to him the Sacrament of the Lords Supper that so said he seeing as it were my Saviour crucified before my eyes and pouring out his Blood for sinners I may the more firmly believe the pardon of my own sins and upon the wings of Faith and affection raise my self towards Heaven This after the interposition of Prayers and Mediation and holy discourse was administred to him but Lord what an ecstasie of devotion was the good Man now in What tokens of humility affection thankfulness and intention of mind were then to be read in his countenance and deportment Most certainly Christ Jesus was present really though not carnally and his Soul fed it self most savourily upon him These things being done he dismissed the Minister for that time not without real expressions of his thankfulness to him for his pains and assistance nor without a liberal alms to be disposed at his discretion amongst the Poor earnestly intreating him to remember him constantly in the Prayers of the Church that thereby he might be holpen on his journey towards Heaven where he hoped shortly to arrive Some time after this when by some repose he had recovered a little strength his Family was called together to his Beds side with some others of his Friends and Relations all whom he most earnestly cautioned against loosness of life and profaneness of spirit assuring them in the words of a dying man of the great reality and infinite importance of Religion he charged them as they would answer it at that great Day which was certainly coming that they should not suffer themselves either to be debauched into carelesness and lukewarmness nor abused and cheated into phantastry and opinionativeness in Religion but persist in the good old way reverence their Minister keep to the Church and make the serving of God the greatest care and business of their lives Then he discoursed admirably to them of the vanity of the World the uncertainty of life the comforts of Religion and the joys of Heaven till his spirits began to be spent and his speech a little to falter At other times he retreated into himself and entertained converse with God by Prayers and holy Meditations in which what were the elevations of his Faith what the holy raptures of his Love what humble abjections of himself at the feet of Christ what resignations of himself to the will of God what pleading of the promises of the Gospel and recumbency upon the Intercession of his Saviour we could not be privy to further than as we saw his hands and eyes earnestly lift up to Heaven sometimes a stream of tears falling from his eyes and other times interchangeably a chearful smile sitting upon his countenance in which posture bodily strength being now exhausted he with a gentle sigh resigned up his Soul to God Thus I have given you the last passages of this good Man now no doubt in Heaven if I have not tired you with the relation though I confess I am not very apt to suspect that both because I have done it in compliance with your desire and besides I judge of other men by my self and because I am never weary of thinking or speaking of him therefore imagine other men may be of the same mind Phil. Ah! Sir so far from being weary of such kind of discourse that I could willingly have forgot all other things for it and been glad this Evening-Conference had continued till to morrow morning but I consider Devotion must not too much intrench upon Civility therefore I return you my hearty thanks for my good Entertainment and take my leave for this time Bioph. I thank you both for your good Company and your charitable offices towards my satisfaction and I do already assure you of this fruit of it that by your Conversation I have learnt that all Religion is not acting a part and playing the Hypocrite which I was apt to suspect heretofore for I see you are so really hearty and in earnest in it and yet men of greater sagacity than my self that I tell you truly I begin to think it becomes me seriously to consider of it Good night to you good Sebastian THE END The tioling humour of the age exposed Of good nature and complaisance Apologies for tipling baffled The real causes of tipling intimated and the mischiefs of it exaggerated Of Gaming and particularly of Chance-Games Want of business the occasion of Drinking and Gaming A Gentleman's Life as busie as other mens An estimate or account of the time and business of mans Life A Practical Demonstration of the littleness of our spare time Innocent and pleasant employments of Time Of Prayer and reading the Scriptures Of Study and Meditation the advantages and the difficulties of it Of friendly Conserence and the great benefits of it Drinking and Gaming are Levelling Practices The Pleasures of Discourse Discoursing an healthful Exercise Just occasions of Taciturnity or Reservedness sometimes in Conversation Of the use and abuse of Books and Reading Conversation improves a man more than Books and Study Discourse about religious matters recommended The importance of Religion Religion rests not in the mind only Religions Discourse as necessary in times of prosperity as of persecution Of Hypocritical Canting Common Discourse lawful Col. 4. 6. Of Disputes in Religion the vanity and mischiefs of them Religion the noblest Subject of Discourse Pleasantness of religious Conference Religious Discourse the most prudent Religious Communication Gentile About Prophane Discourse Of Drollery More Arguments for religious Conference Godly Discourse not Phanatical nor the Badge of any Sect. Godly Conference an effectual way to supplant Phanaticism what makes prophane men so bold in their assaults upon Religion Means to raise our Spirits to a fit temper for religious Communication Prudential advices about religious Conserence Of improvement of time A touch of Epicurean Doctrine Of the different prospects different men have of the other World Heroes that can despise Death Of News and News-mongers exposed Sebastian's strange News of a new-found-land An Allegoricai Description of the new Country Sebastian relates the grounds of the credibility of his Story Preparations for the Journey to Urania Philander transported with the contemplation of Heaven Christian Resolution The advantages of good company in the way to Heaven Scepticism displaying its humor and checkt by sober reason The Epicurean Creed The great consequence and general influence of the belief of a Judgment Scripture proof of a day of Judgment justified by reason It is just prudence to prepare for a day of Judgment thought the evidence were less than it is What kind of proof and what measure of evidence is to be expected in the Principles of Religion In order to the satisfaction of a mans judgment he must first come to indifferency It is greatly a mans interest that Religion should be true The moral demonstration of a judgment to come Mankind is of such a nature and endued with such powers as make it reasonable for him to expect Judgment The Soul of man proved to be immaterial The natural notions men have of God render it reasonable to expect that he will judge the World God not a necessary Agent There is an actual Providence in this World therefore there will be a Judgment in the next Prophecy a certain Argument of a Providence in the World Miracles necessarily argue a Providence More ordinary instances of Providence in the World A Vindication of Divine Providence in the obscarity of some of its Dispensations in this life A visible Providence over the Jews How it comes to pass that there is no greater difference in the last act of mens lives The wonderful comfort and advantages of being secured against a day of Judgment The different representations of Religion a great temptation to Seepticism A sure Religion Scrupulous and phantastical rules of preparation for the day of Judgment reproved Eulabes's History of his own Life and preparations for Judgment Eulabes his more special preparations for death towards the approaches of it