and one as much elevated above the other as are the Principles they flow from But whether this be so or no does not import much for it is plain that Life whatever it be is like Seed which according to the different Soyl it is sown in produces Fruit more or less rich and succulent more or less luscious and beautiful here it sprouts forth like the seven poor and lean there like the seven plump and rich Ears of Corn in Pharaoh's Dream and should it by way of fiction be supposed that one and the same Soul did communicate Life to Men Beasts and Vegetables however Life in each would be equal in the dignity of its Original it would vastly differ in its Effects and Operations so whether Life in Man flow from one or two distinct Principles it is evident that its Price and Dignity varies according to the different Powers and Faculties which it moves and animates and by consequence that Life which displays it self in the acts of our Rational Part will be as different from that which consists in Sensation and the Motions of Bodily Appetites as is the Light that glitters in a Diamond from that which faintly imitates it in a Pebble the more numerous and the more exquisite our Faculties the vaster is the Empire of Life and the more delicate and charming all its Functions and Operations How evident is this in all the Organs and Senses of the Body Let Darkness invade the Eye and Deafness the Ear and then within what narrow and scanty Bounds is the bodily Life reduced How few and ignoble are the Vital Acts and Operations of the Body How vile and contemptible are all the Fruits or Instances of a sensitive Life If then there be no Sense or Organ of the Body superfluous can we think the rational Soul it self can be so If there be no Power no Capacity of a sensitive Soul by which Life is not enlarged or enriched must we not needs conclude That to extinguish the Immortal Spirit within us and as it were to discard all its Powers and Faculties must needs be to impoverish mutilate and stifle it since I have a Soul as well as Body since the one is as capable of conversing with God and Heaven with Truth and Moral Goodness and Perfection as the other is of conversing with this World of visible Objects I cannot but conclude That to be destitute of Knowledge and Faith of Hope and Love is more injurious to the true Life of Man than to be Deaf or Blind that Stupidity or Lethargy in the Soul such as renders it altogether incapable of rational Pleasure is as inconsistent with the true Life of Man as Lethargy or a dead Palsie in the Body can be and to be excluded from Commerce with the invisible World is as fatal to it as to be debarred the visible one From all this 't is evident that whether we consider Life with respect to its Excellence and Dignity or to its Enlargement and Extension Sensuality is extreamly injurious to it in both respects so far doth it debase and contract it that I may boldly conclude to place Life in Sensuality is to renounce the much more valuable and delightful part of it to banish our selves the much better World and to rob our selves of a thousand Joys and Pleasures which we might reap from the rational Powers and Faculties that is the noblest Capacities and Endowments of our Nature Thô this be abundantly enough to evince that Life consists not in Sensuality yet this being of the highest Importance to Humane Happiness I will proceed to the second Argument against it that is Secondly It is not consonant to the Dignity of Humane Nature or which is all one to the Design of our Beings conspicuous in our Frame and Constitution who that ever considered what Sensuality was how narrow the extent of Sense how mean and brutish the Pleasure that terminates in it what a Corruption and Degeneracy it ends in Who I say that has ever considered these and a thousand things more can believe that Sensuality is an Employment worthy of Man Is this the Business of a vast and comprehensive mind Is this consistent with ambitious Desires of Immortality with unquenchable Thirst of Truth with a Capacity of discovering Spiritual Excellencies and Moral Beauties and Perfections Was it for this we were endowed with Propensions to worship and adore a Deity What can be as much as fancied the use of Wisdom Magnanimity Conscience Sagacity Caution Fear Foresight and anxious Enquiries into future Things and Times if Sensuality had been the only Employment designed Man how much more fit had we been formed for this end if there had been in us no Reason to check and controul us no Conscience that could fill us with regret for the past or fear for the Future no Wisdom that could teach us that there were any thing above us nor greatness of mind that could reproach us for stooping to any thing below us Thirdly 'T is almost superfluous here to add That Life consists not in Worldliness or Devilishness as to the former of these by which I mean the Cares and Pursuits of the World 't is plain that to employ our Time or Faculties in this alone is not to Live but at best to provide for Life Necessity may sometimes subject us to the drudgery and slavery of the World but a voluntary Choice never should I know no other difference between a mean Fortune and a great one than this that the great one sets a Man above those Cares and Toils which the mean one forces him to submit to that the one puts the fortunate Man into the immediate possession of all the Means and Instruments of Life Improvement and Fruition and of Leasure and Opportunity to make use of them but the latter obliges the less fortunate Man to purchase these Advantages with Toil and Sweat Sollicitude and Care 't is therefore an unpardonable wilfulness or blindness whenever that Vassalage which is the Infelicity of the mean Man is the choice of the rich and fortunate one Nor is it a more pardonable Error in any who continue the drudgey and care when the necessity is over and voluntarily suffer all the disadvantages of a narrow Fortune even when they have attained to a plentiful one who never think it time to begin to Live or to enjoy the Success of their Cares and Diligence this is an Absurdity as gross as his who after he has plowed and sowed should refuse to reap or his who having with much cost and labour furnished out a plentiful Table should not at length find in his heart to fall too and eat Life then consists not in the abundance of the things which a man possesses much less in the vexation or toil of acquiring securing or increasing them which is that I intend by Worldliness but least of all can Life consist in Devilishness that is Wrath Strife Revenge Pride and such like this cannot be
I here begin with Life and dividing this Book into three Sections I will in the first discourse of the true Notion of Humane Life In the second of the right Conduct or Regulation of the two different kinds of Life Active and Contemplative In the third of the right husbanding Humane Life by prolonging and improving it SECT I. Of the True Notion of Life CHAP. I. Life a great Blessing in it self Proves a great Evil to some And why Happiness perfect only in Heaven THô Life render us capable of Pain as well as Pleasure yet has it ever been valued as the richest Blessing the Love of it is the earliest and the strongest Principle in us it moves the Infant before he knows how to rate the Pleasures of Life or can apprehend any Evil in Death it grows up to strength and maturity in Man and is the Soveraign Passion in him to which all the rest pay homage Skin for skin and all that a man has will he give for his Life Age does very little diminish it and Misery it self cannot extinguish it Nor does this Passion want the suffrage of the wisest and the greatest men or the approbation of God for one chief design of Society and Government of Laws and Arms is the protection of Life and God who best understood the bent of Humane Nature has proposed as the biggest Blessing and powerfullest Motive to Obedience a long Life I examine not now what it farther prefigured under the Old Testament and an eternal one under the New And for all this there is plain reason for Life if it be not when rightly understood Happiness it self yet is it surely the Foundation of it and the Foundation in a Building if it be not as beautiful as upper Stories yet is it ever as necessary I wonder not therefore that the Sentence of Death shook the Piety of Hezekiah and the Courage of Saul so that the one wept sore and the other fell to the ground But to all this will it not be objected Alas How many are there who all their days are no more sensible of the good of Life than of the Pleasures and Repasts of a Dream who being come to Threescore years and ten that is to dye do not yet understand what it is to live ah how many which is yet worse to whom Life is a burden and yet Death a terror who when they are to give back the Breath of Life have just reason to wish they had never received it and to curse the day that they were born And do not Elijah Job Solomon Jeremy Esdras and many others great and good men talk of Life at a different rate from what I here do and represent it to us under another Notion and quite contrary Character Better is the day of death than the day of ones birth Let the day perish wherein I was born and the night wherein it was said there is a man-child conceived The Reflection of Esdras on the common misery of Mankind has as much weight and sense as Job's on his own has passion For what profit is it for men now in this present time to live in heaviness and after death to look for punishment These and such like Passages we meet with every where which seem to give us no very taking Idea of Life To all this I answer 'T is with Life as with all other Blessings the right use of it is our happiness the abuse of it our misery There is nothing in the nature of the thing that implies evil or trouble nor has it any necessary and inevitable tendency to it We must not therefore estimate a Blessing by the mischief it occasions such as pervert and abuse it nor by the Complaints which Humane Frailty sometimes forces from wise and good men in a melancholy fit or finally by the Reflections they sometimes make not on the intrinsick worth or natural tendency of Life but on the Evils which flow from the Corruption or Deprivation of it 'T is true when all is said Heaven is the proper Region of Happiness there it dwells in its glory and majesty in all its fulness and excellence but what then because Perfection does properly belong to Heaven is there no Vertue upon Earth because all things are in their maturity and consummation there shall we deny that there is any sweetness or beauty here Just so must we think of the happiness of this in comparison of that of another world it is here in its Infancy we do slumber and are scarcely ever fully awake we see little penetrate and comprehend less and we move very feebly and unsteadily but all this while we grow up to strength we advance towards perfection our Joynts grow firmer our Stature increases our Understanding dawns towards day and our Affections are gradually animated with a more generous and lasting heat so that all this while this infant state of Happiness is pleasant and promising and every step in the whole progress towards Perfection presents us with fresh Beauties and Delights but I know no body so fantastick as to despise the present Life because it is not equal to that above and he that thinks there is none above sets the more value on this because he has nothing more or further to expect I will not therefore spend any more time in endeavouring to prove Life a valuable Blessing but rather proceed to show how every man may really make it such to himself which I think I cannot more compendiously do than by stating the true Notion of Humane Life for as our Misery flows from the abuse and our Happiness from the right use of Life so does the abuse from false and the right use from true Notions of it CHAP. II. Life what in a natural sense What in a moral Life Perfection and Enjoyment inseparably united More particularly Life consists not in Sloth Sensuality Worldliness Devilishness but in the Regulation of all our Actions according to right Reason LIFE may be considered either in a Natural or Moral Sense in the former acceptation what it is is an Enquiry very abstruse and intricate like the Egyptian Nile thô its Streams be visible to every Eye its Source or Fountain is concealed or like Grace thô we feel its Energy and taste its Fruits yet we cannot discover and define its Essence but to carry our discovery thus far is accuracy enough in Moral Discourses whose end is not Speculation but Happiness Life then whatever it be in the Fountain and Essence as far as we can discern it is nothing else but that force and vigour which moves and acts the Man and to live speaking in a natural sense is to exert the Powers and Faculties of Nature according to which account of Life 't is capable of as many Notions as are the different Offices it performs 't is Sense and Motion in the Body 't is Perception and Fancy in the Imagination 't is Knowledge in the Understanding and Love and Hate with
all their Train or Retinue of Passions in the Heart or Soul Now because all Morality consists in the right use of those Blessings which our great and bountiful Author confers upon us therefore in a moral sense the true Life of Man is nothing else but the right use of our whole Nature an active imploying it in its due Functions and Offices a vigorous Exercise of all our Powers and Faculties in a manner suitable to the Dignity and Design to the Frame and Constitution of our Beings To live then in a moral sense is to know and contemplate to love and pursue that which is the true Good of Man this is the Life of the Understanding Will Affections and of the whole Man and whatever acts of ours are not some way or other conversant about Truth and Goodness are not properly Acts of Humane Life but Deviations from it And here I cannot chuse but pause a little to admire and magnifie the infinite Wisdom and Goodness of the Almighty Architect who has contrived an inseparable Connection and necessary Dependance between Life Perfection and Fruition every rational Act every right Use or Exertion of our Natural Powers and Faculties as it is of the Essence of Moral Life so does it contribute to the Improvement and Perfection of our Beings and to the Pleasure and Felicity of our state for Perfection is the Result of such repeated Acts and Pleasure of our entertaining our selves with proper and agreeable Objects Happy man to whom to live improve and enjoy is the same thing who cannot defeat God's Goodness and his own Happiness but by perverting his Nature and depraving his Faculties but by making an ill use or none at all of the Favours and Bounties of God If we examine this Notion of Life more closely and distinctly and resolve this general Account of it into several Particulars we shall easily arrive at a fuller and clearer Comprehension of it First 'T is evident from this Account of Life that it does not consist in Sloth in the meer marriage or cohabitation of Soul and Body in meer Duration or Continuance in this World Solomon indeed out of a natural Abhorrence of Death tells us Truly Light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is to behold the Sun Eccl. 2.7 Something it is if we must call it pleasure 't is but a faint and low one such as all the Irrational Creatures but Bats and Owls and Moles are capable of but according to my Philosophy it can never deserve the Name of Life He that possesses Vital Powers and Faculties is in a Capacity of Life but he only that exerts them Lives To live is not to spend or wast our time but to imploy it 'T is a lamentable History of Life when it can all be summed up in the few Syllables of a Funeral Ring he lived to or rather as it is wont to be expressed he died such a day of the Month such a year of his Age for indeed he lived not at all Life is a meer Dream not only on the account of its shortness but also of its Night and Lethargy when stupid Ignorance confines and dims the Prospect and Sluggishness enfeebles all the powers of the Mind Vigour and Activity Fruition and Enjoyment make up Life without these Life is but an imperfect Embryo a mingled twilight that never will be Day the Images the slothful form of things are faint and obscure like Pictures drawn in watery Colours and weak and imperfect stroaks and vanish as easie as those half Sounds and imperfect Forms which we take in between sleep and waking all their Passions move drowsily and heavily and all their Entertainments have no more relish than abortive Fruit which can never be ripened into Sweetness or Beauty When I have observed any one thus wasting away a whole Life without ever being once well awake in it passing through the World like a heedless Traveller without making any Reflections or Observations without any Design or Purpose beseeming a Man ah thought I is this that Creature for which this great Theater the World was made for which it was so adorned and so enriched Is this the Creature that is the Epitome of the World the top and glory of the visible Creation a little inferiour to Angels and allied to God Is this Machine acted by a moving Flame and by a wise and immortal Spirit Ah! how much is this poor useless stupid thing sunk beneath the Dignity and Design of its Nature How far short is it faln of the Glory to which God had destined it Shall this contemplative thing ever be admitted to Eternal Life who has so wretchedly fooled away this Temporal one Or can Crowns and Kingdoms be reserved for one who has been so ill a Steward of all these Talents God has committed to him No surely I could upon the first thought imagine his sluggish Soul would vanish like those of Brutes or as the Stoicks fancy those of Fools I could easily imagine that it could sleep not as some fancy all Souls do to the Resurrection but to all Eternity But upon better consideration I find this ignorant and incogitant Life is not so innocent as to deserve no worse a Fate For is it a small Crime to live barren and unfruitful endowed with so many Talents to frustrate the design of our Creation to choak and stifle all the Seeds of a Divine Life and Perfection to quench the Grace and Spirit of God In a word is it a small Crime to be false and perfidious to God unjust and injurious to Man No it cannot be and therefore in the parable of our Saviour wherein the last Audit or Day of Accompts is represented the slothful and wicked Servant signifie one and the same thing and must undergo one and the same Sentence Secondly Life cannot consist in Sensuality that is in the meer caressing our Senses or the gratification of our Carnal Appetites The Reasons of this Assertion are evident from the general Notion of Life For first This is not the Exercise of the whole Nature but a part of it and that the inferiour and ignobler too Secondly It is not an Imployment suitable to the Dignity of our Nature First Sensuality imploys only the meaner part of us St. Paul makes mention of the outward and the inward man and seems to make up the whole man of Spirit Soul and Body and some both Divines and Philosophers of no small note both Modern and Ancient have taught that there are two distinct Souls in man a Sensitive and a Rational one if this be so the Sensualist thô he seem fond of Life does foolishly contemn the better half of it and as much a Slave to Pleasure as he is he chuses to drink only the Dregs and lets the pure Streams of sprightly and delicious Life pass by untasted for if there be a Sensitive and Rational Soul there must be a Sensitive and a Rational Life too distinct and different from one another
excellent account in this for when the retired Man doth cultivate the Neighbourhood and sow it with his Charity he seems but to plant and water his own Garden or plough and sow his own Fields and while he renders them more rich gay and fertile himself reaps the Pleasure and the Profit enjoys the Prospect and feasts on the Fruit Just so it is in this piece of Spiritual Husbandry he who imparts Wisdom and Instruction to another purifies and exalts his own Mind he that scatters the Expressions of his Bounty and Charity feels his Soul warm and delighted and finds his Vertue and his Joy enlarged for 't is with Grace as 't is with Nature the Exercise of each breeds both strength and pleasure to all which you may add That no Man consults more effectually the Interest and the Pleasure of his Retirement than he who most zealously studies the Support and Improvement of his Neighbourhood Here 's Business enough and I could point out to you more But why should I take pains to contrive and cut out Work for the Contemplative Man Peradventure I should do him more Service could I teach him an Art to decline it Alas Business will hunt and follow us it will intrude and press upon us whether we will or no and such is the natural Vanity such the Curiosity of our Minds that we are too often apt to make our selves work and to intangle our selves in a thousand Trifles and Impertinences I doubt therefore that it is here very needful to put those I am discoursing to in mind to take care that whilst they shun the Trouble and Business of the World they suffer not themselves to be entangled in Impertinences of their own creating that they mind and pursue the main End that is growth and increase in Vertue and be at all times ready to sacrifice Trifles and Matters of less Moment to this their great Interest least Fancy and Humour or something worse usurp the place of Reason as it does too often happen in a Life of absolute and uncontroulable Liberty Secondly Diversion This is not to be excluded from a Solitary Life they adulterate Religion who make it sower or melancholy it condemns nothing but what infects the purity or breaks the force and vigour of the Mind we are not immortal and incorruptible Beings the Soul and Body both for it were vain to contradict universal Experience sink under the weight of constant Labour it will be hard if not impossible to preserve the vigour of the Mind if we destroy the health of the Body God in another World designs us Spiritual Bodies as the most proper Instruments of these active Minds let us not therefore make them here crasie and sickly I would never have my Religion be the effect of a broken Body but an inlightned Mind I would never have it proceed from discontent conceived against this World but from the firm belief love and admiration of a better whatever therefore Diversion recreates my Mind without ensnaring it whatever repairs my Body without impairing my Vertue I embrace with open Arms I 'le not only taste but drink my fill of Pleasure if it exalt not debase my Nature I shall never complain that my Mind is too chearful or my Body too vigorous Let the Priests of Baal cut themselves with Knives and Lancets I 'le keep my Blood and Spirits if I can to support my Zeal and enrich my Fancy and in one word to serve God with Life No body can here mistake me unless they do it wilfully and therefore 't is not worth the while to anticipate any wild Objections I patronize not the Lust but the Vigour of the Body I invite not to the sensuality of a polluted Fancy but to the vertuous recreation of the Mind And while I think not a dejected and discontented Mind and a decayed Body the most acceptable Sacrifice to God I do by no means deny a penitent contrite Spirit a purified and obsequious Body to be so Thirdly As to Friendship The distinction between Acquaintance and Friends is ever good but never more proper or necessary than here for Retirement as it signifies sequestring our selves from Company is to be understood with discretion and the plain Rule here as in all other Cases is to avoid Extreams as a Croud so Solitariness seems not to minister either to the Vertue or Improvement of the Mind or to the Peace and Calm of Life the one robs us of our Time the other leaves us so much that to very many it becomes burdensome the one makes us vain trifling or it may be worse sensual the other dull and slow or it may be morose and savage The skill of a Contemplative Man is not to decline all Company but provide himself of good The Prophets themselves had their Colledges and they in the first Times who left the Cities for the Desart did yet associate themselves with one another Indeed as I take it in this kind of Life we have the fullest Enjoyment and the best Service of our Friends the purest Delight and the truest Edification being best promoted in the Contemplative Life by Friendship and therefore Friendship is no more to be banished from the Gardens and Retirements of the Contemplative than from the Tables and Enjoyments of the Active Fourthly Devotion Participation of the Lord's Supper and Meditation are the remaining parts of the Ascetick Life and indeed these ought to be his great Employment A Life in the World may be a Life of Business but a retired one ought to be a Life of Prayer Eucharist and Meditation Nor indeed can it well be otherwise unless we have proposed to our selves some false Ends of Retirement for these are not only the Duties but the Pleasures of the Ascetick Life in these the Soul 's enlightned enlarged raised ravished in these it sores up to Heaven and looks down upon Earth in these it possesses Stability and Security Peace and Rest in the midst of a frail instable Nature and a restless and tumultuous World in these all the Passions of the Soul are exercised with a most tender sensible delight sorrow fear or reverence Hate and Indignation do here express themselves to the height not only without any disorder or torture but also with great contentment and satisfaction of our Nature Love Hope Joy reign here without either Check or Satiety But I forget that these Subjects are so rich and inexhaustible they would engage me endlesly I forget that they have been treated of so often and so excellently I will therefore contract my Sails and yet I think I have said nothing of them but as they have a particular aspect upon the Subject of this Chapter and I cannot pass over Meditation without making some few Reflections upon it I know 't is a worn Subject and therefore that I may the more easily find Pardon I 'le take care that this superfluous Impertinence if it be one shall be a very short one I will
seeking and of these it can give us no assurance whether we respect their Acquisition or Possession and the ways it prescribes to put us in possession of all that satisfaction which results from these things have something in them so mean so laborious so uncertain so vexatious that no Success can compensate that trouble and shame which the canvassing for them puts us to Atheism pretends indeed to extinguish our Guilt and Fears but it does also deface all the beauty and loveliness of Humane Actions it pretends indeed to let loose the Reins to Pleasure but withal it leaves us no support under Evil it takes off indeed many Restraints but withal it unchains and lets loose our Passions In a word it leaves us nothing truly great or lovely to enjoy in this World or hope for in another and if its Tenets were useful to us yet have they no certainty no foundation it derives all its credit from the Confidence not Reason of Men who under colour of a free and impartial Philosophy advance the Interest of those Lusts to which they are intirely enslaved Religion then only remains to be followed this rectifies our Opinions and dispels our Errors and routs those Armies of imaginary Evils which terrifie and torment the World much more than Spirits and Ghosts do this discovers to us Objects worthy of all the love and admiration of our Souls this expiates our Guilt and extinguishes our Fear this shews us the happiness of our present Condition and opens us a glorious prospect of our future one this discovers to us the happy tendancy of Temporal Evils and the glorious reward of them and in one word teaches us both to enjoy and suffer it moderates our desires of things uncertain and out of our power and fixes them upon those things for which we can be responsible it raises the Mind clears the Reason and finally forms us into such an united settled and compacted state of strength that neither the Judgment is easily shaken nor the Affections hurried by any violent transport or emotion But do I not here immitate Physicians who attend only to the most dangerous Symptoms and neglect others Whether I do or no they who read such general Directions are wont to do so in their Application of them and most are apt to look upon Religion as designed only to redress substantial and formidable Evils And yet 't is with the Mind as with the Body thô Fevors Imposthumes Defluxions c. kill the anger of a pustle the pain of a Tooth do strangely disorder and disturb and thus thô Pain and Death and such like Evils overthrow and overwhelm the Mind yet are there a croud of slight and trifling Evils which disquiet and discompose it and this is a Matter not to be contemn'd especially by me in the prosecution of the Design I am here upon since I perswade my self that the great and formidable Evils Guilt Pain Poverty Sickness Death or the Thoughts and Apprehensions of them do but very rarely afflict the Life of Man but there are other Evils of a slighter Nature which like Pirates are perpetually cruising on our Coasts and thô they cannot invade and destroy do much disturb and annoy us Nay what is yet more 't is very usual to see Men acquit themselves very honourably under true and substantial Evils who come off very poorly from the Encounter of slight and despicable ones how common is it for one who maintains bravely his Courage and Judgment amidst Swords and Bullets to lose all Patience Prudence and Government when attacked by a rude Jest a brisk or it may be a bold and sensless Reflection to see a Man that hears very calmly the loss of a Ship or a considerable Sum of Money transported into strange indecency upon the breaking of a Glass or the spoiling of a Dish of Meat and he who sits very tamely and unconcernedly down under a disgraceful Character sweats and raves if robbed but of a Cabbage or an Apricock These and such like Remarks one may make every day and almost in every Company and what is the worst of all our Fears and Sorrows our Hate and Anger are as violent and uneasie when they spring from Causes of the least as of the highest moment We bewail fantastick and true Misfortunes with the same sighs and tears and resent imaginary and substantial Injuries with the same disordered Pulse and deformed Looks When I have reflected on all this I have often thought that it was as necessary to the tranquility of Humane Life to guard my self against Dust and Flies as against Storms and Tempests to arm my self against the stings of a swarm of vexatious Accidents as against Pestilence and War and Poverty and Blindness or Deafness And to this end these three or four following Rules have often been of great use to me First Of the Evils of Life I never take more to my share than are really my own I never travel abroad to find out foreign Mischiefs to torment my self as if there were not enough of the Native growth of my Country my own Mind my own Body my own House are Provinces wide enough for me and a little too fruitful too nay I am not ashamed to confess I decline if I can an Evil even lying in my way as I do a bustle or a fray by passing on the other side of the Street I 'le never split upon a Shelf or Rock if I have Sea-room enough And as a little distance of Place so a little distance of Time serves my turn to make me reckon such Evils as none of mine I 'le no more distract or disturb my self with the Evils that are fancied teeming in the Womb of Time than with those that are now in being in Peru or Mexico this is the very Lecture Religion reads me for sure to incorporate distant Evils or to anticipate future ones were far from studying to be quiet and doing ones own business or from thinking with our Saviour Sufficient for the day is the Evil thereof and were indeed to suffer as busie bodies fearful and unbelievers If any man will impute this to me as brutality and uncharitableness I cannot help it I thank God that I have sense enough to Practise Caution without fear Care without Anxiety and Charity without Distress or Agony of Mind Secondly As to those Evils I speak still of slight and daily ones which do really fall to my share and I cannot avoid my next care is to weaken their Force to disarm them of their Sting their Teeth and Venom if they have any I take from them all the terror that Fancy and Opinion have given them and will no more if I can help it suffer my Imagination than my Taste or Feeling to be abused or imposed upon In the next place I carefully fortifie and strengthen my self see that my state be healthy and my Nature firm lest I should complain of the Meat when the fault is in my Stomach or think
sound in one who does begin to bow already under the weight of years Hereafter how ill does this Language become this decaying mouldring Body But suppose the Wheels of Time would stop thô running now down a head-long Precipes suppose your Sun would for a while stand still yet what a Work have you to finish what Guilt to expiate what Sins to vanquish and what a Day of Judgment to prepare for Are these slight Considerations will your Sins think you be easily attoned when their number is swoll'n not only by length of time but also by an uncontrouled Licenciousness For Novice in Sin is aw'd by Modesty held in by Scruples and discouraged by regreat and remorse but the Veteran Sinner is carried away by a Torrent of debauched Affections and repeats his Follies with a relentless Confidence and unopposed Authority Will it be an easie Task to subdue those Sins which have maintained a long and undisturbed Dominion and exercised an Absolute Soveraignty over you What shall awaken that Sinner who like Solomon's Drunkard Prov. 23.35 is insensible of Stripes and Wounds and alas when roused out of the Arms of his Dalilah his Locks like Sampson's are cut off the Spirits retired his Strength impaired and the Force of his Enemy Augmented and with what will he Conquer Is it lastly a trivial thing to appear before the Judgment Seat of God that you should think a Moment will serve turn to prepare for it I will suppose the Judge of the whole World as merciful as you can desire him if you will suppose him too with Reverence be it spoke to have so much Sense as not to be imposed on so much Integrity as to expect Sincerity thô not Perfection and this alone will make that Judgment formidable I very much fear that both Young and Old do entertain too mild and favourable a Notion of that Day and so elude and baffle the Force of the most powerful Motive to Vertue and Religion the Gospel has I shall not therefore wander far from the purpose of this Paragraph if I close this Exhortation to begin to live immediately with a short Reflection on that Day We must first bid adieu to this World to every thing in it that 's dear to us and dye e're we can go and appear before God what a perfect Mortification of all our Sensual Appetites is necessary e're we can calmly part with all here below what a long Experience of Love and Duty is necessary to confirm and assure the Soul against all its Fears and Apprehensions what a vigorous Faith to carry us through this dark Passage into another World when we are got there what a strict Trial are we to undergo There all Disguises will be taken off and every thing appear in its naked Nature There all our Superstructures of Hay and Stubble will be burnt up only pure solid Vertue will bear the Test There darling Vices will not pass under the Disguise of Sins of Infirmity There an honest Sloth and harmless Luxury will not be thought Innocence enough to entitle Men to Heaven There some few good fits will not pass for godly Sorrow nor some feeble and short-liv'd Attempts for Repentance and a Change There the Effects of a lucky Constitution will not be crowned as the Works of Grace and Fruits of the Divine Life There in a word talk will not pass for Action nor Censure of others commute for Mortification in our selves Finally nothing shall be rewarded there but a conquering Faith an active Charity an humble constant Zeal patient persevering Hopes spiritual Joys and pious Fears This needs no Application Begin begin to live before you dye begin to repent and reform before you be judged Sect. 3. A third way of Improving Life is to avoid and cut off all those things that are injurious to it Such are Sloth that wasts and Impertinence that embroils it Coldness or Remisness in Religion that dispirits and dilutes Levity and Inconstancy that disorder and confound it And finally all those Evils that sour and imbitter it I am sensible that these Heads occur often and thô it be under different Aspects yet 't is possible that I may sometimes light upon the same Thoughts nay peradventure the very same words 't is against my will if I do but I want sight to revise my Papers and am glad to disburden my Memory as fast as I can and therefore charge it with nothing that I have once entrusted to writing and the toil of recollecting my Thoughts scattered up and down like Sybil's Oracles in dispersed Leaves by a hand which 't is impossible for me to direct or animate is most intollerable if therefore I slip into any Error of this kind which I shall very unwillingly I cannot but presume of Pardon having so just an Excuse But I proceed First We must avoid Idleness Sloth is the Rust of Time Sleep is an Image of Death and Sloth of Sleep The Life of the sluggish is but a waking Dream a Vacation from all Business and true Enjoyment too a Cessation and Stop thô not of Time which still runs on yet of the very Powers and Faculties of the Soul whereas Life consists in the Exercise of both How remote then must Idleness be from improving or exalting Life it never ploughs nor sows and therefore never reaps it never plants nor sets and therefore never gathers any Fruit nothing great was ever performed by it nothing great ever enjoyed by it And shall the richest Fruit that ever grew upon any of the Trees of Paradise Wisdom and Vertue i. e. Knowledge and Life be gathered by a sluggish hand No thô no Angel or flaming Sword do stop his way yet are there Difficulties in it too many and too great for this heavy dastardly Animal to conquer Plato as I remember tells us some where that a God tied Pain and Pleasure by the Tails together there is no coming at the one by him who shuns the other So is the World contrived that even Temporal and seeming Goods cannot be obtained without the travel of the Mind and toil of the Body and yet what lean starved and beggarly Blessings are these compared to those I treat of The rich Man may starve for want of true Pleasure in the midst of his glittering Heaps Sorrow may sit heavy on the Heart of the Conquerour or the Bride even on the days of solemn Triumph and Festival noise The Prince may be a Slave an Egyptian Slave even while he reigns with absolute and uncontrouled Power But Life and Pleasure Content and Happiness are the inseparable Companions of Wisdom and Vertue Let no man therefore flatter himself with the Hopes of such a Treasure who lives idlely and at his ease he must pray meditate watch and exercise himself in Industry Sobriety and Purity who will overcome the Corruptions of his Nature and obtain the Tranquility and Liberty of a true Christian Nor let this frighten any Man for those Duties which are a
little troublesome in the beginning do soon grow easie and delightful too In this sense must we understand that of the Author of Ecclesiasticus Chap. 4.17 18. thô rendered a little harshly For at the first she that is Wisdom will walk with him by crooked ways and bring fear and dread upon him and torment him with her Discipline until she may trust his Soul and try him by her Laws Then will she return the straight-way unto him and comfort him and shew him her secrets Secondly Impertinence or being busied and imployed in Trifles is indeed as different from Sloth as Motion from Rest but yet such a wretched Consumption of Time cannot deserve the Name of Life for this is not Activity of Soul but a poor and mean debasing of it Fancy and that a silly and extravigant one may be said to live but Reason cannot That Idleness which consists in heavy Passive Dulness is like a state of Sleep without Dream or Fancy that which consists in a fluttering and impertinent Activity is nothing else but a giddy Ferment of the Spirits and Agitation of the Fancy the incoherent disjoynted Thoughts the confused and fruitless Projects and Attempts of a Dream and we may almost as properly say of him that Dreams that he Eats and Drinks Fights or Travels or whatever he Fancies himself to do as we can of this sort of Sluggard that he lives 'T is true could a Man be for ever Impertinent this sort of Idleness would seem to some Men to have no great Evil in it but how could such a Mind bear the shock of Humane Misfortunes How could such a Soul discharge the great Duties of Humane Society How could it entertain it self with Objects agreeable to a Rational Nature And if it could do none of these things 't is impossible to conceive how it could be other than miserable for thô we could suppose such a Creature to be so meer a Trifle as never to be nearly concerned in any Changes of Fortune nor ever called upon by that Community he belongs to that is I should almost say never to be regarded or minded either by God or Man yet still such a one did no way live up to the Excellence of his Nature his Business and Enjoyment were not Manly and Rational and his Childish Life were therefore only pretty and pleasing to him because he had a childish and silly Soul Nor is the Grave much better than the gay Impertinent or the Man of Business if he neglect the main the one thing necessary to be preferred before the Man of Mode Sensuality 't is true softens and Drudgery hardens the Mind but both alike intoxicate it both wed it to this and alienate it from the other World It imports very little to what Idol one do Sacrifice whether Ashtaroth Molock or Mammon if we Sacrifice not to the true God In vain do they pretend to any other Art who are ignorant of the Art of Living to plod or drudge intriegue or trade canvas and court 't is all but solemn Impertinence if Vertue and Religion be neglected Ah! what Phantoms and Clouds and Dreams do Men pursue and hunt after instead of Life and Peace of Rest and Pleasure Thirdly Remisness or Lukewarmness in Religion a sort of Neutrality between Vice and Vertue is the next thing to be avoided We can never truly Live unless we be intirely Uniform unless we be wholly given up and without reserve to the Conduct of Reason There is little Pleasure in Religion if there be no ardour and fervency in it 't is Love makes the Duty easie and the Prospect delightful If there be no Strength in Faith no Life in Devotion no Spirit in Duty â—o Desire in Hope this is Religion without a Soul 't is the Carcas of an unanimated Vertue what Peace what Assurance what Joy what Transport can ever be the Portion of such a Christian Fourthly Levity and Inconstancy is the last thing I will now mention and the most irreconcileable Enemy to Life For this does not only interrupt the Course of Life or like Sleep or Sloth make a vast Casm or Gap in it but puts us more back than we had advanced forward an unhappy gust of Wind that throws us off to Sea again when we were almost come to Shore if we will reap the Fruit of Victory we must pursue it if we will find rest we must be stedfast and unmoveable if we will enjoy Vertue we must unite and incorporate it with us 't is impossible that the unconstant unstable Proselyte of Vertue should either have a pleasant Life or a comfortable Death for if he build to day what he pulled down yesterday if he practice one hour what he condemns another 't is impossible he should please himself much less his God To shun the Evils and make the most of the Goods of Life is none of the least important Rules conducing to Happiness and might properly enough be insisted on here But I begin to tire and since this may better be reduced under the Heads of Indolence and Fruition I will defer the Consideration of it till I come to treat of them which I may one time or other do if I see Reason for it if not I would not willingly be impertinent if I cannot serve the World I will not trouble it FINIS ERRATA PAge 13. line 12. read contemptible p. 68. l. 21. r. single p. 90. l. 6. r. ease p. 134. l. 12. r. ripen p. 134. l. 15. r. places A Catalogue of Books Printed for and and sold by Samuel Smith at the Prince's Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard ENquiry after Happiness Vol. in Octavo The Duty of Servants Containing first their Preparation for and Choice of a Service Secondly Their Duty in Service towards God their Masters and themselves Together with suitable Prayers to each Duty and some Direction peculiarly to Servants for the worthy Receiving the Holy Sacrament Both written by the Author of Practical Christianity Octavo A Treatise of Self-Examination in order to the worthy Receiving of the Holy Communion Twelves Price 1 s. 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