Christians have with their gracious God by contemplation meditation or fervent prayers The first is a sudden and violent motion of the heart that causeth a great alteration in the body The definition of Joy See Theuphrast Boju in his Commentaties upon Aristotle Phys fol. 727. proceeding in the opinion of the Moralists from the possession or fight of some object much desired which is really good or reputed to be so by the imagination of men yet it will appear by the proprieties and effects of it that it doth not always come from the possession or injoyment of a beloved object or from an imaginary good but sometimes from relations scurrilous speeches ridiculous postures and deformedobjects for Joy is as I have said before an affection of the minde and is rather infused in the Heart by the Eye and by the Ear then by any of the other three Senses for those are more proper to the passion of Volupty of which Delight or Delectation is a branch however it is the fifth passion incident to the Concupiscible appetite and proceeds from divers causes as it will appear in the next Discourse Secondly The causes of worldly joy are either Publick or Private the Publick proceed commonly from the immediate hand of God or from his favor or by his permission and of these I shall speak in the first place first It was a great cause of publick joy proceeding from the immediate hand of God to the people of Israel presently after their coming out of Egypt to see the sea go back Exod. 14.21 to 31. and make a free passage for their host to pass through the midst of it and when they were all safe come to dry land to see the rowling waves of the sea to turn back and overwhelm Pharoah and all his Army secondly It was a cause of publick Joy when it pleased the Lord to deliver the people of the Iews from that bloody decree obtained by Haman from the great King Ahasuerus against the whole Nation of the Iews Esther 3.4 The causes of publick joy that were scattered through the one hundred and seven and twenty Provinces of the said Kings Dominions for which admirable deliverance the people of Israel made the 15th and 16th day of the moneth Adar days of Thanksgiving and of Feasting and Rejoycing from one generation to the other which were called the days of Purim See the Spanish and Turkish History thirdly It was the cause of publick joy to the Venetians and to all Christendom when God was pleased to give unto the Christian Fleet such a memorable victory over the Turkish Navy at the Battel of Lepantho for which after thanks given to God many days of Feasting and Rejoycing were kept at Venice and other parts of Christendom fourthly See Speed in the life of King James It was an incredible cause of publick joy for England when the Lord was pleased to deliver this Nation from the devillish plot of the Gunpouder Treason for which miraculous deliverance after hearty thanks given to God great Feasting Bond-fires and other expressions of joy were made in London and through the whole Land 1. It was a cause of private joy to the old Patriarch Jacob to hear by the report of his sons that his beloved son Joseph Gen. 45.26 who he thought had been devoured by wild beasts was chief Governor of Egypt and the next man in honor to the King 2. It was a cause of private joy for old Iesse The causes of private joy 1 Sam. 16.12 to see his youngest son David from a Shepherd to be promoted to be King of all Israel and specially to be reputed by God himself to be a man after his own heart 3. It was a cause of private joy for old Mordecay to see his Neece Esther Esther 2.16 from a Captive to be exalted to be the wife of the great King Ahasuerus and the greatest Queen in the world 4. It was a cause of incomprehensible joy to the Virgin Mary and to all mankinde to hear the blessed and glad tidings that the Angel Gabriel brought her from the Lord saying Behold Luke 1.26.46 thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus He shall be great and shall be called the son of the Highest and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David whereupon the Virgin Mary transported with joy and ravished in spirit sung some dayes after this excellent Song My soul doth magnify the Lord beginning at the fourty sixt Verse of the first Chap. of St. Luke Here was a true and real Cause of Spiritual Joy not onely for the Virgin Mary but also for all the Elected of God who by free grace have part in the merits of Christ By these Instances it appears that these causes of joy did proceed from the seeing and hearing which are the two Senses most proper to the passion of Joy There are divers other Causes of worldly joy which are not so well grounded as these but are most vain and ridiculous and they are these following The joy of private and worldly men suits with their inclinations first The Ambitious will rejoyce in the increase of their honors secondly The Covetous men in the abundance of their riches thirdly The causes of private mens joy The Voluptuous men will rejoyce in the injoyment of their pleasures fourthly The Merchants and Trades-men in the increase of their Trade fifthly The Lawyers in the multiplicity of their Clients and in the discord of their neighbors sixthly The prophane and Libertine in all manner of ridiculous Sports scurrilous Songs lewd Musick Dancing Valting and in lascivious Pictures and Postures and in Chambering Gluttony and Drunkenness and these are the common and ordinary causes of the joy of worldly men Let the Reader judg then whether carnal joy be not meer vanity and vexation of Spirit for the great vanity of it moved Solomon to say I said of laughter Eccles 2.2 it is mad and of mirth what doth it and the very truth is that men transported with immoderate joy are like fools and mad men Thirdly The proprieties of worldly joy are these first Worldly joy is of hot temper secondly It is of a dilative or spreading quality and these two proprieties are the cause that sudden joy doth bereave men of life for when some beloved object or glad tidings are unexpectedly represented to the eyes or ears of men this causeth a violent alteration in all the parts of the body but specially in the heart by means of the hot and dilative quality of this passion of Joy because the blood and the vital spirits that reside in it are with great violence driven from the inward parts to the extremity of the members of the body The proprieties of worldly joy whereby mens hearts are deprived of their natural heat and of their vital spirits and so fall into a swoon
daily the fears and apprehensions of death which is worse then death it self and die for one death a thousand deaths Yet if men will dive into the nature and effects of this passion of Despair without partiality they will finde that good use may be made of it so it doth not attain to that exorbitant and horrid degree of Self-murdering Give me leave therefore to extend my Discourse upon these particulars 1. On the definition of this passion of Despair 2. On the diversity of the Causes of it 3. On the bad and good Effects of it 4. On the Remedies to allay the fury of it There are divers sorts of Despair which may be reduced to these three first Worldly secondly Moral thirdly Spiritual The worldly Despair is nothing else but a conceit of an impossibility in the acquisition of the vain hopes of men as it will appear in the Causes and Effects of that kinde of Despair The definition of the Moral Despair is according to the opinion of the best Moralists as followeth Despair saith Boujou Theophrast Boujou Lord of Beaulieu fol. 723. is a passion of the Soul withdrawing men from some good much desired because it is represented by the Senses to their imagination as impossible to be obtained Senault in his use upon the passions pag. 344. Despair saith Senault is a violent motion of the soul that keeps men aloof from the prosecution of some good in which they see no probability it can be obtained Now this good is not always a real good for the Senses do oftentimes delude the Reason and Judgment of men but suppose it be a real good then it is Vertue it self or some vertuous Object Action or Design which they conceive impossible to be obtained or performed for Moral Hope hath no other object then Vertue or vertuous and generous actions and by consequence Moral Despair must have the same objects The definition of worldly moral and spiritual despair for divers of the ancient Moralists held Self-murdering no Despair as I have given a hint of it in the last Discourse but an action of fortitude and of magnanimity of courage And this Moral Despair is the opposite and great Antagonist of Moral Hope and the second passion incident to the Irascible appetite which doth mitigate the extravagancy of mens Hopes as it will appear in the insuing Discourses yet men often times despair of things in which they imagine impossibilities when there is none as it will appear by these two Instances About sixscore years past it was a thing thought impossible to sail with a ship round about the circuit of the earth and yet Magalen a Portugais See the Spanish and English History and Sir Francis Drake an English man have shown by experience that it was possible to be done secondly In the days of Charls the ninth Henry the third and Henry the fourth Kings of France It was a thing thought impossible to take the City of Rochel by force or by famine and yet the Cardinal de Riche-lieu by the Art of a French Enginere See the French History hath shown by experience it was possible to be done for by a floating bridge that he made over an Arm of the Sea upon which he planted Ordinances and erected two Towers and with a land Army Lewis the thirteenth King of France took that City by famine in less then a year whereupon I conclude that men Despair of things by imagining impossibilities where there is none and this proceeds from want of judgment power or experience for it is daily seen that which seems to be impossible to one man is easie and facile to another Spiritual Despair is nothing else but a distrust of Gods mercy which by the temptation of Satan do intice men to be the murderers of themselves which is the next sin to the sin of the Holy Ghost Secondly The causes of worldly Despair may be these first The death of a beloved party See Bandel in his Tragical Histories Romelio supposing his beloved Mistress Iuliete to be dead when she was but in a swound slew himself upon her body and when she came to her self again she seeing her Sweet-Heart had killed himself for her sake she stabbed her self with his Poynard secondly The infidelity in love is a cause of Despair See Virgils Aeneads Dido Queen of Carthage slew her self because Aeneas a Trojan Prince forsook her and sailed into Italy but if this be a Poeticall Fable hear a true Relation A proper young maiden being secretly betrothed to a young man living here in London who broke his faith and married another whereupon the maiden being transported with Despair poisoned her self and died the next day this hapned within this twelve moneth I could relate a hundred such instances to prove that of all the passions Love being abused or extinguished by death doth sooner then any other thing beget Despair but I pass them over for brevity sake thirdly Avarice is the cause of Despair A Merchant in London of good means having had some losses at sea and having received the tidings of it on the Saturday he being transported with Despair hung himself on the Sunday morning when his servants were at Church and it is a common thing among the Cormorant Farmers when they have Monopolized all the corn of a County into their hands to hang or drown themselves if the next year prove to be a fruitful year fourthly Famine is a cause of Despair 2 Kings 6.29 for in Jehorams days such a famine was in Samaria that two women boiled a childe and did eate the same the mother of the childe out of Despair consenting to it and whosoever will be pleased to read Iosephus will see the horrid actions of some of the Iews committed out of Despair because of the great famine that was at Ierusalem when it was besieged by the Romans fifthly The fear to fall into the hands of a cruel enemy causeth Despair some of the richest of the Saguntines rather then they would fall into the hands of Hanibal and his cruel Carthaginian and Numidian souldiers See Titus Livius in his third Decade lib. 1. pag. 34. did carry all their wealth with their wives and children into their Market place and having made a great heap of their rich moveables they set the fire in it and slew their wives and children and having cast them into the fire they slew themselves afterwards sixtly Shame is a cause of Despair Cleopatra Queen of Egypt being informed that it had been resolved in the Counsel of Augustus Cesar that she should be led as a captive after the triumphant Chariot of the said Emperor when he should make his entry into Rome out of Despair to avoid that shame See Plutarch in Marcus Antonius life she applied two Vipers to her two breasts and so died There are divers other causes of worldly Despair but they are of another nature for they attain not to that
eyes look right before thee intimating that to look aside upon a beautiful woman is a sign of a lascivious eye but to look on her straight is a token of an innocent eye And it is most certain that of all the five senses the Eye doth more then any other encrease the Kingdom of darkness because they are the windows whereby all unclean thoughts enter into the soul from which do proceed all the actual and intellectual Fornications and Adulteries and that is the reason why our blessed Saviour doth charge us to pluck out our right eye if it doth offend Math. 5 29. meaning we should mortifie the lust of our eye rather then be cast into Hell for as S. John saith 1 Joh 2.16 17 18. The lust of the eyes is not of the Father but of the world and the world passeth away and the lust thereof but he that doth the will of God abideth for ever Thirdly All suspected places where men may be allured to lust are to be eschewed 1. The Schools of love as the Italians call them 2. Publick meetings 3. Enterludes 4. Court-Revels For in all these men do finde alluring Objects to commit sin and when opportunity time and place meet together men or women must have a great measure of Grace to refrain them from sin As for the 1. Solomon discribes elegantly in these words the alluring charms of the Mistresses of the Schools of love Prov. 7.10 13 14 15 16 17 18. 27. Behold there met him a woman in the habit of a Harlot and subtile of heart so she caught him and kissed him and with an impudent face said unto him I have peace-offerings with me this day have I payd my vows Therefore came I forth to meet thee diligently to seek thy face and I have found thee I have deckt my bed with coverings of Tapestry with carved work with fine linnen of Egypt I have perfumed my bed with Myrrhe Aloes and Cinamon Come let us take our fill of love until the morning let us solace our selves in loves c. But the conclusion of it is Her house is the way to Hell going down to the chambers of death For the 2. Dinah by rambling abroad to see the publike Sports was Ravished by Shechem the Prince of the Land For the 3. Enterludes Playes and Comoedies are the very Seminaries of all uncleanness and the Aretin postures that are there seen with the lascivious Dances and Discourses do inflame and intice men and women to Lust For the 4. Court-Revels and Masks have been the overthrow or loss of many womens chastity See the History of England and France Edward the Third and Edward the Fourth Kings of England and Henry the Third and Henry the Fourth Kings of France were all of them allured to lust by the beautiful Objects they saw in their Court-Masks Fourthly All evil Company is to be eschewed for in them lyeth an insensible venom the Effects of which do not appear suddenly but in continuance of time it will shew it self visibly in the life and conversation of men and women for young men that fall into evil company will at the first be ashamed of it but after they have frequented them they wil delight in it then they will palliate and excuse them and lastly they will patronize and maintain them And become as vitious profane and debaucht as the worst of them and therefore as he that toucheth Pitch shall be defiled with it Eccles 13.1 even so such as haunt evil company will at last be infected with their vices Besides it is a dishonour to converse with evil company for if men were as righteous as Lot Who was saith Peter 1 Pet. 2.7 8. vexed from day to day with the unlawful and ahhorred sins of the Sodomites yet will he be reputed as vitious as they by this common Proverb That birds of a feather do ever flock together Now I come to the four Vertues or Graces which are to be obtained to mortifie and subdue this sinful passion of Volupty First men are to endeavor by fervent prayers to obtain from God the Grace of Continency which is distinguished by corporeal and intellectual the first is common to natural men as well as to the children of God but the second is onely peculiar to the true Elect because it is an immediate gift of the sanctifying Spirit of Grace to such as are regenerated by a justifying Faith for by Faith men are justified and afterwards sanctified for all things which are done without Faith cannot Rom. 14.23 saith S. Paul be acceptable unto God contrarily they are an abomination unto him The Heathens have excelled in the corporeal continency most of the Christians of these days as it may appear by the carriage of Alexander the Great towards the two Daughters of King Darius See Plutarch and Livy in their lives and of Publius Scipio towards a Spanish Lady that was his Captive but none of them could ever attain to the intellectual continency because they were out of the Covenant of Grace and by consequence incapable of a justifying Faith And among those who were under the Convenant of Grace the number was small that were truly continent or had the gift of the corporeal and intellectual continency except it were Isaac Joseph and S. Paul for all the other Patriarks were addicted to Polygamy The corporeal continency may proceed from natural causes as from a defect of Nature as the Eunuchs or it may be obtained by the precepts of Morality and a good education But the intellectual cannot be acquired because it is a supernatural Grace of the sanctifying Spirit except it be by frequent and fervent prayers to God who is the only giver of it And certainly by the want of this Grace of intellectual continency many of the most precious Christians of these days commit Adultery in the cohabitation with their own Wives of which they seldom repent Which doth induce me to enlarge my self upon this point Christ our blessed Saviour who was the best Interpreter of the Law that ever was upon Earth doth tell us plainly Math. 5.18 That whosoever looketh upon a woman to lust after her hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart Now this lust proceeds from the eyes 1 Joh. 2.17 and the lust of the eyes saith S. John is not of the Father but of the world and the eyes convey the same into the heart and from the heart saith our Saviour proceed evil thoughts Math. 15.19 murthers adulteries fornications c. So many looking upon a woman with lascivious eyes make such an impression in their imagination of her beauty or comeliness which is suggested to their phansie by their senses and the temptations of Satan to excel the beauty or comeliness of their Wives that in the very cohabitation with them their mind is wholly bent upon this forraign object and not upon the same they embrace and this is a plain
shrubs in a Forrest are safer from being rooted up with the boysterous winds then the high Cedars in Libanon And the Antient and Modern Histories do verifie that rich men under Tyrants are always the mark at which promooting knaves false informers do aym See Tacitus in their lives as it is apparently seen in the lives of Caligula Nero Vitellius Domitianus and Commodus and such other Monsters in nature Likewise in all civil broils and publike commotions the richer men go ever to the pot as it is apparent in Livies Decades See Livie in his first Decade the Plebeian ever repining and envying the richest Patricians So that riches do rather expose men to dangers then rescue them Sixthly The evil proprieties of this sordid passion are many but I will speak only of some of them 1. It inticeth men to Idolatry for Avaricious men make their addresses morning and evening to their god Mammon in lieu to make their prayers to God I mean in bending as soon as they rise all their thoughts and cogitations upon the means how they may encrease their wealth whereby it appears that the love of money doth extinguish in them the love of God and that it is almost as impossible for a rich avaritious man to obtain the Kingdom of God Allusion upon Math 19.24 as it is for a Camel to go thorow the eye of a needle and that is the reason why few noble and rich are called and why rich men are compared in the Gospel of S. Luke to the thorny ground 1 Cor. 1.26 Luk. 8.14 because the care they take to encrease their riches smothers in them the seed of the Word and hinders them to grow in spiritual graces there being as great an antipathy between the carking care of this life and godliness as there is between light and darkness Math. 6.21 for where mens treasure is there is their heart And that is the reason why Saint James doth pronounce this heavie sentence against the rich who are possessed with Avarice Jam 5.1 2 3 4 5 6. Go to now ye rich men weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Your riches are corrupt and your garments are moth-eaten Your gold and silver is cankered and the rust of them shall be a witness against you and shall eat your flesh as it were fire ye heave heaped treasures together for the last dayes Behold the hire of the Labourers which have reaped down your fields which is of you kept back by fraud crieth and the cryes of them which have reaped are entred into the eares of the Lord of Sabaoth Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth and been wanton ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter Ye have condemned and killed the just and he hath not resisted you The second propriety of it is That it deprives those who are possessed with it of all true joy because their joy and content doth only consist in the encrease of their riches which can afford no solid joy the creatures having nothing in them but emptiness whereas the object of true joy is God himself that ever will be an infinite unchangeable and eternal God Besides how can avaritious men have any joy or content that are hourly perplexed with fears of being deprived of all they have by a thousand accidents which riches are subject unto See Plutarch in his Morals And this moved Crates to cast all his wealth into the Sea saying he would rather drown his riches then they should drown the tranquillity of his mind in fears and continual anxieties He that loveth silver saith Solomon shall not be satisfyed with silver Eccles 5.10 And except mens desires be satisfied they can have no joy nor content The Third Propriety of it is That it deprives men of understanding For Avaritious men cannot make use of their Riches but will pinch their bellyes goe ragged and deprive themselves from the comfort of all good things Nay their harmless Cattle shall feel the smart of their biting Avarice An Italian Bishop was so base as he did steal in the night time the Provender that was allowed to his Coach-horses But his Coach-man gave hiw a hundred bastinadoes as a just reward for his Avarice For seeing his horses dayly decline and become poor and faint he watched all night and found his Master stealing of their Provender out of their manger and taking no notice who he was did swadle him soundly verifying this Saying of Solomon That he who loveth riches shall be without the fruit thereof And this he calleth An evill sickness or sore disease And in truth it is a sign of Phrensy or of a Privation of understanding when men make no use of the Blessings of God And may be compared to a dog that sits upon a truss of hay that will not suffer it to be taken away although he cannot eat of it himself The Fourth Propriety of it is That it banisheth all Christian Charity out of the hearts of men For none are so close-fisted towards the Poor as Rich Avaritious men And when with much importunity Collectors draw from them some smal Contribution towards their releif they repine for it and think they draw like horsleeches their hearts blood Nay they will bury their Gold and Silver in the ground rather then they will lend their poor Neighbor some part of it gratis See Plutarch in his Morals And this moved Aesop to say to an Avaritious man who lamented for the loss of a Treasure he had hid in the ground Lament and vex not thy self sayd he but carry a stone of the like weight and bury it in the same place where thy gold was and imagine it is the same Gold which was taken from thee For this stone will be as usefull to thee as thy Gold was sith thou couldst not make a better use of it And certainly such Nabals as hoard up their Wealth and deny to relieve the distressed Davids of these Times in their extream need may be compared to that Sicilian Merchant who being possessed with a strong Phrensy did believe that all the rich ships that came into the Haven of Syracuse were his own Even so these miserable Cormorants are not Really but Imaginarily rich sith God deprives them of the use of their Riches The Fifth Propriety of it is That it begets Pride and makes men insolent disdainfull and arrogant For it is a Saying as True as Common That Honors and Riches corrupt good manners And dayly Experience doth show that such as become rich suddenly which were before of a mean and low degree are prouder and more insolent in their carriage and comportments then the greatest Noble-men in the Land And more disdainful towards their neighbors then those whose shoos they were formerly unworthy to untye See Plutarch in his Life Crassus from a mean condition being by his Avarice and his vile and base courses to get mony grown