may speak wholly unto it It participates with that supreme good to which it is united It carries in it self a great deal of the life of God it is a part of Heaven and the business of the other World But besides the solace which is inseparable from it there is this remarkable property in the passion of love that it strangely disposes us to believe all the kind expressions of our friends and makes us easily receive whatever they say for certain truth Upon which account the love of God will incline us above all other things to entertain every thing that he shall communicate of his mind unto us And there is nothing so great nothing so magnificent declared in the Gospel of his Grace but he that loves God will presently believe it and lay it up in his heart as a singular expression of his divine favour For he feels by the power and force of this affection in his own heart what God is enclined to do for those whom he loves and takes delight in though it seem incredible to other Men. And therefore as it doth not pose his belief who loves God when he hears that the Word was made Flesh for the good of men that the fulness of the God-head dwelt bodily in Jesus that he dyed for sinners and lay'd down his life for the Redemption of Enemies So the Resurrection of Christ from the dead his Ascension to Heaven the exaltation of our Nature in his Person at Gods right hand the Glory and Majesty in which he is said to shine there and in which we are told we shall at last appear together with him are no riddles nor incredible things to him No Love sees him there preparing a place for us making all ready for the joyful Marriage to be celebrated in his glorious Kingdome coming in the Clouds of Heaven to call us up thither and to advance all his Subjects to reign as so many Kings together with him This makes a man presently understand how God should design to reward our poor endeavours those services to which we stand obliged though but weakly performed with an everlasting inheritance How he should compensate our present sufferings which are but for a moment and not worthy to be named with a far more exceeding Eternal weight of Glory Hyperbole's go down easily with this Mans Faith He can believe beyond them all and see what is far beyond that far more exceeding Eternal weight of Glory as the Apostles words import 2 Cor. 4.17 He is assured the love of Heaven will enkindle a new life in our dead ashes He beholds it sublimating this earth to an Heavenly state And can well conceive this thick Clay shining as the Sun and made like to the glorious Body of Christ This Soul also as pure as the light saluting its new born Body and possessed with a mighty love rejoycing for ever in Gods bounteous kindness to it All this it sees nay feels being already filled as St. Paul speaks with all the fulness of God For it feeling First what a vast difference there is between it self now and what it was before when it was pent up in scant and narrow affection to these petty goods here below makes no doubt there may be as wide a difference between what it shall be hereafter and what it is now It presently concludes that the same powerful goodness which roused up and called forth its sleepy thoughts and drowsie desires towards it self can still further awaken and raise all its faculties to a more quick and lively sense or call forth some hidden power and vertue in the Soul which hath as yet no more appeared than those motions which now it feeles did before it was touched by his Almighty hand And Secondly finding its own nature by this touch of the Divine Love made so free and benign so abundant and overflowing in kind affection to others so open-hearted and gracious it concludes that the Almighty goodness not only can but will do more for it and confidently expects to be lifted up to an higher state of bliss proportionable to the superabundant kindness of that most excellent Nature which hath produced already such good inclinations in it It is impossible for a Man to be under the power of love to feel the huge force of its flames to perceive of what a spreading and communicative Nature it is and not conceive very magnificently of the bounty of God and have a faith in him as large and capacious as his love Love God therefore My Friend as much as ever you can with the greatest passion and most ardent affection and you shall find Heaven coming apace into you and taste the good things of the promised World to come You shall not only guess at your future state and make conjectures about it but in some measure know and feel the all-filling joy of our Lord and possess that quiet tranquillity and peace which passeth all understanding For this Divine love is the right sense whereby Heavenly things are apprehended It is that which fits the mind rightly to understand and the will firmly to believe those great and transcendent things which the Scripture reports as the portion of the Saints in light It gives us a sight of things as much differing from all other which we have meerly by dry reasoning and which we spin out by thoughtful Discourses as the sight of a great beauty before our Eyes differs from the description of it which we read in a Book or as the warmth of fire on the hearth doth from that we see in a Picture which cannot loosen and inliven our stark and benummed Joynts And if you would love God I have told you the ready way to it which is by preserving in your mind a constant and lively sense of his infinite love and good will already expressed to you for this will naturally and easily produce a reciprocal love to him and that will make you look for more of his mercy even to Eternal Life This you understand so well that I shall not say a word to you more about it but proceed to the next when I have left a few words with you to say to God A PRAYER O God how great is thy love how excellent is thy loving kindness towards us thy unworthy Creatures To whom thou takest such pleasure in communicating thy blessings that thou dost not stay till we ask them of thee but pourest them down plentifully before and beyond all our desires O the inconceivable depth of that love from whence thy Son Jesus was sent to dwell among us who hath done so much for us that he hath left us nothing to do but to consider and lay to heart thy love which hath so marvelously abounded towards us For all things I know are easie and pleasant to those that love Thee Great Peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them O possess this heart which opens it self to thy gracious influences
Soul therefore I say again an unmoveable belief of Christs great and precious promises and present them to your heart that it may be affected with them and value them according to their worth Then you will not be unwilling to do nor backward to suffer any thing that he would have you This will give you a great spirit and courage and joy in both You will take a great pleasure in godliness which hath such a recompense of reward Nay all the afflictions of this present time will seem inconsiderable in compare with the glory that shall be revealed Can any heart think much to abstain a while from sinful pleasures when he believes nay tastes the pleasures he shall shortly enjoy at Gods right hand Will not any covetous desires be content to be denied when you see it is for a Kingdom and a Crown of Life Of what should a Soul be ambitious beside whose desires are pitcht upon so noble a good as honour glory and immortality with Christ Who would not watch and pray unweariedly that he may come to this Celestial Rest with the People of God Can there be any higher pleasure than to lift up our mind to our heavenly Country and to think of the happiness which there expects us In what can we better spend our time than in meditating of the great love of God which hath prepared such excellent things for those that love him It is a good thing sure to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto his high and holy Name There can be no more delicious life than this which will conclude in his everlasting praises And suppose we must sometime take up a cross where is the mischief of it what should render it intolerable if we look at Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross and despising the shame is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God From thence he stretches forth his hands to call us there his Armes are open to embrace us and there he would gladly see us Out of that glorious place he holds forth a crown of life to us saying Follow me and let none of these things dismay you Behold the Majesty wherein I am enthroned see the glory to which I am promoted Do not faint in your mind nor be weary of well-doing but press on towards the mark for the prize of the high-calling of God in me your Saviour There is nothing sure can hinder us or pull us back unless we cease to look at Jesus and turn away our Eares from hearkning to his gracious voice For do you not see what power a worldly faith hath over Mens hearts How fast one rides to take possession of an Estate of which he hears he is left the Heir How another sailes through dreadful dangers because he believes he shall arrive at a rich Country which will send him home laden with precious Commodities at the last Why should we think then the Christian Faith is less powerful or fancy that we are in truth indued with it unless our belief of the other World have the same effects Let it lay its commands upon all the powers of our Soul and engage them to do their several works Let it excite our minds and our wills and our affections and our endeavours to a constant pursuit of these Heavenly enjoyments that we may know indeed that we believe to the saveing of the Soul Look upon that faith which was built on weaker grounds and lesser evidences and darker promises See how it wrought in Abraham Isaac and Jacob and in the rest of the ancient Patriarchs whose belief of the Word of God made them forsake their own Countries quit all their Possessions when he required it live as Pilgrims and strangers in the Earth and depend meerly on the love and care of his never failing providence By faith they slighted the pleasures of Kings Courts the Honour of a Throne and the Riches of Egypt By Faith they wrought Righteousness subdued Kingdomes stopped the mouths of Lyons indured all reproaches and afflictions would not accept of deliverance and life it self that they might obtain a better Resurrection Now since the Christian Belief relies upon better Promises a clearer Revelation and stronger grounds of hope by the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead what a shame will it be if we do nothing worthy the name of Men much less of the Disciples of Christ and of the Sons of God To what cause can it be imputed but because there is no Faith in the Earth or it rests only in the brain and floats in the imagination but never descends to touch the heart and affections Bring it down then My Friend and stir up your self to a serious and affectionate belief of the life to come Spare no pains to consider and lay to heart that which is the greatest comfort of your life all the glorious things which you read of in the Gospel of Gods grace which Christ hath sealed by his blood and God confirmed by his Resurrection and hath been attested by signs and wonders of the Holy Ghost and by the Life and Death of a number of great Souls who have followed Jesus even to his Cross and declared their belief of those things by sacrificing all that was dear unto them here to win his favour in another World Look often upon their constancy upon their zeal upon their contempt of Riches and Pleasures and Life it self when it came in competition with the will of Christ for whose sake they rejoyced that they were accounted worthy to suffer especially since he had assured them their present troubles should work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And then in imitation of them you will put on their resolution and lifting up your Eyes to Heaven will be moved to speak to this effect O blessed God how much am I beholden to thee that thou hast shewed me such things as these How much am I beholden to thee that thou hast inclined my heart to make them my choice I would not be as I was before for all the World Away you frivolous temptations you vain delights you unprofitable labours Never renew your importunities for I will not hearken I tell you I will not listen to you any more I am resolved to proceed in this holy course to the end of my days You will but make me meditate the more and pray the more and lay to heart the more the love of my God I shall but fix my Eyes the more stedfastly on that blessed place where Jesus my Saviour is at Gods right hand At his will I hold my riches my honours yea and my life also Let him dispose of them as he pleases And let it please the Lord of life and glory to accept of this most hearty oblation which I make of all I have unto him Let it please him to strengthen me in my holy resolutions to open my eyes that I
may still see more of that wonderful love which he hath discovered in his Gospel and to accompany me with his grace till I arrive at his heavenly Court O let his good Spirit breath upon me and carry away my Soul in holy desires towards him Let it guide my course through this troublesome Sea wherein I am tossed Let it shine upon me and prosper my endeavours Let it bring me safely to a quiet haven in Eternal Rest and Peace These pious aspirations you may still pursue at the end of these Meditations in some such Prayer as this A PRAYER I Praise Thee I magnify thy wise and mighty Goodness O Lord who hast made this great World the Heavens and the Earth with all things contained therein to the everlasting honour of thy Name I thank Thee with all my Soul for bringing me into it and for advancing me so much above the rest of thy Creatures here below that I see the glory of thy Majesty shining every where and hear thy Name proclaimed and praised by all thy works of wonder But above all I acknowledg thy bounty with the most admiring thoughts and the devoutest affections of my heart for sending Jesus Christ upon Earth to open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven and to show us the glories of another World O the exceeding greatness of that love which gave him to dye for us and rewarded all his sufferings with a blessed Resurrection and then translated him to Heaven and appointed Him Heir of all things and setled his Throne for ever and ever on the right hand of thy Majesty on high From thence he hath sent the Holy Ghost to be witness of the fulness of his Royal Power and Love and hath shown himself sometime in Majesty and Glory above the Sun when it shineth in its strength that we might hope in thee for the like Resurrection to a glorious immortality in the Heavens No tongue can utter nor heart conceive what Honour Glory and Peace what joy and gladness of heart thou hast prepared there for those that love Thee But blessed for ever blessed be the riches of thy grace whereby I understand so much as to feel most earnest longings in my Soul after a fuller sense of that which thou hast made me taste and relish beyond all the pleasures of this Life O raise and inlarge my Spirit unto clearer more comprehensive thoughts of that supreme blessedness Thou who entertainest all thy Creatures with so much liberality who causest thy Sun to shine upon the good and the bad and the showers of Heaven to fall on the just and the unjust deny not to satisfie the pious desires of a Soul in whom thou hast excited an ardent thirst after its proper and eternal good But inlighten the eyes of my understanding that I may know more and more what is the hope of thy Heavenly calling and what the riches of the glory of thy Inheritance in the Saints and what the exceeding greatness of thy power to us-ward who believe according to the working of thy mighty power which wrought in Christ when thou raisedst him from th dead and set him at thy own righâ— hand in the heavenly places O life up my mind to that high and holy place where thou dwellest and where Jesus is inthroned and where the Angels and Saints continually behold and praise with joyful hearts the Majesty of thy glory and where our Lord hath promised all the faithful shall live and reign with him for ever Help me to climb up daily by all thy Creatures on which thou hast set such marks of thy Greatness Wisdome and Goodness to the contemplation of that Celestial Bliss And possess me with such a constant sense and desire of it that nothing here may ingage my heart which will indispose me for the happy company and society of the blessed Assist me good Lord by such Meditations as these to discern more and more the incomparable and surpassing greatness of that felicity which thy Royal bounty will bestow upon our advanced spirits and bodies in the world of rewards and recompences Affect my heart more powerfully with it and fill me with love and joy unspeakable and full of glory when I turn my eyes towards it Stir me up thereby to prepare my self with diligence and care by a lively resemblance of the Lord Jesus for the day of his appearing and to wait with patience for that blessed Hope when I shall not see as now through a Glass darkly but face to face and be made compleatly like him by seeing him as he is Enable me always to live upon this Hope and according to it that growing in all goodness by a chearful obedience to his holy commands I may be found of him in peace and be so happy as to hear at last those gracious words of his Well done good and faithful Servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Amen III. I Need say no more to excite one of your vertue to the frequent exercise of such Meditations as these which are no less delightful than they are useful Let me next unto this advise you to study the truest notions of God and of Religion the love of which is the way to that transcendent bliss and happiness of which I have spoken As you must believe things unseen and perswade your self thoroughly that they are so it is necessary you should inform your mind aright what they are And in particular look upon Religion as a most pleasant thing and represent it to your self with a face as fair and beautiful as you can If it seem cloudy dark and melancholy it will make you to be of the same complexion But if it have a lovely and chearful aspect it will encline you always to smile upon it The poor Norwegian whom stories tell of was afraid to touch Roses when he first saw them for fear they should burn his Fingers He much wondered to see that Trees as he thought should put forth flames and blossomes of Fire before which he held up his hands to warm himself not daring to approach any nearer But as he you may be sure was happily undeceived when he came not only to touch but likewise to smell those innocent Flowers which seemed to burn in his eyes so will it be with us when we come rightly to understand and feel the pleasure that Religion gives us which at first sight before we come acquainted with it looks as if it intended to make us Martyrs but not to crown us with any joys or contentments As the Martyr said of the real fire wherein he was covered that it seemed to him as if it were a Bed of Roses so shall we say of true Religion which we are afraid will scorch us and prove too hot for us Its flames are but the flames of love and it makes us not lye down in sorrow but in the most comfortable sense of the tender love of our dearest Lord. Think with your self therefore
and you feel your self a Being that can subsist and enjoy it self if he please without a Body excite in your Soul a most passionate desire to be so happy that when it quits the place of its present abode it may approach nearer to his blessed Majesty and have a clearer sight of his surpassing glory Put your self in hope also that his Divine Goodness which hath planted in you such strong inclinations and filled you with such desires will not let them want the pleasure of satisfaction Look up above and think that when your Spirit shall take its flight from hence there is some other Company to entertain it in another World whose acquaintance is far more desirable than the society of the dearest Friend we have here who perhaps as soon as he hath gained our love takes his leave of us and goes his way thither What comfort have we remaining in this and other innumerable cases but the hope of Immortality Which is the only thing that can raise our Spirit above the pleasures and the troubles too of this mortal Body This is our chiefest good on which we should set our heart This is the inheritance to which we are born as Lactantius speaks and for which we are form'd by vertue and piety the only inheritance of which we can be secure that we shall never be defeated For all this World we must leave behind us we can carry nothing away with us but an innocent and well-passed life and the hopes which accompany it He only comes to God rich and plentiful and abounding in wealth as his words are whom continence mercy patience charity and faith shall attend and conveigh into his Presence 5. To assure your self therefore of this great good on which our principal strength and comfort relies consider in the next place that your mind plainly tells you and its testimony is indubitable that God must needs be true and that whatsoever he saith ought immediately without any hesitation to be firmly believed For as he can never be deceived himself so we are sure he cannot deceive us 6. Now God hath been pleased at last to speak to us by his own dear Son as a voice from Heaven and a World of mighty deeds have testified 7. And seeing Jesus hath not only comprised in his Doctrine all the holy wisdome and all the goodness that ever was thought or spoken of since the beginning of time but hath likewise added a lively discovery of that state of good things which the heart of man naturally wishes and longs for in another World 8. And seeing in the last place God hath confirmed his exceeding great and precious promises of Eternal Life by his Resurrection from the Dead and his Ascension into Heaven and the sending of the Holy Ghost You ought to perswade your self of the truth of these invisible things and represent them so often to your mind till they seem no less real and certain than what you see with your Eyes and feel with your Hands Nay till all the pleasures and delights which the bounty of Heaven gives you in Friends or any other good things here seem but as shadowes and faint Images of the better enjoyments which you expect hereafter Those wise Men who were guided onely by the light of their own mind made no greater account of them And yet all the Philosophers of greatest fame were but little Children compared with Christian People in the knowledg of this great Point L. 1. praepar Cap. 4. as Eusebius justly glories We are not left to gather this truth as another of the Ancients speaks from the weak conjectures and imperfect reasonings of our own Lactant. L. 7. Cap. 8. but we know it from a Divine Tradition It is delivered to us by the Son of God who hath put an end to all disputes by coming from Heaven to us with the Words of Eternal Life Lay up his Words therefore most carefully in your heart let them dwell richly and plentifully in you in all wisdom and possess you at once with a mighty sense of God and of the dignity of your Soul and of Immortality and of the Joy of the Invisible World The Benefits of this Exercise are so evident that I may leave you to relate them when you have felt them It will be sufficient for me to suggest to you that the Heart must needs become by this means very cold and dead to those earthly enjoyments which were wont to bewitch and inchant it with their deceitful Pleasures If the Soul be cloathed as the Platonists fancied with as many Garments as there are Elements through which it passed as it descended into this Body and if it be so mufled in them that it doth but fumble in its thoughts and hath much ado to feel it self hereby it will be able in some measure to devest it self of those thick Blankets wherein it is wrapped and throw off those heavy coats that dangle about its heeles and incumber its motions as it sets its Feet forward to walk toward the Father of its Being It is no contemptible discourse which their Master makes concerning Felicity Plato in Phaedone which he rightly places in the contemplation and love of the Soveraign Good How that no Man can attain unto it in this Life by reason of the lumpish matter to which the Soul is fast tyed and by reason of the multitude of Worldly affairs which require our attendance yea and of the fancies and toyes that will fill our thoughts do what we can Whence he concludes that either no Man shall be happy which he thinks is very absurdly affirmed or he must arrive at his Happiness after he is dead And if when we are dead saith he the Blessed Time is come wherein we may enjoy as we would that greatest good then the nearer any Man approaches unto Death the nearer he comes within the reach of his Felicity If a Man therefore will with-draw Himself from the World if he will abstract his mind from sensible things and take his heart from bodily pleasures and turn himself into himself which they judged as the Holy Writers do a kind of Death he shall be in the beginnings of his Happiness There I know my Friend you desire to find your self and for that cause I pray you learn thus to steal out of the company of Worldly things which by hindring us from beginning our Happiness would keep us in perpetual misery Converse as often as you can with your nobler self and contract an intimate acquaintance with those divine Inhabitants which are lodged there Grow into an high esteem of that unseen Power which knows God and the Life to come which thinks and guides and gives orders desires and loves and doth all things else belonging to this Life And calling to mind continually its worth and dignity and considering for what heavenly enjoyments it was designed disdain to let it be condemned to so base a slavery as to serve the Body only
Heaven expecting also a blessed Resurrection And if you say that in this state of dulness that I am speaking of a Soul is fit to think of nothing this thing will tell you how it alarms the heart and makes it muster up its thoughts and collect its scattered Forces that it may be in a readiness to receive the approaches of Death and its assault upon us And the thoughts of it at such a time are the more natural and easie because there is nothing more like to Death than this unactive and sluggish temper when the Soul seems as if it were buried in the Body and intombed already in this Vault of Flesh And it would be very easy to show how much every one of the foregoing counsels would be improved by our frequent conversation on all occasions with our Graves It would excite our minds to enquire after another World and make us very desirous to find it out It would raise our esteem of the great love of God who hath given us such assurance of a never dying life It would carry away our thoughts from this Earth as not the place of our setled abode It would presently send them above and bid them see the pleasures which we do but imagine here in their full growth and perfection of joy and happiness there O how delightful would Religion and Vertue be unto us which is the only thing we can carry away with us How curious should we be to judg aright that Death may not be the first thing that shall undeceive us How would it open our heart as I said to pour out it self in devout affections to God and what a comfort would these be to us if the records of them were spread before us at our dying hour This is so far from being an enemy to chearfulness that it is a forcible reason why we should freely enjoy all that God hath given us because we must shortly leave it Our Friends also we shall therefore be enclined to embrace more ardently and do them the more good and covet their company because we have not long to stay with them For when I said the thoughts of Death are apt to restrain our too forward desires I did not mean that it checks or abates our love to our Friends No Love is strong as Death and hard or unyielding as the Grave the Coals thereof are Coals of Fire a most vehement flame as Solomon speaks VIII Cant. 6. It burns that is like the Fire on the Altar for in the Hebrew the last words are the Flame of God which came down from Heaven and never went out Nothing can conquer it no not Death which conquers all Flesh That can only teach us not to place our chief contentment in any thing here no not in the best good in this World though never so dear unto us because it may shortly leave us only its shaddow the image of it in our memory which putting us in mind of our forepast pleasures will make us so much the more sad if we have not hope to find that good improved by its departure from us in another World And is not the use of a Friend then most visible when we think of our departure by whom as I said in one of the former Discourses we shall still remain with those whom we leave behind But what Friend is there like to our blessed Lord whose love we shall the oftner remember by commemorating his Death if we think of our own We cannot chuse but be excited to prepare our selves thereby for an happy and chearful dissolution And why should we not trust God with all we have for a little time whom we must shortly intrust with Soul and Body to all Eternity But I list not to prolong this Discourse with such collections as these which I will leave to your own thoughts with this Prayer wherewith you may awaken your mind when you find it necessary A PRAYER THou art worthy O Lord of all Praise Glory and Honour by whose Omnipotent Will and for whose pleasure all things in Heaven and Earth were created and by whose indulgent Providence they are continually maintained and preserved They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old like a Garment 102. Psal 26.73.26 as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy Years shall have no end I prostrate my self before Thee in an humble sense that I am but sinful dust and ashes who have nothing to glory in neither riches nor strength nor wisdome but only this O how happy is it for me that I know thee the ever living God the Rock of Ages the only solid foundation of our comfort and joy who when my Flesh and my Heart faileth wilt be the strength of my Heart and my Portion for ever I am now presenting my Soul and Body to Thee in perfect health but cannot tell where I shall be the next moment or whether I shall live to breath out the desires of my Soul once more unto Thee For in thy hand is the breath of our Nostrils and when thou pleasest we are turned to destruction We dwell in Houses of Clay whose foundation is in the dust and they are daily crumbling and mouldering away so that we know not how soon they will vanish and be seen no more O how serious should the thoughts of this make me in all my addresses unto Thee How dead to all the sinful enjoyments of this World How holy and pure How heavenly minded and spiritual How ready to do good and to communicate to others those things which I must shortly leave How diligent to assure my self thereby of better enjoyments to make friends in Heaven that when I go hence I may be received into everlasting Habitations I see O Lord now that I think of my departure how unprofitable my too many cares are for the things of this life How vain my eager desires after unnecessary riches and honours how trifling all my pleasures and that there is no solid happiness but in thy love and a pious hope of immortality O my God be so good to me as to turn my thoughts frequently toward my latter end and to fix in my mind a lively sense of the uncertainty of my being and the fickleness of all things belonging to it That since I must shortly leave them all even my dearest Friends and Kindred and this body too which must be turned into corruption I may most zealously endeavour to secure thy love and friendship in a better life by the constant chearful and earnest exercise of all godliness and vertue while I tarry here Help me to be as humble and lowly as the dust to which I am going to bury all anger hatred and enmities since we must needs dye 2 Sam. 14.14 and be as Water spilt upon the Ground which cannot be gathered up again to discharge my mind of all superfluous cares and
able than we are And particularly I would advise you on such occasions to lift up your Soul frequently to God in earnest desires beseeching Him to preserve you from cheating your self and that he would help you to discern clearly when it is the flattery and when it is the meer weakness of Flesh and Blood that hinders you from doing as you were wont When you cast a glance I say towards Heaven and send up a sigh thither now and then as you are able let this be one of your desires that God would be so gracious as to give you to feel plainly when meer necessity requires your attendance on your Body and when it calls for more than it needs For he loves that in every thing we should make known our requests to Him and will certainly some way or other satisfie your mind in such concernments And when you have used the best judgment you have and can procure together with your Prayers about them then I hope you will be chearful and let your thoughts trouble you no more Or if a thought should happen to start up and strike your mind telling you that you are lazy yet believe I beseech you your more deliberate and not these suddain conclusions There is one case I know of this kind wherein though it be certain that it is impossible for us to do as we were wont and that we are not hindred by any fault in our will but by the meer indisposition of nature yet it may be hard sometime to avoid dejected and complaining thoughts upon this account It is in sickness when the Mind necessarily languishes with the Body You may chance then to imagine that some sin or other is the cause of this Correction and so you have drawn this disability upon your self for which you cannot now be humbled as you desire But I hope My Friend that you take such an exact view of your life that sickness will not let you see any fault that was not visible to you before And I know you to be wiser than to torment your self with a fancy that there is some sin lurking in you though you cannot find it out But if any thing should discover it self to you which was not so evident before let me beseech you not to pass any hard censure upon your self But to remember that this hath been bewailed whensoever you lamented the general infirmity of your nature and that now perhaps it is represented to you more ugly than it doth deserve or if it be not yet it is sufficient only to beg of God to accept your hearty confession and your promise of amendment when you are able and to desire your spiritual guide to be the witness of your sincere resolution and to give you absolution and his blessing and so rest satisfied But there may be another reason likewise assigned of our heaviness at certain seasons which I have noâ— yet named and that is the withholding in a great measure of thaâ— strength and power which was upon us from the Holy-Ghost to raise and elevate us to an high pitch of love activity and joy in well doing For as the help of that doth lift us up above our selves so when it much abates we are apt to fall as much below our selves and to be surprised with sadness and dejection of spirit to see our selves so strangely changed And this may be denyed us for several causes either because we have not improved it so well as we might or because our Lord sees that our Nature cannot bear always such extraordinary motions or that he may make us more sensible of his favours and raise their price and value in our esteem or that he may try our strength as a Mother le ts go her hold of the Child to make it feel its Feet or that he may thereby bow our wills more absolutely to his and break our self-love which desires nothing but pleasure or that he may prove whether we will love him for himself and not for the delicate entertainments which he gives us or for some such cause unknown to you and me and every body else And shall we not yield submission quietly to a thing for which there may be so many reasons and those not at all to our prejudice but to our profit Let me say a few words concerning the two last things mentioned and show you that if our Patience be exercised upon those accounts it will prove very beneficial to our Souls I cannot say as some have done that we ought not to desire goodness for our own good but meerly because it is pleasing to God No this seems to me a very absurd doctrine and utterly impossible that we should separate these two Piety and our own good We cannot so much as desire to be good but we shall feel a satisfaction in it For the very Name of good carries a respect in it to something in us to which it is agreeable and convenient We do not mean when we bid you love God for himself that you should not therein love your self and seek your own contentment for you cannot chuse but be pleased in the love of God and vertue But this I may affirm with safety that there may be sometimes too much of self-love in our vehement desires after the extraordinary pleasures and joyes of piety and that if we could be content after we used due diligence with our driness and barrenness of spirit with our dulness and want of vigour nay with our frailties and faults too meerly out of submission to God and because he thinks not fit to give us the pleasure of being wholly without them it would be highly acceptable to him and no less advantageous to us If in all things I mean we could rest satisfied that God's will is done though ours be denyed if we could forbear to prosecute our own will even in those matters and desire him to give us as much Life and Spirit and chearfulness and joy as he pleases we should be so far from offending him that he would take it for a very grateful piece of service to him This is not to teach any remisness in your desires and endeavours but it supposes you do your best and only advises you that if notwithstanding you cannot be as you would you do not let your spirit fall into any impatience or fretfulness For this is to prefer God's pleasure above your own It is a subjection of your will to his in those points wherein you are most desirous to have it gratified It is an unusual instance of resignation to him which declares there is nothing so dear to you but you are willing to quit it so you may but do well and be accepted with Him And here remember these two things First that our solid comfort doth not depend upon doing every thing so readily easily and delightfully as we would but in accomplishing Gods will however it be done And 2dly That Humility Patience and Submission to God