makes us part of such a whole whereof the Son of God is the other part There needs nothing to keep it fast but to keep us in our wits And therefore since a will distinct from his will makes us two again we shall alwayes comprimise with his will that we may continue one I believe now you think you shall make a mighty purchase if you can but procure this Companion to go along with you It is apparent to you that this Charity will help and inable you to do all that is commanded you though it be never so much and hard to be otherwise effected And do you not think that it will make all things easie also to be done Alas it knows no difference between doing and suffering but only this that it chuses the latter many times as a noble testimony to its sincerity and truth Nothing will seem absurd nothing will be thought mis-becoming nothing will appear difficult when once you are in Love It is well compared to an Artificial Glass which when we look thorow an enemy seems a friend disgrace is rendred an honour and hardships look like a pleasure The Love of Christ you know caused him to make himself of no reputation It preserved his Majesty and made it seem no disparagement to be so low as a servant and to court his Vassals It hath this priviledge that it cannot be defamed And it hath this generosity that it cannot learn to deny Ask any thing of it and it will make no difficulty to give it Nay ask a Coat and it will give the Cloak also Ask it to go a mile with you and it will go two Ask it to forgive one injury and it will forgive an hundred Ask it to render you a service and it will serve you with its whole self So that I think one of the ancient Guides of the Church had reason who said Love and do what thou wilt Take thine own course so that thou dost but heartily Love This is a thing so powerful that it withstands our temperament and resists our most natural inclinations It claps a new Biass upon our hearts it carries us against the stream and tide of sensitive desires it breaks the chains of custom it roots up inveterate habits it is of such vast force that it makes us vanquish our selves and obliges us to destroy our own pleasures that we may please another It is strangely bountiful and liberal with all thinking it can never do enough to make it self known to those whom it loves From whence it is that whereas they who live only in a fear and dread of God have starv'd and half dead affections to him which makes them do but little and that with a pensiveness and sadness as if they desired to be excused They whose hearts burn with Love to him have all their powers excited thereby to do their best for him and they strain themselves with the greatest gladness to execute his pleasure in all things And to say the truth there is no passion of the soul but Love hath it at its full command They all owe their Original to Love and would have no being at all if it were not in the soul before them If there were no Love implanted by God in our natures there would be no desire no hatred no grief no joy no fear no despair for all these grow upon this single root or rather are but Love shooting forth in divers shapes They are I say but several motions which Love causes the different figures which it assumes according as the object and occasion requires It is Love which desires when the thing is absent which hates that which would spoil its injoyments which grieves for the loss or fears the departure which despairs of the coming or joyes in the presence of a beloved good What therefore should that be which Love cannot do seeing it carries all these along with it and leads the whole soul thither whither it goes it self It is an active and busie affection having as much Vivacity as it hath strength It s life consists in motion and like to the Heart it ceases to live when it ceases to stir It is painted you know with wings and will make you fly rather then go to Jerusalem It is like to Fire which is both a greedy and a fierce Element A very covetous affection I mean that thinks it never hath enough of that which it desires and so earnest and vehement that it never rests till it hath spent it self upon its beloved It is like the holy fire which God sent from Heaven which was found unextinguished at the return from Babylon as the Hebrews say in the bottom of a Well all covered with mudd and dirt Much water from without cannot quench it and the dulness and heaviness of our own temper cannot repress it But as fire elevates the matter to which it takes though it be never so gross and ponderous So doth Love raise the hearts wherein it makes an impression and stirs them up to actions far surmounting their Age their breeding and condition There is a certain chearfulness also in this affection like to the shining and brightness of Fire which contributes much to the augmenting of its activity It diffuseth a secret joy through the whole soul which cannot be dissembled but casts a splendor into the countenance of those in whom it resides Though Melancholy indeed is sometimes the companion of other Love yet it cannot find so easie access to Divine Charity For that which the one wants the other hath and that which the one doubts of the other necessarily supposes Is not this the common cause of such sadness that Love meets with no return from an heart to which it hath given its own or is in despair of overcoming all the obstacles of its satisfaction But these are things that cannot find a place in this heaven-born affection which is nothing else but a return of our Love to God who hath loved us first and thereby given us assurance that he is desirous to be injoyed by us All the heaviness then of pious souls is when they cannot make such returns as they wish not when they feel this flame within them for then they are strangely pleased and ravished with joy both because it is an effect of the Love of God to them and because hereby they do actually injoy him Now as Melancholy and sadness do oppress the spirits and make us lazy and unwilling to stir so this chearfulness and lightsomeness of mind which Love infuses do set them free and render us active and vigorous in our motion Melancholy is a Lethargick humour and binds up all the powers because its frozen disposition imagines all things impossible to be either done or avoided but chearfulness by its heat and warmth gives us some degree of confidence that things are not so hard to be undertaken and it thaws melts and loosens our saculties into freedom and liberty whereby we become of
on fire with these words and at last found means to vent himself and burst out in such expressions as these O Sir what have you done I feel the Love of Jesus burn so vehemently in my breast that I shall be devoured by it if it last a moment longer in this force I have scarce any breath left to tell you that you have made me love your self also with a violent passion I have no power no more then desire to resist this Almighty Lover of Souls I render my self his prisoner and wish to be eternally held in his chains You have linkt me to your self too so fast that I am at once become his slave and your servant I would go to the worlds end to seek these two Companions Humility and Charity if they were not already become my guests by your means You have given me a greater treasure then I thought to find in those few words which I received from you and methinks I feel already that I am nought and I have nought and I desire nought but Jesus and Jerusalem If it be not absurd to speak in such terms I am in love with this Love which you have described I see methinks Humility and all things else in its armes I embrace them both with all my soul I welcome them with my best affections into my heart And if I had more hearts then one I would offer them all to the Humble Love of my sweetest Saviour Go on Sir as long as you please if you have not taught me all my lesson in teaching me to Love You have tyed my ears to your tongue and they cannot but listen to your speech Nor shall I ever feel any weariness in hearing of you for you have made me in Love with your discourse by breathing the Love of my Lord into my heart Here he making a little rest the Guide had leave to resume his office though he was so fill'd with joy to see the good effects of what he had said that it was not easie on a sudden to find room for any other thoughts The desire also that he felt of speaking something extraordinary on this occasion had like to have imposed silence on him and denyed a passage to his words But his Prudence telling him how necessary it was to keep himself now from such transports he soon reduced himself to his usual temper and thus began to renew his discourse It is no wonder to find that Jesus captivates hearts and that the Love of a dying Saviour is so powerful as to inthral them to his service All that surprises me is no more then this that such feeble words as mine should so sensibly touch your inclinations to him and with such speed excite so high a degree of Love in your heart It gives me great incouragement to continue my instructions and affords no less incouragement to your self to continue your attention For if you are already under the power of Love by what hath been now delivered I shall make you love unmeasurably before I have finished this discourse You have seen but half of the riches of that golden sentence and there are greater secrets still behind in those two pretious words which are at the conclusion of it For I pray you satisfie me in this demand Have you well considered what Jerusalem is to which you now direct your face I will not stay for your answer but proceed to tell you that I am now going to give you such an Idaea of it that if you keep it fresh in your mind you cannot imagine how it will snatch you from the world and heighten your love unto your Saviour and lift you quite out of your own will if you had a mind to fall into it back again And truly I cannot think that you should have any great list to travel long or that you should not soon feel a weariness to invade your members if you go you know not whither and carry not along with you a true information of the happy repose you are like to meet withall at your journies end Let Jerusalem then be the subject of our next discourse and suffer your eyes to be drawn to that blessed place which I believe you have often heard commended as the Perfection of Beauty and the Joy of the whole earth CAP. XIII A Description of the City Jerusalem and of the happiness be should there meet withall I Have no faculty it must be confessed of making good descriptions of those places which I have seen and therefore it must not be expected that I paint you exactly a place which I know but by report It is sufficient that I tell you nothing but the truth and do not imitate them who fill their Maps with Chimaera's of their own brain though I do not compleatly delineate every part of it but leave many spaces void to be filled up by your self when you shall have the happiness to arrive there Know then that as to the scituation of this City it is agreed by all to be incomparably sweet beyond the fairest place that this world of ours doth afford For it is seated on a very high mountain loftier then Olympus it self which yet is said to lift its head above the clouds and to be obnoxious to none of our storms and tempests and to be deprived of the Sun beams by nothing else but only the night it self It is advanced I say far above the highest part of this heavy earth and foggy air aspiring into the purer sky where the Sun never withdraws its rayes and where there is not the least shaddow of mist or vapour either to obscure its light or to offend the most delicate sense that can be conceived There are nothing but pure and fragrant odors which perfume that happy climate there is a perpetual calm and quiet which reigns in that noble region there is no noise but that which infinitely delights and charms the soul into still and quiet meditations But that which is of greatest remark and most to be remembred is the glorious Prospect which a place of this advantage yields All the world here presents it self before ones eyes and makes them the center in which the beauty and glory of it conspires to meet I would not have you think I mean a world so small as that which we inhabit upon this Globe of Earth but one which comprehends the Sun and Moon and all the other adjoyning orbs which are there beheld to move in comely measures about that Prince of lights Those balls of Fire also which you see fixed in the firmament so remote from you will fall into your better view who though they seem here but like blinking candles and sickly flames will there appear most noble lights designed for some greater end then to lend us a feeble comfort in the night It will be infinitely contenting to see the beauty and fair proportions of every part of this vast frame the fitness usefulness and correspondence of it
bestowed if it were for nothing else but to see this Illustrious Person especially to behold him in all his glory and his highest exaltation who is the Patron of all good souls the great Protector of all Pilgrims the Guide and Rest too of all noble Travellers and who bears a particular affection to your self who hath suffered so much for you who hath sent you so many messages of his Love who hath endeared himself to you by a thousand favours and was never contented till he brought you to himself that you might be there where he is and behold the glory which his Father hath given to him There he intends to entertain all pious men with an everlasting Supper to make them a never-ceasing Jubilee and treat them with such sumptuous magnificence that there will not be tongues enough among them all to publish his praises and their own thankfulness Only you must remember that the entertainment he will give them is himself and that they will feast eternally upon his blessed face Their happiness will be to see God to behold the glory which is given to our Lord that is to know him and to be filled with his Wisdom Love and Likeness And here lest I should not be understood and you should imagine the happiness of seeing God and his Son to be less than it is let me stop a while to explain this part of my description to you before I pass unto the rest You must not then conceive that the pleasure of Jerusalem is to sit whole Ages and meerly to gaze upon the Divinity or that they who enjoy the repose of that happy place do nothing else but feed their eyes with the beauties of our Saviours face No these are the fancies of low and uninstructed minds who know no higher enjoyments than those of sense To see God will be to have such a knowledge of him as gives our hearts a powerful touch and strikes them with such a lively sense of him that he turns them perfectly into his nature and transforms them into the likeness of his divine excellencies This glorious object doth as I may so speak diffuse and spread it self all over inamour'd souls and by a living heat doth animate them into the same disposition with it self The beauty on which they fix their eyes doth imprint its own form upon their hearts and makes them fair and beautiful with the same lovely qualities which they delight to behold They do not busie themselves there as men imagine in gaping upon the splendor and the many ornaments of that place but they themselves become a part of its glory and are changed into that on which they fasten their eyes They do not spend their time only in looking upon God and curiously prying into him but they receive him into their hearts and he enters into their souls He doth not guild them with his beams but they themselves become Light in the Lord. There is not a glory only cast about them but they receive such rayes of light from his face as dart into their very hearts and shine thorow their whole souls so that they also become luminous and bright They are so ravished with his Goodness that they are made Good They are so affected with his Wisdom that they become Wise The sense they have of his incomparable Purity renders them more Holy and his dear Love so over-masters their souls that they conform in all things to his hearts desire and it seems as if both their hearts had but one and the same motion In short my meaning is that they are not happy at Jerusalem by any external injoyment of God which is all the vulgar conceit doth reach when we speak of seeing his glory but they are inwardly moved by a powerful efflux from him which quickens them into the same thoughts will and desire with himself Their souls are not outwardly painted with him and some colours as it were of his Wisdom living Images of God and really changed into a true resemblance of that which they behold It is not some glory that appears before them which makes them blessed but they are made all glorious within and become themselves God-like creatures They do not behold the Divinity only without themselves but they see God within them and looking into their own souls there they find him and are happy in him And let me add this by the way as I pass to other things that such a knowledge and participation of God you must pursue in this world if you mean to come to Jerusalem You must here be partakers of a Divine Nature and now be transformed by the renewing of your mind proving what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God But I think it is time to lead you to other Spectacles which are worthy your sight and to tell you that in this City all the glorious Ministers of State to the King of Kings have their Mansion-houses and Noble Palaces All the Heroes of ancient daies do here make their abode Nay all the spirits of just men that are made perfect do here inhabit and have their constant residence And all those glittering Angels and those brave minds that ever flourish in this heavenly Court I believe you will think sufficient of themselues if there were nothing else to render this a very splendid place The Laws indeed of which are such that none can be permitted to live there but Noble men persons of high birth and illustrious descent for they are all called the Sons of God But that which gives them this Nobility and stamps such an honourable title upon them is not such poor things as swell the men of our world into an aiery and imaginary greatness but the height of their minds the purity of their hearts and the excellent qualities wherewith they are endowed which intitle them to the kindred of God Insomuch that the meanest Pilgrim on the earth that is found worthy by reason of his virtuous disposition and generous spirit to be admitted a Citizen of Jerusalem instantly becomes Noble and is inrolled among the Princes of heavenly Progeny Into this blessed society then when once you are received How delightful do you think their company and acquaintance will prove Are you not highly pleased now with a rare History and could you not lend your ears for a whole day to hear the adventures of some one famous person And yet these are nothing to the pleasures that they can entertain you withall There were never such things yet reported as the Inhabitants of Jerusalem will be ready to impart and communicate with you Who can tell you a long story of the Love of God and make a never-ceasing relation an endless history of all the rare passages of his providence throughout the whole world They can present you with a thousand Abrahams and as many Josephs whose adventures were so strange that fiction is not able to invent any thing so surprising Nay out of those Countries
where you thought there was nothing but horrid deserts salvage souls and barbarous customs they may produce you many worthy minds whose renowned acts it will give you an infinite joy to have rehearsed But there is nothing I believe will touch you with a greater inclination to their converse than the knowledge of the singular love and friendship that is between all the Inhabitants of that City provided you be already touched with any sense of the pleasure of that noble passion They are a people I told you of the most excellent nature and the sweetest disposition in the world They are void of all deceit and guile of all hatred and envy of all covetousness and self-love of all anger and peevishness with whatsoever other things there are that disturb our peace and spoil our converse here below So that they make the most agreeable society that ever was and interchange to each others such pleasures as my tongue hath not expressions powerful enough to paint them forth There is no strangeness at all among them You can meet no body there but they will entertain you with as much kindness and sincerity as if they had known you many years And when many come together in one place there is no danger of their jarring by reason of their different sentiments but they bring a great addition of pleasure and make the most delicious harmony that ever moved the heart of man There they entwine in the dearest embraces There they open to each other their very hearts There they study to increase not to diminish their mutual happiness There they think all that another injoyes is as if they did injoy it themselves And what they have of their own it is not for themselves alone but for every body else There you shall meet with no pale fears no anxious cares no fruitless wishes no tormenting jealousies and no amorous sighs neither for every one will love others as much as they desire and wish for no return again but only Love If there be any particular Friendships there they do not at all spoil the universal kindness of the place Others will not be loved the worse for them but rather loved better because they will teach those united hearts the greatest Love They may be esteemed also one of the beauteous spectacles of the place and be reckoned among the grateful varieties which will entertain us When after the pleasures of a more general and large conversation every one may retire to the company of those he loveth most There you will be met with such great and shining lights as St. Paul who set all the world on fire with the flames of their love You will fall into the company of those burning hearts who were martyr'd first by their own Love and then by their Persecutors fury for the good of the world And do you think they have put off their affections when they laid aside their rags of flesh Did all their fire go out when they suffered a dissolution of their house of earth Or shall we imagine that this generous passion is the off-spring of our body and ows its being birth and strength to this corporeal nature We may not so defame and asperse the Love of our Lord who no doubt hath a more tender heart in the heavens then he had upon the earth We may expect to find there more Love in the breasts of these holy Lovers who followed him then here they were owners of though they had then so much that it was large enough to embrace the whole world They have not left their nature but only its imperfections They have not changed their affections but only heightned and improv'd them And therefore judge how happy you will be in the acquaintance of such persons and how much more happy in their excellent friendship Your Love will be raised to a strange pitch when you approach such intense and vastly increased flames Your heart will be all Fire when you come near to such huge furnaces the heat of whose Love in this cold region was so strong that it would have forced a sensible soul to expire with them And is the joy think you conceivable which you will feel when you find your self in the arms of those mighty Lovers For my part I can imagine nothing but an Ecstasie when we shall be placed in such great Hearts which are nothing else but Love and Joy to see us at Jerusalem I cannot propound to my desires a pleasure more charming then this unless it be to joyn both heart and voice with the whole number of those glorious friends to chaunt the praises of our Creator and Redeemer And indeed it is beyond the measure of my poor skill to invent any words that can tolerably describe the Melodies which will then be made when the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of the Martyrs the glittering Troops of Confessors and the innumerable Hosts of triumphant Souls shall compose but one Quire to sing their Anthems and Hallelujahs to the God of Love But yet I am apt to think that their Musick will receive no small part of its graces from hence that there will be no discord in their hearts nor jarring in their affections but that Love will exactly tune them to a perfect harmony Nay this seems to be the sum of what we can say of the happiness of that estate that it consists in a rapturous Love of God and a most passionate Love of one another And truly this is a thing so inviting and I have such a particular affection to this Vnity of Spirit among Brethren that I should be tempted here to speak a little of that Charity which you ought to have to your neighbour as I have already instructed you about that you owe to God but that I have assigned another time and place for that discourse CAP. XIV The manner of their life who live at Jerusalem and that all things concur to make it the most pleasant of all other YOU have great incouragement then to make haste to Jerusalem for you see they pass their time there more delightfully then in any other place and lead a life so much to their content that one may truly say their imployment is to please themselves and to do according to their desires The most vigorous Soul that this earth affords is but a drone in compare with the sprightly air of them that inhabit those Caelestial Regions You would say the most pleasant dayes that here we lead and study to prolong to an hundred years are but like a sleep and a dream a meer image and shaddow of life if you could but be raised for one minute to the strength and activity of those happy people and receive but the sleightest taste of those lively and essential delights which force the whole soul to attend unto them The briskness and chearfulness of our youthful time doth not so much excell the flat and
command himself never so much And so they sacrifice their own ease to the popular opinions They vainly employ their time to satisfie other men rather than themselves They consider more what will be said of them if they be not in such or such an estate than they do their own quiet and repose And is it possible can we think that a man should be well-pleased who refusing to comply with reason alone desires to give content to that famous Chimaera called Opinion It cannot be especially since it is the Opinion of others and not his own only which he follows and this is a thing so infinite and withall so mutable and uncertain that it will never give him any rest who is led by it But then after all this let us consider what it is that makes men desirous to content the World in order to content themselves Is it not their Pride and desire to be esteemed Is it not a vain study to be admired and to have a great Name in the World Let us be Humble then and we shall be contented Let us have a mean esteem of our selves and we shall not be troubled that other mens thoughts are conformable to our own Let us think we have more than we deserve and we shall at the most but study to be worthy still to have it Let us thus endeavour to make our selves happy and we shall not care whether other men think us happy or no. And then for Charity or the Love of God it hath this particular Charm that it renders all conditions alike agreeable unto us because we never consider any thing therein but only him alone When we are so full of him as to love him with all our heart and all our soul and all our strength there can be but little room for any thing else Some troublesome thoughts may intrude themselves but they cannot dwell in us because the love of him will thrust them out Besides the love of him is very powerful to beget in our souls a perswasion that he loveth us Our Love is but the product of his and there is nothing more comfortable then to think that we are beloved of so great a Good And then again Love is apt to make us well pleased with all that they do whom we entirely love We can take nothing ill at their hands but alwayes perswade our selves that they mean well It pleases us much that they should please themselves And therefore if we love God it will produce the same satisfaction in all his Providences we shall love them every one because we are in love with him Especially since we are satisfied by this love of his good affection to us it will not let us suspect him of any unkindness We shall alwayes rest assured of his good will and so have no more to say but only this Thy will O Love be done And I may add also that the Love of God being just opposite to our self-love which is the root of all our troubles must needs be the foundation and root of all our contentment For what is Contentment but the stability as it were of the Soul whereby it stands in one unmoveable temper It is a kind of indifferency an unconcernedness in all things but only God And how is that to be purchased but only by such a strong affection to him as destroyes the inordinate love of our selves and all other things As long as that love of our selves reigns it carries us headlong to every thing that pleases our carnal appetites It make us range up and down the World after every trifle that we have a fancy unto It makes us vex if we be crossed in the least of our desires It sets us in a restless motion without any possibility of ever fixing our selves It makes us as passionately concern our selves for a toy as if it touched our very life And therefore till this be destroyed we are not likely to find the contentment which we seek Now the Love of God that is just contrary to it and cannot stand together with it That concenters and unites all our thoughts and affections in one Good which we may alwayes have and in which we may alwayes have satisfaction That settles our souls in one place out of which we need not stir to seek our happiness That carries our hearts continually above and sets us out of the reach of these worldly things It raises us beyond our selves and makes us feel him who is infinitely better who also we know rules and disposes all things in the world according to that excellent goodness which we feel in him Let us love him therefore now as much as we can and in this let us place our happiness So shall we never fail to be well pleased because every thing will make us more to love him I thank you most heartily said the Pilgrim for the seasonable remembrance you have given me of that excellent lesson It hath done me so much good that I cannot see how any thing should trouble me unless it be this to see so little Love of God in the world and that I can do no more good upon men whom I love for Gods sake It is very well replyed the Father if you have no more to trouble you then this for it is only the fruit of a great Love which sometime is wont to make us sick if it meet with unkind entertainment in those on whom it is bestowed And besides let me tell you this for your better satisfaction that you must content your self to see the world so imperfect as it is You will never have any quiet if you vex your self because you cannot bring mankind to that exact Idaea of things which you have formed in your mind You desire I perceive above all things that there might be peace on earth and that Christian people might live in a sweet agreement together But be not Ignorant I pray you of this that you do but trouble your self and the world too if you think to attain this happiness by making all so perfect as your self As it is too commonly seen that Good men hinder peace by insisting over vehemently upon lesser truths which might well stand aside to make way for unity in greater things so an unseasonable and violent indeavour to correct some faults and root out some abuses and to take away some imperfect institutions hath too frequently driven peace away from the Church of God All which proceeds from want of prudence and discreet consideration of things with which an honest and well meaning zeal had need to be tempered We must well weigh the nature and moment of things When it is impossible to have all we honestly desire we must take what we can rather then want the chiefest thing that is in our desires We do not live in a world that is composed of complete Christians All is weak all is sick and distempered in the Societies of men They are in a state of
I should ever have had an occasion to answer such a question as that you propose for sure you never discerned that I had a mind to be separated from you And truly I never discerned any such thing in my self nor have you given me cause to be less your Friend then heretofore unless it be by this unfriendly jealousie which as I told you a little while ago I thought you would never have entertained And since I see it proceeds rather from an ill opinion of your self then any you have of me I recall that word and pray you to believe that you are as dear unto me as ever that is my friend And what I pray you is the office of a friend if not to relieve the wants of those he loves and to bear those burdens with them which they are not able to carry alone If they themselves therefore by reason of any heaviness of Spirit prove the burden that he must sustain He will not complain of it It is their unhappiness he knows both that they are so heavy and are in danger they think to be a load to him and He will not let them be more unhappy by becoming heavy himself and groaning under that easie weight which they lay upon him Easie I call it because it is a pleasure to do any kindness for our friends and the pleasure encreases proportionably to the pains that we take in doing of it You shall hear the Judgement of a Philospher in this case if you please and of one that loved ease more then any of his fellows Though a wise man he thought might be content with himself yet notwithstanding he granted that his happiness would be greater with a friend Of such a companion he cannot but be desirous if it be for no other end but to exercise his amity and that so great a vertue may not remain without use He doth not chuse a friend saith Epicurus himself to have some to assist him when he is sick or to succour him if he be in prison or such necessities But contrary wise that he may have one whom he may help and comfort in the like distresses For he hath an evil intention that only respects himself when he makes Friendship And so shall he end his friendship as he begun the same He that hath purchased himself a friend to the intent that he may be succoured by him in prison will take his flight as soon as he feels that he is released of his bonds Both the chains shall be knockt off together those of his prison and those of his friendship These are the friendships which we vulgarly call Temporary being made only to serve a turn He that is made a friend for profit sake shall please as long as he may be profitable and so they who are in felicity see themselves inviron'd with a multitude of these followers But where the distressed dwell there is nothing but solitude For such manner of friends alwayes avoid those places where they may be proved It is necessary that the beginning and the end have a correspondence He that hath begun to be a friend because it is expedient he that hath thought there is a gain in friendship beside it self may well be suborn'd against the same by the appearance and offers of a greater gain For what cause then do I entertain a friend To the end I may have one for whom I may dye whom I may accompany in banishment and for whose life and preservation I may expose my self to any danger For the other which only regards profit and makes account of that which may turn to its own commodity it is rather a Traffique then Friendship Certain it is that Friendship hath in some sort a similitude and likeness to the affection of Lovers Whose scope is neither gain nor greatness nor glory but despising all other considerations love it self inkindles in them a desire of the beloved form under hopes of a mutual and reciprocal amity Thus he Unless you will number me then among those Summer friends which he speaks of or think that friendship in me is feebler then it was in Pagans you must not hold me any longer in suspition And indeed if you did but know how great a favour you do me in letting me know your griefs and making me the Witness of your Conscience and relying upon me for advice and thereby giving me an opportunity to serve you the best I can you would presently throw away all these Imaginations which the enemy of Souls and of Friendship would instill into you For my part I did not so lightly and in sport receive you into my conduct as that any difficulty or a multitude of them should make my employment tedious to me Nay how can it be irksome when you your self acknowledge that the labours of Love are all pleasure and carry their own rewards in them You may think perhaps that love grows old as well as all other things and that time works its decay and renders it feeble and weak Thus Attalus was wont to say that it is far more pleasant to make a friend then to have one As it is more agreeable to a Painters fancy to draw his lines then to have finished the picture After he hath painted indeed he possesses the fruit of his Art but he took pleasure in the Art it self when he painted Just as the youth of our children is more fruitful to us but their infancy is more sweet But assure your self I do not live by any of these Maxims Friendship is like Wine the older it is the better It grows more pure by age its spirits are more disingaged and it warms the heart more powerfully then when it was but new and green Nay your friendship is more pleasant too whatsoever you may think now that it is grown then it was in its childhood I enjoy the remembrance of those pleasures and have some new ones besides just as a Painter thinks on his Art when he beholds the piece that he hath brought to perfection I beseech you then if you have any love to me that you will not call in question mine to you And if all this will not satisfie you let me intreat you for the Love of our Lord that you will ask him whether I do not love you I know he is so much a friend to Truth and unto Love too not to say to you and me that he will do me the favour to perswade you that I do And therefore let not the Evil one who loves nothing less then our Friendship sow this jealousie in your heart that I grow weary of you But be confident that as our Lord loves you so he imparts true love to me and that if the armes of these two can do any thing you shall be carried safe to Jerusalem And now since I have told you my very heart let me know I pray what further doubt it is that troubles yours It cannot be so great sure that
who do not stick to brand him with the mark of Heresie though to tell you the truth I verily think the only reason is because they imagine he doth believe whatsoever he doth not fiercely oppose His life indeed is so holy and without blame his carriage so sweet and courteous his conversation so profitable that I am inclined to think such good things cannot spring from a bad root but yet there are that say The poison is the more dangerous which is so finely gilded and I must leave you to judge for your self and either to stop or pursue your resolution of going to him as those things well weighed you shall see cause to incline Here the good man made a pause and seemed to be in a very pendulous condition till the stranger added I must be so just as to remember to subjoyn this to the rest that I have said That indeed all Parties next to themselves are wont to commend him as the best of all Now I thank you presently replied the other that you did not omit to relate that observation for it brings to my mind the story of Themistocles which I have often heard our Preacher use in the Pulpit to whom every one of the Captains yielded the second place after they had preferred themselves to the first and was therefore concluded to be the most worthy of all if any thing but self-self-love might be admitted to give the judgment Let us go I beseech you with all speed to this brave man and not stay to deliberate any longer For I remember also that I have heard very wise men observe That there was never any person that advanced excellent things in the World but his credit and reputation was blasted by those who were unable or unwilling to be so good themselves I have a very great hope that this is the man whom Heaven hath designed to unscale my eyes and make me see the way to Jerusalem Or if it otherwise please yet I nothing doubt but being wholly bent to lead a pious life God will have so much kindness for me as not to let me be dangerously deceived nor to suffer a greater film to grow over my sight These words he uttered with that vehemency and resolution of mind that the stranger thought it was not fit to hold him in any longer consultation about it especially since he saw his purpose founded upon so good an understanding Taking leave therefore of the rest who were but too glad to be rid of them he directed him to the house of this Guide where he found as he had been told before that he was at home and had not one creature in his company After a very few civilities passed between them and some excuses that the Country-man made for his boldness in interrupting his Meditations he plainly told him for he would not permit any long Apologies what the cause was of this address and of the trouble he was come to give him I am said he a true Lover of Jerusalem and have made a vow to take a journey to that place but about the way thither I am so perplexed that I account it a great blessing that I have not lost my wits and am not become unable to find my way to your house One cries to me Lo here another Lo there lyes the path of life Some would have me go thorow the water and be baptized again telling me the Israelites passed thorow the Sea to go to Canaan others seem to draw me thorow the air and teach me to fly aloft in towring speculations and there are not wanting those who would turn me into a stone and render me at once as humble and as lumpish and melancholy too as the earth it self But every one of these me thought did lead me into the fire and I felt in the water it self the flames of strife and contention about my ears which made me that I durst not commit my self to the hands of these or any of their fellow-guides But hearing Sir that you are of great abilities to direct me and that you are a man of peace and more than that a man of good will who hath a strong propension to do good I am come to make it my humble request unto you that if it be true which is reported of you you will do me the favour to afford me some charitable instructions about the most passable way to Jerusalem CAP. VI. The Acceptance which he found with him and how plainly the Guide dealt with him about the difficulties of the way NOw the Inquirer appearing in habit like a Pilgrim having a very innocent countenance an humble behaviour and using such language as signified that it was not curiosity or a mind to try the skill which the other had in foreign parts but a real desire to travel which had brought him thither Answer was returned by him to whom he made his application that he was heartily glad to meet with any man that would ask the way to Jerusalem and that he thought he read in his face so much of the serenity of his mind and the sincerity of his heart that he might be confident he came with a real desire to receive satisfaction about it But said he though I must needs grant that I am furnished with some knowledge of the way to that City yet perhaps I may spare my pains of giving you any directions in it because there is some reason to think you will not be at the pains to follow them For if you will give any credit to my words I must let you know that the way is both long and also full of many and great difficulties and that there are many waies also which will seem to you to lead straight to it which many men will ponyt you unto as the next rode which if you should take will lead you into great danger and not only carry you a great deal about but perchance conduct you to the quite contrary place and end in your utter undoing I would wish you therefore to consider a while whether it be an adviseable thing to undertake such a journey wherein there are so many hardships and so many cross paths A journey which is so tedious also and wherein I cannot promise you security from frights theeves beatings and such ill usages as have made many men possessed with such intentions as you seem now to have quite to lay aside all thoughts of it and to sit down contented at their own homes And after all this I know not whether you will yield your belief to all that I shall tell you of the way if you have heard some of the reports which are spread of me and have received any prejudice at all against me which I am sure will be increased by some of the Precepts that I must give you The Pilgrim was so far from shewing any tokens of disgust at this discourse that he rather discovered an inward pleasure that he had conceived
that you may bestow it upon a better Master Do not we say that every Christian must give himself to God and is it not that which I have now perswaded you to resolve But how shall a man give that which he hath not And he hath not himself as I have proved that hath let out his heart to the world It is necessary then that you take it home again in order to your being his You must be your own that so you may give your self to him You must be restored into your own hand that so you may have something to offer up to his uses And did you never think in any sickness that you was near to the gates of Death I beseech you tell me whether it was not a great trouble to you to find your self so much in the power of other things that you could not resign your self to God What misery is there like to this to be so out of our own hands while we live that we cannot yield our selves to our Maker when he would have us dye To be tyed so fast to other things that we cannot go to him when he calls us To feel that this thing holds us and that pulls us and the other even clasps about us and sayes You must not leave us If there were nothing else to thrust you forward in your design the thoughts of this misery would be a sufficient spur to you to quicken the execution of it Restore your self presently to liberty again and be a servant of the world no longer if it be but for this reason only that you may be free to dye Leave the world as you found it And seeing you must go naked as you came do not stay for Death to pluck off your clothes but strip your self and owe your liberty to your own hands It will not be long you are well assured ere that debt to nature must be paid and then there cannot be a greater contentment than to feel that you are your own at that hour That you can dispose of your self to God without any lett or hindrance and that you can dye in the freedom wherein you were born If you stand ingaged to the world it will be sure to put in its claim and challenge an interest in you at that time It will let you know that it is your Mistris and still requires your service And therefore follow your resolution and forsake it betime that so it may not give you any trouble then but suffer you to go out of it as quietly and with as little care as you came into it He spake these words with a great deal of heat and with a tone expressing so much vehemency that he could not have been more earnest if he had been disputing the liberty of his Country with those who intended to betray it But on a sudden repressing himself and letting his voyce fall a little he told him that he would spare the rest of his discourse on this argument for some body that stood in greater need of it For I perceive said he that I have now to deal with an heart that hath already began its own deliverance and whose weariness of the Worlds service hath brought it hither to find out a better Master Besides added he it will not be prudent I think to burden you with many things at once and we are admonished also by the darkness which comes upon us that it is time to take a short repast and so commit our selves to rest I have an empty Bed which will be glad to receive a Pilgrim or any one that hath set his face toward Jerusalem being dedicated long ago to Charity And therefore if you intend to be ruled by me in all things let me lay my injunctions upon you not to stir a foot to seek a lodging in any other place but in my house It was a thing of no difficulty you may easily think to perswade a man to accept of that which he much desired and had already prepared himself to beg And therefore having made him his hearty acknowledgments for that offer and for all the good counsels he had bestowed upon him together with a promise to be obsequious to them they sate down to a frugal supper and a while after commending themselves to God they parted and went to Bed I say to Bed for they did not both betake themselves to Rest The poor stranger's mind being tossed with a thousand thoughts and travelling all night very hard to Jerusalem He had no sooner put off his clothes but he thought that this was a lively embleme of the condition to which he was to be reduced and it put him in mind how he ought to strip himself of all affections to the world He took there a solemn leave of it and bad it eternally farewell And think not said he to meet me again in the morning and that I will put on my love to you as I do my garments No I vow that I would go stark naked if the one could not be resumed without the other Then he revolved in his mind all that he had heard of the way to Jerusalem together with the difficulties therein which in the silent darkness of the night he mused upon more deeply then perhaps he would have done at another time There being a resemblance he thought between the darkness and the afflictions he was to indure and between the silence and the patience he was to use These and such like reflections succeeded so fast one upon another that they would not suffer him to close his eyes till towards the morning light When a weak slumber laying all his senses asleep and chaining up his reason left only his imagination at liberty to rove about And it had not pressed many of the footsteps of things which his memory was imprinted withall before the image of an ancient pious friend of his dead long ago and who had often perswaded him to quit the world presented it self before him He was clothed in white rayment and his countenance was very bright but he approached him with the very same smiles in his face wherewith he used heretofore to run into his imbraces This person he fancied he was going to meet as soon as he saw him come in at the door but before he could stir he thought he found him at his bed-side praying him not to arise For said he I must soon leave you and am come only to express to you the joy I have to find you in this Good mans house Happy is he that hath met with a faithful Guide but far happier is he who follows his Advice Make not too much haste to be gone stir not from hence till you be dismissed And then I hope we may one day meet never to part again But now I cannot be permitted to make a long stay with you This sight but especially his speech gave him such a sentiment of joy that he hath often since professed he never felt
because they think whatsoever you do is due to their merit They would be loved by all without loving again They will command in all companies and have every one yield to their humors They will teach all and learn of none They are incapable of gratitude and think you are honoured enough for your services if they do but receive them They would draw all to themselves and are unacquainted with that which charms all the world I mean bounty and liberality The Humble man no doubt then is the most agreeable person upon earth whom you oblige by a good word which he thinks he doth not deserve who thanks you for the smallest courtesie who had rather obey then rule who is desirous to learn of the meanest Scholler who contemns no body but himself who loves though he be not loved who thinks nothing too much to do for those that esteem him and who is afraid he hath never recompenced enough the civilities which are done unto him In short this Humility is of such great value and so good natured that there is nothing comparable to it but its twin sister Divine Charity This amiable pair are like the right foot and the left by which the traveller performs his journey There needs no more but this happy couple to carry you through all the paths of piety and bring you safe to Jerusalem Let us turn our eyes then if you please from the one to the other and look a while upon the beauty and graces of Charity whose charms are so powerful that you cannot chuse but open to it your embraces CAP. XII Of Divine Charity The Power that it hath both to establish his Resolution and furnish him with all other Requisites for his Journey ANd that which will very much inamour you at the first glance is the power which you will discover in it to establish your Resolution and to make it so firm that it shall not be shaken by all the force of all the world which is nothing so strong and mighty as Love I know this touches you with a strong inclination to it if you have any mind to offer your will to God as I advised and therefore you will not think I importune you with a tedious discourse if I make you more sensible of this following truth That Love makes one will of two and causes us to sacrifice all our own desires to the will of that we love if we esteem it better than our selves For what I pray you can we say of Love but which a wiser man than you or I hath told us who calls it that emotion of the soul whereby we joyn our selves in will and heart to that which is presented as lovely and convenient for us It is such a consent I say of the heart to some fair and inviting object that we consider our selves as joyned and united to it Insomuch that we do not look on our selves and it as remaining any longer two things which subsist asunder but we conceive a Whole whereof we think our selves but one part and the thing beloved to be the other Is it not necessary then that we have a mind to cleave to this and eternally live in dear imbraces of it Can we endure the thought of being torn from this and so dissolve the Whole which Love hath made Do not we naturally desire to conserve things especially those of our our own creating It is unavoidable then that in any contest which may arise between these parts we yield to the will of that we love for fear of a separation unless that thing be worse than our selves and so we hope to gain by the dissolution If one of these two must be displeased we shall ever chuse that it be our selves unless we esteem the other to be of less value and worth than our selves There is but that one Exception lyes against this general Truth which I shall not stick to reiterate that Love doth so tye us to that we love that we and it become but one whole consisting of two parts and that we shall sooner suffer that part which we make to be crossed in its desires than the other to which we have joyned our selves to be disgusted Do you doubt of it Observe then that Love being placed on things that differ in three degrees it comes to be divided into three sorts Either it is to things below us and then it is called a bare Affection or to things equal to us and then it is termed Friendship or to things above us and then it arrives at the name of Devotion Thus I have learnt from a wise man of my acquaintance Now the nature of Love in every one of these being such that it joyns our hearts to the thing beloved and we and it make but one whole in this only they differ that though we may consent to part and break with that which we esteem less than our selves yet we can never agree to be separated from that which we esteem greater The less part will alwayes be abandoned to the conservation of the greatest we must alwayes sacrifice that which is worst to keep intire the best And therefore though in bare Affection a man alwayes prefers himself before that he loves when one must suffer a displeasure yet it is quite otherwise in the highest Love and sometime in the second sort which we call Devotion for there a man prefers the thing he loves so much before himself that he fears not to venture his very life for the conservation of it He will sooner sever Soul and Body than consent that this and his Soul should be divided He will rather quit all the world and never see it more than forsake this and be banished from it Because as there is no compare he thinks between all the world and this so he is tyed with an incomparably stronger bond to it than to all the world Now of this sort is the Love that we call Charity which is an high Devotion to our Lord. Who since he is Lord of all the Lord of life and glory the Author of eternal Salvation the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth if it were possible for us to leave some things that are better than our selves in expectation of something better than them to which we will give that Love which they have lost yet he will make us love him eternally above all and live in inseparable union with him because there is nothing else superiour to him on which to bestow our Love if we take it from him If we once sincerely love him if we become one with him it is manifestly in the nature of this sublime affection to make us part with our selves for his sake to resign up all our own desires that his will may be done to lose whatsoever we call ours that we may keep him and his good esteem of us It is not possible that we should grant our consent to have that knot untied which
a lively forward and ready disposition Love therefore being of this pleasant and chearful nature you see must needs both quicken your spirit and facilitate your work Nay it is apt to excite and inspire others who come near us and therefore much more our selves Chearfulness and the love from whence it springs makes our countenance smooth and clear and invites others into our Society When this passion stirs in the heart the face is all over touched with the sweetness of it which both intices and inlivens those that approach us How is it possible then that we should not feel these effects of it our selves that are so sensible to others or what heart is there so cold and indifferent that would not be possessed with this affection which is as useful as delightful and whose benefits redound to our neighbours and stay not in our selves It will not let us be a terrour to our own souls nor appear with such a dismal aspect that we should scare and affright others It will not drive others from Piety while it carries us unto it It will not suffer us to put Religion on the rack that we may look severe And it is far from making us appear so as though we imagined we could not be saved unless we make an ugly face What shall I say more need I tell you that Love is full of imitation and forces us to conform our selves to the humour and disposition of him whom we Love There is a stranger property by far then this which will make you open your heart to it and that is a singular Sagacity which it is Master of whereby it knows what is fit to be done without any teaching If you were fully in the power of it it would go near to render me of no use being it self instead of twenty Masters It knows what will please before it be told and sees what is acceptable without a director It hath eyes of its own to find out its way and by its innate wisdome would lead you streight to Jerusalem It is very skilfull to spy out its duty and hath a quick perception of what is befitting in every passage of life In so much that when a man begins to Love he begins to know how to guide himself His Love will suggest unto him many things which he ought to do and be instead of a thousand Monitors to put him upon the doing of them It will make a man descry the least faults in himself though it hide them in others It notes an undecency with as much severity as another marks a gross impurity It labours to overcome the smallest infirmity and weeps more for a mote in its eye then others do for a beam Nay it is afflicted for those things which no body sees save only it self It blushes more for a vain thought then the rest of the world do for a monstrous act It hath a curiosity about those little circumstances which all men are wont to oversee or neglect It s niceness and delicacy is so great that it abhors the very shadow of all evil And it every way strives to adorn it self with such accuracy that there may not be the least speck to render it less fair and beautiful in the eyes of God Love therefore I beseech you Love as much as ever you are able if you mean to be happy Make your heart ready as an Altar for this Fire from above to descend upon it Prepare your self as a Sacrifice to be offered up in this Holy flame to the Lord of Love Let all the world know that you are a consecrated thing tell it that you cannot entertain its sute nor unhallow the place where heaven is pleased to dwell Yield your self a captive to this mighty Conquerour whereby you will be inabled to conquer all things else Subject your self to the power of that which will bring the Devil the World and the Flesh under your feet Let it take away your liberty of doing what you please that it may make you free to do as you ought Possess it of your soul intirely and suffer it to inspire all your desires and to order all your motions and it will not fail to possess you of that blessed place to which you wish to be conducted And is this any difficult thing that I require of you I should rather think that we are highly obliged to God for making the way to Jerusalem so easie and our arriving there so certain as it is For Love is the most natural and pleasant thing in the world which will certainly bring us thither and God being so lovely and having loved us so much one would think it should be an easie thing to beget it in our hearts Do you not mark how a Dog loves you if you do but throw him a bone or some such thing which to you is of no use or worth at all For this he fawns upon you for this he stayes in your house and keeps your door and defends your goods this makes him follow you at the heels if you please to travel with you long journies to forsake all other Masters for your service and many times to dye with you though it be a poor thing which you know not what to do withall unless you cast it unto him How can you chuse then but love Jesus and be at his command and follow his steps and leave all others for his sake and even give your life to him who hath given you not a thing of no value not that which cost him nothing or that which he could not tell what to do withall but himself his holy blood his pretious promises which it cost an infinite deal of pain to seal and ratifie unto you Are you still insensible of his favours when you think of this Are you still to learn to Love when such a weight of Love as this doth press your heart If such a thought could enter my mind I would send you to the brutes to be their Scholler I would call your Spaniel and bid him teach you I would cease to be your instructer any longer and put you there to learn the affection you owe to your dearest Lord and Master But your blushes bid me spare this language and seem to assure me both that you are ashamed to owe your vertue to such examples and that you feel already this flame inkindled in your heart Feed it I beseech you continually and let it increase unto greater ardors of Love as it will infallibly if you do but consider what great things your Saviour hath done for you and that he is still busie in procuring your good and in short that there is not an hour not a moment wherein you do not stand indebted to him for eternal blessings or for the means of them or for the grace to help you to attain them And indeed the poor Pilgrims heart did beat at such a rate that it seemed to knock against his ribs He was set all
or rather we need not ask at all for he will but present himself before us and force us to love and rejoyce without any measure And seeing it is a place of such full satisfaction you will not question its tranquillity and repose especially since it is as you heard before you came hither the very Vision of Peace The life which they lead there is so full of content that they are not disturbed by any passion nor disquieted by the violence and disorder of any unruly affection A life it is void of all sadness free from all grief quit of all care and rid of all anxiety of mind Where there is no adversary to assault no forbidden fruit to tempt no impetuous desire of the flesh to molest them and no fear neither that ever they shall be haunted with these enemies of their peace and contentment O how happy should we find our selves if we were but come to the top of that high Mountain which will seem the more clear and quiet because so many clouds have here so often overcast us and so many sudden blasts have ruffled and discomposed us There we shall not accuse one another of any injuries because we shall not do the least nor be troubled to pursue our right because we shall not be wronged There we shall live without jealousies and converse as I have told you without suspition and pass Eternity without any difference of opinion or debates and controversies in Religion which now are no small disease and bring no little burden upon our hearts Nay the very actions of Piety many of them will be of a different kind from what they now are unattended with those passions to which we are now moved which make us suffer evil while we do good Here as the forenamed person well observed to me we do good works when we deal our bread to the hungry and receive the distressed stranger and clothe the naked which is a kind of affliction and tribulation which we indure by our sympathy with them to whom we pay our Charity For we find miserable persons on whom to exercise our Mercy and the misery which we see they lye under makes us compassionate that is to suffer with them How much better then shall we be when we shall find no hungry mouth to feed no stranger to entertain no naked body to cast our garments over no sick men to attend no prisoner to visit no tormented person to commiserate no differences to compose no contenders to reconcile but our Love shall be of another sort all joy all pleasure in the good and in the perfect happiness of every one that we behold And if there were nothing else there to entertain us but the comforts of that friendship I told you of and the delights we shall interchange by a constant amity and good will to one another it were sufficient to recommend this life to any wise mans affection and make him willing to forsake this world to go to a place of such endless love and kindness And doth there now need any demonstration that this is a place of great safety and security environ'd on all sides with the power of God against the attempts of all the enemies of our happiness No sure for then we should be in danger of some disturbance If we should conceive indeed any forces could be gathered against it and that it were not impregnable in it self we might easily imagine that so many troops of illustrious friends so many bands of holy Lovers as here inhabit would perform strange things against the most puissant Invaders There is nothing I told you so strong as Love by the force of which in one single person incredible things have been atchieved and therefore much greater would the united power of it appear in so many hosts of noble spirits all inspired with the highest degree of this affection who would do their utmost for the service and safety of one another But yet we need not have recourse to such fancies as these for the assurance of our peace in that blessed place It is impossible that any thing should wound the quiet of such happy souls or make the least breach in any of their enjoyments There cannot be so much interruption given to them as the scratch of a pin among us amounts unto because they are out of the reach of the evil one and placed in such still and calm Regions where nothing breathes but only that love and dear affection for ever Upon which account also it is that there can be no intermission of their injoyments no more than there will be interruption and disturbance It being a full and perfect happiness there will no time pass wherein they will not be happy The dayes there have no nights The life hath no sleep which is but the Image of death There will not be so much diversion there from the proper exercises of that life as meat and drink now creates which are the present support of our infirm bodies Much less will there be any disease or decay of strength or the incumbrance of any of those imployments which ingage so great a part of our time and thoughts Our Love therefore shall never languish or stand in need of any refreshment our charity shall not cool and abate its heat our joy shall not exhaust our spirits and leave us dull by the excess of it as here it sometimes doth But as I said before we shall rather gather strength and grow more apt to receive an increase of joy by the greatness and force of that which we have already received I need but just remember you it being a thing you have heard no doubt an hundred times that this life of theirs is without any death An eternal life as the Holy Books call it where we shall not have so much sadness as the thoughts of its having an end would beget But we shall rejoyce first that we have so much and next of all that we shall never have less and then that we shall still injoy more and above all that what we do enjoy shall live as long as God who is the cause of it that is for ever I believe you are not weary of so delightful a discourse yet lest I should keep you too long from the rest of my Instructions I shall shorten it as much as I can and shut up this description with a meditation of that devoute person who as I told you long ago undertook the Guidance of men to Jerusalem How different saith he is the life of those in that place from that of ours here Here there is falshood there is truth Here is perturbation there is a faithful possession Here is bitterness and hatred there is dilection and eternal love Here is dangerous elation of mind there is secure exultation of spirit Here we are in doubt whether they that love us may not change their thoughts there is perpetual friendship and no possibility of being enemies Here
his goodness which you will feel him pouring out on every side and in one word you will behold so much of the Beauty of Jerusalem it self that you will travel with the better courage thither But that in which I would have you spend the greatest part of those private seasons is in thinking of your own estate and comparing your life with the life of Jesus Let him be your companion when you are alone look stedfastly on his face and observe what resemblance you bear to him Pray him to draw and describe himself more exactly upon your soul and to supply all the lines that are still wanting to render you an accomplished image of him Shew him how desirous you are to be conformed in all your thoughts words desires and actions to that excellent model of perfection which he hath given you in his own example Let him know how much you are in love with him and that you wish for this above all the world to be like to him It cannot be thought that he will deny your desires or let your indeavours want his help for the making you more compleat in him You will come out of these secret places with a greater lustre and issue forth with a greater force and power to follow the steps of your Saviour Your face will be indued with such a brightness and cast such a splendor round about that it will be seen by all that you have been with Jesus Who can express the pleasures that hide themselves in these retreats or tell the contentments that are locked up in those unfrequented closets Do but enter into the first of them that presents it self and there will need nothing more then the sensible delectation which you will find in it to invite you to seek such silent retirements These quiet places are the resemblances of the serene regions above and little models of heaven They are hung round about also with a great many Pictures of Jesus which will ravish your heart and draw it out of your body to snatch it up to himself In one corner you will see him pictured as the Lover of men and in another you will behold him in the greatest abasement and humility that ever was On this side you will see him dealing his Charity to the Poor and on that he will discover himself attending on the sick Here his Meekness there his Patience will be lively represented to your eyes In one place you will find him pouring out his Instructions and in another pouring out his Blood for the Good of men And from every one of these you will receive such touches and feel your heart so wounded that you will never be more inamoured of him then when you and he thus meet alone and he makes this private visit to your Soul There he will open his very heart to you and let you see how much you are in his favour There he will impart to you his consolations and fill you with his Spirit Your mind will there be illuminated your affections inflamed your resolutions strengthned and all your faculties invigorated with a greater chearfulness in obedience to his Will And therefore do not fail as oft as you can to get out of the dust and heat of this World into these close and cool walks which Jesus frequents For though the dews of the Divine grace fall every where yet they lye longest in the shade These sugar'd drops do love most to stay in the solitary places And when you can find no where else this milk of heaven wherewith all things are nourished and refreshed you will be sure to meet with plenty of it in these hidden recesses But then I must remember you That in the greatest most open and full manifestations of the Glory of God upon Jesus he was very private too and cared not for having it published and talkt of abroad in the world When he was transfigured in the Holy mount you read that he went aside privately with a few of his Disciples which may well commend unto you the love of retirement And that brightness also wherewith he was cloathed he commanded to be concealed as a great secret till a a fit season to divulge it which may well teach us to keep to our selves what passes between God and our souls till others may be concerned in it as much as our selves You may refer this perhaps to the Humility of his Spirit but yet I thought good to advise you of it alone because it deserves a particular consideration There is a vanity you may be guilty of if you heed not this of glorying when you come abroad again of the secret communication that you have had with Jesus in the time of your Solitude For I observe it is the Genius of some who profess acquaintance with Him when they feel any delitious joyes exceeding the common sort which perhaps are indulged only in favour of their weakness and intended meerly to cherish their present childish condition to blaze them every where and report them to others without any great occasion for it They think it a piece of Religion to communicate their experiences to the next passenger they meet withall They love that others should know how nobly they are treated and so they lay a double snare one for themselves by the high conceit which they may raise in others of their excellencies and a second for their neighbours by the discouragement they may feel for want of such elevations If your spirit therefore be at any time transported if God shine into your heart very brightly and darken all this world in your eyes by causing his glory to cover you I beseech you cast a cloud about it that no body else may see it unless the good of others make it necessary that it should be revealed Draw a vail over your face when it is so radiant least by shining too brightly upon others it hurt their eyes and the reflection of it prove dangerous to your self As when you are in the World you must not forget to be private with God so when you have been the most with God it is safest to keep it private from the World It may be seasonable here to add that while He maintained this delightful Converse with God for his own benefit his life was most profitable to others Prayer and Meditation did not hinder his labours but they were spurrs to industry and made him more careful to do his work for which he was sent into the world He was not only attent to his own spirit that it might be kept with God but he watcht for advantages of bringing the hearts of others to him Much less did he spend his time in pleasing amusements to think how much he was in the favour of Heaven but he issued out of these delicious thoughts and took as great a pleasure in introducing others into the same favour There was no hour passed but he did some good or other to the world The finishing of
to get a fall HEre the Holy man rested himself again for a little space to see if thâ—â— were ought that his Disciple had a mind to propose who all this while had been in a profound stilness But when he saw that he did nothing but ponder upon what he had spoken and remained so fixed as if he had been chained to his mouth and could not stir from thence he went on in his discourse which he clearly discerned the poor soul most greedily received You look said he as if you were not at all dejected at what I have delivered and perhaps you are the better satisfied because you expect to be entertained with more pleasant news than hitherto hath saluted you But I must deal sincerely with you and ler you know that many of the pleasures in this way that you are to go consist more in beating enemies than in having none in victories and triumphs rather than in not being exposed to dangerous conflicts And therefore be contented to hear that all your enemies will fall into a rage and be filled with madness when they see their stratagems become so unsuccessful And that they may take some revenge for so shameful a disappointment they will procure that you be exceedingly despised and scorned as a very poor wretch and a filly creature They will set the very Boyes and Girls to laugh and hout at you or which is worse they will lay all the false things to your charge that they can devise and throw in your teeth any old fault which you have committed and not only brand you with very disgraceful names but also calumniate you as a man of ill designs But if you will be safe I charge you not to heed these things at all no not if they go about to rob you or proceed to beat you or use you very despitefully and persecute you with as much violence as malice can minister to their fury Remember what I now say unto you as you love your life and contend not with them strive not fiercely against them nor spend so much as a fit of anger upon them Content your self as well as you can with the damage received and pass on quietly as though no hurt had been done lest you involve your self in worse dangers and suffer a far greater harm than they have in their power to do you Carry this only in your mind that to be at Jerusalem in safety with Jesus is a thing that ought to be purchased with far harder usage than all this and then you will not so much as repine at it but be more comforted by your patience than you could have been by remaining free from such afflictions Let this also be added for your support that if they see you are so hardy as not to be at all moved by these affronts but rather well contented with such rude and dirty abuses it will give as great discouragement to them as they hoped thereby to have given you You will grow a very considerable person in their account and they will stand in fear of you as one that is like to hearten many others in this journey from which they labour by so many waies that they may be deterred Which must not be expounded as if their heart would not serve them to trouble you any longer when they see you return all their blows upon themselves for as long as their malice lasts they will not cease to be a vexation to you and to labour to bring you into some new danger Nay it is likely they will from all these disappointments only learn to go to work more craftily and lay all their heads together to contrive some insensible waies of effecting your ruine But as I said before keep in your mind Jesus and Jerusalem and they will give you security and countermine all their plots to undo you As for instance it is possible they will endeavour to sow some differences between you and your fellow-travellers when you meet with any to bear you company They will study to work in you an ill opinion and to make you shy of each other nay to cast such bones of contention among you that you shal grow passionate fall out by the way break company of which separation they will be the more desirous because they know it is so profitable for you in your travels to have the benefit of good companions Now if in this case you do but look upon Jesus though the fire were already kindled it would be instantly extinguished And if Jerusalem do but come into your mind if you do but cast a glance upon that sweet and quiet place it will presently make a calm in your soul which cannot think it likely you should come thither but in the paths of Peace and Love As much as in you lyeth therefore live peaceably with all men and much more with your Brethren and Companions And as one of the Eldest Guides that ever travelled this way hath left us directions let it be ever a principal part of your care to keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace I hope that what I now say together with that disposition which brought you hither to me will render one caution which else should have been here interposed as unnecessary to you as it is needful in it self which is That you enter not into hot disputes and sharp contentions with any man no not about the Opinions in which they pretend Religion is concerned But yet let me pass an Observation or two upon those Contests which seem to exercise so much of some mens zeal and tell you That I do not remember I have been acquainted with any man who was in love with Controversies that much minded the way to Jerusalem or studied to be so able to do the Will of God as to confute and silence the Adversaries that he opposed This wrangling piece of Learning is alwaies wont to leave the most necessary truths that it may pursue those which are are unprofitable and good for nothing Nay it is observed by wis men to be generally accompanied with this base quality that it cannot exercise the Understanding without provoking the passions nor speak of Moderation it self without distemper nor treat of peace and quietness without putting the soul into disorder And therefore I could never discern that such Disputers have any great faculty of descrying the Truth about which they contend but make that a matter of great difficulty and perplexity which the peaceable people and they who are free from passion and prejudice do eafily discover And here I shall not stick to refresh your mind a little with the pleasure of a Story or Parable which I have somewhere met withall out of Anselme a man of no mean esteem in the times wherein he lived There were two men saith he who a little before the Sun was up fell into a very earnest debate concerning that part of the Heavens wherein that Glorious body was
saying Alas poor Soul in what a vain and idle labour hast thou ingaged thy self what meanest thou thus to strain thy wings in aspiring to that which no creature on earth can reach Dost thou think to be like the Son of God To wish to be so good is the highest perfection of humane weakness But to go about it is only to make a more large discovery of that natural frailty It is a pattern too illustrious for thee to look upon much more to follow It belongs not to meer men to be such great undertakers Thou mayst as well think to work miracles as design to imitate his Vertues It lyes not within the compass of flesh and blood to become so spiritual and divine And if thou hadst not already forgotten thy falls thou couldst not dream of raising thy self to so high a pitch Can any heart put up such affronts with patience as thou meetest withall Who can indure such abstinence or exercise such Charity or practise such Meekness as thou seest in Jesus Sit down vain man and comfort thy self in this that He hath done so worthily It is enough to praise and extol such perfections but it is too much to arrive at them There is no man in his wits would trouble himself about a business though he apprehend his obligations never so great that press him to it when he hath so good an excuse as this at hand that is not possible to be effected I cannot stay to tell you the long speeches that they will detain you withall in this Argument Only you may know that there is no Theme more easie and plausible than this wherein to dilate themselves and therefore you may expect a world of specious reasons to induce you to believe that no man can obey the Commands of Christ or follow his great Example Which perswasion if they can by any means instill into your soul I must assure you before-hand that it will prove the most dangerous temptation that ever made an assault upon you It will cut as I may so speak the very sinews of your spirit and cramp your soul so that you will never be able to travel to Jerusalem This infusion will not only discourage you but perfectly benum you and make you languish in a perpetual lethargy The opinion of Necessity doth not more quicken and excite us than that of Impossibility doth deaden and dis-spirit us in any undertaking And therefore now if ever you must run as fast as you can to the extract which I gave you You must take a good draught of those enlivening spirits which I commended and are inclosed in that sentence which you must carry along with you You must repeat it again and again I desire nothing but Jesus nothing but Jesus He hath filled my soul with a purpose to go to him He hath inspired me with strong resolutions to follow after him And sure He will not fail to be my help my strength and my salvation And here let me beseech you to consider diligently before-hand that they are his own words to his Disciples just before he left the world Joh. 13.15 I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you And how that one of those persons hath also told us That he left us an example that we should follow his steps 1 Pet. 3.21 To what end I pray you did He give us that which we cannot take What are we the better for the Copy which he hath left if it be such as we cannot transcribe Did he intend to brave us rather than instruct us by his actions Were they meant to upbraid out imbecillity and not to inspire us with courage and strength Instead of provoking our spirits were they only designed to make our ambition despair And when he should have awakned our diligence did he only come to astonish us with wonders and cast our souls into a stupifying admiration These are base and leud supposals of which the ancient Pilgrims did never so much as dream They thought they saw in him what mortal men by the Grace of God might hope to attain They lookt upon him as the advancer of humane Nature not only in his own person but also in all those who would undertake to follow him They were incouraged and inflamed by beholding him to imitate his heavenly life and by his Grace have left us themselves as instances and examples of that excellent virtue which Believers on Jesus may come unto They imitated him so happily that they themselves are become Originals They cry out aloud unto us that we should be followers of them as they were of Christ 1 Cor 11.1 And must we now stand only gazing upon them and spend our time in commending the Piety of ancient dayes Must we think that those were priviledged Ages which were attended with such a Grace that doth not descend upon future successions Did the favours of Heaven dye with those great souls Must wee seek for Christians only under their ruines and in their Monuments Must we adore their reliques in Books and please our selves in Idaeas and Patterns of things which we cannot imitate Is it enough that we live in a profound sleep if it be but interrupted sometimes with pleasant visions Do they speak only to the first-born children of Christ when they say Brethren Phil. 3.13 be followers together of us and mark them which walk so as you have us for an ensample Was it the priviledge of their birth-right to be so good and must we be contented to remain bad Are we such puisnees that must expect no portion of Divine Grace Eph 5.1 or think of being followers of God as dear Children of his For the Love of God let us not think that his treasures are exhausted or that he is weary of his first munificence His arm is no shorter than it was nor are his hands less open He is still willing to dispense his largesses and to make us know that they did not end with those Ages Let us rouze up our selves therefore and not lose the benefits of Heaven by thinking we cannot have them Let us not impute to it such an unkindness of giving us so high an example that it might oblige us to an unprofitable trouble These are the old subtilties of the Serpent which the Heathen Divines have detected as well as we The Philosophers themselves were haunted with these clamours and the people rang this continually in their ears it is impossible to follow such examples as you propose But they set themselves stoutly against this sluggisness They pursued mens souls that made these excuses and ferretted them out of such pretenses wherein they sought to borrow and to make a Sanctuary for their laziness You imagine saith one of them that those things cannot be done which you do not You will needs have them far to surmount the nature of man because you will not be at the pains to acquire them How
things more evident in any man except it was in another of the same sort who came to cheat us as a neighbour of mine said in the shape of an Angel of light This Person after a great many godly expressions whereby it is like he deceived himself into an opinion of his Saintship fell into a kind of Christian compassion and seemed to have his Bowels yerning over his Teacher saying Alas poor man my soul is grieved for him He is so weak and unquallified for the work he hath undertaken He is utterly void of the Spirit and understands not the workings of it in the hearts of Gods people I can never think of him but it pitties me to see how much he is in the dark a stranger to the power of Godliness and the mysteries of the Covenant of Grace Poor Soul who puts us upon doing and they say is careful of that himself but knows not what it is to believe Is it not a great happiness Sir that we have the teachings of the Spirit and that the vail is taken from our eyes which still hangs before the men of the World Hath not Christ done much for us who hath made us wiser then our Teachers I could not for my heart but here interrupt him knowing that the person whom he thus undervalued was a true lover of our Saviour and excellently skill'd in his Religion or else I think we should have heard as much in his own praise as we had in the others discommendation But the truth is I never heard any thing so fulsome from the mouth of man and found my self far more impatient of such filthy stuff than he could be of the Sermons at which he expressed so great dislike And to say nothing at all of the man I cannot but think that this Spirit is the very First-born of the Devil the eldest of all the daughters of Pride the Prince of Darkness in the garments of Light the dregs of Christian Pharisaism which now as much despises Christs Ministers as the Jewish did Christ and his Apostles God I hope will never suffer you to suck in this poison of the Serpent nor lick up this vomit of the old Scribes and Pharisees I discern me-thinks that you are as far from it as they were from the Kingdom of Heaven or else I should bestow more time upon you to season you against this leaven which will sowre the whole lump of your Religion and render it as offensive to God as it self is to all sober Christians But I need not have said so much I must suppose you as empty of all humanity as this disposition is of Christianity as far from Reason as it is from the Spirit of God or else hope that this Spiritual Pride this devout Devil shall never possess you For what is it but madness even in the opinion of those men for one that was never bred in the mysteries of that profession to come into an Apothecaries shop and there to condemn all his Drugs and Medicines for rotten and corrupt to spit upon his compositions and offer to throw them all out of doors as fit to be mingled with the dirt And yet there is not more sense in the humour of those persons that use the Sermons they hear after that fashion which evidently proves that they deserve not the name of Sober much less of Wise and understanding Christians Though the matter of such discourses have been long considered and duly weighed and diligently composed out of the Word of God yet these men who do not ponder them so many Minutes as their Instructers do dayes and have no more skill in those matters then in their neighbours trades which they never professed reject them at first hearing bespatter them with their ignorant censures and as if they were in a frantick fit cast them out as they would fain do their Authors like unsavoury salt that is good for nothing but to be troden under feet It will seem a wonder perhaps unto you that such men as these should esteem themselves Religious How is it possible will you be ready to say that such a notorious want of Modesty and Humility of Spirit should not make them suspect their want of true Christianity I know indeed that nothing is more confident then Ignorant heat but I marvel that in their cool moods they do not accuse themselves at least of rashenss and inconsiderate zeal And truly I should stand amazed at it too did I not know that there is such a fair counterfeit of Religion in the World that not only deceives others but those also in whom it is You behold every day many Images which have all the outward parts and proportions of men to whose similitude they are exactly formed And perhaps you have heard of a Statue that walked and that spoke also wherein the Artist indeavoured to express the motions of inward life Which may serve as a resemblance to you of such an Artificial Religion that not only the outside and the garb of Piety is represented by it but there is an imitation also of the inward motions of the soul in such affections of fear and love and joy as are in truly Religious hearts Do not think it strange nor wonder at this which I now tell you for it is a very great truth which I thought not safe to conceal from you And if you will have so much patience I will discover to you the trick of it and show you by what mechanical powers this liveless Engine for it is no better is stirred and acted in the wayes of God You know the force that Colours and Sounds and other such material Objects have upon our senses and how they excite a great many motions in our animal spirits without asking our leave or staying for our consent You cannot be ignorant neither that these motions are in the soul it self which hath resentments according to the quality of those objects that it is impressed withall And again you cannot but perceive by my discourse with you that the figures and images of things may be raised in your fancy by that means as well as conveighed by the doors of sense Suppose then that the beauty and loveliness of Christ were described to a company of men in very fresh colours and fair lineaments That he was painted before their imagination by some sweet-ton'd Orator as white and ruddy the chiefest often thousand That this speech of him should be trim'd with nothing but gems and pretious stones rayes and glories odors and perfumes crowns and diadems wherewith he saith this Prince of Glory and Woer of Souls is perpetually adorned And then he should tell them that his heart stands open to them that he intends to lay them in his very bosome that he would fain embrace them in his arms and will wash them in his blood make them amiable and fair as well as himself put upon them the robes of his righteousness cover with his glorious garments to hide
hath deputed those who are in need to receive from us that which is due to him and imploy it to their own uses He hath communicated as I may say all his claim to them and bids them demand in his Name that which we cannot give much less forgive to him So that you exercise Justice and Charity both together when you do good to your Neighbour and there is a double Charity in it also one to Him and another to them They have good done them upon his account and he takes it so much as done to himself that he acknowledges an obligation and binds himself to pay us again Nay let me tell you that there is nothing in all the world can render you so divine and heavenly as to do much good This puts us in the place of God to our poor Brethren to whom he sends relief and help by our hands Is not this a very high honour And is not that a very noble quality which so differences us from all others that it makes us like to the Most High The Mechanical Christian will here find himself to be dead and void of God it being nothing but a Spirit of Life and that very Divine too which will carry us out of our selves and fill us with perpetual ardors of Love to others and instigate us to be doing of good to all This is the very Character of the Deity for God is Love and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him And therefore if you covet to excel all others study to be indued with the most profitable Gifts as the great Apostle adviseth and yet saith he I shew you a more excellent way and that is Charity For this causes us to make use of all those Gifts for the benefit of Mankind This is the rarest way of excelling others because it makes us excell our selves and likens us to God The Angels you know had the ambition of being like to God in Power and Majesty aspiring as is conceived to the Throne of the Most High Our first Parents were soon infected with the like vanity and they rubbed their Leprosie upon them for they affected to resemble God in wisdom and knowledge But by this means you know that both of them lost what they enjoyed instead of adding more unto it What must we do then who see their falls must we be content not to be like to our Creator Not so neither but we must indeavour to imitate him in Love and Goodness in which there is no danger This admits of no excess as wise men observe but only of error We cannot love too much though we may be imprudent in the communications of it Though Angels and Men suffered so much by the desire of other things in excess yet in Charity there can be none nor shall either of them suffer any damage by it And therefore it was that God sent his Son Jesus into the world that by looking on him we may know how to become Divine All his acts of power were acts of Love All his Miracles were Mercies to men He never imployed his Might but to do benefits To teach us that they are truly great who are little in themselves as he was and great in Charity That they are indued with most power who can do most good and that they are nearest to God and most highly exalted who are nearest to their neighbours and most deeply humbled You know that if a Circle be made and you draw lines from the circumference to the middle point or Center where they all meet the further these lines are in any place one from the other the farther they are from the Center and the nearer they come to that the nearer also and the clofer their approaches are to each other This may be a resemblance if you please of our condition here in this World where we are all in our way to God the Center of our Rest and travelling to Jerusalem where we hope to meet in him We are desirous now to draw as nigh to him as we can and many fancy that their musings meditations and prayers are the chiefest if not the only things that bring them near unto him But as I have told you heretofore so let me now repeat it again That God and our Brethren are so inseperable that we cannot touch the one but we must be joyned to the other also The further any of us is removed from his neighbour as you see in that similitude at the greater distance he is from God He cannot go away from the former but he goes away in the same proportions from the latter too And the nearer and closer he is joyned in the affection of Charity to his neighbour the nearer he is unto God the more doth he approach to his excellencies and to an union with him If you will be a follower of God then as a dear child of his Walk in love You cannot chuse sure to do otherwise when you have so glorious a pattern before you It is an honourable thing now you see to love since God himself is become a Lover You may have imagined perhaps that some offices of Charity are ignoble and disparage a person of honour As most men of condition think it below them to go into a poor mans house to come near the stinking wounds and the dirty beds of the meaner sort and there are very few who do not account it a sneaking quality to put up injuries and pass by affronts But you cannot be of this mind if you look upon God who by loving us hath also taught us how honourable and glorious all these things are They are not below us since they are not below himself There is no man so much our inferiour as we are all beneath Him And yet he condescended to them He comes and dwells in this perishing flesh of ours He despises not our poor cottages he dresses our wounds he takes care of our sores he heals our sicknesses he passes by our transgressions yea he prayes us to be friends and intreats us to be reconciled And that is a thing which men think to be so poor and mean that no great spirit can indure to submit unto it To go to others who have offended us and beseech them to lay aside their enmity is thought to savour of baseness and to be an argument of a low and cowardly mind But God will give us leave to think so no longer He hath shown us that it is the effect of a most generous and noble disposition and so far from being a blemish to us that we should glory in it to be the first in making peace and offering terms of reconciliation Others may think to give proofs of their gallantry by standing in defiance to all those who will not submit themselves and lye at their feet yea by trampling on them who shall in the least offend them but God teaches us by his own example that there is no greater height of
to follow their Vertues But I may rather wonder with what face men can speak against those who neglect the observance of these Dayes when they themselves are the chiefest cause of it or the best colour for it They dishonour all holy rites and bring a reproach upon holy times and if it had not been for such as them those dayes might have been in more credit even with those who now despise them What do we see say those scrupulous persons but riot and luxury at such seasons All places are full of vomit and men seem to be celebrating the Feast of Ceres and Bacchus i. e. of Bread and Wine of some heathenish drunken belly-god They fancy there is no restraint layd upon their appetite if they do but strictly forbear their ordinary labours They are like some bad Christians in the old times who made no doubt of being drunk so they did but take off their cups as they sate on the Martyrs Tombs It is easie indeed for these objectors to see something else They might behold some devout people who frequent the Worship of God and rejoyce most in remembring their Saviour and his great Grace in sending those that Preached the Gospel to the World But the number of the other are so great who never regard such things that by looking on them they are tempted to take no notice of all the rest The Taverns are fuller by far then our Churches and the Theatre is more frequented then the House of God And therefore it is for such as you to set your selves a work to take away this objection which they will not take away themselves Do you satisfie them that these dayes are no necessary cause of doing evil by your own example of doing good Leave their Argument no force at all for it is in your power to do it and let them see that the marriage between these Festivals and Profaneness is not so legitimate but they may be divorced Deprive them of this colour and leave their peevishness so naked that it may be exposed to the view of all Or if they have taken a real offence remove it out of their way and let all that they alledg have a full confutation in your holy life Answer them by your behaviour that there is no need to take away these dayes for you can take away all the wickedness and leave them still remaining Let them see that you can rest from your labours and yet not spend your whole time in sport and play Let them find the Bible or some good book in your hand oftner then they do the Cards Let your Spirit rejoyce in God your Saviour more then your body doth in meat and drink Feed your soul upon the Heavenly mysteries of our Religion and do not live as if the Saints were only good Purveyors for our Kitchins So will you both bring these dayes into esteem with others and your self into greater favour with God And I beseech you desire all you know that they would not sleight such admonitions as these I give you But that for the Honour of our Lord for the credit of his Church who hath appointed these solemnities for the love of their own souls who are intended to receive the benefit of them they would behave themselves soberly and religiously at such seasons That so the Church may not be forced to do with these as it hath done with the Feasts of Love and other rites used by the Apostles themselves i. e. abolish and banish them because of mens obstinate abuse of them For it is a very absurd thing as one of the ancient Guides saith to study to honour the Martyrs with too much fulness who we know pleased God by fasting and abstinence It is a prosperous way of doing honour to our Saviour by pampering and pleasing our selves who it is known did honour his Father by denying himself and despising all the pleasures of the flesh Therefore exhort every one to feast themselves with an holy fear Let them make Feasts of Charity and doing good to their poor neighbours Let them be Feasts of Love to make us friends one with another Feasts of the Spirit to put us in mind of the joyes of the Lord and the eternal Supper of the Lamb. And now I think I may have leave to conclude my directions having put you into the hands of better Guides then my self the sum whereof is briefly this Let your principal design ever be to knit your heart to the Love of Jesus and the ardent desire of being with him at Jerusalem Let this be your great business to set your Soul directly towards the place where he is and to stir up in it such longings as these O that I were with Jesus when shall I come to Jesus And since he is the Way to himself there is nothing more needful for the accomplishing your desire then to propose him before your eyes for your imitation As for Prayer Meditation and such like things they are to be designed to this end that your Love to him may be inflamed your Desire after him increased and your Resolution of doing his will and treading in his steps be made unmoveable Whatsoever therefore you find proper to advance that Love that Desire that Resolution be it Praying or Reading Discoursing or Solitude Walking or Reposing your self Visiting of others or Keeping at home make use of it for the time that your Soul rellishes it and as long as it quickens your Desire and indeavour of enjoying the love of Jesus and the blessed sight of him at Jerusalem But when any of these shall prove irksome to you be not troubled at it but try for that time some of the rest which may be then more useful because more pleasant to you And when any of those Enemies I have mentioned shall disturb your peace beat them off as soon as you can but be not troubled because they do not presently yield provided you do not yield to them neither And if after a Victory they rally in the same manner again be not affrighted at that neither as if now they had greater courage but endeavour only to beat them as before and by obtaining a new Victory to show that it is your courage which is increased And do not think you shall be in danger to lose the Victory over them if you suffer your Bow sometimes to be unbent Do not think a Pilgrim must be so severe as never to recreate himself in the way he goes By perpetual Watchings and labours your enemies may undo you as well as by any other means Take but heed that you fall not into their Quarters when you divert your self and let but your pleasures still lye in your way and you need not fear to make use of them Remember the Example of the Saints of God and stir up your self to imitate their zeal and their discretion both together And rest assured my Friend that this good Desire thus cherished thus augmented and
was alwayes assaulted with some Monster or other and God would not suffer his own child as one of them speaks to be nursed up in idleness and the delicacies of life No he fought with Lyons and Boars and Serpents and Tyrants and Theeves and he was appointed to travel into strange lands to cross dangerous seas and to go through terrible wildernesses and deserts And all to testifie the favour of Heaven to him that would thus imploy him No doubt his Father could have freed him from such conflicts but he would not because as they render the reason it is not lawful for him to will any thing but that which is best and most excellent Or he might have freed himself and perhaps some men would have advised him to flee these dangers and rather to quit his place then expose his life to so many hazzards But they knew not the pleasure which he found in his heart when he remembred that he was thought worthy by God to be singled out to be his Champion and that Heaven had not an ill opinion of him nor judged him a weak and effeminate person It was a strange contentment also to imagine that all these dangers presented themselves only that he might overcome them and he felt that there was not half so much pains in fighting as there was pleasure in the very hopes of having the Victory Nay if he had perished in the encounter so he had carried Victory out of the World with him he would have thought himself crowned with an high satisfaction He would have thought that he dyed more happily then Cowards live and that it was more glorious thus to end his dayes then to spin them out basely to the longest Age. Besides herein there being so considerable a proof of the sincerity and fidelity of such persons unto God it cannot but please them very much to reflect upon it It yields them a great joy to remember that they have his approbation and that after many fiery tryals he finds that they are not indued with a counterfeit Vertue Nay it is some joy to think that their enemies judge them so considerable as to raise such mighty forces against them and fight so many battels with them They assure them hereby that they are more in their account than they could wish And that power which gave them a shock but could not shake them doth demonstrate the solidity of their souls and the great strength they have to resist such forcible impressions I do not know whether it be a tale or no but I have been told that among other wayes the Queen of Sheba tryed the wisdom of Solomon by offering certain Boys and Girles to be distinguisht one from the other by him when they were put into the very same garb and had been taught the same gestures and carriage of their bodies And that he calling for some cold water commanded them all to wash themselves Into which the youths plunging their hands boldly and then rubbing their faces very hard and the others tenderly dipping their fingers and only sleaking their faces over with it he soon discerned the difference and separated them according to their sexes Hardships will make a true proof of the strength and masculine force of our spirits Prosperity as a wise man of later times observes doth best discover Vice and Adversity makes the best discovery of Vertue And as the one is not without many fears and distasts so the other is not without its hopes and comforts of which this is not the least that God thinks us worthy to be the men in whom he would make an Experiment what Christian souls are able to suffer The Vertue of Prosperity is Temperance and the Vertue of Adversity is Fortitude which in the account of all the world is the more Heroical of the two and yields the greatest Triumphs Nay He fears not to say that Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament and Adversity is the blessing of the New which carries the greater benediction and the clearer revelation of Gods favour And therefore do not take that ill which to such a man as you is a mark of the Divine Love Be not unwilling that God should do you an honour and bestow upon you a blessing Let him have the pleasure of seeing you behave your self gallantly Deny him not that spectacle which is not to be had in Heaven and for which he manifested himself in flesh Let it not repent him of his choice if he pick out you for some notable Combate The General appoints the stoutest men for the hardest services And they do not say He bears an ill will to us and owes us a spite but he hath an high opinion of us and intends to do us credit Do you now issue forth with an heart full of the same thoughts and take my word you shall never want the noblest pleasures You will thank God for placing you in the foremost rank of Christian Souldiers You will praise him for esteeming a poor Pilgrim capable of such atchievements You will rejoyce to see your self herein preferred before the Angels For if they can do more than you yet you can suffer more than they Nay you will find your self in the fellowship of the Son of God who was never so glorious as when he hung upon the Cross never triumphed so much as when he seemed to be trampled under feet and then spoiled principalities and powers when he was robb'd of all and lost even life it self CAP. XXV How the Pilgrim and his Guide parted And with what a brave Resolution he began his Journey WHen the Good Father for so we will hereafter call him had said those words with some other to the same effect he told him that now he thought it would be an injurious act to hinder him any longer by his discourses from going to prove the truth of what had been said If I am a Mercury continued he with a little smile as you have been pleased to fancy I may have leave to make use of my wings and fly away There remains nothing now to be done but that which I cannot do for you and the greatest courtesie that is left in my power is to keep you no longer from doing it your self Whereupon after he had exhorted him briefly to be strong in the Grace of Jesus Christ and to endure hardship as a good Souldier of his He bade him heartily farewel and put himself into a posture of departing But the Pilgrim being sorely afflicted within himself at this news suddenly caught hold of his Garment which gently moved towards him as he turned about and in a contest between joy and grief uttered these words as well as those passions would give him leave Let me intreat you Dear Sir to prolong your patience so far as before you go away to receive my thanks for the good Directions you have furnished me withall and to give your Blessing likewise upon a poor heart that is resolved
his way of the smoothness of which notwithstanding all that had been said he too much presumed and made him watchful because he saw he could not pass without some enemies So it gave him some degree of courage because he perceived they might be overcome and confirm'd his belief of the Wisdom of his Director who foretold these troubles and gave a proof withall of the efficacy of that Remedy which he had prescribed and above all revived that Joy and gladness in his heart which he thought began to languish and faint away Full of joy he was even to an excess and he suffered by it a kind of transportation partly from the brightness of the Truths he had received which yet were fresh in his mind partly from the increase of his understanding by the experiment which he had made but chiefly I think from the Victory which he had obtained over those enemies that attacqued his Soul For in truth there is no greater Triumph then that which the Soul feels when it comes off a Conquerour and applauds it self for the Valour and Courage which it hath expressed in its conflicts There was another thing indeed which added something though not much to his joy viz. that ded something though not much to his joy viz. that his enemies he hoped had received such a foil that he had sent them away discouraged if not disabled from making any further attempts upon him But so mutable is our condition here and so many are our enemies that he had not travelled many dayes after this Triumph before he was arrested with a new trouble to exercise his Wisdom and Patience His soul which just now was ready to leap out of his body he felt to sink so low that it was as if he had no soul at all His spirits not only began to flagg and hang down their heads but were grown quite faint and weary as if they meant to swoon away Which was partly occasioned by his going too fast and taking over-long Journeys and partly by a very hot day when the Sun beat very strongly upon his head and partly by the very violence of his joyes which stirred his spirits so much that in the agitation they flew away and partly by letting slip two or three of those Instructions which had been left with him which should have been a Cordial to him but were as impossible he found to be by any means recalled as it was to bring back his tyred spirits which were flown from him Very melancholly and sad he now began to be and the more because he had been so joyful O how desolate said he within himself is this place into which I am faln I am forsaken sure of God or else I that was so high yesterday should never have sunk into this pit which is next door to the dwelling of damned spirits Was ever any man in such a deplorable estate Was there ever any bereaved thus of all his comforts which should sweeten his way when he hath no other company Oh Who will restore unto me the dayes that are past Who can call back but the joyes of yesterday into my bosome What are those sins that have cast me into the displeasure of my Lord Or What shall I do to regain his favour which I would purchase at any rate though I dyed the next moment Thus he lay many dayes sometimes bewailing his former affrightment which he suspected might deserve this desertion as he was apt to call it sometimes complaining that he could not find the cause and so could not be cured sometimes reflecting on the times of joy which were gone and sometimes taking a view of his misery which made him but the more deeply miserable And which was worst of all he kept his bed all this time and stirred not a foot in his Journey being indeed so ill that he despaired of life But see how the Providence of God watches for an opportune season to do us a kindness When he was in the greatest torture that he had felt all the time of this Agony there came an unexpected Letter to his hands from his beloved Father which was to this effect My friend for so I cannot but call you since you express such love to me These are to let you know that though I am absent from you yet I follow you with my thoughts and good wishes which attend you in all your motions I am so far from being forgetful of my promise that I am much better I assure you than my word You desired me to pray for you and so I do But I cannot content my self with that unless you as well as God know that I have a remembrance of you That is the very reason of my sending this Paper after you that it may be a token how regardful I am of your concerns and sollicitous about your welfare So sollicitous that having enjoyed some good thoughts this morning I could not but impart them unto you because I fancied they would prove upon some occasion or other very useful to you They are a Meditation upon one of the Fsalms of David where he bids his Soul not to be disquieted but to hope in God as the health of his countenance and his God and they are infolded in a distinct Paper within the bosome of this Letter because they were too long to be inserted in the body of it Farewell Upon the very first receipt of this Letter before he had broke it up his pale cheeks began to be streaked with a little blood as a prognostick of his recovery to health again But when he opened it and read the kind expressions of the Love of his Friend one might see how the spirits crept up as he went along out of the Center whither they were retired In so much that the light danced in his eyes yea leaped out as if it meant to kiss those lines which now saluted them But then as soon as he arrived at the Meditation it self and had carefully perused all the parts of it his face shined like an Angel and one would have thought he had not been the man that was so lately dejected For it was so pat to his present condition and so exactly suted to the necessities under which he laboured that it seemed as if it had been indicted by God and not by his Friend There he found a discourse of the Nature of Joy of the causes of its decay of the Interess that our Animal Spirits have in it of the way to recover it and the means to be content without it and above all of the Resignation of our selves to the Will of God to serve him chearfully without those sensible pleasures as well as in their company And not to name other things which were more fully debated between them afterward these now rehearsed were so fully opened that he was partly amazed and partly elevated to the height of his Joyes again when he thought that God had put it into the heart
there is no small satisfaction unless it be no pleasure to be united to his Will which is inseparably united to the highest pleasures You must give me leave to wonder a little that you should be so forgetful And I must tell you it was very mis becoming your condition to take it ill that you were not treated ever since I left you according to your own desires Might it not have satisfied your mind to find your self in the direct way to abiding and never-fading Joyes Could you not have thought it Happiness enough to look for perfect peace and repose at last in Jerusalem Nay might it not seem very reasonable for a sinner to submit to so small a punishment if you will have it so termed as to travel sometimes in a rainy day What arrogance is this that we who have so oft offended should take offence if we be remembred of it But that which seems more strange to me than any thing else is that after you had resigned your self to your Saviours Will in this particular you should fall into the same trouble if not fault again You have tought me this by it that I must expect to find my Patients sometimes afflicted with the same disease which I had cured and persecuted with the same scruples which they themselves had satisfied For else you that travelled thorow a sandy and barren desart once before would not have been so dejected at the sight of a new one and when you could find no water in it you would have refreshed your thoughts as you were wont to do with the remembrance of Jerusalem But that I may never find you cast upon your Bed by a relapse into this sickness any more let me give you a larger account of these Joyes the want of which hath been so grievous to you I remember once that I met with a man that thought he wanted not above two or three steps of the Gate of Jerusalem though afterward I much questioned whether he knew any thing of the place yea that imagined himself now and then to be caught up into Paradise He was Angelical in his discourse and more than Angelical in his own conceit for he spoke of nothing but Extasies and Raptures and such like things that are by some men much exalted above the trifles as they esteem them of Obedience I endeavoured to learn of him what might be the ground of such an high confidence of his nearness to God and all that he was able to tell me amounted to no more but this that he was so full of Joy that his soul was ready to burst its prison and escape to Heaven Now though you are not of this Enthusiastical temper yet perhaps you think there are no finer or more desirable things than these Joyes for Heaven to bestow upon you judging of their worth and the divineness of them by the delight wherewith they entertain you But I must teach you another Lesson and instruct you to set a price upon them by another measure and that is The good they make you do If these Joyes do not spur you to Obedience and make you fruitful in every good work they are not of such value as you imagine and if in the absence of them you mind your duty and do the Will of God it is as well if not better because you do the same that you did before only you have less encouragement to do it Nay more than this I must let you know that these are things which God bestows upon the most imperfect souls who are as yet not able to go but only to creep in the way to Heaven They are the sweet Milk which he sends us out of his breasts when we are as yet but Babes and in the infancy of Religion He consults our weakness in these gifts and considers that as a child while it wants teeth and strength to feed it self must be nourished with Milk so the Soul till it be able to understand the Gospel and feed upon the solid Truths thereof must be entertained a while with this thinner dyet which is most agreeable to its affectionate part And withall he provides hereby that the heart which hath left the pleasures of the world may not be discouraged at the first entrance into his wayes for want of some other pleasures which it cannot well be without because it hath been so long used to them and which it cannot yet find in Religion it self because that is a thing of which it hath but a very childish understanding And can you think now that God is not good to such a person as you who have been so long a servant to him You see he is so far from letting grown souls be without comfort that it is a thing he doth not deny to the most puling creatures and those who are but Novices in the Spiritual Life Or Do you think that he loves those best to whom he grants this kind of Consolation I might as well imagine that the Gardner which I passed by the other day in my Travels loved the young Plants best which brought him no profit because I observed him to water and fence and underprop those tender things whilst he exercised no such care about the well-grown Trees which used to load themselves and him every year with their fruit Alas it is their weakness that requires this attendance upon them and God powres these things upon imperfect souls when others have none of them not because he loves them more but because they have more need So you remember your Mother used to deal with your little Infant Sister to swaddle her and dandle her and kiss her and sing to her and find out a thousand little toyes to please her when you were left to dress your self and study better satisfactions which yielded you the more pleasure because you contributed something by your own labour to the finding of them For the Love of God let us not accuse him in this fashion of unkindness nor fancy that he frowns and scouls upon us because we have not those smiles with which in our feeble age he was wont to look upon us and cherish us You are past these things and want nothing but this understanding to make you a grown man in Christ Jesus But consider I beseech you do you not feel him do far better things for you than all the Joyes that ever you had amount unto He feeds you perhaps with harder meat than Milk but it gives you more nourishment and greater strength with more spirit and vivacity also if heartily imbraced Do you not understand more by a thousand parts than formerly you did Are you not able with greater constancy to beat off all Temptations of the flesh and the world Have you not your passions in a better command And are not your Faith and Hope more rational things so that you are able to render to any body an intelligent account of them Be contented then for what greater thing
might be so greedy of these things as to mind them more than their duty and for that cause it is best to take them away that they may be sensible there are other matters of greater moment and necessity But if none of these dangers should be supposed will we not give God leave to exercise our Faith and Love and make a tryal of the sincerity and strength of those Graces in what way he pleases He would know perchance whether we will build our confidence upon himself and upon his Promises rather than on sense and whether we will follow after him upon the same account though we have no present sensible attractive And who can take it ill that he makes such a proof of us seeing we do it every day our selves to others whose friendship we value not if they court us only when we are bestowing gifts and benefits upon them But if you think that this deprivation of Joy is a punishment for some fault which you have committed and that it is a token he hath sent you a bill of divorce and separated you from him you are much to blame in suffering your Soul to make such a rash conclusion Perhaps you have deserved to be chid for some fault but will you presently fancy that your Father intends to disinherit you Is it his manner to forsake and run away from us when we chance to stumble and not rather to come and lift us up and bid us take more heed to our selves I never thought he loved us so little and me thinks it ill comports with the notion of a Father to represent him so severe It is very necessary indeed that you should weigh your faults and confess them sorrowfully and mend them speedily but I can never think it is pleasing to him that you should be so dismaid at them and afflicted for them as to imagine he will cast you off and never look upon you more No I believe rather he esteems this a greater dis-service to him then the very fault it self because it keeps us from mending what is amiss and makes us so feeble that we are apt to offend in some kind or other again To say nothing of the dishonour it is to his Goodness and the great scandal it gives to others who will be loath to enter into the service of that Master whom they think it impossible to please But then if under the pretence of humbling your self you shall make a sin that is no bigger than a grain of Mustard-seed as great as an Elephant I beseech you what service do you therein do your Lord And yet this stone many are apt to stumble at and that so oft that in time they fancy a great sin there where indeed one can find none at all Do you think our Saviour will conne you any thanks for aggravating your offences to this heigth or accusing your self when there is no guilt Is there nothing for him to pardon unless you make some faults or bring him a great mountain to cover and hide with his love Let me tell you my dear Brother that this is a part of your mistakes and a cause that you and Joy are no better acquainted You imagine that you have done Nothing and complain of such dulness as if you had stood still ever since I saw you when as you have made a very fair progress and in some things you see have overtaken my self And then on the contrary you groan under the sense of an heavy guilt when as you did but neglect a Free-will offering and was kept from a duty to which you had then no tye but what you received from your own hands You are apt I see to overwork your soul and to impose too great burdens upon its back Which when you are not so well able to bear as sometimes you find your self you are apt to think it a great fault if you take some ease when as in truth it is your duty then to omit those tasks you have injoyn'd your self that you may not neglect those duties which are required by our Saviour Come come my friend if these things be all that trouble you my life for yours you shall do well enough Let but my advice be followed though at first it should be with unwillingness and take my word you shall fare the better for it in your after-course And first I must not have you lay more loads upon your self then Christ hath done nor oblige your self without the liberty of a dispensation to so many hours of Prayer and Reading every day Let it suffice to do what you can all other things being duly considered that require your attendance Next I must forbid you to make so much haste to perfection A soft pace goes far Do not tire your spirits by your speed but go on so fairly and leisurely that you may hold out And then likewise let me not hear any more that you exhaust your natural strength and weary your very body with much Fasting unseasonable abstinence long prayers or such like things which had better be let alone than procure so much mischief as I have seen them do And remember I beseech you that Lesson which I think was taught you before this journey That you bind not your self alwayes to one way of Prayer or Meditation nor confine your soul to one exercise only at the hours of retirement but chuse that which shall like you best and wherein you can proceed with the greatest freedom and delight Besides I perceive you have forgot another of my Lessons which was to make use of some innocent Recreations and harmless pastimes as you went along And therefore what I did but then advise let me now enjoyn that you give your self sometimes a little divertisement from more serious employments And truly if you should say as I know some do that it is not for want of these Joyes that you complain but because you can neither understand nor tast the goodness of Divine truths this last advice is one of the most useful that I can give you for the remedying of that melancholly dulness All that I shall add is only this that you would have patience and you shall see the good temper wherein you were return of it self as it went away without your consent Indeed said the Pilgrim who all this time had been very silent I am very sensible that I have lost a great many of your good counsels or else I should not have been so bad as here you find me And I take it for a singular favour that Jesus hath done me in sending you again thither to rub up my memory and to fasten those things in my mind which hung there too loose before I must not forget likewise to acknowledge my new obligations to you from whom I have now received not only so large but so plain and familiar an answer to my doubt And truly you do very prudently and charitably to lay your commands upon me to
be more observant of your words hereafter for if I should not preserve them I see I am lost my self and that in their safety is my security Here the good Father perceiving he had given him some satisfaction could not but interrupt his speech and being filled with pitty and love and joy and wonderment altogether burst out into these expressions of them Now blessed be Jesus who hath brought me to you so opportunely O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together We can never admire thee enough O sweet Jesus who art wont so seasonably to interpose thy power to save us when we have lost our selves Whither should we stray didst not thou so gratiously seek us What would become of us didst not thou so lovingly hold us in thy hand and resolve that none shall pluck us from thee We are astonisht at the vastness of thy wisdom Thy Goodness is unfathomable else we should have sunk long before this beyond the depth of it When we wander thou followest us and callest us back When we fall thou runnest to us and liftest us up When we are discouraged thou art the strength of our fainting spirits and speakest comfortably to our hearts Tea by the rareness of thy heavenly arts thou turnest our deepest sorrows into the greatest occasions of excessive joyes And there where we thought to find nothing but trouble and heaviness thou makest gladness and light to spring up unto us O how unsearchable are thy wayes who meetest us when we are out of the Way O how unmeasurable is thy Mercy which cureth us by that which we love even when we are doing that which thou dost not love We cannot but present thee with the best of our acknowledgements who are so happily together here not by our own but thy Providence We cannot do less then bind our selves together to thine Altar and offer all we have as a sacrifice of Praise unto thee And have us still O Lord in thy care Let thy good Spirit alway go along with us as our Guide And let thy good Angels never fail to be our Guardians Uphold our goings in thy paths and suffer not our feet any more to slide Hold thou us up and we shall be safe and we will have respect continually unto thy Statutes So will we bless thy name at all times thy praise shall be continually in our mouths In the Courts of thine House will we praise thee yea in the midst of thee O Jerusalem will we sing eternal praises Hallelujah I thank you most heartily said the Pilgrim when the other had ended this acknowledgment for these good thoughts you have breathed into me I feel my self as if a new Soul did informe me and my Spirit doth not so much return as another more divine seems to enter into me and invigorate all my faculties with an higher degree of strength and courage Sure if you would be alwayes with me I should never miscarry no nor grow dull and lumpish any more May I not beg that favour of you to take me under your wings Is it too great an happiness for me to ask that you would become so much my Friend as to take a particular care of me and let me travel in your company I can never expect so much security and so much comfort both together as under your conduct and therefore if I shall not be too great a burden carry me along I beseech you with you and let me never be left as I was alone without your society You were pleased to compare me to another Hercules because of some resolution which you discerned in me But let me tell you Sir that together with the joy you have made to return I have recovered also the memory of so much of the small learning of my younger dayes as to know that while Hercules was cutting off the heads of Hydra there was one Iolaus ready at hand to apply fire to them to hinder their springing up again It seems this great person was not strong enough without one to back him He durst not travel through the World unless he took a companion with him I never heard of any Worthy that had not some Genius or other to assist him and the society also of some friend to second his undertakings Do not expect then from me that I should be more then a Miracle Do not blame me that I cannot be so hardy as to travel any further alone toward Jerusalem Though I should call for all the supports and aids that my courage can give me yet I must be beholden to the help of some associate in my labours And O that it might be my lot to fall into your company or custody rather for I shall acknowledge you for a kind of Tutelar Angel a good familiar spirit and receive you as the richest present that Heaven could have made me I do not beg you see a friendship of you that shall serve only to pass away the time and deceive the tediousness of being alone but such an one as with the pleasure will bring me in an inestimable gain Do not deny me therefore either that pleasure which I hope will not displease your self or that profit which will do you no hurt Make me rich since you will not thereby become the poorer Impart an happiness to me which will not abate any thing of your own repose And truly Sir I do not know whether Heaven have not designed you for that end and given you a frame of nature so fit for conjunction with mine that both together will make one perfect man You see how earnest and violent I am and I am very sensible of your great sobriety and discretion Now I have somewhere read that a friendship between two persons thus disposed is like the Marriage of Iron and Steel where the one gives toughness and the other edge Let us joyn then our hands and our hearts together if you do not think me unworthy of such an honour Let this be our Wedding-day and from henceforth take me for your inseparable Companion To this unexpected suit the good Father made a reply to this effect Though it be a great thing which you require yet I would have you think that Love esteems it a very small matter to give I have called you often My Friend already and since you will have it more than a term of civility or common affection I ought not to be less forward than your self to advance it unto a more noble signification I have no cause at all to suspect you of the vanity of Courtship and Complement and therefore I will be so presumptuous as to believe you have conceived for me an affection so high as that you express provided you will also acknowledge the great passion which I have for your service It seems so strong an obligation upon me for a person of your desert to think of giving me his heart that I cannot think it Justice to keep mine any
they have his Word and hear him speaking to them But they must have a greater communication with them both than this amounts unto They must set their affections on things above they must have their conversation in Heaven they must be like to God and made partakers of a Divine Nature They must be renewed after the Image of him that created them in Wisdom in Righteousness in Purity in Charity and Love so that God may dwell in them and they in him No less Good than this must you design for your Souls You do not act like reasonable Beings till you seek by all means this conformity with your Original from whence you spring Do you doubt at all of what I say Let me send you then to that Philosopher again that you may blush once more to see your selves in greater Ignorance than those whom you reproach with the name of Infidels Diogenes saith he hearing a Sophister once making a vain-glorious declamation L. 3. c. 2. put forth his middle finger and pointed at him saying See there is the man behold him for that is He now you may look upon him and know him if you will At which words there being a great stir and tumult excited he proceeded thus in his speech unto them Do you think that I shew you a man as we do a stone or a log only with the indicatian of my finger No I have no such meaning it is a folly to think of distinguishing a man from his neighbour by such an Instrument But when one hath shown you his opinions that he hath of things when he hath demonstrated to you what are his great concerns then he hath shown him to you as he is a man And from thence now you may take this mans Character whom you have heard speaking to you He hath told you what he thinks and what he most desires I only bid you to mark and observe him Let us see thy opinions and notions also saith the Philosopher who makes application of this story Let us behold thy sentiments that we may be acquainted with thee Discover to us what thou lovest and chusest above all other things Dost thou place thy happiness without thy self Dost thou value all things more than thy self Thou readest the best Philosophers thou studiest Chrysippus and such good Authors and this is all Why then we see very well who thou art Hast thou not discovered to us in what esteem we are to hold thee A poor-spirited Creature angry and furious fearful and distrustful querulous and complaining of every thing proud and conceited of thy self covetous and voluptuous desirous of glory and popular applause accusing all things and never quiet nor at rest These things thou shewest us and by these we are to esteem thee It is not thy Books nor thy Masters and Tutors nor any thing else but such as these that shew the man And what I beseech you can be more proper to be spoken in the ears of most Christian Auditories You read the Bible you have the Books of Christian Learning in your hands Do these denominate you Christian men and women Must we call you the Disciples of our Saviour because you sit before us and hear our Sermons No such matter Shew us O man thy thoughts shew us thy decrees and opinions of things Let us see thy understanding thy will thy choice thy affections that we may know whether thou art a Christian or no. And where shall we see these but in the actions of thy life Covetousness love of pleasure tell us plainly what thou art Pride and study to be admired in the World proclaim thee to us more than all that we see beside If thou wilt give a proof thy Humanity and of thy Christianity too if thou wilt have us believe that thou art not yet turned an unreasonable creature live according to thy reason practise thy Religion preferr thy Soul before thy Body the concernments of an immortal Being before the trivial injoyments of a few moments Do not tell us of thy professions nor of thy belief when we see with our eyes that which better declares thee to us Let thy Soul recover its command again let it be restored to its Empire and Dominion let it rule all the passions and affections of the lower part that we may know thou art a Man and not degenerated into a Beast And now by this time you may well think these Pilgrims were awakened unless they meant to snort eternally And indeed the poor men were so warm'd or rather inflamed with this discourse that they could refrain themselves no longer but burst forth into a passionate weeping first for their fault and then for joy that God had sent them so faithful a Monitor They gave him most hearty thanks for his excellent Sermon as they could not chuse but call it and promised most solemnly to think more of the value of their Souls and thereby excite themselves to use their best diligence to save them We will go said they to the Father of our Spirits we will make it our constant endeavour to reconcile our selves to him We will say Father we have sinned against Heaven and against thee we have sinned against our selves We have wronged our own Souls we are no more worthy to be called thy Sons no not worthy of so much as to be called the Sons of men We have lived like Brutes we have spoiled thy Workmanship and miserably effaced and mangled thine Image But we repent and remember from whence we are faln We are desirous now of nothing so much as to be conformed to thy self O let us be thy servants if we are not worthy to be called thy children Admit us but into the lowest place in thy family to the meanest degree of thy Love And if that be too good a name for us to be stiled thy servants we are willing to be thy Vassals thy Bonds-men any thing that thou wilt have us For we are the Captives of thy Mighty and All-conquering Love and we shall think our selves happy if we may sit in the most inferiour rank of those that shall eternally sing thy Praises CAP. XXXI How the Pilgrim was falling into the contrary Extreme and was prevented by his Director Of the Necessity of Discretion And the assistance which one Vertue gives another How he was troubled that he should have any passions Of the use of them That it is fit for us for us to love our friends passionately and to take great delight in their company IN such ardent effusions as these they a long time unloadned themselves of the passions which they felt in their hearts Which being all vented there still remained a very great one for this Good man which they were not able to utter Very sorry they were that it was not possible for them alwayes to accompany him and when they took their leave it was with so many fresh tears and vows of never forgotting his instructions that he thought
And was you not glad to behold so many kind neighbours assembled at that decent entertainment To me there is not a more agreeable spectacle than a company of select friends vacant of business and full of chearfulness met together at one table And I cannot imagine that a man who understands pleasure can wish any equal to this that he might make one in such an happy society You may think indeed that it is sufficient to our delight if we can meet our friends any where But I am of the mind that the pleasure is redoubled when they refresh their bodies and their minds both together I hate indeed your great Feasts where persons that never saw one the other before nor ever shall perhaps again are mixt together where there is much talk and little or no discourse But these Love-feasts me-thinks do call to my mind the dayes of Innocence and make me wish for nothing when I enjoy them but only such another pleasure Here we know that we pledge an hearty Love when a man presents his kindness to us Our mind is entertained with a greater variety than the body enjoyes The very taste of our meat is exalted by the inward delight which we feel in our hearts And whatsoever satisfaction we then receive we impart as much to those that give it The weak and languishing appetite is excited by the sight of friends and the pleasure of their discourse and the discourse flows more freely by the moderate satisfaction of our appetite Our dull spirits are raised by communication with our friends and that Communication grows more lively by the exaltation of our spirits Or if you please so to consider it Friends never talk with greater wit and more freedom than when they take an innocent repast together and their meat never doth their bodies more good than when this sweet conversation is the sauce for it Indeed said the Pilgrim I had forgot to reflect upon that part of those good mens satisfaction which I take to be so great and yet so harmless withall that I shall ever be a friend of such pleasures and permit my self to be merry in such worthy company They have convinced me that I ought not to affect a sad brow and an heavy countenance They have reconciled me to smiles and mirth And provided they will keep within such bounds I will never quarrel with my passions any more But there is none that I have a greater kindness for than that of Love the pleasures of which as it self acquaints me withall so the usefulness of it those excellent men have also taught me And not to part so soon from so good a meeting I must let you know that they understood afterward a great part of the discourse at that Table was about friendship and the happiness of him that had found a faithful friend Which when it was repeated to him by one that was there it was a great means of confirming this affection in our Pilgrim and making him rejoyce in his advantageous choice My memory is not so good as to carry away all that I heard was said on this argument but it begun with a commendation of that saying of the Son of Sirach A faithful friend is a strong defence and he that hath found such an one Ecclus. 6 14 15 16 hath found a Treasure Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend and his excellency is unvaluable A faithful friend is the Medicine of Life and they that fear the Lordshall find him He speaks like an Oracle said one of the company for a friend me-thinks is the only universal Medicine against all the evils of this present life And with your permission I will make a Comment upon this Aphorism or rather I will recite you the words of a good Author who though I believe he never saw him hath glossed me-thinks most excellently on the Text of that wise Hebrew To which when they had all most willingly accorded he thus proceeded There is no Remedy in the World saith he Dion Prus 1. equal to that of a friend for other Medicines are profitable to the sick and superfluous to those who are in health but He is necessary to both He supplyes the wants of Poverty He adds a brightness to our glory and he obscures and hides our Ignominy This one things lessens the difficulty of those that are troublesome to us and increases the happiness which all our injoyments bring us It makes evil things little and good things great By this sweet society our griefs are divided and all our joyes are doubled What calamity is not intolerable without a friend and what felicity is not ungrateful if we have none to share with us in it We suffer not so much when we have some to condole and suffer with us And we rejoyce the more when our felicity gives a pleasure not only to our selves but to others also If Solitude and want of company be so horrid so dreadful a thing it is not to be understood of the want of men but of the want of friends For it is a good Solitude not to dwell with those that do not love us and a man would chuse such an Hermitage where he might not be troubled with them who bear no benevolous affection to him But for my part I cannot think it to be an happiness which hath no friend to participate in its pleasures A man may more easily bear the hardest Calamity with his Friend than the greatest felicity alone So that I judge him the most miserable who in his calamity hath many to insult over him and in his felicity none to taste of his joyes and rejoyce with him Who is there more speedy in his succours than a Friend Whose praise is sweeter to us than his And by whom is Truth spoken with less grief than by such a mouth What Castle what Bulwark what Arms and Weapons are more potent to secure us than the custody of those who are well-affected to us For in truth so many Friends as a man hath gained with so many eyes doth he see and with so many ears doth he hear and with so many understandings doth he think of that which is profitable for him It is all one as if God had given to a man in one body a great many Souls every one of which do tenderly consult and care for his good Nay if our eyes and our tongue and our hands are much to be prized not only for the delights of Life but that we may live Friends are not only as profitable but more necessary than these For your eyes can scarce see those things which are under your feet but by our Friends we may see those things which are in the furthermost parts of the earth By our eares we hear only the things that are very near us but by our Friends we hear them which are most remote The tongue signifies only to those who are present and with the hands the strongest man can do
be too greedy of so innocent a pleasure but yet he fancied sometimes that he was and that nothing else pleased him but only the society of this person Who now therefore thought himself concerned to have a more then ordinary care of his Patient because he had made him sick or at least been an occasion of his present disease And so quick he was in his Applications that it could scarce be called by that name but by the Vertue of his remedies was rather turned into a cure of other distempers which had some root within him It is not strange said the Old man that I should creep so far into your heart if you do but consider how wide we open our breasts to those things which are of great use and advantage to us There was no other cause but this that made men Deifie certain Creatures which they found to be very high benefactors unto them Have you never heard any body call the Sun a Visible God And what was it I beseech you that procured him so many adorers but the sense that men had of the benefit of his fires which enamoured them of his beauty and inflamed their love to the height of Devotion to him Wonder not then at your self that you perceive such a fervour in your soul to me your poor friend whom you esteem though alas unworthy of such a name to be no less then your Treasure This will justifie an high degree of affection towards me And there is no danger I 'le warrant you of proving an Idolatrous Lover if you will but let me shew you how easily you may make me become what you call me and improve this Affection so as to be a very great gainer by it But first I must reveal to you this secret which you have not hitherto discovered that of this affection I my self have a larger share then yet hath appeared yea to your own person I have not been so cold as you may perhaps imagine And yet I am so far from thinking my self the worse for what I feel of it that I take my self to be much the better and would not for all the world have a less portion of it then I perceive you find in your own heart Now that you may not think I make use of Rhetoricall figures and launch out a great deal beyond the truth let me beg so much of your patience who as you confess have imployed much of mine till I relate what benefit I have found by loving you For then I hope you will think it possible for your self to reap the same and not be troubled for the excess of love you bear to me since thereby you receive no greater hurt then to become capable of enjoying a more exceeding advantage And God being the Chiefest Good the highest object of our Understandings the satisfaction of our Wills the Centre of all rational desires what greater commendation can there be of Friendship than that it is apt to bring our Souls into a fuller possession of this Beeing who is the cause of all other and of all happiness Will you not confess that it is a thing of great Use and great Value which shall indear him unto you who is of more use and worth then the Sun or all the World Now if you can give any credit to me you may be assured that my Friendship with you hath taught me not only that God is Love but what it is to love God better then any thing else perhaps could have done And what is this Love but as you have often heard the whole Duty of man all that God requires of us that we may enjoy eternal felicity with him This if I can demonstrate I suppose you will no longer complain of an excess of this excellent affection which may so easily be converted without much Art or contrivance into one so Divine that that God himself will love it very much And if you would know by what Chymistry it was that I turned this Baser affection as you are apt to call it into that which is so noble and sublime it will be a matter of no difficulty to make you understand it for there was no longer operation in it then this I used to observe what it was that my love caused me to do to you and that I concluded was farr more due to God And so it taught me 1. To think often of him and to keep him in Mind for this I found a necessary effect of the Friendship I have with you If there be something in your Idea that is grateful to me which makes me to hugg it so much and carry it about with me then there must needs be a great deal more in that Idea I have of God who ought therefore ever to bear me company and to go along with me as my Joy where ever it be that my occasions lead me And so 2. I learnt by loving you to take a delight in conversing with him and to embrace or rather seek all opportunities of frequenting his company And then 3. For I must not stay to enlarge these things into long discourses but leave that for your work I was instructed hereby to desire his acquaintance more to thirst after an intimate familiarity with him and to be more perfectly united to him 4. To be highly pleased also in him was another fruit of this Amity To rest so satisfied in his enjoyment as to want nothing to compleat my contentment And 5. To study withal how to be pleasing to him or rather to be able without any study by a meer likeness of Nature to do all things agreeably to his mind For I must take so much liberty by the way as to tell you that there is no anxious labour in love nor any carefulness to find what is grateful to our Beloved but we have a natural inclination to do just as they would have us From hence 6. I proceeded to like well of whatsoever He doth and to be pleased with all his Providences For we alwayes feel our selves inclined to find no fault with our Friends to interpret every thing to the best sense and rather to excuse that which is ill then think that they can do it And 7. To receive all his kindnesses with a singularly great gratitude as proceeding only from the goodness of his own nature and not from any desert of mine 8. To keep in Memory also his Benefits and to think of them as I would of the tokens of your love which I could not but look upon when I did not see you And 9. as for his Holy word which one of the Antient Guides used to call the Epistle of God to man I cannot but read it as I do your Letters with a great deal of pleasure and transport And 10. Likewise I read it over and overagain as I am wont to do your Letters not being content with a single pleasure not thinking that I can espy all your affection at once that breathes
there And 11. Do you think that I can live and not long to hear from him or that I can be so patient as not to desire to see him No I am ever saying as the holy Psalmist O when wilt thou come unto me You have taught me to contrive all wayes that I may enjoy him and to think my self more happy in it then all the world can make me And 12. then I cannot but contrive how I may most serve him and be glad of any occasion which is offered of so doing For you may be confident I should suspect my love if it did not excite me to render you all the services that are in my power and make me study to be able to do that which is now out of the compass of it And 13. another thing for which I stand indebted to your love is that I am taught thereby to be very tender of his Honour and to be troubled that any body should speak evil of him or do any thing against him Nay 14. Since you have given me leave to love you I find that I am desirous every Body should love him that is so amiable in my eyes just as I wish that you may be acceptable to all and never meet with any unkindness 15. I have learnt also to consult and advise with him upon all occasions and to open as it were my very Heart to him 16. And then to be confident of his help and to expect undoubtedly to receive it whensoever I have occasion for it To which 17. if I should not add that I have learnt never to be weary of his Company but still to take a fresh delight in it I should much forget my self for that is a most sensible effect of your Friendship And 18. so is this To be loath to part with it and to hold him so fast as not to be willing to let him go As also 19. To be impatient of his absence at least not to be so well any where else as I am with him And 20. in fine To long ever to be with him and to be put into such a condition that I may never have the trouble of parting with his company which alas in this world I am forced too oft to suffer And you need not wonder that I have learnt this last Lesson by our Friendship for if you and I could now leave these pleasant Plains wherein we are and strip our selves of this flesh I formy part would willingly consent unto it if I had assurance but of this happiness that I should take you by the hand and we should wander up and down in the Air together I had almost forgot to tell you another happy fruit of this passion and that is when I desire any thing of him to leave it to his choice and disposition knowing that his wise Love will do that for me which is most requisite and conducing to my welfare Nay more then this I feel such an inclination to you that I cannot but be ashamed if I am not carried with such a Natural affection unto God I did not begg of my Will to love you for I was surprised at first sight with that affection and felt such a propension to you as the Iron doth to the Loadstone which cannot chuse but be ravished and attracted by it From which you may be confident that now it is out of my Power to forbear to love you and that it is not a business to be referred to choice but which Nature commands which will not be disobeyed or controuled But then me thinks my Soul cannot be so dull finding it self thus disposed to you as to stay to ask it self a reason why it should love God or whether it will love or no. I am forced to love him and carried to him by such a strong inclination as hath no Cause but only Nature At least this state I am reaching after and it seems very unhandsome that I should be ever telling my self that there is this and that cause why I should love God for I would be so impressed by him that out of an innate tendency of mind I might run to him or rather might still be with him and have him continually before mine eyes I have heard it I remember affirmed by some that this Love of Inclination comes only from a Reminiscence or calling to mind such things as have been before Such souls say they have been acquainted in some other World and they do not now commence a new love but only continue an old And truly if I might judge of the truth of what they say by the love I find to God me-thinks they are not without the countenance of some reason For my soul seems but to renew an antient acquaintance with him My love to him is so natural and easie that it is just as if once we knew one another before It doth not seem to be the birth of an affection which was not but only the awakening of that which lay asleep For there are no pangs no difficulty in bringing forth this Love but we open our eyes and see that glorious object which our Souls would have and cannot but fasten themselves upon And if I should add an heap of observations to these of another sort and show you how hereby we come to be perswaded of Gods Love to us and to have such high thoughts of it as to believe he is ready to grant us any thing that we ask to pass by our faults to come and visit us to send his servants the Angels to see us and wait upon us c. and all because he is our Friend you would see a further use of this divine affection and be convinced that we cannot but live uncomfortably without it And indeed if any one should think that it is put into our Souls for so poor an End as to tickle us with a little pleasure in civil conversation and to help us to pass away the time more merrily without any regard to these Heavenly uses it would be as absurd a conceit as to imagine the Sun was made for no other purpose but to colour the cheeks of our Apples and enlarge the Sphaere of our Cabbages No nature will not let us depress so far this darling of hers to which she is inclined above all other things That must needs be implanted by the hand of God to which all men have a propensity and since it is very strong overweighing all other inclinations we must needs think that it was planted in them to do them some great benefit and to be the instrument above all other things of their happiness Now what is there to which we have a more imbred inclination then to love and to desire to be beloved There is no man but hates to be alone and can as little indure to be with those for whom he hath no love For still he is alone if that be not there A crowd is not company as a Wise man
sayes and Faces are but a Gallery of Pictures and Talk but a Tinkling Cymbal where there is no love Nay so natural is this to us and withall so sweet that I believe there is no man in the World who for all the wealth in it would be bound to love no body and to be beloved of none He was going on to some further discourses on this subject when the other cryed out Hold do not wholly impoverish this argument but leave something for me to say who am abundantly satisfied that there is nothing comparable to this which hath been the cause of my trouble I will never blame my self more for exceeding too much in this sort of love I plainly see that Mediocrity which every where else is counted a Vertue doth here become a Vice I am more then converted by your excellent discourse I must turn Proselyte to him who said That he would have the Affection of Friends appear rather a Passion then a Vertue That Friendship hath nothing more excellent in it then excess and that it doth rather offend in the Moderation then in its Violence and extremity And here he began to invent all the Praises he could of Friendship which he called The top and perfection of Love the Soul of the World the Spirit of Nature the bond of Society the marriage and happy union of agreeing minds the life and joy of mankind the relief of our sorrows the Physitian of all our secret griefs our Buckler in all assaults our Oracle in our doubts the Governor and Tutor of a prosperous condition the Comforter of a declining fortune without which the greatest happiness would be irksome to us and in whose company the greatest affliction cannot make us miserable He reflected also very happily on this that it was one of the last things that Jesus himself did in this world to make a Friendship between two great persons his blessed Mother and his beloved Disciple These he remembred our Lord would have to live together like Mother and Son which he thought imported such a dearness between them as would justifie the height of his affection And then he cryed out Thou O Divine Love art the nature of God the life of Angels the employment of Heaven By knowing thee I know what it is that I owe to God and I now also know Jerusalem better where they exercise the Noblest Friendships I will never fear thee any more for I see thou wilt secure my duty to God and it will be strange if my Neighbours be not better for thee who art alwayes instigating me to do good What though I be chained more to one person then another you need not think O sons of men that I shall thereby become less charitable to you For my love finding here a continual employment and constant exercise for it self I am the more disposed and ready when occasion serves to express it to you all My retirements cannot work its decay but in the greatest privacy this friendship keeps any rust from growing over it and preserves it pure and bright for the use of others too I love you all wheresoever you dwell on the face of the whole earth I stretch out my hands to you from one Pole to the other wishing I could do you good And though I cannot reach you every one yet my love gives me the comfort of this assurance that God is with you who as he hath a greater love so a greater ability to help you all But his Guide who was better acquainted with his duty then himself thought it best to bring him out of this Rapture because he saw that he would immerse himself too far in the pleasure of this contemplation and likewise thought it was not safe to gratifie themselves with too much of this Honey at once He prayed him therefore to lay aside this discourse a while and to divert himself with the observation of some of those flowers and plants wherewith they saw the earth strewed as they went along For sure said he these were not made for us to tread upon nor only to feed our eyes with their grateful Variety or to bring a sweet odor to our Noses but there is a more internal beauty in them for our minds to prey upon did we but let them penetrate beyond the surface of these things into their hidden properties You are a Christian it is confessed but doth that make you cease to be a Man You read the Gospel of our Saviour but must that give a discharge to all our rational inquiries into the Book of Nature Doth the new Creation intend to destroy the old Or because we behold God in the face of Christ must we look upon him no where else No such matter there is a more antient obligation upon you to study the Works of God of which you ought to quit your self while you study his Word It is an honour to the School of Christ when his Disciples are skill'd in all Wisdom He is such a Master as would not have us know other things the less but the more by knowing him And so they began to pry into many curiosities which several of the Creatures they met withall presented to them not without a great astonishment at that infinite understanding that was the Contriver of them And having once tasted of this kind of Learning he often wished that it was in his power to understand more of his own Body of the motions of the Sun Moon and other Stars with many things besides in this great Fabrick wherein he knew God had hid great treasures of Wisdom and ingraven a fair Image of himself Yea he conceived the whole World sometimes a great Temple and himself one of the Priests that God had placed therein to offer up the Praises of all the Creatures and acknowledge his Wisdom his Power his Goodness which are conspicuous in the frame of them And though he could acquire but a very small knowledge of some of them yet it was a great pleasure to see that there were many more intelligent Priests then himself and more acquainted with Natures Mysteries who rendred to God continually better Praises and called upon all his works in all places of his Dominion to bless his Holy name CAP. XXXVII How after this the Pilgrim fell into a conceit that he did not profit in Vertue and how his Guide rid him of it That we must not make too much haste to perfection but go leisurely in our way How afterward he feared that he should never hold out to the end of his journey Of the confident zeal which some men are possessed withall A beginning of a new discourse about Faith AND now would you think after he had gone thus farr that he should be troubled with such an odd fancy as this That he did not profit at all in Vertue Yet so it was that one day he seriously told his Friend He could not perceive that he had done any thing worthy of himself or
also And he that hath begun a good work in you will perfect it no doubt till he come to give you his rewards I know you will tell me that you do not question his faithfulness and stedfastness to his friends but you have been unkind to him and so have forfeited his good esteem and Love And let it be so since it is your pleasure that you have not behaved your self so gratefully as you ought But is he of such a disposition that he can never be won to a Reconciliation I pray have a care what you say for fear you make good men better than God who are wont to forgive their Brother when he repents not only seven times but seventy times seven And say I beseech you hath he not pardoned you heretofore very lovingly when you humbly and obediently intreated him to pass by your offences When you were one of the World did he not then draw you to himself without your desire and over-matched your sins by his infinite omnipotent Goodness What should hinder then his kindness and clemency towards you now that you are become a man separate from the World If the Mire and Dirt wherein we wallowed could not hinder but he would needs take us in his arms and place us in his bosome will he shake us off and throw us out from thence now that we are washed and made clean Will he not rather wipe off a speck of Dirt that hath light upon us than cast us down into the Mire again Can you think that he who took in strangers to his house and gave them kind entertainment will turn his Children out of doors After we have done him so many services and laboured for his Love will he thrust us out in an heat of anger and quite casheere us his family O absurd suspition A jealousie unworthy of such an excellent Father and unbecoming Sons that have so nobly and tenderly been brought up by him If you were to treat with a person like your self you must first think him very bad or else you would not be so injurious as to harbour such thoughts of him You must judge him very froward who will fall out with you upon every sleight occasion and never return with you into grace any more Do not impute then a thing so unnatural unto God nor so much wrong his infinite Goodness as to take Him to be of so harsh a disposition that we must never expect his favour more if we chance but to offend him No if you can but believe that he loves himself you need not fear that he should thus abandon you You have cost him too much that he should so easily part with you He hath bought you at so excessive a rate that you may be assured he will not willingly lose you The breeding of you hath stood him in so much care that he will not spare a little more to keep you And if you are thus secure of God's Love I pray tell me what you think should separate you from him Can you really think that you your self shall have a mind to leave him and return back to the World from whence you came You cannot I am confident remain two minutes in this perswasion if you be not forsaken of your Reason and left to the impostures of Fancy and wild Imagination For what is that can dissolve that league of Friendship that is so solemnly and religiously sworn betwixt you Is there any thing in him that can disgust you and make him seem less amiable in your eyes Can you fear that his conversation may grow tedious and prove a burden to you in the conclusion or what prejudice can you receive by loving of him seeing you believe that All Good is in him and that he calls us to his own Kingdom and Glory I am verily perswaded you think that you cannot cease to love me to whom you profess your self so much beholden And yet what am I in compare with Him or what obligations have you received from me that can be so strong to hold you as those that he hath laid upon you I may change and not be so good as I am or not so full of love to you Some damage may appear that you may be in danger to receive by loving me which I can never be able to repair But there is not so much as a shadow of turning in him He is alwayes the same Fulness and the same Love infinitely desirous of our Happiness And as for any loss that we may possibly sustain for his sake it cannot be so great but he can make us a recompence for it incomparably greater Do not hold your self then in such suspition unless you can think that you have taken a wrong measure of him especially since you are of opinion that you cannot but love me to the end and also have so lately told me that you was satisfied the love of me would teach you to love God the better I should proceed to remember you also that the wayes of Vertue which you have to tread are so pleasant that you will not be inclined to relinquish them and divert into any other path and that you can never think sit so to disparage this noble life as to leave it after you have made a very long trial of it and that you will not endure to retreat with so much shame as you will necessarily draw upon your self by abandoning a course which you have so highly commended All this I say and much more I should call to your mind but that you seem to discharge me of that trouble by the chearfulness which I observe to return into your countenance I see that you begin to believe that you shall persevere and that you recover your antient comfort That stronger is he who dwelleth in you then he who dwelleth in the world The Devil begins already to fly from you and by the light of these truths we have chased away the cloud that hung over you Carry them therefore I intreat you ever in your mind and let me hear no more of these dejections of spirit which are as unreasonable as they are uncomfortable both to your self and others I 'le say no more of this matter after I have told you a story of an antient Pilgrim in the way to Jerusalem to which therefore you had best attend It is St. Peter I mean who you know had a mind to walk with our Saviour upon the water which was no easie thing to do and yet by the power of his Master was indued with such a vertue as to tread safely upon that yielding element He went a pretty way while the face of the water was smooth and even and it seemed nothing different from the solid earth Untill the wind began to be loud and the plain way upon the water was turned into Hills and Dales we hear of no shrikes but then he cryed out and his heart and his feet began to sink together But was
there any reason to fear drowning after he had walked half a furlong or to imagine it would not bear him up the next half as well as it had done the former none at all sure The winds that blew and the rough waves that began to lift up themselves were no less subject to that power which upheld him then the smooth and quiet surface of the Sea It was as easie to walk upon a Billow as upon the still water The blustering wind had no more power there then the silent Aire Whence then proceeded this change that the man who lately trampled upon the Sea and gloried over the deep doth now feel himself slip into the bosome of it and is in danger to be swallowed up by it The firm ground which he thought was under him is gone and he is left to the mercy of the angry waves Was not the change within before his feet felt any Did not a violent fear lay hold upon him and did he not let go his hold of the hand which before sustained him Yes this was the business If his Faith had been as strong as once it was his condition had been as safe in the midst of the storm as before it was in the calm When this Anchor broke the waters began to suck him in They challenged him then for their proper goods because his Faith was in a manner already shipwrackt But did his Gratious Master so part with him Would he lose a servant because he was weak and wanted confidence in him Or did he delay to help him and only hold him up by the chin when all his body was in the deep No when he cryed for relief and beseeched to be saved he instantly put forth his hand caught hold of him and rescued him from the jaws of death He only chides him because he doubted but neither lets him sink into the belly of the waters nor stayes his succours till he was in greater need of them He straightway lends him more power and chuses rather to incourage a little Faith then let him perish because he had no more Now this story methinks bears a great resemblance with that condition wherein you and many more besides have been We have a great mind to go to Jesus and for that end to walk here in the World as he walked But it is very much that we who are so earthly and have such ponderous affections to things here below should be able to tread them under our feet and keep our selves above the soft pleasures of the flesh into which we are apt to sink This seems no less a wonder then it was for a body of earth to walk upon the face of the Sea which uses to swallow down such heavy things that come into it Whence is it I pray that we have this strength and can lift up our selves above our natural propensions to lead the life of God Is it from our own Vertue or rather must we not acknowledge that we receive it from that voice which saith to us as unto that Apostle of our Lord Come This sure is the cause to which it must be ascribed And it cannot be of less efficacy afterward then it was at the first but when he still saith Follow me he gives a greater power and force unto us so to do But how comes it about then that you and others begin sometimes to sink or at least to imagine that you are falling into the World and that the sensual life will at last draw you into its embraces again Truly there is the same cause of it that there was in him and that is Diffidence You forget your self and distrust God and that works a decay of the Vertue and ability that was in your heart You regard more the winds and the waves the difficulties and temptations that you are incompassed withall then the power and the love of Jesus which attends upon you and so you begin first to fear and then to fall Yet behold what a loving and kind Master you serve He doth not take this so ill at your hands as to let you quite go and fall still lower and lower into the water untill you be drown'd But if you look earnestly upon him and call to him and intreat him to take pitty upon you and not to leave you he gives you his hand presently and sets you in safety Though now you have been very distrustful of his goodness and have fainted in your mind as if he would not regard you yet his tenderness is so great that he bids me assure you he will not forsake you nor fail to support and help your feeble soul Only in his name I must a little chide you and give you a gentle reproof in his own words saying O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt I say no more because I see you are sorrowful and hope you will give me no more the like trouble Indeed replyed the Pilgrim I deserve a more severe reprehension and you deal too favourably with me when you give me so mild a rebuke But I suppose you use me thus tenderly that I may be sensible of the gratious nature of our Lord who hath compassion on our weakness and is loath to discourage those by any sharpness of his who are too apt to invent over many discouragements to themselves And truly I am so apprehensive of his lenity and behold also so great a portion of it in your self that were it not upon that account I should again be apt to stand in fear of creating not only you but him a greater trouble then you are able to bear I am you see very foolish alwayes complaining and exercising your patience I have so many scruples and little fears am so unconstant and wavering in my thoughts so frequently sick and out of order so forgetful also of your counsels that perhaps by this time you begin to reflect and consider how great a burden you have drawn upon your self by undertaking the charge of me And I pray tell me sincerely whether you are not a little weary of me and do not wish your self rid of such an impediment for I can scarce call my self your Friend any longer but your Trouble or your Burden Tell me I say is not this a fitter name for me then any else And can you find in your heart to own that sweet relation to him any more who hath made himself so unpleasing on all occasions and nothing but disquieted your happy repose I doubt if you could see my heart and behold what a seed of new troubles and doubts lodges there you would tell me plainly that you shall never enjoy your self till you be divorced from me You surprise me strangely said the Good old man and did I not consider that you have suspected the kindness of God himself I should be so amazed at this alteration in you as to lose the use of words and not know what to say to you Little did I think that
be so confident No doubt of it or else it is meerly Presumption It is impossible that a mans relyance should be stronger with any reason then the rest of the acts of his faith are And therefore should we not speak of Faith in such words as will take in all that it hath to do both that which respects our duty as well as that which respects our benefit Take heed I beseech you again of a double mischief which is very visible one to others and the second to your self First beware how you speak of Faith so loosely to your neighbours in such terms as they may easily abuse Do not say that justifying Faith is meerly a relyance on Christ for Salvation For though you mean well and live better yet the wicked of the world never understand this aright which is the cause if you would know all that makes me so zealously oppose you in this matter They all lay hold on him and his righteousness to cover all the filthiness wherein they live Though you tell them that they ought to love him who hath dyed to procure righteousness for them yet they love their sins better and hope that he will love them never the worse for it It is impossible to perswade an Adulterer a Drunkard or any such person great numbers of which to my knowledge comfort themselves in their relyance on Christ to become better unless you give a better notion of Faith then this And then for your self I must warn you to take great heed that one piece of your Faith do not outgrow another Do not suffer it to shoot more upward then it doth downward and to grow in tallness more then in thickness and strength I mean let it not lift up it self to heaven in assurance of Gods love but proportionably to its rooting in love and obedience to him Let it not perk up in perswasions of Gods mercy but as it increases in strength and power to do him service It is a slender tree you know very weak and easily broken which springs up so much in length but carries no body and hath not a thickness answerable to its heigth Such is the Faith that mounts up in confidence without an answerable spreading and enlarging it self in the observance of all Gods commands and bringing forth all the fruits of a lively Faith Nay it is the very way to despair to be thus forward For as those tall and slender Trees by some strong blasts are apt to hang down their heads and touch the ground from whence they come So do these high confidences in a time of trial and when men come to see how ungrounded they were they are ready to end in as low a despair and great distrust of all Gods mercy Upon every occasion you shall see such people cast into horrid fits if they be at all observant of their duty which they think is some desertion by God but indeed proceeds from the too great forwardness of their Faith which did rise too high and had not strength enough to bear it up Nay if they began in this confidence and their Faith pitched thus high at the very first they ought to despair of Gods favour till their Faith hath purified their hearts They must come down again from the top of the tree and begin at the bottom in obedience to all God's Command These things with many others seemed so perspicuous to the man who had a great deal of honesty in him that his confidence was strangely abated And the Father making a little pause he altered the tone of his voice and modestly said I must ingenuously confess that I have been too rash in opposing and censuring of you I am not one of those that will resist clear convictions and contest meerly that they may not seem to be overcome but I acknowledge sincerely that I had too rude and confused notions of things which precipitated me into this confidence of disputing with you Be not troubled at it replyed the Father but rather think your self happy that you understand more then you did and that you have not lost but found Truth in the midst of a dispute And since you are so humble as to confess some of your faults I presume you will be thankful if you are told the rest Remember it then that it is very misbecoming to speak loud to accompany your discourse with too much action and to affirm any thing with too great a confidence and peremptoriness But know withall that I easily pardon them and pass them by because they are not so much your own as the faults of your Teachers from whom you learnt them and many more besides These are the least things that many of them are to be accused of for there is a certain wilfulness as it seems to me that possesses their hearts which will not let them exchange their unsafe imperfect definitions of Faith for those which are sounder and more compleat They are loath to acknowledge that they can err or speak unproperly They had rather defend that which is badly done or said than study to make it better And as men do in disorders of government they abuse their wit and study for reasons why it should be amiss rather then how it should be amended They will learn from none unless it be themselves They will reject the clearest light unless it shine out of their own minds They would have Truth confined to a party the very phrases of which if you do not accept it is enough to beget a quarrel Be not offended I beseech you at this plainness nor imagine that I intend to diminish your opinion of any men that are good but only to give you Caution that you do not think them to be better then are You may conceive me indeed no competent Judge of other mens discourses will you hear therefore what a very Wise man thought a good while ago of that manner of preaching which hath put you in that rude heat wherein we now saw you L. â—ac Advertis of Controv. His words are to this sense for I will not tye my self to say only what he hath said before me and they seem to be a very moderate Sentence upon some men then who have left many followers behind them They give saith he many pious Exhortations and they work of times compunction of mind but they are not skilled how to work a cure when they have made a wound They can make men sick of their sins but are not provided of efficacious remedies to purge them out They let them see their sores but then they are palliated and seldome thoroughly healed They know better how to bring Souls to that Question Men and Brethren what shall we do than how to give a good answer and resolve the doubt which they have raised They make men see they are very bad but know not how to go about to make them good They magnifie Faith and make all the world sound with
their thinking and speaking of it This they lookt upon as a common friend to both that would translate them to those happy regions where friendship is in its Kingdom and raigns over every heart All the favour they would have beg'd if it were wont to grant any petitions was that with one stroke it would arrest them both and carry them thither together And if any body could have made good the Paracelsian promise of spinning out the life of man to a length equal with the clue of time and making our vital oil of the same durable temper with that which feeds the Lamps of Heaven All things were so in common between them that I verily think one of them would not have accepted of such a courtesie on condition to injoy it alone without the other No they rather desired as I said that the one might not see the other expire but that the same hand might cut off both their threds at once and that one moment might put out those Lamps which were not willing to burn asunder All the wishes that our Pilgrim made besides this was only that they might live so long till he could give some remarkable proof of his affection to his Guide For though he knew that he loved him above all things and could contradict even his former wishes by dying for him yet it did sometimes a little discontent him that he was in no capacity to show his tenderness but only by words and protestations Though the wisdom of his Conductor had stood him in so great stead and he could not well spare any of it yet he was so foolish now and then as to think that if he had been less wise he himself had been more happy Because then he might have stood in need to receive those counsels which now he only gave and been requited for those courtesies which now he made him a pure debtor for Many other benefits also that are usually communicated between friends he found himself utterly destitute of all means to confer they being either not in his power or his Guide in no need of them This sometimes raised a small disquiet in his mind and one day I remember he could not contain himself but he began a discourse to this purpose which shall put an end to this present Relation I should think my self said he the happiest man alive was I but able to correspond with you in the duties and offices of friendship and were I not constrain'd to return you only a weak and fruitless passion for that efficacious love which hath done me so many services It troubles me a little to find that my passion is as useless as it is extream and as void of benefit to you as it is violent in it self It is no less barren then I doubt it may be burdensome and hath as little profit as I see it hath brought you much trouble Though the honour be very great you have done me in bestowing such a place upon me in your heart yet I know not sometimes whether I should not complain in the enjoyment of a favour which as it was not in my hands to deserve so I cannot possibly requite True indeed it is that I have given my self to you but that is no more than strict Justice exacts since I have received your self as a gift to me Friendship they say is a commutation of hearts and therefore it is but fit that you should have mine in room of your own And yet alas mine is of such small value that I doubt you will be wholly a loser by the change Is there no means for me to do you service or to rest content with a will to serve you Cannot you either shew me how I may be useful to you or shew your self a disposition to it in that heart which I have given you I should be satisfied I think if you knew my will as well as my self It remains in your power not my own to settle my mind in peace if you will first believe I love you and then set a value upon that Love which you know is the cause of all well-doing and ought not to be blamed for want of power Very true said his Guide who laid hold of that word I think that I have found a treasure in your Love and I will have it pass for currant payment though it cannot express it self in such sensible effects as you would have it It is enough to me that you have such a passionate affection for me though it could never find the means to do any thing but only tell me how hearty it is I am pleased with the intentions and desires which you have to do me any good It is an extraordinary contentment to me to contemplate the imaginations which are in your mind of what you would do for me could power be courted by your will to come and joyn it self unto it They are the Vulgar who call nothing benefits but what they can feel with their fingers It is the portion of gross Souls to be insensible unless your courtesies to come at their hearts pass through their hands The purer and more refined Spirits touch the very Souls of their Friends and feel the kindness which lyes in their breasts They are so subtil as to see a courtesie while it is so young as to be but only in design They touch it before it be cloathed in matter or have passed beyond the confines of thoughts They meet it in the first rudiments and embrace it while it is only in meaning and drawn in the imagination They receive these inward acts of Love as most pure and spiritual being separate from all the terrestrial part which affect the vulgar minds And in one word there is not any thing dearer to them than those motions of the Soul which finding nothing they can do correspondent to their own greatness and force do terminate in themselves They are pleased to see them stay there and go no further because there is nothing fairer than themselves to be met withall wherein to end and rest Do not depretiate your affection therefore nor vilifie it in that manner you are wont as though it were not worthy my acknowledgement Do not tell me any more that it is no valuable Love which doth not serve our Friends for this service depends upon occasions and they depend on an higher Being and are only in the dispose of Providence All that I can be beholden to you for I have received already from you and for the rest if it could be bestowed I must make my acknowledgements to something else Be contented then that you give all that is in your hands and that if it were in them to make occasions you would still let those be wanting which most of all prove a friend Nay let me tell you I am so favourable in my opinion to your affection and so apt to give it the best advantage that I am not yet resolved but there may be
as much nobleness in the handsome acknowledgement of a kindness as there is in the conferring of that which deserves such acknowledgement But besides all this let me ask you a Question for I am resolved to ferret this scruple out of the bottom of your heart should you not love me unless I had done you benefits Tell me the truth is there any great dearness think you created in peoples hearts towards each other by this means For my part I have often found the observation true that the remembrance of benefits wears out of mens minds as grief doth out of the heart of afflicted persons from which every moment steals a part Time hath power over the one as well as the other and it diminishes the affection which is the fruit of favours as it doth the sorrow which is produced by losses and calamities Nay so little power have benefits to make a friend that they sometimes make a foe There are some men the more they owe the more they hate A little debt makes a man a debtor but a great one makes him an enemy What is it then that produces a durable Friendship Nothing sure but worth and desert together with the agreeableness of a person to our humour and his resemblance to our disposition The impression which these make can never be blotted out Time which wipes away the remembrance of benefits can never efface the sense of worth and merit We alwayes carry in our minds the amiable perfections and accomplished qualities of worthy persons We alwayes think of those who have touched our inclinations by their agreeable nature And I appeal to you whether you could refuse me your Love though you were not so much beholden to me as you now acknowledge And whether all the kindnesses in the world would produce a Friendship with me if you saw not something else to woe your affection No no my Friend it is Gratitude not Friendship which is the proper effect of benefits They ought to dispose us to suitable returns and an hearty acknowledgement but they cannot oblige us to entertain him for a Friend who is bountiful toward us They may possibly make our Friendship grow but they cannot beget it They may give it some nourishment but they cannot produce and bring it forth It depends upon an higher cause it owes its Original to some nobler thing to that from whence all benefits and good offices ought to come I mean a great love and a sincere affection which if deserts be not wanting is more powerful to move than all the gifts in the world and is able without them all to tye us fast to a worthy person Be so just then to your self and to me as to think that I am your Friend though you do not bestow those benefits on me which you desire since they can serve only as I said to make me thankful but not your Friend I esteem you very highly for your self and upon the account of your own proper worth which I am sure doth put me into the next disposition to be your Friend And since you have added to your own desert a very great Love to me that cannot but compleat it and make me perfectly yours This Love alone hath been thought sufficient to make a Friend and indeed is more powerful than any benefits According to that of Hecaton Wouldst thou know how to get a Friend I will shew thee and thou shalt use neither Medicament Herb or Inchantment to produce the affection thou desirest If thou wilt be beloved Love When Vertue then and it have made a league and shews it self in a subject whose qualities also are worthy to be embraced its force must needs be irresistible and leave us no power to withstand its desires The poor Pilgrim remained astonished a while at the kindness of this discourse And finding himself overwhelmed with the weight of such Love was fain to strive very much to recover a power of making this short reply unto it I am utterly ignorant said he what worth it is that you ascribe to me which hath brought me into your good esteem and obtained me the noble title of your Friend I see that I please you but I know not what it is that should give you that pleasure I find my self very happy but what hath advanced me to this felicity I cannot define And truly since it is your will to have me so I will not be too busie and curious in examining the causes of my good fortune nor will I seek to lessen my worth lest in so doing I should upbraid you with a bad foundation of your Love No I will rather think I am worth something than render your judgement nothing worth I will think of my self as you would have me that you may not seem to be mistaken There is nothing else can make me of any value unless it be that I had the wit to judge of the deservings of such a person as your self It is a mark they say of some sufficiency to be able to discern an able person from a flashy wit It is a note I have heard of great wisdom to chuse an excellent Friend By this I am told a man is known to others and I have little else whereby to know my self This is the chiefest thing that makes me see I am not so unfortunate as I thought I perceive I am worthy of some esteem because I had the judgement to set such an esteem upon your self For I must needs confess that though your favours could have imposed a greater necessity upon me of loving than you will allow yet I feel that I am not beholden to them for my Inclination to love you That is something more antient than any benefits you can bestow and depends only on your own merits And let it not be judged an amplification to say that they are so great that they will not leave it to my choice either whether I will love you or no or how much I will love you but they constrain me to love you as much as I can It is a constraint indeed to which I am very willing there being no violence offered but of what my own judgement is the cause yet it is irresistable and I can never be of any other mind nor have a will to dispose of my affections otherwayes Nay I cannot for my life but think that your favours are a part of your deserts and that there is something peculiar in them to merit mine affection They flow purely from your own goodness and owe not themselves so much as to my entreaties You have not put me to the trouble of begging your kindnesses but they ran to me of their own accord I did but ask and you were pleased to open your heart and make me a liberal gift I did but shew my need and you instantly inriched me with your self And ever since I have not had so great a care to conceal my griefs as you have taken to find them out Nor have you suffered my troubles to speak before you saw them in my looks All your favours likewise have flowed so freely from you that there was no hope they should return again They have brought me a great deal of happiness but could not be thought to come to fetch any to him that sent them This adds exceeding much to the esteem I have conceived for you This will ever make me to propound you as the pattern of an excellent Friend And if I were now to dye it would be one of the last words I should speak to those that love me Remember that those will be your worst enemies not to whom you have done evil but who have done evil to you and those will be your best Friends not to whom you have done good but who have done good to you The End
changes upon them or other such like adulterate Ware which would fain pass for wit and elegance Next to the love of Gibberish and of canting phrases there is no greater dotage than this of courting the diseases corruptions and the rotten carkase of eloquence and sleighting the life and spirit of it One would wonder that reasonable souls should delight in toying and playing with letters and syllables There is nothing more strange unless it be this that there are a company of men to be found who are at a great deal of pains to trim themselves with these tinsel ornaments and with much curiosity study to speak absurdly It is not their negligence but they take a care to trifle They do not slip unawares into childish expressions but they fall into them by design But if you would be wise and good you must open your ears to plain words and strong sense to proper and significant language which brings along with it powerful and convincing arguments to that which strikes and penetrates into the soul and doth not meerly glide smoothly over the surface of it You must not come to be tickled but to be taught not to be pleased but to be made better not that a man may speak to your gust but to your necessities You must not think you have spent your time well when the Truth peeps into your soul but stops at the door or when your will is sleightly moved and then stands still but when the light pierces into your mind and makes a broad day there when a secret fire creeps into your veins and continues to burn in your heart when all your affections are carried away and remain in the possession of Truth And for this purpose you must read the Holy Scriptures themselves not to store your mind with high notions or to replenish it with a large furniture and matter of discourse or to find support for some of your opinions but to get a stock of efficacious reasons for well doing and to over-power your heart by the force of them to consent unto it And let this be your Rule also in reading other pious Books For there are too many who regard only the lightest things in any discourse the fringes the lace and other ornaments more than they do the body it self They note the pretty stories the apt similitudes and here and there a small sentence which smites their fancy but mind not the clear reasons the nervous arguments and much less the whole scope and design of the treatise which they read Much like some Writers we have seen who reporting the History of their times take notice of little more than of Justings and Tornaments of Bear-baitings and lanching of Ships and such like frivolous matters which are of no moment Or like those Beggars who travelling many Countries behold a great number of fair buildings but know nothing either of the persons or the furniture or the order and regular form which is to be observed in them I think it is not amiss to add that this likewise is the end you ought to propound to your self in all your conferences with wise and pious souls who may give you great assistance in your journey to Jerusalem Not to breed in your self an opinion that you are Religious because you frequent their company but to receive greater illumination of mind from their Torches and to have your heart warmed with a greater love to God at their holy Fires And here it will be seasonable at the conclusion of this discourse to admonish you of a thing which may do you very much service and save you abundance of trouble which else may arise in your mind There are many things as you see that will further you in well doing viz. Prayer Reading and Hearing the Word of God Meditation Conference with good men and such like some of these you must understand will serve your purpose at one time and some at another according as you are disposed and they shall be found efficacious for the end to which they are designed There is a great variety also in these of which you may make an advantage if you chuse that use and practice of them which you shall find to have most power in it at the present to withdraw your mind from worldly vanities to mortifie your passions and to establish your will in the Love of Jesus As for instance sometimes it will be fit for you to Meditate and sometimes to Pray and sometimes to Converse with your friends and it is not so much to be askt which of these you shall chuse as which of them will best at that instant advance you in your way and move your will with the greatest force to virtuous actions And then in Meditation there is the Life of Christ and his Death his Resurrection and his Glory his Coming again to Judgment and the Life of the World to come the long Experience you have had of his Goodness the Instances which he daily gives of his Providence the Example of all his Saints and an hundred things besides to exercise your thoughts and have a great virtue in them to make you do your duty toward God and Man In like manner there are sundry Books in the reading of which you may imploy your time though I would rather have you chuse the best than a multitude and several waies of praying and addressing your Petitions to God which may every one of them have their places and seasons according as you shall be disposed to serve your soul of them And therefore if you perceive that some of them through custom and long use do in time lose their Savour and their Power to increase the Love of God in you and it seems to you there may be more profit in another way take that new course and leave the former without any scruple For that Meditation which will not now affect you at another time will prove more efficacious than any else and that way of opening your soul to God which now you forsake will come about again to be in use Only of this you must take a great care to stir up your self to a continual attendance upon the Publick Service of God For that is a necessary acknowledgment of his Supreme Authority and Dominion in the World and though you feel your self indisposed dull and heavy at certain times in these addresses yet there is this good alwayes done that by your very presence there you have paid part of your homage to him have owned him to be your Lord and Governour and confessed that he is worthy of all Honour and Service But as for the rest though the inclination and resolution of your heart to love Jesus and to be like to him must be unchangeable nevertheless the wayes and means which are to be imployed to the nourishing and strengthning of your resolution may and ought to be changed according as you feel your self disposed and find them to be effectual But especially
let me remember you of this Advice which was long since given me by a good man NOT TO BIND YOUR SELF UNALTERABLY TO VOLUNTARY CUSTOMS Since these are imposed upon us by our selves we may grant our selves a release when we we see it most convenient and not tye our selves unto them as if there were an indispensible obligation lying upon our conscience The rigorous observance of these doth alwayes hinder the freedom of the heart in the Love of Jesus when a better course to promote us in it doth present it self to our choice And therefore do not think there is any necessity that you should alwayes pray in the same way or pray so long or read so many Chapters in a day or study such a Book whereby you have reaped much benefit or think every day of the very same things but you are at liberty to do in these matters as shall most conduce to the ends for which they serve and that is The quickning of you to live agreeably to the Rules of Sobriety Righteousness and Godliness Be not timerous and fearful of stepping aside out of your ordinary course when you only leave what you have bound upon your self by your own will and go to do the Will of God If we can do well what matter is it though it be not in the form that we have prescribed If our business be effected why should we trouble our heads because it was not done in the order and method that we appointed Is it not a madness to deny our selves a natural happiness because we cannot have it according to the precepts of Art It is just as if a man would not speak nor hear Reason unless it be in mode and figure or as if a man would not be saved from drowning unless a friend would bring a Boat to fetch him out of the water or as if a captive Prince should refuse to satisfie his hunger unless all his servants and attendants were admitted to wait upon him What a sottish obstinacy is this thus to adhere to our Rules What a rigorous Justice is it that makes us unjust to our selves What shall we do with this scrupulous Piety which claps fetters and bolts upon our own leggs We should wonder if a man to observe some unnecessary terms of Law should suffer all Laws to perish and it is no less strange if to maintain some free impositions we sustain a loss in the most necessary improvements of our souls This extreme right is an extreme injury It would be an offence against reason not to offend here against a form And we should very much depart from God if we did not here depart a little from our selves To this let me add another thing which it will be profitable to you to be advised of which is that when you are following Jesus in acts of Justice or Charity or any of the rest you do as strongly attract and draw down the blessing of Heaven upon you as by the best devotions which you perform upon your knees You do not think I believe that they are the words which you speak that have any virtue to charm the caelestial Powers but that the Love to God which is expressed in Prayer invites him to come and dwell with you Now this Love is testified as much in other actions of an Holy Life especially when we deny our selves any sensible good in the performance of them and therefore they cannot chuse but re-inforce our Prayers and redouble our Petitions and call still for new Grace to make us able to do better Besides it is to be considered that doing of good being the use and improvement of that Grace of God which we obtain by our Prayers it must needs intitle us to the right which the Promise of God gives us of more Grace to be added unto that which we have already received We render to God hereby his own with Usury and Increase and so cannot miss of procuring more Talents to be lent unto us And indeed if you enter into a strict Examination of things you will find that every act of Virtue hath the very same effect upon the Understanding and Will which I attributed to Prayer it self For there is nothing more inlightens the Mind in the knowledge of good than the experience and taste which the practice of it gives us and the Will is so effectually determined hereby to the choice of it that it gets an habit and naturally propends unto it There is nothing can more dispose the soul to well doing than the doing well and we are never more secure of the help of Gods good Spirit than when we follow the motions of it Behold then what a dangerous Rock doth here discover it self upon which many have dasht and split themselves and perished Men think there is no Communion with God but what is held by Prayer and such like holy duties Nay as if this was all we have to do for maintaining friendship with him it hath ingrossed the name of duty and inclosed the greatest part of Religion in it self A strange conceit As if in the constant exercise of an Holy Life we did not keep a fellowship with him by doing the same that he doth and shewing forth his Virtues to the World Is there any thing more visible than that by Righteousness Charity Patience and such like we approach to God and are made partakers of him Do we not feel him by these things Are we not made one Spirit and Nature with him Doth not he dwell in us and we in him What is the reason then that men confine Divine Communion to Prayer and receiving of the Sacrament as if we never enjoyed him but in these immediate addresses to him What is it that makes them imagine God is here to be found and no where else They know not sure what it is to pray and partake of those holy My steries They fancy it is but the pouring out such a number of words or the stirring of some devout affections in them These they conceive wil put them in the favour of God and secure them there without any further labor Which hath caused it is like the corrupted Church to increase the number of Sacraments and create a great many more than God hath made For it is an easie matter to receive these Seals of Grace and there is no such repugnance to them in our fleshly nature as there is to the life of Jesus Hence it is that men would have the whole summ of Religion to be contained in these small volumes They would have all Piety cloistered up in these narrow walls and are loath to give it a larger compass Within these limits they would willingly have it confined and not have it walk abroad in our common conversation in the World But if they had any true rellish of vertue they would soon discern that these Holy Duties are preparations for whatsoever else we have to do They are so far from excluding all the