blasts their beauty withers that faire flower and makes their winter overtake their spring So in our friends and relations t is usually seen we soonest loose those for whom we have the greatest the most immoderate passion If there be one fondling among our children t is odds but that is taken away or made as much the object of our grief and sorrow as ever it was of our joy and love When God sees our hearts so excessively cleave to any transitory thing he knows t is necessary to sever them for whilst we have such clogs upon us our souls will cleave to the dust Psa. 119. 1. will not be able to soare up to the higher region for which they are design'd 7. IN a word God so loves us that he removes what ever he sees will obstruct that intimate union which he desires with us and sure this is so obliging that tho he should bid us to our loss tho he could not recompence us for what he takes from us yet we must be very ill natur'd if we can be angry at so much kindness But when to this is added that all this is principally nay solely design'd for our advantage that God takes from us all these emty delusory contentments merely that he may instate us in solid and durable joies we betray as much ignorance of our interest as insensibleness of our obligation if we repine that God makes us so much his care T is true indeed the things to which we have so inordinatly adhered do stick so close that they cannot be pull'd away without some pain yet for our corporal security we can endure the sundring of parts that do not only cleave but grow to us He that has a gangrend member suffers it to be cut off to save his whole body and do's not revile but thank and reward the Chirurgion Yet where our souls are concern'd and where the things have no native union with us but are only cemented by our passions we are impatient of the method and think God deals very hardly with us not to let us perish with what we love The sum of all is this God tho he be abundantly condescending yet he will never stoop so low as to share his interest in us with the world if we will devote our selves to it t is not all our emty forms of service will satisfy him if he cannot divorce our hearts from it he will divorce himself eternally from us And the case being thus we are sure very ill advised if we do not contentedly resign our selves to his methods and cheerfully endure them how sharp soever The only expedient we have for our own ease is to shorten the cure by giving our assistance and not by struglings to render it more difficult and painful let us entirely surrender our wills to him and when we have don that we may without much pain let him take any thing else But the more difficult we find it to be disentangled from the world the greater should our caution be against all future engagements to it If our escape hath bin as the Apostle saies so as by fire Jud. 23. with much smart and hazard let us at least have so much wit as the common proverb allows children and not again expose our selves let us never glue our hearts to any external thing but let all the concerns of the world hang loose about us by that means we shall be able to put them off insensibly when ever God calls for them or perhaps we shall prevent his calling for them at all it being for the most part our too close adhesion to them which promts him to it 8. A third advantage of afflictions is that it is a mark and signature of our adoption a witness of our legitimation What son is he saith the Apostle whom the Father chastiseth not but if ye be without chastisement whereof all are partakers then are ye bastards and not sons Heb 12. 7. 8. Iacob clad his dearling Ioseph in a party-coloured Coat and Gods favorites do here wear a Livery inter-woven with a mixture of dark and gloomy colours their long white robes are laid up for them against they come to the marriage of the Lamb Rev. 19 7. Indeed we much mistake the design of Christianity if we think it calls us to a condition of ease and security It might suit well enough with the votaries of the Golden Calf to sit down to eat and drink and rise up to play Exod. 32. 6. but the disciples of the crucified Savior are trained to another discipline our profession enters us into a state of warfare and accordingly our very Baptismal engagement runs all in military terms and we are not only servants of Christs family but soldiers of his camp Now we know in a war men must not expect to pass their time in ease and softness but besides all the dangers and difficulties of the combat have many other hardships to endure hunger and thirst heat and cold hard lodgings and weary marches and he that is too nice for those will not long stick to his colors And it is the same in our spiritual warfare many pressures and sufferings are annexed to it and our passive valor is no less tried then our active In respect of this it is that our Savior admonishes his Profelytes to compute first the difficulties incident to their profession and that he may not ensnare us by proposing too easy terms he bids us reckon upon the worst and tells us that he that forsakes not all that he hath shall not be his disciple Luk. 14. 26. and that we must thro much tribulatiou enter into the kingdom of God Act. 14. 22. Indeed t were very absurd for us to expect easier conditions when these are the same to which our Leader has submitted the Captain of our Salvation was perfected by sufferings Heb. 2. 10. and if it behooved Christ to suffer before he enter'd into his glory Luk 24. 46. it were insolent madness for us to look to be carried thither upon our beds of Ivory of from the noise of our harps and viols be immmediatly rapt into the Choire of Angels 8. THIS has bin so much consider'd by pious men that they have lookt upon their secular prosperities with fear and jealousy and many have solemnly petition'd for crosses as thinking them the necessary attestation of their son-ship and means of assimulation to their elder brother Why then should that which was so desirable to them appear so formidable to us or why should we so vehemently deprecate what they so earnestly invited If we indeed think it a privilege to be the sons of God and fellow-heirs with Christ why do we grudg at the condition The Roman Captain tells St. Paul that he obtained the immunities of a Roman with a great sum Act. 22. 28. and shall we expect so much a nobler and more advantageous adoption perfectly gratis look that God should change his whole Oeconomy for our ease give
we in T is sure we have nothing to plead in reverse of that judgment There is nothing in it against justice for he takes but his own This he intimates to Israel Hos. 2. 9. I will return and take away my corn in the time thereof and my wine in the season thereof and will recover my wool and my flax in which he asserts his own propriety my corn my wine c and recalls them to the remembrance that they were but usufructuaries and t is as evident that our tenure is but the same Nay this proceeding would not be repugnant even to mercy for even that is not obliged still to prostitute its self to our contemt I am sure such a tolerance is beyond all the mesures of humane lenity Should any of us offer an alms to an indigent wretch and he when he sees t is Silver should murmur and exclame that it is not Gold would we not draw back our hand and reserve our charity for a more worthy object T is true indeed Gods thoughts are not as our thoughts nor our narrow bowels equal mesures for the divine compassions and we experimentally find that his long-suffering infinitly exceeds ours yet we know he do's in the parable of the Lord and the servant Mat. 18. declare that he will proportion his mercy by ours in that instance and we have no promise that he will not do it in this nay we have all reason to expect he should for since his wisdom promts him to do nothing in vain and all his bounty to us is design'd to make us happy when he sees that end utterly frustrated by our discontents to what purpose should he continue that to us which we will be never the better for 6. BESIDES tho he be exceedingly patient yet he is not negligent or insensible he takes particular notice not only with what diligence we employ but with what affections we resent every of his blessings And as ingratitude is a vice odious to men so it is extremely provoking to God so that in this sense also the words of our Savior are most true from him that hath not i.e. that hath not a grateful sense and value shall be taken away even that he hath Mat. 25. 29. But we may find a threatning of this kind yet more express to Israel because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with gladness and with joifulness of heart for the abundance of all things therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies whom the Lord God will send among thee in hunger and in thirst and in nakedness and in want of all things Deut 28. 27. 28. a sad and dismal inversion yet founded wholly in the want of that cheerful recognition which God expected from them And if Israel the lot of his own inheritance that people whom he had singled out from all the nations of the world could thus forfeit his favor by unthankfulness sure none of us can suppose we have any surer entail of it In a word as God loves a cheerful giver so he also loves a cheerful receiver One that complies with his end in bestowing by taking a just complacence in his gifts But the querulous and unsatisfied reproch his bounty accuse him of illiberality and narrowness of mind So that he seems even in his honor engag'd to bring them to a righter apprehension of him and by a deprivation teach them the value of those good things which they could not learn by the enjoiment 7. IF therefore ingenuity and gratitude cannot yet at least let prudence and self-self-love engage us against this sin of Murmuring which we see do's abundantly justify the character the Wise man gives when he tells us t is unprofitable Wis. 1. 11. he might have said pernicious also for so it evidenly is in its effects Let us then arm our selves against it and to that purpose impress deeply upon our minds the present consideration that God ows us nothing and that what ever we receive is an alms and not a tribute Diogenes being asked what wine drank the most plesant answered that which is drunk at anothers cost And this circumstance we can never miss of to recommend our good things to us for be they little or much they come gratis When therefore in a pettish mood we find our selves apt to charge God foolishly and to think him strait-handed towards us let us imagine we hear God expostulating with us as the housholder in the parable Friend I do thee no wrong is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own Mat. 20. 15. If God have not the right of disposing let us find out those that have and see how much better we shall speed but if he hath let us take heed of disputing with him we that subsist merely by his favor had need court and cherish it by all the arts of humble observance Every man is ready to say how ill beggary and pride do agree The first qualification we cannot put off O let us not provide it of the other so inconvenient so odious an adjunct Let us leave off prescribing to God which no ingenuous man would do to an earthly benefactor and let us betake our selves to a more holy and succesful policy the acknowledgment of past mercies and our own unworthiness This was Jacobs method I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth which thou hast shew'd unto thy servant for with my staff I passed over this Iordan and now I am become two bands and with this humble preface he introduces his petition for rescue in his present distress Deliver me I pray thee from the hand of my brother c. Gen. 32. 10. 11. An excellent pattern of Divine Rhetoric which the success demonstrates to have bin very prevalent And we cannot transcribe a better copy to render our desires as succesful Indeed we are so utterly destitute of all arguments from our selves that we can make no reasonable form of address if we found it not in somthing of God and there is nothing even in him adapted to our purpose but his mercy nor can that be so advantageously urged by any thing as by the former instances it has given of it self for as God only is fit to be a precedent to himself so he loves to be so Thus we find not only Moses but God often recollecting his miraculous favors towards Israel as an argument to do more let us therefore accost him in his own way and by a frequent and grateful recounting of his former mercies engage him to future Nor need we be at a loss for matter of such recollection if we will but seriously consider what we have already received which is the subject of the next Section SECT III. Of Gods Vnlimited Bounty 1. IT is the known character of an unworthy nature to write injuries in Marble and benefits in dust and however some as Seneca well observes may acquit themselves of this imputation as to
the reward Heb. 11. 26. as made them cheerfully expose their Fame to ignominy their Goods to rapine their Bodies to the most exquisite tortures and their Lives to death Yet the same hopes cannot work us to any tolerable degree of patience when we suffer but the smallest diminution in any of these What shall we say Is Heaven grown less valuable or Earth more then it was then No surely but we are more infatuated in our estimates we have so long abetted the rivalry of the hand-maid that the Mistress like Sarah appears despicable Like Ionah we sit down sullen upon the withering of a gourd never considering that God has provided us a better shelter a building of God eternal in the Heavens 2 Cor. 5. 1. Indeed there can be no temporal destitution so great which such an expectation cannot make supportable Were we in Iobs condition sitting upon a dunghil and scraping our selves with a potsheard yet as long as we can say with him our Redeemer liveth Job 19. 25. we have all reason to say with him also blessed be the name of the Lord. Chap. 1. 21. What a madness is it then for us to expose our selves to be pierc'd and wounded by every temporal adversity who have so impenetrable an armour nay what an ungrateful contumely is it to that goodness of God to shew that we cannot make him a counterpoise to the most trivial secular satisfaction on which account sure he may again take up that exprobrating complaint we find in the Prophet A goodly price that I was valued at by them Zac. 11. 13. 19. BUT how mean soever he is in our eies tho Christ seem the same to us in his glory which he did in his abjection to have no beauty that we should desire him yet he puts another rate upon himself and tell us that he that loves Father or Mother Son or Daughter more then me is not worthy of me Mat. 10. 37. Now our love and our joy are passions coincident and therefore whatever we joy more in then we do in him we may be presum'd to love better and if he cannot endure the competition of those more ingenuous objects of our love he there mentions how will he suffer that of our vanities our childish wanton appetites And yet those are the things after which we so impatiently rave For I believe I may truly affirm that if there were a scrutiny made into all the discontents of mankind for one that were fastned upon any great considerable calamity there are many that are founded only in the irregularity of our own desires 20. BY what has bin said we may justly conclude in the Prophets phrase God hath not bin to us a wilderness a land of darkness Jer. 2. 31. but has graciously dispen'st to us in all our interests Yet the instances here given are only common such as relate to all or at least the far greater part of mankind but what volums might be made should every man set down his own particular experiences of mercy In that case t would be no extravagant Hyperbole we find Joh. 22. 25. That even the world it self could not contain the books which should be written God knows our memories are very frail and our observations slight in this point yet abstracting from all the forgotten or neglected favors what vast catalogues may every man make to himself if he would but yet recollect what effects he has had of Gods bounty in giving of his providence in protecting of his grace in restraining and exciting of his patience in forbearing And certainly all these productions of the divine goodness were never design'd to die in the birth The Psalmist will tell us the Lord hath so don his marvellous works that they ought to be had in remembrance Ps. III. 4. Let every man then make it his daily care to recount to himself the wonders God hath don as for the children of men in general so for himself in particular When the Israelites murmured under their bondage Pharaoh imputes it to their idleness and prescribes them more work as the readiest cure a piece indeed of inhuman Tyranny in him but may with equity and success be practiced by us upon our selves When we find our appetites mutinous complaining of our present condition let us set our selves to work impose it as a task upon our selves to recollect the many instances of Gods mercies And surely if we do it sincerely and with intention we cannot have past thro half our stages before our sullen murmurs will be beat out of countenance and retire with shame when they are confronted with such a cloud of witnesses such signal testimonies of Gods goodness to us for when we have muster'd up all our little grievances most critically examin'd all our wants we shall find them very unproportionable to our comforts and to our receits in which comparative notion the next Section is to consider them SECT IV. Of the Surplusage of our Enjoiments above our Sufferings 1. TO regulate our estimate of those things which we either enjoy or suffer there are three precedent queries to be made the first of their number or plenty the second of their weight the third of their constancy and continuance for according as they partake more of these properties every good is more good and every evil is more evil It will therefore be our best method of trial in the present case to compare our blessings and our calamities in these three respects 2. AND first in that of plenty the mercies of God are the source of all our good are set out to us in holy scripture in the most superlative strein They are multitudes Psal. 102. 20. Plenteous redemtion Psal. 130. 7. as high as the heaven Psal. 103. 11. He fills all things living with plenteousness Psal. 145. 16. His mercies indeed are such as come not within the compass of number but stretch themselves to infinity and are best represented by such a calculation as God made to Abraham when he shew'd him the numerousness of his posterity by the innumerableness of the stars Gen. 15. 5. Were there but a single mercy apportion'd to each minute of our lives the sum would arise very high but how is our Arithmetic confounded when every minute has more then we can distinctly number for besides the original stock mention'd in the last section and the accession of new bounty the giving us somewhat which we had not before what an accumulative mercy is it the preserving what we have We are made up of so many pieces have such varieties of interests spiritual temporal public and private for our selves for our friends and dependants that it is not a confused general regard that will keep all these in security one moment We are like a vast building which costs as much to maintain as to erect And indeed considering the corruptibleness of our materials our preservation is no less a work of omnipotence then our first forming nay perhaps t is
to render any man a dearling to God But if all men should have equal satisfactions we should puzle even Omnipotence it self Every man would be above and superior yet those are comparative terms and if no man were below no man could be above So in wealth most men desire more but every man do's at least desire to keep what he has how then shall one part of the world be supplied without the diminution of the other unless there should be as miraculous a multiplication of tresure for mens avarice as there was of Loaves for their hunger Mat. 16. 9. It was a good answer which the Ambassadors of an opprest Province made to Antony If O Emperor thou wilt have double taxes from us thou must help us to double Springs and Harvests And sure God must be at the expence of a new Creation make us a double world if he should oblige himself to satisfy all the unreasonable appetites of men and if he satisfy not all why should any particular person look that his alone should be indulged to 6. YET as unreasonable as it is the most of us do betray such a perswasion No man is discontented that there are lower as well as higher degrees in the world that there are poor as well as rich but all sensible men assent to the fitness of it yet if themselves happen to be set in the lower form they exclame as if the whole order of the world were subverted which is a palpable indication that they think that Providence which governs others should serve them and distribute to them not what it but themselves think good This immoderate self-self-love is the spring and root of most of our complaints makes us such unequal judges in our own concerns and promts us to put in Caveats and exceptions on our own behalf as David did on his sons See that thou hurt not the young man Absolom 2 Sam. 18. 15. as if God were to manage the government of the world with a particular regard to our liking and were like the Angels at Sodom Gen. 19. 22. to do nothing till we had got into Zoar had all our demands secured to us 7. IT would indeed astonish a considering man to see that altho the concerns of men are all disposed by an unerring Wisdom and acknowledged by themselves to be so yet that scarce any man is pleased The truth is we have generally in us the worser part of the Levelers principle and tho we can very contentedly behold multitudes below us yet are impatient to see any above us not only the foot to use the Apostles simile complains that it is not the hand but the eare because it is not the eie 1 Cor. 12. 15. 16. Not only the lowermost but the higher ranks of men are uneasy if there be any one step above them Nay so importunate is this aspiring humor that we see men are forced to feed it tho but with aire and shadows He that cannot make any real advance in his quality will yet do it in effigie in all little gaieties and pageantries of it Every degree in these respects not only emulates but imitates its superior till at last by that impatience of their proper distance they make it greater and sink even below their first state by their ridiculous profusion Indeed the world seems to be so over-run with this vanity that there is little visible distinction of degrees and one had need go to the Heralds office to know mens qualities for neither their habit nor equipage do now adaies inform us with any certainty 1. BUT by all these it appears that men look on themselves only as single persons without reference to the community whereof they are members For did they consider that they would endevor rather to become the places wherein they were set by doing the duties belonging to them then be perpetually projecting for a change A tree that is every year transplanted will never bear fruit and a mind that is alwaies hurried from its proper station will scarce ever do good in any This is excellently exprest to us by Solomon As a bird that wandereth from his nest so is a man that wandereth from his place Pro. 27. 8. T is easy to divine the fate of those young ones from whom the damn wanders and t is as easy to guess how the duties of that place will be performed whose owner is alwaies upon the wing and making towards another I wish we had not too costly experiments both in Church and State of the truth of this observation Alas we forget that we are all servants to the same Master and that he is to appoint in what office we shall serve him How should we like it in any of our own families to have an inferior officer leave his work undon because he has more mind to be Major-Domo Yet this insolence we every day repete towards God sullenly dispute his orders and unless we may chuse our own imploiments will do nothing 9. T IS evident this perverse temper of mankind breeds a great deal of mischief and disturbance in the world but would breed arrant confusion and subversion if it were suffered to have its full range If God permit but one ambitious spirit to break loose in an age as the instrument of his wrath what destruction do's it often times make How do's it cause the whole earth to tremble and shake Kingdoms as is said of Nebuchadnezzar Isa. 14. 16. and may be said of many others of those whole-sale robbers who have dignified the trade But if every aspiring humor should be as prosperous where would it find fuel to maintain the flame No doubt every age produces men of as unbounded desires as Alexander or Cesar but God gives them not the same opportunities to trouble the world And accordingly in the more petty ambitions of private men he often orders it so that those soaring minds can find no benign gale to help their mounting He that sets bounds to the sea saying hitherto shalt thou come and no farther and tho the waves thereof toss themselves yet can they not prevaile tho they roar yet can they not pass over Jer. 5. 22. do's also depress the swelling pride of men hangs clogs and weights upon them that they cannot rise to their affected height For tho we are all willing to forget it yet God remembers that he is the Rector of the Universe and will assert his Dominion The subtilest contrivance cannot circumvent him the most dareing pretender cannot wrest any thing out of his hand the Lord will still be King be the people never so impatient Psa. 99. 1. T will therefore sure be as well our prudence as our duty to be still and know that he is God Psal. 46. 10. with an humble dereliction of our own wills acquiesce in his and not by ineffective struglings provoke whom we are sure never to subdue We may like unmanaged horses fome and fret but still God has the bridle in
rescue from it O let us not then be so unkind to our selves as to neglect this infallible means of our deliverance but with the Psalmist take our refuge under the shadow of the divine wings till the calamity be over-past Psa. 57. 1. And as this is a sure expedient in all our real important afflictions so is it a good test by which to try what are so We are often peevish and disquieted at trifles nay we take up the quarrels of our lusts and vices and are discontented when they want their wisht supplies Now in either of these cases no man that at all considers who he praies to will dare to insert these in his praiers it being a contemt of God to invoke him in things so slight as the one or impious as the other It will therefore be good for every man when he goes to address for relief to consider what of his pressures they are that are worthy of that solemn deprecation and when he has singled those out let him reflect and he will find he has in that prejudg'd all his other discontents as frivolous or wicked And then sure he cannot think fit to harbour them but must for shame dismiss them since they are such as he dares not avow to him from whom alone he can expect relief God alwaies pities our real miseries but our imaginary ones dare not demand it Let us not then create such diseases to our selves as we cannot declare to our Physitian and when those are precluded for all the rest St. Pauls recipe is a Catholicon Be careful for nothing but in every thing by praiers and supplications with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God Phil. 4. 6. SECT XI Of Resignation 1. AND now amidst such variety of receits t will be hard to instance any one sort of calamity which can escape their efficacy if they be but duly appli'd But indeed we have generally a compendious way of frustrating all remedies by never making use of them like fantastic patients we are well enough content to have our disease discourst and medicines prescrib'd but when the Physic comes have still some pretence or other to protract the taking it But I shall beseech the Reader to consider that counsels are not charms to work without any cooperation of the concern'd person they must be adverted to they must be ponder'd and consider'd and finally they must be practic'd or else the utmost good they can do us is to give us a few hours divertisment in the reading but they do us a mischief that infinitly out-weighs it for they improve our guilts by the ineffective tender they make of rescuing us from them and leave us accountable not only for the original crimes but for our obstinate adhesion to them in spight of admonition 2. I say this because it is a little too notorious that many take up books only as they do cards or dice as an instrument of diversion T is a good entertainment of their curiosity to see what can be said upon any subject and be it well or ill handled they can please themselves equally with the ingenuity or ridiculousness of the composure and when they have don this they have don all they design'd This indeed may be tolerable in Romances and Play-books but sure it ill befits Divinity And yet I fear it oftnest happens there for in the former some do project for some trivial improvements as the embellishing of their stile the inspiriting of their fancies and some men would scarce be able to drive their pedling trade of wit did they not thus sweep the stage but alas how many books of piety are read of which one cannot discern the least tincture in mens conversations which sure do's in a great mesure proceed from the want of a determinate design in their reading mens practice being not apt to be less rovers then their speculation He that takes a practical subject in hand must do it with a design to conform his practice to what he shall there be convinc'd to be his duty and he that comes not with this probity of mind is not like to be much benefited by his reading 3. BUT one would think this should be an unnecessary caution at this time for since the intent of this tract is only to shew men the way to contentment t is to be suppos'd the Readers will be as much in earnest as the writer can be it being every mans proper and most important interest the instating him in the highest and most supreme felicity that this world can admit yet for all this fair probability I doubt many will in this instance have the same indifference they have in their other spiritual concerns 4. T IS true indeed that a querulous repining humor is one of the most pernicious the most ugly habits incident to mankind but yet as deformed people are oft the most in love with themselves so this crooked piece of our temper is of all others the most indulgent to it self Melancholy is the most stubborn and untractable of all humors and discontent being the offspring of that partakes of that inflexibility and accordingly we see how impregnable it often is against all assaults of reason and religion too Ionah in a sullen mood would justify his discontent even to God himself and in spight of that calm reproof dost thou well to be angry Jon. 4. 9. aver he did well to be angry even to the death And do we not frequently see men upon an impatience of some disappointment grow angry even at their comforts Their friends their children their meat their drink every thing grows nauseous to them and in a frantic discontent they often fling away those things which they most value Besides this peevish impatience is of so aerial a diet that t is scarce possible to starve it T will nurish itself with Phantasms and Chimeras suborn a thousand surmises imaginary distresses to abet its pretences and tho every one of us can remonstrate to another the unreasonableness of this discontent yet scarce any of us will draw the argument home or suffer our selves to be convinc'd by what we urge as irrefragable to others Nay farther this humor is impatient of any diversion loves to converse only with it self In bodily pains men that despair of cure are yet glad of allaies and mitigations and strive by all arts to divert and deceive the sense of their anguish but in this disease of the mind men cherish and improve their torment roll and chew the bitter pill in their mouths that they may be sure to have its utmost flavor and by devoting all their thoughts to the subject of their grief keep up an uninterrupted sense of it as if they had the same Tyranny for themselves which Caligula had for others and loved to feel themselves die Indeed there is not a more absurd contradiction in the world then to hear men cry out of the weight the intolerableness of their burden and