Quicken our Obedience then Satisfie our Curiosity I may for those purposes have perhaps tolerably perform'd that taske of Heavenly Topographie by the acknowledgments of my Disability to do it worthily I shall now onely adde this Property of our expected Blisse that the vast Multitude of Partners does detract nothing from each private Share nor does the Publicknesse of it lessen Propriety in it This Ocean of Felicity being so Shoarlesse and so Bottomless that all the Saints and Angels cannot exhaust it it being as impossible for any Aggregate of Finites to comprehend or exhaust one Infinite as 't is for the greatest number of Mathematick Points to amount to or constitute a Body Our neighbour-regions doe all enjoy the benefit of light as well as we yet we enjoy not Lesse than if they enjoy'd None Indeed there is this difference between the Sun of Righteousnesse and that of Heaven that whereas the later by his presence Eclipses all the Planets his Attendants the former though radiant with a much mightier Splendour will by his Presence Impart it to his Saints according to that of the Apostle Coll. 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear then shall we also appear with him in Glory So that the Elect in relation to this Sun shall not be like Starres which his shining obscures and makes to disappear but like polisht Silver or well glaz'd Armes or those vaster Balls of burnisht Brasse the topps of Churches are sometimes adorn'd with which shine not till they be shin'd upon and derive their glittering Brightnesse and all the fire that environs and illustrates them from their being expos'd unskreen'd to the Sun 's refulgent beams Cant. 6.3 I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine sayes every Saint with the Spouse in the Canticles to hir Redeemmer David sayes of them that put their trust in God Psal 36.8 That he shall abundantly satisfie them with the fatnesse of His house and make them drink of the River of his pleasures As if he meant to insinuate that as when a multitude of persons drink of the same River none of them is able to exhaust it and yet each of them may have the full liberty of drinking as much as he can or as much as he could though none but himselfe should be Allow'd to drinke of it so whosoever enjoyes God enjoyes him wholly or at least doth enjoy him so entirely in Relation to that man's capacity that the Fruition of whatsoever rests unenjoy'd of God is forbidden by the Immensity of the Object and not the Praepossession of his Rivalls The Angels though of a Nature Differing from our's and thereby plac'd above the personal Experience of our sufferings and infirmities doe yet so sympathize with us that as our Saviour informs us they rejoyce at the repentance of a sinner And though the members of the Church Militant and those of the Triumphant live as farre asunder as Heaven is from Earth and are not more Distant as to place than Differing as to Condition yet St. Paul reckons all the Saints to be but one Family in Heaven and Earth Eph. 3.15 If then the disparity of Residences of Qualities and of Conditions cannot Now hinder the Lovers of God from being so concern'd in one another how much of endearing Kindnesse may we suppose that they will Enterchange When both their Love shall be perfected and all those other Graces that are proper to cherish and encrease it For the same Apostle who to assist us to conceive the strictnesse of the Union both betwixt Christ and his Saints and the Saints among themselves tells us that He is the Head 1 Cor. 12. and they are his Body and Members in particular teaches us to make this inference That to expresse his Doctrine in his own words If one Member suffer all the Members suffer with it v. 27 28. and if one Member be honour'd all the Members rejoyce with it Yes Lindamor in that blest Condition our wills being perfectly conform'd unto our Maker's no Saint nor Angel can enjoy his Love without possessing a proportionate Degree of ours And then since perfect Friendship appropriates to each Friend the Crosses and Prosperities of the other as good Barzillai could not be highlier oblig'd by David 2 Sam. 19.37 than by the Kings kindnesse to his Son each severall Beatitude in Heaven shall in some sort concern the whole Society and be Ours As the Earth receives Addition of Light by the Sun's Beames bestow'd upon the Starrs and from the Moon reflecting upon Her And because our personall Capacities are too too narrow to contain all that Joy we are by the strange Arithmetick of Friendship multiplyed into as many Happy Persons as there are Saints and Angells blest in Heaven Our perfect Union to Our Common Head and mutuall Communion with each other applying and bringing home every Felicity of theirs to us This Friendly and reciprocall Sympathy reaching us each Glorified Saint's Blessednesse and Him ours by a blest Circulation which makes us encrease by our resenting them those Joyes of others whose Encrease we resent But my Thoughts are ingaged in so good Company Lindamor that they keep me from considering how fast the Hours passe and have almost made me forget that the Time which my Occasions allow me for Scribling to you is so far spent that not now at last to Reprieve you from the Persecutions of my blunt Pen were to be almost as Injurious to my own Affairs as to your Patience Hereafter yet I may possibly make you some amends for this with Riper Discourses of the Nature and Duties or if you will the Properties and Returns of this Love to which I have hitherto presented you some Motives To the last of which I might add That our Love to the Creature is an Earnest but to God 't is a Title the One makes Us the Object 's but the Other makes the Object Ours That since there is in Love so strong a Magick as to Transform the Lover into the Object Lov'd We ought to be extreamly carefull of the Dedication of a Passion which as it is plac'd must either Dignifie our Nature or Degrade it And not to Addresse to any Lower or which is all one to any Other Object the highest Intensity of a Love which cannot Stoop without our Degradation And these I might Exspatiate on and Recruit them with many other Motives additionall to those already insisted on but that I may more properly reserve them to the Treatise of the Properties of that Love whose Nature so partakes That of its Object that there can hardly be produc'd more powerfull Motives to it than the Conditions of it Since then as I freshly intimated I cannot but feare that your tir'd Patience as well as my urgent Occasions though these will recall me to morrow Morning to my own VVesterne Hermitage doth at present summon me to leave you and since I cannot do so in a happier place than Heaven I shall suspend my Farewells onely to begge you to believe that so Noble a Motive of Exalting-Friendship as the Ambition of rendring mine a fit Return for yours hath so Improv'd my Kindnesse that my Affection without wronging its own Greatnesse could not Expresse it self by any Lesse Attempt then this of gaining you the Greatest and the most Desireable of all Goods by elevating that Noble Harbinger of your Soul your Love to Heaven Whose Joyes alone are not Inferiour to those which the Being made Instrumentall to procure them you would really Create in SIR Your most Faithfull most Affectionate and most Humble Servant ROBERT BOYLE From Leese this 6th of Aug. 1648.
engaged your faith For it hath been observ'd that Love doth seldome suffer it self to be confin'd by other matches then those of its owne making And few but they that are so wife as they see cause to be in Love before hand with those they Marry prove so honest as afterwards to be in Love with none else Since therefore the Marriage of a wise man supposes at least as high a degree of Love as he is capable to cherish without forfeiting that Title I can scarce disallow the being moderately in Love without being injurious to Marriage which is a Relation which though I can with much lesse Reluctancy permit others then Contract my self yet dare I not absolutely condemne a condition of Life as expedient to no man without which even Paradise and Innocence were not sufficient to compleat the happinesse of the first man Thus you see Lindamor that I do not promiscuously quarrell with all sorts of Love but indeavour onely to possesse you with this Truth That as antiently among the Jewes there were odoriferous Unguents which it was neither unusuall nor unlawfull to anoint themselves with or bestow upon their friends But there was a certain peculiar Composition too of a pretious Ointment which God having reserv'd to be imployed in his owne Service with that Exod. 30.31 32. the Perfuming of their friends was Criminall and Sacrilegious So there are regulated degrees of Love which 't is not forbidden to harbour for a friend a Mistris or a Wife but there is too a certain peculiar Strain or if I may so call it Heroick Temperament of Love which where ever it is found makes it belong as unalienably as justly unto GOD. A virtuous Wife may love both her Husband and her owne Relations and yet be truly said to love him with her whole heart because there is a certain unrivall'd degree of fondnesse and a peculiar sort of Love which constitutes true Conjugall affection which she confines to him and reserves entirely for him and would think it Criminall to harbour for any other Person So a Religious soul may obey the Command of Loving God entirely though she allow her affections other objects provided they be kept in a due subordination to and kept from entring into Competition with that Love which ought to be appropriated to him and which results chiefly from an either altogether or almost unincreaseable Elevation and vastnesse of affection from an entire resignement to and an absolute dependance on the Lov'd Party from a restlesse disquiet upon the least sense or doubt of her displeasure from a greater Concern in her interests than ones owne from an expectation of no lesse then felicity or wretchednesse from her friendship or indignation or at least a perswadedness that nothing can be a greater happinesse then her favour or deferve the name of happinesse without it For where ever a passion has these properties or any of them conspicuous in it it cannot but by being consecrated to God avoid becoming injurious both to Him and to it selfe The very Noblenesse of it entitles him to it as in some Kingdomes and particularly here in England though Veins of coorser Metalls may belong to the owner of the Soile they grow in yet all the Mines of the more perfect Metalls as Gold and Silver are by the Law made Mines Royall and belong to the King to whom their value appropriates them By reflecting upon this peculiar Notion of Love you may be pleased Lindamor to interpret such indefinite expressions as you may meet with in the following discourse And this Love I have taken the freedome to style Seraphick Love borrowing the name from if the Romish Divines be good Marshalls of the Heavenly Host those nobler Spirits of the Caelestiall Hierarchie whose Name in the Language to which it belongs expresses them to be of a flaming Nature The Name Seraphim in Hebrew springs from the Root Saraph which signifies to burn or flame Whence Numb 21.6 those pernicious Creatures that our Translators English Fiery-Serpents are styled in the Originall Hannechasim has-seraphim and whose imployment mentioned in the * Isa 6.2 3. Evangelicall Prophet's Mysterious Vision sufficiently poynts at the divine Object to which the flames that warm them aspire and tend And me-thinks Lindamor that you should find it no faint Invitation to embrace Seraphick Love that you may have the advantage by making your selfe a Rivall to these glorious Spirits to make them your friends and the honour to be ingaged in a Service where you are sure of such Illustrious concurrents At least if you be of the mind of that generous Youth to whose successefull Valour the Conquer'd world was both Theater and Trophie who refus'd to runne at the Olympick Games because there were no Monarchs to runne with him But I fear Lindamor I have a little digressed since I might have told you in fewer words that it is not my design in this paper to declame against Love in generall or make a solemne Harangue of the ficklenesse of women and that therefore as when young Gallants such as you Lindamor are subject to cast away their Love upon unfitting Objects their discreeter friends sensible of the truth of the Italian Comick's observation that Onectà contra more E troppo frale schermo In giovinetto cuore In youthfull hearts bare Vertue 's wont to prove But a weak shield against the darts of love Without taking any more than necessary notice of their former fond and stragling Passion reclaim them by either matching them or at least in order thereunto engageing their addresses to persons whose Beauty or Prerogatives may both legitimate and confine their affections So I shall now endeavour to prevent the future gaddings of your Love to objects that cannot deserve so transcendent and disinterest a one as I have observed yours to have been by preferring and engageing it to the true Object that passion was born to the noblest it can aspire to and the most satisfying it can enjoy Yes Lindamor as it has hitherto been my not-unprosperous Task to un-hood your Soul I shall now make it my business to show her Game to flye at I see that Love in Lindamor is too noble and predominant an affection to be either easie or fit to be destroyed It will therefore be my design not to suppresse your flame but to addresse it I wish'd it withdrawn from Hermione not to annihilate it but to transfigure it I would not have a passion which wanted nothing but a due object to be Seraphick Love like vulgar men be swallow'd up by Death the common fate But be enobled by a destinie like that of Enoch and Elias who having ceased to converse with Mortalls dyed not but were translated into Heaven What has been said already § 2 hath it seems suffic'd to rectifie your love by disabusing it and showing you how unfitly it was plac'd on its former objects Your proficiencie in that invites me to proceed with you to a
even from a much better Master for Love having thus accustomed you to what is thought most difficult in that vertue the Acts of selfe-deniall you need almost but Transferre your flames from an Inferiour and mistaken to their True Noblest Object and you will have exalted and refined your Love into Devotion to the latter of which a sublime Elevarion of the first is such a disposition as the having formerly by looser Aires and perchance wanton Songs learn't to Improve and to Command ones voice is to the skill of Singing those devour Hymnes and heavenly Anthemes in which the Church-Militant seems ambitious to emulate the Triumphant and Eccho back the solemne Praises and Hallelujahs of the Coelestiall Quire And as by Hunting though possibly we follow but some poore fugitive Hare or some such trifling game we gain that Vigour that Sufferance and Agility that fit us for the Toyles and Military hard-ships that are exacted in the pursuit of Glory and of Empire so though in Love Devotion 's Prentice-ship the Courted Creature be often inconsiderable enough to make our Elections fit to be numbered amongst such as those that made Love be painted Blind yet in the Progresse and Conduct of our passions we contract such dis-interests and resign'd Habitudes as being preferr'd to serve Coelestiall Objects do excellently qualifie us for Devotion And in effect a fervent Love seems little else then Devotion mis-addrest where our owne very expressions may serve to disabuse us For when you give your Mistriss the style of Goddesse and talke of nothing to her but Offering up of hearts Adoring Sacrifices Martyrdomes does not all this imply that though it be said to her 't is meant to a Divinity which is so much the true and genuine Object of men's Love that we cannot exalt that passion for any other without investing it with the Notion and Attributes of God As Children disclose the inbred kindnesse they have for those Persons by calling the Babies they most doat upon by their dear Mothers Exod. 32. vers 4 5. In the latter of which it is expresly said that the Feast was proclaimed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To Jehovah the peculiar Name of the true God or lov'd Nurses Names And as Aaron and the revolting Jewes by justifying to themselves their Adoration of the Idols they had set up by attributing the Title of God to what they ador'd did tacitly acknowledge Adoration to be due onely to the Deity so does a Lover by naming what he Worships a Divinity tacitly confesse the Deity to be the proper Object of that highest and peculiar straine of Worship And this truth Lindamor § 8 the very sicklenesse of Lovers concurrs to testifie for what men call and think Inconstancy is nothing but a Chase of Perfect Beauty which our Love fruitlessely follows and seeks in severall Objects because he finds it not entire in any one for Creatures have but small and obscure fragments of it which cannot fix nor satisfie an Appetite born for and though unknowingly aspiring unto God who is proclaimed the true and proper Object of our Love as well by mens ficklenesse to women as the Angells constancy to Him Just as the trembling restlesnesse of the Needle in any but the North point of the Compasse proceeds from and manifests its Inclination to the Pole its Passion for which both its wavering and its rest bear equall witnesse to That unsatisfi'dnesse with transitory fruitions that men deplore as the Unhappiness of their Nature is indeed the Priviledge of it as 't is the Praerogative of men not to care for or be capable of being pleas'd with Whistles Hobby-horses and such fond Toyes as Children doat upon and make the sole objects of their Desires and Joyes And by this you may Lindamor in some degree imagine the unimaginable suavity that the fixing of ones Love on God is able to blesse the Soul with since by so indulgent a Father and Competent a Judge as God himself the decree'd uncontentingnesse of all other goods is thought richly repaired by its being but an Aptnesse to prove a Rise to our Love 's setling there And hitherto my dearest Lindamor § 9 I have endeavour'd to recommend unto you Seraphick Love by mentioning some of its Properties which seem to relate more to the Love it selfe then to the divine Object of it But I feare you 'l think I have too long entertain'd you with Considerations which besides that they are not altogether the importantest that belong to this Discourse I have been by haste reduc'd to Pen in the unaccurate Order wherein they offer'd themselves to my thoughts not the Method wherein I should have presented them to yours And therefore Lindamor § 10 since the Noblest and supream Motives to the love of God consist in his own infinite Perfections and Prerogatives and since the properties of God's Love to us do advantage us much more and consequently are likelier to endear Devotion to us than those of ours to him The former not onely moving God to Kindle in us but to Cherish and Foment and if our own wilfull extinction interpose not to Crown the latter for both these reasons I say Lindamor I doubt not but you 'l think it seasonable for me to proceed to consider that higher sort of Motives to Devotion and to evince that the severall things which are wont most to Engage and Heighten our affections do in a peculiar and transcendant manner shine forth and constellate in God That you know which enamour'd you of Hermione I need not prove to you to have been your supposing her full of Lovelinesse and Excellencies in her self and your believing that the Love she vouchsafed you was Great Free Constant or Advantagious to you And that all these properties do not onely eminently exist but illustriously concur in God and in his Love I must now Lindamor with strong desires of doing it Prosperously attempt to manifest First then § 11 our highest love is made God's due by the Excellencie and Prerogative of his Nature But trust me Lindamor when necessitated by a Method exacted by the nature of this discourse I find my self engaged to say something by way of celebration of Gods Perfections I am very sensible I can but Detract from what I desire to Praise and must unevitably appeare unable to speak worthily of a Theme to which even Seraphims themselves cannot do right And if as the Scripture assures us those things neither fell under the Senses nor entred the Thoughts of men 1 Cor. 2.9 which God has reserv'd for those that love him how ineffable and incomprehensible must those things be which he has reserv'd for himself the infinite Superiority of his Nature above all Created Beings placing a vast disparity betwixt his greatest communicated Vouchsafements and his Boundless and therefore to creatures Incommunicable Perfections Wonder not therefore Lindamor that my weak eyes dare not dwell long upon an Object which they cannot stedfastly gaze on long without
so lov'd for a Ransome of those that were guilty of what he so hated And therefore our Saviour though he did such great things to satisfie the unbelieving and contumacious Jews of his being their promis'd Messiah would not decline death to convince them And though he had not seldom done so much to make himself the Object of their Faith would not be invited from the Crosse though the chief Priests and Scribes themselves said Mat. 23.7 at his Crucifixion Let him him now come down from the Crosse and we will believe on him And Christ to convince the World of their unablenesse to emerge and recover out of that deep Abysse wherein the Load of sin which in Scripture is call'd a weight had precipitated fallen Man Heb. 12.1 came not into the World untill well nigh 4000. years of sicknesse had made the Disease Desperate and the cure almost Hopelesse So inveterate an obstinacy at once widening the Distance betwixt God and Man and proclaiming the latter's Disability to finde by his own wisdom Expedients of Re-union Thus Christ heal'd and dispossess'd a dumb person Mat. 9.32 who was able to make entreaties but by the Disability of pronouncing them and might truly say to the secure World Isa 65.1 I am found of them that sought me not And when our Saviour Was come into the wretched World of all the numerous Miracles recorded in the Gospel he scarce did any for his own private Relief And to shew that as he endured his Sorrows for our sakes Isa 53.5 that by his stripes we might be healed so were the Joyes he tasted in Relation to Us. We read not which is highly observable in the whole Gospell that ever he Rejoyc'd but once and that was when his return'd Disciples inform'd him that they had Victoriously chas'd Devills and diseases out of oppressed Mortalls Luk 10. and that by his Authority men had been dispossess'd of both the Temptor and Punishment of Sin He converst among his Contemporaries with Vertues as well attesting what he was as Prophecies or Miracles could do and to teach Man how much he valu'd Him above those Creatures that man makes his Idols he often altered and suspended the Course of Nature for mans Instruction or his Relief and revers'd the Laws establish'd in the Universe to engage Men to obey those of God Mat. 12 24. By doing miracles so numerous and great that the Jews Unbelief may be almost counted one Yet were those wonders wrought for a Generation that ascrib'd them to the Devil Mar. 3.12 Return'd him with so unexampled an Ingratitude that 't is not the Least of his wonders that he would vouchsafe to work Any of them for such blasphemous wretches who were indeed as some of the latter Jews have too truly styl'd themselves in relation to their fathers Chometz ben ya yin Vinegar the Child of Wine a most degenerate Off-spring of Holy Progenitours He suffered so much for them that made him do so that he suffered the addition of Misery of being thought to suffer Deservedly and he was numbred with the Transgressors Isa 53.12 And though he Liv'd as much a Miracle as any he Did yet did his condition sometimes appear so Despicable and forlorn that men could not know his Deity but by his Goodness which was too Infinite not to be long Incommunicably to God And though 't were once a saying of our Saviour's Greater Love hath no man than this Joh. 15.13 that a man lay down his life for his Friends Yet is not what is said of the Love here mention'd to be understood of Love Indefinitely or generally considered but onely of the single Acts or Expressions of a mans love to his friends Compar'd betwixt themselves And so the alleaged passage seems to mean but this that among the single Acts of kindnesse to a mans friends there is not any One more highly expressive of a reall and sincere Love than to part with ones Life for their sakes This Text therefore would not be indefinitely applyed to the affection of Love it selfe as if it could not possibly be greater then is requisite to make a man Content or Willing to dye for his friends for he that sacrifices besides his Life his Fortune also his Children his Reputation does thereby express more Love to them than he could do by parting with his Life only for them And he that is forward to dye for those that Hate him or at least know him not discloses a more plentifull and exuberant Stock of Love then he that does the same kindnesse but for those that Love him And thus our Saviour would be understood unlesse we would say that he Out-practis'd what he Taught for he came to lay down His life ev'n for his Enemies and like the kind Balsome Tree whose healing-wounds weep Soveraigne Balm to Cure those that made them he refus'd not to Dye for those that Kill'd him and Shed his bloud for some of them that Spilt it And so little was his injur'd Love to the ungrateful World discouraged or impair'd by the savage Entertainment he met with in it that after he had suffer'd from wretched men for whose sakes he left Heaven to become capable of suffering such barbarous Indignities as might have made bare Punishments appear Mercy and ev'n Cruelty it self seem no more than Justice when I say to hope for so much as his Pardon were Presumption he was pleas'd to Create Confidence of no less than his Love A vertue Nor think it Lindamor impertinent to our present Theme that I insist so much on what Christ has Done and Suffer'd for us since he himself informes us See also Joh. 14. v. 9 10 11. that He and his Father are one And some of the Texts already mention'd have taught us that 't was an effect also of God's love to the World Joh. 3.16 That He gave his onely begotten Son to Redeem it and Rom. 5.8 That God commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ dyed for us Wherefore I shall without Scruple proceed to observe to you That so free is Christ's Dilection that the grand condition of our Felicity is our Belief that he is dispos'd to make us Happy on Tearms not onely so Honourable to him but so Advantagious to us that I was about to say That possibly Faith it self would scarce be exacted as Requisite to our happinesse but that the Condition does increase the Benefit by vouchsafing us bold and early Anticipations of it For Heb. 11.1 Faith being as the Apostle tearms it the substance of things hoped for and evidence or conviction of things not seen wafts our Joys to this side of the Grave bows Heaven down to us till our freed Spirits can soar up to Heaven and does us such a service as the Jewish Spies did to their Country-men Numb 13 23 27. by bringing them over to this side Jordan into the
in which I have made too many Experiments not to be by you allow'd to make some Comparisons to it For first it never forsakes its Inclinations for the Steel next being united to it it retains so constantly its Attractive qualities that it gives not the Needle any Motive of deserting it and thirdly it doth never rightly touch the amorous Steel without leaving an Impression which ever after disposes it to a Conversion to that Magnetick Posture which best fits it to receive fresh Influences To which let me add this other resemblance betwixt God's work on Us and the Load-stone's on the Iron that the Kind Stone attracts a Needle to it not to Advantage it self by that Union but to Impart its Virtue to what it draws Besides Absence and Rivalls those frequent Ruiners of other Lovers happinesse can threaten nothing of formidable to yours For Absence which so divorces us from that which animates us that Lovers do not so improperly style it Death if Death be but the Separation of Soul and Body by God's Ubiquity we are secured from He is ever present With us or rather In us You that not long since so highly valu'd the Opportunities of conversing with your Mistriss for some few Moments shall here find your Priviledges improv'd to a Permission nay an Invitation of entertaining the Object of your Love at all times no hour renders your visits Unseasonable nor no length Tedious he is rather welcomest to God that comes to him Oftenest and stays with him Longest What favours were vouchsaf'd to that antient Prophetesse who was likewise one of the first Evangelists who for many years departed not from the Temple but served God with Fastings and Prayers Luk 2.37 c. Night and Day the beginning of St. Luke's Gospell may inform you The midnight-Hymns of Paul and Silas did not only not disturb or Offend him they prais'd Act. 16.25 26 c. but procur'd the visit of an Angell to bring them miraculous and unexpected Liberty as a proofe of the Acceptablenesse of their not-Canonicall Devotions Gen. 5. 22 23 24. When Enoch had walked with God as many years as the year has dayes God was so farre from being Importun'd or Tir'd by that lasting assiduity that vouchsafing him an unexampled exampled Exemption from death he was pleas'd by a new and nearer Cut to Heaven to admit him to a yet Closer more Immediate and more Undistracted Communion with himself And when Moses had spent no lesse than forty dayes and forty nights in conversing if I may use so Familiar a term with God in the Mount Exod. 34.30 he brought down thence instead of a Pennance for his Importunity so signall and radiant a Testimony of Gods peculiar Favour that his dazl'd Country-men were as much Disabled as Invited to gaze on an Object of so much wonder And then How proud doe we see many Lovers of their Sufferings when she but Knows of them for whom they are endured But in Seraphick Love there is not the least good Wish or privatest Suffering nay not a whispering Sigh or closer Thought that silently Groans or Aspires in the Amorous Soul but He both sees and heares that Puts his Servant's teares into his Bottle Ps 36.8 sweetning and recompencing the greatest Misfortunes that his Love occasions with such Support and Joyes as hinder us to feel them and make them deserve a contrary name Each amorous Soul may say to God with David Thou knowest my down-sitting Ps 139.2 3. and my up-rising thou understandest my thoughts afar off thou compassest my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my wayes And Christ also himself has so attentive an Eye upon the Amorous Soul that he is held forth in the Apocalypse as telling the Ruler of the Church of Smyrna Revel 2.8 9. I know thy works and tribulation and poverty And saying to the Angell of the Church of Pergamus Revel 2.12.13 I know thy works and where thou dwellest even where Satans seat is and thou holdest fast my name and hast not denied my Faith even in those dayes wherein Antipas was my Faithfull Martyr who was slain among you where Satan dwelleth So that no endearing Circumstance of our Love scapes unobserv'd by Him who has done and suffered so much to engage us to it God remembers not our Endeavours to serve Him the lesse for Our having forgotten them Matth. 25.37 c. When saw we thee any way distressed and relieved thee will be the Question of those to whom Heaven it self will be at the last Day awarded as having ministred to their Redeemer Those that in Degenerate times such as ours Lindamor did like Lot in Sodom mourn for their Sins that mourned not for their own and condol'd among themselves the Spreading Wickednesse of the times they liv'd in though probably the dangers threatned them by the very Sinfulnesse they deplor'd made them affect such Privacyes in their Conferenâ—s as freed them from the Thoughts of being over-heard yet the Scripture informs us and 't is a Comfortable as well as Memorable Passage that the Lord hearkened Mal 3.16 17. and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name Then shall he return and discern between the righteous and the wicked between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not I know says Christ not only to the Angell of Smyrna but to each true sufferer for Him thy works Rev. 2.9 10. and tribulation and poverty Fear none of these things that thou shalt suffer Be thou faithfull unto death and I will give thee a Crown of Life God is often pleas'd to accept those good thoughts and Intentions of his Servants which never arrive at actuall Performances Though David built not the Temple he design'd yet his Son that did it informs us that God said unto him 2 Chron. 6.8 Forasmuch as it was in thine heart to build an house for my Name Thou didst well in that it was in thine heart c. And 't is the Epithet our Saviour gives God Mat. 6.6 Your Father which seeth in secret c. Nor need we fear our Rivalls should supplant us since we can have none in Devotion whose Prayer and Endeavour it is not that God would love us more For his Love to you being as the chiefest Merit the strongest Motive and Title unto theirs they cannot but Wish him well whom God doth Love so and cannot Wish him better then by imploring for him fresh Additions both of that Love of God and gratefull Dispositions to return it Our Saviours assures us that there is Joy in the Presence of the Angels of God over one Sinner Luk. 15.7 10. that repenteth And the sole Hymne except a visionary one I find recorded of the Coelestiall Quire Luk. 2.13 14. was sung for a Blessing to mankind wherein for ought I know their Love and Sympathy
we scruple not to conclude that she thinks the trouble of an Issue an Evill inferiour to Convulsion-fits So when we see our Heavenly Father send Infirmities and Crosses to rescue those he Loves from the Contagion or the Dominion of Sinne we may safely conclude he thinks Affliction a lesse Evill than Guilt since he is too Wise and indulgent a Physitian to Cure with a Remedy worse than the Disease In the 8th of Deuteronomie there is a Caution given the Israelites least Prosperity which is wont to be a kind of Lethe that makes men Forget all but their Enjoyments should make any of them say in his heart Deut. 8.17 18. My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me this Wealth But saith the Text they shall remember the Lord their God for it is he that giveth them power to get wealth It is not the revolting Israelites onely of whose Ignorance of his Bounty God may complain as he did by the Prophet by whom he said I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their armes Hos 11.3 but they knew not that I healed them and there are but too many of whom he might say as he did by the same Prophet For she did not know that I gave her Corn and Wine Hos 1.8 9. and Oyle and multiply'd her Silver and her Gold which they prepar'd for Baal Therefore will I return and take away my Corn in the time thereof and my Wine in the Season thereof and will recover my Wool and my Flax given to cover her Nakednesse And this will make way for the Design I had to recommend the Advantagiousnesse of Gods Love by saying That as for Spirituall Goods he gives us in this life so rich an Earnest of expected Joyes that ev'n the Earnest is a Stock large enough to subsist with Comfort on and really out-values and transcends all those Momentary Pleasures it requires us to forsake to keep up a Title to Eternall ones But to particularize God's mercies to us in This very life would certainly take up a considerable part of it And yet the Love God bears us dyes not with us nor doth as mens Affections either endure a Funerall in our Tombs or survive onely in an uselesse Grief or an Esteem as bootlesse No Gods Love is so far from resembling the usuall sort of friends who when they have accompanied us to the Grave do There leave us that like the Angells that carried Lazarus's Soul to Abrahams bosome Luk. 16.22 its Officiousness begins then most to Appear wheâ— our dark eyes are Clos'd and is theâ— Truest to the beloved Soul when shâ— Forsakes the Body giving each blesseâ— Saint cause to say of God what Naâ—â—mi did of Boaz Ruth 2.20 That He hath not leâ—â— off his kindnesse to the Living and to thâ— Dead 1 John 3.2 Now indeed says our Saviour'â— Favorite are we the Sonns of God anâ— it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know when he shall appear we shaâ—â— be like him This blest Expectance musâ— be now my Theme because the narrow Limits which my Design hath plac't to this Discourse of the Advantages accruing from Gods Love will leave no more room untaken up by Heaven But § 19 Lindamor before I proceed to set forth to you the Greatnesse of the Felicity reserv'd for us in Heaven It will I fear be requisite to mind you of the Lawfullnesse of having an Eye on it For many not-undeservedly applauded Preachers have of late bin pleas'd to teach the people that to Hope for Heaven is a Mercenary Legal and therefore Unfiliall Affection Indeed to hope for Heaven as Wages for Work perform'd or by way of Merit in the proper and strict Acception of that tearm were a Presumption to which none of the Divines we dissent â—rom can be too much an Enemie nor perhaps more so then I am But to take in Gods Blessings among the Motives of Loving God is but to do as he did who said I love the Lord because Psal 116.1 he hath heard my voyce and my Supplications and to look upon the Joyes of Heaven to comfort and support us in the hardships and losses to be undergon in our Journey thitherward is to imitate no worse a man than Moses of whom it is said Hebr. 11.26 that he esteemed the reproach of Christ greater riches than the Treasures in Aegypt for he had respect or turned his Eye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto the recompence of the reward It is indeed Lindamor a happy Frame of mind to be able to love God purely for Himself without any Glance at our own Advantages But though I dare not deny that it is possible to attain to so High and disinteress'd a kind of Love yet I think that that Excellency suppos'd to be Vouchsaf'd to some men is not by the Scripture Exacted as a Duty from All men Were all the recompence of Piety of a worldly Nature and to be Here receiv'd the Actions invited to by the Intuition of it might passe for Mercenary But when Heaven is chiefly hoped for as it will admit us unto the Fruition of God himself in Christ and that the Other Joyeâ— expected there are so farre from being of a Sensual or Worldly nature thaâ— they are known not to be attainable till by Death the Senses and Bodye themselves and all the meerly Animaâ— Faculties be abolisht for a Heaven sâ— consider'd I say to forgo readily alâ— the Pleasures of the Senses and undergo cheerfully all the Hardships and Dangers that are wont to attend a Holy life is Lindamor such a kind oâ— Mercenarinesse as none but a resigned Noble and believing Soul is likely to be guilty of If I should say that Fear it self and even the feare of Hell may be one Justifiable Motive of Mens Actions though I should propose whaâ— those I am reasoning with would think a Paradox yet I should perhaps hold forth therein no more than the Scripture does Hebr. 4.1 Let us therefore fear saies the writer to the Hebrews lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it And no lesse eminent a Herauld of the Gospell than St. Paul who so successefully maintain'd the Evangelicall against the Legall Spirit thus professeth of himself I keep under my body and bring it into Subjection 1 Cor. 9.27 lest by any means when I have preach'd to others I my self should be a cast-away And 't was not to Slaves or Hirelings that Christ directs this Admonition I say unto you my Friends Luk. 12.4 5. Be not afraid of them that kill the Body and after that have no more that they can doe But I will forwarn you whom you shall fear Fear him which after he hath kill'd hath power to cast into Hell Yea I say unto you a gemination which the present Controversie shews not to have been Causelesse Fear Him Where the paraphrase given of God
Excellencies are capable to ennoble their whole Sex Yet their greatest accomplishments compar'd to his Perfections whose gifts they are are in that Eclipsing company as inconspicuous as the faint Qualities of more ordinary persons As when in a cleer Morning the rising-Sun vouchsafes to visit us as well those Bright Starrs that did Adorn our Hemisphere as those Dark Shades that did benight it vanish Consonantly whereunto give me leave to observe to you Lindamor that though divers of God's Attributes are through his goodnesse participated by his Creatures yet the Scripture makes so vast a disparity betwixt the excellencies that it ascribes to men and the same Perfections considered as they exist in God that it seems absolutely to exclude created Beeings from any Title to those Attributes because they possesse them but in a way so inferior to that transcendent peculiar and divine manner in which they belong to God Thus our Saviour sayes to him that taking him but for a man call'd him good Why callest thou me good Mat. 19.16 17. There is none good but One that is God Thus St. Paul 1 Tim. 6.15 calls God or Christ the onely Potentate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though the earth be shared by severall Potentates and even the Devout Evnuch in the Acts Act. 8.17 Luk. 1.52 and the deposed Grandees mentioned by the Blessed Virgin in her Canticle are in the Original styled Potentates Mat 25.5 Thus though there be wise Virgins as well as foolish and though our Saviour tells us Luk. 16.8 That the Children of this world are in their generation wiser than the Children of Light 1 Tim. 1.17 1 Tim. 6.16 Yet St. Paul scruples not to rearm his Maker The onely wise God and thus he elsewhere Paraphrases him He that onely hath immortalitie Though Angels and humane Souls be deathless In so incommunicable a manner does the Superiority of God's nature make him possesse those very Excellencies which the diffusivenesse of his goodnesse makes him pleased to communicate I am the more zealous Lindamor to transfigure your Love into Devotion which I must desire you to look upon but as a varied name for Seraphick Love because I have observ'd your passion to have been extreamly impatient of confinement and to have esteem'd whatever may be term'd Limits to be Prisons Few therefore can Need more or Deserve better an object for their love for which too immense a vastnesse were impossible And such a one is God whose soveraign Perfections render him so uncapable of being lov'd Too Much that the most aspiring passion can scarce arrive so much as to lessen its disproportion to the object Other passions like other Rivers are most lik'd when they calmly flow within their wonted Banks but of Seraphick Love as of Nilus the very Inundations might be desireable and his overflowings make him the more welcome For mortall beauties our passions are like our selves If our Stature chance to exceed a certain size or standart it make us monstrous but Devotion is like a flawless Diamond where the bignesse taxes the Value and the unusuall Bulke both rates and inhances the Lustre and the Price To give GOD All our Love is the greatest command both of the Law and Gospell in its capacious teeming womb both comprising and cherishing all the other services God requires and that there is not more exacted of us is not that an addition were Culpable but because it is Impossible So noble is the nature of Devotion that it admits of failings but by one of the extreams which is that of Defect For Mediocritie whose office 't is to restrain us from approaching the utmost Limits which in other passions is an Excellence is here an imperfection Or at least if Mediocrity be that which creates passions vertues the Mediocrity of this Love must consist in the Excesse of it since that is it which makes it most a vertue Psal 42.1 Cervina caro sicca est c. Sennert Insti De Alimenter facultatibus lib. 4. part 1. cap. 3. The man after God's own heart is not a fear'd to own even to his Maker an ardency of love for Him which must be exprest with the significant Metaphor of Thirst and that such a Thirst too as makes the panting Hart by Naturallists observ'd to be a very drie Creature bray as I remember the Hebrew hath it for those refreshing streams whose want distresses and reduces her to an almost gasping condition My very Soul saith he thirsteth for God vers 2. And we know that thirst is not only so violent an appetite that it lessens the wonder of that Monarch's Bargain whom History recoâ—ds to have parted with his Kingdome for a cup of water but thirst doth so confine our longings to what it craves that nothing else can satisfie them The wealth of both the Indies would not excuse the want of a needed Cup supposing their Possessor tormented with an Appetite which cannot be quench't but by Drink To which I must adde that the uneasinesse of unrelieved Thirst is not like that of other inconveniences â—essen'd by continuance but grows by lasting the more unsupportable The same inspired Poet scruples not also to professe so sensible and so active a Concern for Gods interests that the zeal of Gods house had eaten him up and hugely troubled he is that others are not affected with the same zeal Psal 119.158 I beheld sayes he the Transgressours and was grieved because they kept not thy Word Nay Rivers of waters sayes he run down mine eyes Ibidem v. 136. because they keep not thy Law and to manifest how much the tendernesse and unreserv'dnesse of his Love made him think those his friends or enemies that were so to God Ps 101.6 Mine eyes sayes he shall be upon the faithfull of the Land that they may dwell with me He that walketh perfect in the way he shall serve me Do not I hate them O Lord that hate Thee and am not I grieved with those Psal 139.21.22 that rise up against Thee I hate them with a perfect hatred I count them mine Enemies At this Rate did pious David love his Maker but he was so far from thinking this rate Excessive that transported by the sense of his personall disability to pay that Divine object all the Love that his perfections merited he is not content to rouze up all his owne faculties to praise God Ps 103.1 Blesse the Lord O my soul and all that is within me blesse His holy Name but he invites all the Godly to assist him in the payment of so vast a debt Ps 117.1 Love the Lord all ye Saints for c. And again Praise the Lord all ye Nations praise him all ye people And not content neither frequently to do this as may appear by very many passages of his sacred Poems Ps 138.2 he extends his Invitation to the Angells and all the other Hosts of God and concludes the
book of Psalms with a Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord Hallelujah Nor does it invalidate what has now been delivered That some men have § 4 even by Devout Persons been blamed for too much Devotion for it was not an excesse of Love but a want of Discretion that was guilty of their faults The expressions of our Love to God ought to be regulated not by our blind and wild fancies but by his revealed will as Christ sayes If you Love me keep my Commandements and therefore it is very possible to be too devout not because any expression of Seraphick love can be made with too much Ardency whil'st 't is considered abstractedly in it selfe and irrelatively to the rest But because that there being severall duties of Love which require an Ardency of it 't is injurious to exercise all that in one alone or a few that belongs equally to the neglected others We must not as too many Professours are now wont to do of whose error you may receive a fuller accompt in some other papers dash in pieces the two Tables of the Law against one another But must so love GOD with all our hearts as to love our Neighbours as our selves You know what our Saviour saith to the Pharisees Mat. 23.23 that Tithed Mint and Cummin with a neglect of Judgement Mercy and Faith those weightier matters o◠the Law These ought you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 t◠have done and not to leave the other undone And indeed this Partiality Lindamor which makes us display so much of the strength and vigour of our Spirits in some few favorite-Duties that we can but languidly and perfunctorily perform those others we are lesse fond of begets in Devotion a disease not unlike that new one in Children we call the Rickets which some Learned Physicians do not improbably conceive to arise from the unequall Nutrition of the parts for though none of them receive excessive Nourishment yet some of them receiving as much as is convenient for them and thereby growing up to their naturall bignesse whilst others are lesse nourished than were the Body healthfull they would be do grow so little that the sounder parts seem Overgrown and so the disproportion betwixt Them and the Ricketting ones makes the whole Body they compose mis-shapen and unweildy But Lindamor this proves not that we can love God too much but onely that we may imploy too much of that Love in this or that way of expressing it Whilst we are Job 4.19 as Job speaks Inhabitants of these houses of Clay there are many Duties which do as well challenge an intensity of our affections as those which relate more immediately to God As St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 7.32 33 34. That there is difference betwixt married and single Persons the affections of the one being at liberty to devote themselves more undistractedly to God whereas those of the other are distracted as Adam's were betwixt his Maker and his Rib. But where a direct and immediate expression of Love to God defraudes not any other Duty there it is free from the danger of excesse Though Prayers may easily be too long and Fasts grow exorbitant yet Christ could spend the whole night in Prayer and fast forty dayes without immoderatenesse when the other expressions of his Love to his Father and the other exercises of his Mediatory Function were not thereby disturb'd 1 King 19.8 but furthered and promoted And so Elijah might inculpably fast long when that fasting did not disable him to prosecute his journey to the Mount of God and though just men here on Earth must expresse their Love to their Master by that busie distracting and remoter way of service Trading with his Talents trusted to them yet when their devesture of Mortality dispenses them from those laborious and avocating duties to distressed Christians and their owne secular Relations which were here requisite to be perform'd their glorified spirits may now without any immoderate devotion imploy I say not their Time but their Eternity it selfe in Conversing with God and following the Lamb whithersoever he goes And congruously I observe that the four mysterious Beasts Rev. 4.6 7. allow'd to approach neerest to the Throne of God though their many wings and more numerous eyes intimate them of a very active nature are represented to us in the Apocalypse as addicted but to one imployment vers 8. ceasing neither day nor night from saying Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty and from giving Glory and Honour and Thanks unto him And of those that have whitened their Robes in the blood of the Lamb this account is in the same book given us Rev. 7.14 15. that they are before the Throne of God and serve Him day and night in his Temple So true it is that no degree of Seraphick Love can be Excessive nay nor any expression of it Immoderate unlesse it be made so not by its Greatness but by its Usurpation whereby it either engrosses or invades what belongs to its injur'd and languishing associates Our Love unto the Creatures is a Present but unto God it is a Tribute and though we may easily play the Prodigalls in parting over-freely with our Guifts we can scarce be so in the payment of our Debts for be the Summes never so vast we pay away their being due in spite of their being great makes the disbursement too much an Act of Justice to be one of Profusenesse Seraphick Love whose Passionatenesse is its best Complexion has then most approach't its noblest measure when it can least be measured nor ought its extent to admit any other limits then an utter disability to exceed those that terminate it For he alone loves God as much as he Ought that loving Him as much as he Can strives to repaire the deplored imperfection of that love with an extream Regret to find it no greater Such a sublimity of love will best intitle you to the Consolation accruing from that memorable passage of St. John 1 Joh. 4.16 where he sayes that God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him Which supplies me with a forcible inducement to invite you to an eager aspiring to a Transcendency in devotion since it may render selfe-deniall so easie that 't will at last almost devest that name For this sublimer love being by an intimate conjunction with its Object wholly devoted to it and throughly refined from all base drosse of selfishnesse and interest nobly begets a most strict Union of our wills with God's or rather a perfect submission of the one to the other And thus when it is become your will to obey His no dispensations of Providence will immoderately disquiet you for you possesse your wishes in the Generall and in Bulke though possibly not alwayes in Retaile for your chiefest desire being to see your Maker's will fulfilled your knowledge of his being the Soveraign and uncontrolled Disposer of Events
assures you that all Accidents that can befall you are but exact accomplishments of His Will and consequently of yours so far forth as that is included and compriz'd in his When you have Resign'd or rather Consign'd your expropriated will if I may so call it to God and thereby as it were entrusted him to will for you all his disposalls of and his dispensations towards you are in effect the acts of your owne will with the Advantage of their being directed and specified by Him An Advantage that does at once assure you both of their Rectitude and their Successe God's Wisdome Power and Love to you consider'd how much more happy must you be in your Elections of his naming for you than your immediate owne The Patient thinks himselfe obliged to gratifie his Physitian for choosing for him what sorts of meat he is to feed on though the Doctor be wont to make such a choice for him as deprives him of the Dishes he best likes and oftentimes confines him to those he loaths Alas how often might God say of our requests as Christ did of those of the two aspiring Disciples Ye know not what ye ask I admire and blush to read in a Heathen Satyrist so Heavenly a Lesson as Permittes ipsis expendere Numinibus quid Conveniat nobis rebusque sit utile nostris Nam pro Jucundis utilia quaeque dabunt Dî Charior est illis homo quà m sibi nos animorum Impulsu caecâ pravâque cupidine ducti Conjugium petimus partumque uxois at illis Notum qui pueri qualisque futura sit uxor Unto the wiser gods the care permit Of what 's for us and our affairs most fit They will for Pleasant things the Best confer To whom Man is than to himself more dear We by our blinder passions led astray Do for a Wife perhaps or Children pray Which they may chance refuse us out of Love Knowing what both the Wife and Boyes would prove The consideration of which made a heathen Philosopher say That he was wont onely in generall Termes to beg Good things of the gods leaving it to them to determine what things were Good for him And indeed our own wishes are but too commonly as blind as Rachel's who having so eagerly longed for Children that she impatiently cryes Give me Children or else I dye Gen. 35.18 dyed in Child-bearing And as destructive to the wishers as their Longings prov'd to the Murmuring Israelites Numb 11.33 who loathing the wholesome Manna that bread of Angells God had provided for them are their own Bane in the flesh they had so greedily lusted for Thus Lindamor that soaffrightning vertue of Selfe-denyall proves to be little more than a Son's Letter of Attorney to his Father of whose paternall fondnesse and consummate abilities in the management of affairs his confidence amounts unto a certainty Nay till my second thoughts check'd the over-forward Impetuosity of my first I was about to adde Since God resents an infinite satisfaction in the accomplishment of his own will your making over your whole will to God will impart to you that felicity proportion'd to the degree of the resignment And as the eye whilst by the Optick Nerve ty'd unto the head so chain'd can taste delights which it is dead to being once sever'd from it though otherwise it enjoy the best condition of which its inanimate Nature can be suppos'd to be capable So may your will by an Identity or Sameness in Tendency though not in Nature with your Maker's as t were engrafted into Gods receive a new and an enlarg'd capacity which wil enable you to contain and rellish joyes highly transcending those which the fullest fruition of your private wishes were able to create Thus self-deniall is a kind of holy association with God and by making you his partner interesses you in all his happinesse and acquisitions And consonantly we see that Glorified Saints and Blessed Angells whose wills have the most exquisite and exact conformity to God's enjoy a happiness most appreaching His wheras the Apostate Spirits in a confirm'd Repugnancy to his will find the extreamitie of wretchednesse But though I dare not own Lindamor § 5 so bold a Sally yet I dare without Scruple improve the discourse that preceded it to make out to you an advantagious difference of Seraphick Love from Ordinary Flames For he that makes a Present of his heart to any Mortall Beauty even by her welcomming it and lodging it with her own grows subject to have it wounded in her breast Those misfortunes reach him that would otherwise terminate in her hir afflictions torment him whilst his own reprieve him and the Felicity of two persons grows requisite to make one happy The letting out our love to mutable Objects doth but inlarge our hearts and make them the wider Marks for fortune and capable of being wounded in more places For although Love may as well make us participate the Joyes as resent the Infelicities of the Parties lov'd yet even the least unhappy persons do in so fickle and so tempestuous a Sea as we all find this world meet with so many more either crosse winds or stormy gusts then prosperous gales and we are so much more sensible of Pain than Pleasure an akeing corne though lesse then a sicknesse unfitting us to rellish the otherwise perfect health of the whole body that even Friendship it selfe though a much calmer affection than Love ought to be declin'd as Injurious to our quiet did we consider it but as a Partnership of Fortunes not an Exercise of Vertues But he whose wiser Love settles it selfe on God is not onely by the immutable and even Essentiall happinesse of that Adorable Object secur'd from participated infelicitys but finds his personall crosses and distresses sweetned by considering that what he most loves is most happy and as able as willing in due time to make Him so And though Seraphick Love makes us partake but God's Felicities yet his acceptance of it makes him resent Our sorrows In all their afflictions he was afflicted Esa 63.3 sayes the Prophet of God and of the Israelites And so the Son of God who is so much one with those that love him that both he as the Head and they as the members are sometimes as making up one body call'd by one name 1 Cor. 12.12 Christ though as high as Heaven above the reach of personall or immediate persecutions calls out to Saul for an intention of harming those that lov'd him Saul Saul why persecutest thou me And to demonstrate the tendernesse of this Compassion the Prophet says to the return'd Israelites concerning God He that toucheth you Zach. 2.8 toucheth the apple of his Eye Nor is God's compassion like a Mistresse's a grieving only and an useless pitty whereby the suffering Lover is oftentimes lesse comforted as it proceeds from her kindness than afflicted because it breeds her disquiet But God's is a compassion though Active yet Serene and
worthy of Himself which without produceing the discomposure produces the effects of the most sensible Pitty by engaging him to a timely Reliefe and Rescue As that freshly-mentioned Expression In all their affliction he was afflicted is immediately follow'd by And the Angel of his presence saved them in his love and in his pitty he redeemed them and he bare them and carried them all the daies of old Yes this pitty for its not disturbing Gods Happinesse enclines him not the lesse to expresse a sense of our Miseries and makes us find to use a Scripture phrase as I would render it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 4.16 Grace for an opportune reliefe I say with the divine Writer an Opportune or Seasonable Relief because it comes not alwayes when it is most desired but when it is most fit And when that is he that hath at once all present past and future things in his Prospect is fittest to determine Christ's words to his Disciples It is not for you to know the Times or the Seasons Act. 1.7 which the Father hath put in his own power are applicable to more cases then that which occasioned them Mar. 7.27 The Canaanitish woman must put up a Refusall and the reproachfull name of Dog which yet by the way was a Paraphrase commonly enough us'd by the Jews of the Heathen The Text refers her extraction to Syrophaenicia the same Region with Canaan and as such was under stood by this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gentile not Greek The Israelites comprizing the Patriarchs their progenitours were reduced to wait four hundred thirty years ere they were introduced into the promis'd Land Gal 3.17 and during a great part of that long space of time languish'd and groan'd under the heavy Burthens and other as heavy pressures of the as cruelly as unsuccessefully politick Aegyptians St. Ezek. 28.24 2 Cor. 12.7 Paul himself pray'd the Lord thrice for the removall of that rude 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thorn to the flesh whatsoever that may mean Nay of the blessed Virgin-Mother her selfe her divine Son would not be found till the third day Luk. 2.48 though she sought him sorrowing And Lazarus to whom even during his sicknesse he vouchsafed a Title to which all Caesar's were but Trifles the style of Friend Joh. 11.2 which emboldned the pious Mary to paraphrase him by a vers 3. Hee whom thou lovest was permitted not onely to lye a dying but to dye his Rescue being deferr'd till it was thought Impossible and was so indeed to any less power then Omnipotence Which manifests that as no degree of Distress is unrelievable by his power so no extreamity of it is inconsistent with his compassion no nor with his friendship He whose spirit inspired the Prophets Mal. 3.3 is in the last of them represented under the Notion of a Refiner and 't is not the Custome of Refiners to snatch the belov'd Mettall out of the fire as soon as it feels the violence of that purifying Element nay nor as soon as it is melted by it but they let it long indure the brunt of the active flames actuated by exciting Blasts till it have stood its due time in the fire and there obtain'd its full purity and splendor And I hope you will give a converser with Furnaces though no pretender to the Philosopher's Stone leave to improve a Chymicall Metaphor and observe that though in afflictions especially Nationall or Publick Calamities God oftentimes seems to make no distinction betwixt the objects of his compassion and those of his fury indiscriminately involving them in the same destiny yet his prescience and intentions make a vast Difference where his inflictions seem not to make any As when on the same Test and with the self-same Fire we urge as well the Gold as the blended Lead or Antimony but with foreknowing and designing such a disparity in the events as to consume the Ignobler Mineralls or blow them off into drosse or fumes and make the Gold more pure and full of Lustre It is true Lindamor § 9 and not to be suppected of partiality towards a Love which so little needs it to be thought fit to be praeferr'd before all other passions I shall acknowledge it that the happinesse resulting from those many prerogatives I have endeavour'd to discover to you in a Transcendent degree of Seraphick Love is moderated by the Effects of that Sublimity the Eager Desires it creates of a more compleat fruition of its perfect and divine Object Such aspiring Salleys of the longing Soul made the languishing Spouse in the Canticles cry out Stay me with Flaggons Cant. 11.5 Comfort me with Apples for I am sick of Love Such made the ravisht Apostle desire to return for so I should rather translate the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there Phil. 1.23 and so I find it * Luk. 12.36 elsewhere to fignifie and to be with Christ and the Inspir'd Poet thus expresses his longings to the blessed Object of them Psal 42.1 2. As the Hart panteth after the water-Brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God My Soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before God But Lindamor it was fit that to elevate our thoughts and wishes to Heaven some peculiar and elsewhere incommunicable degrees of Joy should be reserv'd for us there And 't is a good sign and such as worldly Objects cannot boast when the Incompleatnesse of our Seraphick Lover's happinesse in his fruitions proceeds not from their want of Satisfactorinesse but his want of an Entirer Possession of them And let me tell you Lindamor that even this uneasie state of Separation is sweetned with as much allay as is consistent with its being a Grief For the Divine Evidence and teacher of Gods love pronouncing a thirst after perfection to be a Title to it according to those Scriptures Mat. 5.6 Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after Righteousnesse for they shall be satisfied Rev. 22.17 And Let him that is a thirst come and whosoever will let him take of the water of Life freely and the Joyes of Heaven being so vast that they diffuse their Nature to all the grounded Hopes men have to enjoy them each new Assuranc is a new Degree of them and is acceptable to our hope though uneasie to our desires And these baitings at compleat felicity should not be more unwelcome for the present disquiet they suppose than the Contrary for the Zeal they argue and the Felicity they promise For this production of the Spirit in our hearts may be justly termed at the Spirit himself in Scripture is An earnest 2 Cor. 5.5 which though by being such it confesses it self not to be the Entire summe yet is not onely a Part of it but a Pledge And Lindamor how Supportable is this thus-qualified Allay of the Joyes of Seraphick Love in comparison of the Disquiets and the
Torments that are wont to attend sensuall Love I shall not lose time to enumerate how many it is supposed to have sent to their Graves because though I find those Tragicall stories rife enough in Romances yet I find them rarities every where but in those Fabulous composures and though I have had the Curiosity to visit some of those warmer Regions where the Flames of Love are thought to burne with more violence yet bating by Duells and the Pox I remember not to have observ'd Love to have ever been the Death of any man unlesse speaking like Philosophers who make Reason the Essentiall Constituent Form of man we will affirm that Love by dethroning Reason though it leave the Lover alive doth kill the Man But though I am loath to put so bad a Complement upon mankind as to say that Love is wont to destroy mens lives yet I think it would be no Calumnie to say It much disquiets them I could ask you How long many a Lover must continue a Servant to purchase the honour of being taken notice of to be so And I could recruite that Question with pretty store of others of the like nature but that I suppose your memory will save my Pen the labour of representing to you the Torments of Love which they that feel them would little lesse justly then they do frequently style Martyrdoms if the Greatnesse onely without the Cause and Object of Mens sufferings suffic'd to make them Martyrs And though the Condition of Lovers be in Romances so dexterously and delightfully describ'd that not onely Sanguine Readers are transported but even I my self have been surprised into Inclinations to admire and envie their Felicity yet when some I was concern'd for have been really concern'd and engaged in such adventures my Envy quickly turned into Pitty For the repulses the regrets the jealousies the fears the absences the despairs and the rest of the afflicting disquiets of Lovers though in handsome Romances they are soon read over by the diverted peruser yet they are not so soon weather'd out nor so easily supported by the disconsolate Lover whose infelicities though they may be perhaps so handsomly deplored as to delight the Reader yet trust me Lindamor 'T is a much happier condition to be free from misfortunes than to be able to complain eloquently of them And as I have with delight beheld a storm excellently drawn by some rare Artist's Pensill but when I was this Spring tost by the rude winds that blew me out of Holland I found a reall Storm a very troublesome and uneasie thing So the condition of a Lover whose happinesse depends on the constancy of what perhaps you have found as fickle as either Winds or Seas a woman's Heart though drawn by a smooth Pen it is wont strangely to affect and please us yet when men are really engaged in it they find it full of hardships and disquiet 'T is a much better condition to be look'd on than embrac'd and Experience gives men of it much sadder and more unwelcome notions then Description did Nor phancie Lindamor that the troublesomenesse of your sufferings in love proceeded but from their not being acceptable to her for whom you endured them for had your Mistresse crowned them with Myrtle and prov'd as kind to you as Hymen could have made her yet I fear she could have Recompenced you but by Disabusing you and could not have freed you from the Need of happinesse but onely from a Mistake of it For me-thinks Lindamor most of these transitory Goods that we are so fond of may not unfitly be resmbled to the Sensitive Plant which you have admired at Sion-Garden for as though we gaze on it with attention and wonder yet when we come to touch it the coy delusive Plant immediately shrinks in its displayed leaves and contracts it self into a form and dimensions disadvantagiously differing from the former which it again recovers by degrees when toucht no longer So these objects that charm us at a distance and whilst gaz'd on with the eyes of expectation and desire when a more immediate possession hath put them into our hands their former lustre vanishes and they appear quite differing things from what before they seem'd though after deprivation or absence hath made us forget their emptinesse and we be reduced to look upon them again at a distance they recover in most mens eyes their former beauty and are as capable as before to inveagle delude us I must add Lindamor that when I compare to the Sensitive Plant most of these transitory things that are flattered with the title of Goods I do not out of that number except most Mistresses For though I am no such enemy to Matrimony as some for want of understanding the Raillery I have sometimes us'd in ordinary discourse are pleased to think me and would not refuse you my Advice though I would not so readily give you my Example to turn Votary to Hymen yet I have observed so few Happy Matches and so many Unfortunate ones and have so rarely seen men love their wives at the rate they did whilst they were than Mistresses that I wonder not that Legislators thought it necessary to make marriages Indissoluble to make them Lasting And I cannoâ— fitlier compare Marriage than to a Lottery for in both he that ventures may succeed and may misse and if he draw a prize he hath a rich Return oâ— his Venture But in both Lotteries there lye a pretty store of Blancks for every Prize And for your particular Lindamor the world is much mistaken in both your humours if Hermione's and yours be not so unsuitable that to make haste from so nice a subject had she justified your expectation of her kindnesse you would have possessed the Person without possessing the Happinesse you expected And might have found your self as sensibly disappointed by her Grant as you were by her Change But I forget Lindamor that I resolv'd not to insist on Parallels and therefore instead of prosecuting the discourse my Pen has slip't into concerning the advantages of Seraphick compared with ordinary Love I shall venture to incourage you to the former by showing you that your past addictednesse to the later may prove serviceable to you in it Yes Lindamor I shall not scruple to tell you that your strong Passion for Hermione may not a little facilitate your Devotion by breaking all the Chains excepting one that fastned your Affection to unsatisfying Objects and restrain'd it from soaring to the sublimest and by exalting your Passion to a Height fit for Seraphick flames For Love hath this of Noble that it makes us devest our selves of selfishnesse slight fortune quiet safety honour life and all our owne Concernments when their coming into Competition with the Lov'd partie 's Interests may render their sacrifice acceptable to Her and to think Goods or Ills deserve those names but as they come to us from or through Her You could scarce have learn't a better Lesson
being dazl'd And do not marvaile that I scruple not to use seeming Hyperbolies in the mention of perfections which make the highest Hyperbolies but Seeming ones Both Gods Nature and his Word declaring him to be exalted above all blessing and praise Neh. 9.5 If it were seasonable Lindamor to entertain our selves but with those attributes of God which are Legible or Conspicuous in the Creation We might there discern the admirable Traces of such immense Power such unsearchable Wisdome and such exuberant Goodnesse as may justly ravish us to an amazement at them and admiration of them And I must needs acknowledge Lindamor that when with bold Telescopes I survay the old and newly discovered Starrs and Planets that adorn the upper Region of the World and when with excellent Microscopes I discern in otherwise invisible Objects the unimitable Subtlety of Nature's Curious Workmanship And when in a word by the help of Anatomicall Knives and the light of Châ—micall Furnaces I study the Book of Nature and consult the Glosses of Aristotle Epicurus Paracelsus Harvey Helmont and other learn'd Expositors of that instructive Volumne I find my self oftentimes reduc'd to exclaim with the Psalmist Ps 104.24 How manifold are thy works O Lord in wisdom hast thou made them all And when I have been losing my self in admiration of what I Understand but enough to Admire and not to Comprehend I am often obliged to interrupt or break off my Enquiries by applying to the works of Gods Creation the Expression us'd by St. Paul of those of his Providence O the Depth of the Riches both of the Wisdome and knowledge of God! Rom. 21.33 how unsearchable are his Judgments and his wayes untraceable And Exclamations of this Nature may the attentive Consideration of any other of Gods Attributes deservedly produce But having elsewhere treated of this subject in a Peculiar Discourse I shall now Lindamor invite you to consider with me how much You and those that are Conscious to their having Vertue enough in themselves to make them prize it in others are in Love with Cato Scipio and those other Heroe's that did enoble and almost exceed mankind upon the bare knowledge of their vertues although from them wee derive no Personall advantage their Death having numerous ages preceded our Nativity Since then we pay so much disinterest-Love to some few faint and ill refin'd Vertues that ne're did profit us how much on such a Score and at that Rate should we Love him who so possesses All perfections that each of his Perfections is Infinite Were you and I our own Creators Lindamor and wholly Independent upon God without either Need or Hope to taste his Bounty his native Excellencies and what he has done for others should surely ravish us and enamour us of Him Though his Benefits to us did not entitle him to our Love his Essence the Source and only Motive of those Benefits would give him a right to it and though we ow'd him nought for what We are we yet should owe him Love for what He is He is that glorious Sun From whom as beams all created-perfections flow and In whom they all concenter To omit God's Soveraign Majesty which places him so high tâ—at but to own for him so familiar and levelling an affection as Love much more to expect to be re-lov'd by him were not the least sawcie Presumption man could be guilty of did not his own Commands make it a Duty Not to insist on this I say Let us a while consider that proper and peculiar attractive of Love his Loveliness which is such that did we but once see it all Creature-competitions ev'n we being Judges would then be as Impossible as they are now Unjust In the fifth Evangelist's prophetick Vision Esa 6.7 the Scraphims themselves those glorious Ornaments of the Coelestiall Hierarchie are represented as covering their faces in Gods presence either blushing at their Comparative Deformity or unable to sustain the unqualifi'd SplÌ„edor of so Divine a Brightnes whence perhaps it became of old the Jewish fashion as some frequent Expressions in their Writers intimate when they went to Pray to Vaile their head and faces though now I have in their Synagogues seen them only cover their heads not their faces with those white Garments they wear at their publick devotions And Lindamor if Moses's face by but a few dayes converse with God reflected such a light as dazl'd mortall eyes and if his swift posts the Angels when sent on Errants to us here on Earth even when they may be suppos'd if I may so speak to weare their Travelling Cloaths and stoop as much to our frailty in the Form as in the Region they appear to us in do in spight of that darkning Condescension so much Transcend all Objects here on Earth that the Scripture often mentions That even those that Aspir'd to imitate their Vertues were confounded at their Presence And if in this vailing Habit they appear so Glorious that their thus disadvantag'd Beauty is made the Complement and Hyperbole of that Quality what may we or rather what may we not conclude of God himself of whom the Scripture says He that planted the Eare shall he not hear Psal 94.9 He that formed the Eye shall he not see That is he that imparts a faculty or an Excellence to the Creature shall not he himself much more eminently possesse it And in effect the most unblemished Created Beauties are but faint Shadows or trulier Foyles of His. Those drops of Prettinesse scatteringly sprinkled amongst the Creatures were design'd to defaecate and exalt our Conceptions not to inveagle or deteine our Passions for God did ne're intend them to terminate our Love but only by our Eyes to exalt our Faith above them and by the beauties our sight can apprehend to raise us to a Confidence that there is in their Author more than we can either see or comprehend 2 King 2.11 Like Elijahs fiery Chariots though they be Pure and Bright and consist of the refulgentest materialls they are meant by God but to carry us up to him And as the Patriarch's Steward was furnish'd with so sumptuous an Equipage Gen. 24.10.53 to court Rebecca not for himselfe but for Isaac so all the Lovelinesse imparted to the Creature is lent it but to give us some more enlarg'd conceptions of that vast Confluence and Immensity that exuberates in God To make the rightest use of Fadeing beauties you must consider God and them as you were wont to do your Mistrisse's Picture and its Crystall Cover where though that native Glasse were pure and Lovely and very richly edg'd yet to gaze on it was not the Chiefest Businesse of your Eye nor did you in it Terminate your sight but greedily look through and Beyond it upon th'd adored Image that solid vail betray'd Methinks Seraphick and our common Lovers behold exteriour beauties with a Difference resembling that where with Children and Astronomers consider Galileo's Optick
Wildernesse some of the pleasant and delicious Fruits of the blest Land of Promise I said Lindamor that Faith was the grand Condition required in God's free Grant of Eternall Life Not that I would ascribe any thing to a Lazy Speculative Barren Faith in opposition to that lively and active one which is called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 5.6 Faith operating by Love Jam. 2.26 since I am informed by St. James that the Divorce of Faith and Works is as Destructive to Religion as that of Soul and Body is to Life But that I was willing to mind you that though true Faith which cries like Rachel Give me children or else I die be ever the pregnant Mother of good Works Gen. 30. yet are not those Works the Cause but the Effects and Signes of God's first Love to us however afterwards the Children may Nurse their Parents As though the Needle 's pointing at the Poles be by being an Effect an Argument of its having been Invigorated by the Loadstone or received Influence from some other Magnetick Body yet is not that Respect unto the North the Cause but the Operation of the Iron 's being drawn by the attractive Minerall Thou art good Psal 119.68 and dost good saies the Psalmist to his Maker The Greatnesse of his Goodnesse is that which makes it Ours nor doth He do us good because that We are good but because He is liberally so as the Sun shines on Dunghills not out of any Invitation his beams find there but because it is his Nature to be diffusive of his Light yet with this difference that whereas the Sun's Bounty by being rather an Advantage to us than a Favour deserves our Joy and not our Thanks because his Visits are made designlesly and without any particular intention of addresse by such a bare Necessity of Nature as that which makes Springs flow out into Streams when their Beds are too narrow to contain the renewed water that doth incessantly swell the exuberant Sources God on the contrary for being Necessarily kind is not lesse Freely or Obligeingly so to you or me for though some kind of Communicativenesse be Essentiall to his Goodness yet his Extension of it without Himself and his Vouchsafeing it to this or that particular Person are purely Arbitrary To omit his Love to the numberlesse Elect Angells the strict Relations betwixt the persons of the Blessed Trinity supplying God with internall Objects which imploy'd his Kindnesse before the Creation and Himself being able to allow his Goodnesse the Extent of Infinity for its Diffusion But having glanc'd at this onely by the By we may yet further admiringly observe That whereas men usually give freeliest where they have not given before and make it both the Motive and the Excuse of their desistance from Giving any more That they have Given already Gods bounty hath a very different Method for he uses to give because he Hath given and that he May give Consonantly to which when the revolting Israelites had broken the Contents whilst Moses was bringing them the Tables of the LAVV and had thereby provok'd the Incens'd Given of it to thoughts of a sudden Extirpation of so ingratefull and rebellious a People we may observe That whereas God as unwilling to remember his former Goodnesse to them speaking to Moses calls them Thy People which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt Exod. 32.7 Moses on the other side to engage God to the new Mercy of a Pardon represents to God his former Mercy to them and calls them God's People which he brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power vers 11. and a mighty hand And so conspicuous in the Eternall Son was this Property of the Mercifull Father that when sick Lazarus's Sisters implored his Rescue for their exspiring Brother the Motive they imploy and which Prospered their addresses was Lord behold not Joh. 11.3 he who loveth thee but he whom thou lovest is sick And as he takes the first Inducements of his Bounty from Himself so do his former Favours both invite and give rates to his succeeding Blessings And there is reason for it for his pure love being all the Merit by which Man can pretend to the Effects of his Bounty it is but just that the degree of his Love should proportion those Favours which 't is our onely Title to and that God's Liberality should as well afford Measures as Motives to it self Nor is Gods love lesse Dis-interess'd § 14 than Free. His grand Designe upon us is but to make us Instruments and partakers of His Glory and to bring us to everlasting Happinesse by a Way that does as well elevate and dignifie our Nature as the Condition reserv'd for us will His Method of saving us if but comply'd with does here as the Apostle speaks Col 1.12 fit us for the Inheritance of the Saints in Light We being made as St. Peter speaks Partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 having escap'd the corruption that is in the world through Lust So that these things wherein the noblest of the Philosophers plac'd their Faelicity serve but to Qualifie and Prepare Christians for that Higher Blessednesse that is reserv'd by God for those that love Him and cannot but be heighten'd and endear'd by the Value which Graces and Vertues had given men on Earth for such a Noble and Rationall kind of Happinesse as is apportion'd to them in Heaven What ends can he have upon us whose Goodnesse and his Blessednesse are both Infinite He was unconceivably Happy in his own Self-sufficiency before the Creatures had a Being and sure that felicity that needed not Themselves to be supream needs nothing that they can Do. Nor was it his Indigence that forc't him to make the World thereby to make new Acquisitions but his Goodnesse that prest him to manifest and to impart his Glory and the goods which he so over-flowingly abounds with Witness his Suspension of the World's Creation which certainly had had an earlier Date were the Deity capable of Want and the Creatures of Supplying it St. Paul in his Epistle to Timothy styles God 1 Tim. 1.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate The Bessed God but may perhaps more properly be rendred The happy God and else-where in the same Epistle he truly cals him The Happy 1 Tim. 6.15 as well as Onely Potentate God sayes the Apostle That made the World and all Things therein Act. 27.24 25 28. seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and Earth dwelleth not c. As though He needed any thing seeing that He giveth to all Life and Breath and all Things And In Him we live and move and have our being And indeed so coherent in the mind of a mere Man that does but Consider and Understand the Import of his owne Notions is the beliefe of Gods Happinesse to that of His Beeing that I remember the Epicurean
Essay's and other Physiologicall Writings which he is known to have lying by him Wherefore to Gratifie insome measure their Curiosity who are sollicitous to know what is like to become of his Philosophicall Papers I shall venture to inform them That though our Author does not conceive himself to have made any Engagement to the Publick to Divulge any thing of this Nature yet I suppose one of the chief things that makes him yet confine those Composures to his Closet is That expecting shortly Home from forrain Travells a near Relation of his to Whom most of them are Written as the Ensuing Treatise is to Lindamor he thinks it would be Improper by Publishing of them before his hopefull Kinsman's Return to let Promiscuous Readers have an earlier sight of them than the Person to whom they are Particularly written And as for some of his Essay's the Author has been content to Promise some eminent Philosophers that have sollicited the Publication of them That when the Party they are Addrest to has Perus'd them he will give way to their Disposing of those Papers as They shall think fit And though he has promised this but as to some Few of his Treatises yet those that know how great a Lover he is of Experiment all Philosophy and Ingenious Men will I presume scarce doubt but that as far as the Laws of Discretion will permit he will in due time communicate to them such other Things as he shall think likely either to Promote Reall Learning or to Advantage and Gratifie Those that are Seriously addicted to It. SOME MOTIVES To the Love of GOD. My Dearest Lindamor I Am very much delighted to learn both by the voice of Fame and the Information of much more credible Relators that Hermione's cold usage has cured you of the Feaver her scorching eyes had given you And that when once you found your self reserved to shew what wonders her eyes were able to performe you seasonably resolved to become an Instance of the power rather of Reason than of Love and accordingly did your selfe the right to frustrate the vain hopes your Insulting Mistriss cherished to manifest in you That her charms were capable to make your flame persevere when her change had made it as well causelesse as hopelesse I could wish indeed for your sake that you owed your cure more entirely to your Reason and lesse to your Resentment That the Extraction of your freedome may no wayes blemish it But since unallay'd Satisfactions are joyes too heavenly to fall to many mens share on earth I cannot but conclude that your recovery even on these Tearms deserves I should Congratulate it For the French say truly that Les plus courtes Folies sont les meilleures And liberty being too high a Blessing to be divestible of that nature by Circumstances I that seldome deplore him who by losing his Mistress recovers Himselfe think that Hermione has but intentionally not eventually disobliged you and hath made your flames a better return by restoring you your own heart than she could have done by exchanging hers for it But that which not least endeares to me your recovery is That I am assured by persons from whom I dare Credit even so welcome News that my endeavours prov'd so happy as to be conducive to it and that the Considerations I ventured to present you did at least so farre contribute to your Freedome as to give you the desire and the design of regaining it For I hope I need not tell you that I seldome use endeavours whose prosperousnesse is more more welcome to me than those that aspire to serve Lindamor And though I cannot ever pay you any great Services in relation to my vastly greater desires yet I can scarce do you little ones in Relation to the delight resulting from the having done you any Nor has the Joy which this successe of my discourses brings me been sparingly encreased by my having ventured them with much more desire then expectation of their prospering and lesse out of any strong hope they would succeed than out of an unwillingnesse to leave the means I thought least improbable unessayed being invited to excite you to greater hopes than I durst allow my self for you by the Example of Generalls who whatsoeverdistrustfull thoughts they harbour in their breasts suppose that before the Battell to make their Souldiers fight successefully 't is as well conducive as requisite by encouraging Orations to make them think they shall do so For although I endevoured indeed to perswade you that Reason being born Soveraign of the Passions though her Lenitie or supineness doe sometimes both occasion and permit their Usurpation She is seldom so diversted of her native power but that whensoever she pleaseth to imploy what she hath left she is able to resume what she hath lost And though I was willing you should believe that to perfect what your Resentment had begun was a taske so easie that the Victory was as much in your power as the Resolution of attempting it Yet notwithstanding all this I say I was once half perswaded that to undertake the Curing of a Lover was the next weaknesse to the being one And Lindamor to deal ingenuously with you your Recovery hath circumstances in it that make me very apprehensive that you are not yet out of the danger of a Relapse and that you have not half so absolutely abandon'd your former amorous constitution of mind as the former Idol of it I know that from a person who for one that hath never yet been hurt by Cupid is accused of using him sleightingly and feverely enough you will expect Endeavours to preserve you from Relapses by such disswasions from Love as its Votaries will scarce vouchsafe so mild a Title to as that of Invectives against it And I shall ingenuously acknowledge Lindamor that I have been sometimes no very unready Satyrist on that Theme and with a pen rellishing of the Liberty I cherished in myheart endeavoured to disabuse those Servile souls that being born to Reason so far degraded themselves as to boast solely on excesse of Passion and had such low and narrow thoughts of faelicity and misery as to expect either from a Womans usage All which I thought I might the freelier do because having never known the infaelicities of Love but in the sufferings of others I might probably suppose that my Declamations against it would passe for the productions of my Reason not my Revenge But Lindamor though the extravagancies of some mens folly have been sometimes too great to let me avoid laughing somewhat Satyrically at it yet I am really too little an enemy to Love unlesse excessive or mis-plac'd by indistinct and disfiguring Considerations to represent to you the noblest Passion of the Mind as its most hideous and formidable disease To love even with some passionatenesse the Person you would Marry § 1 is not onely allowable but expedient being almost necessary to the duty of fixing your affection where you have once