torment themselves to no purpose with other People's Calamities and Epictetus advises they should not but they sacrifice themselves and all their Quiet to Care and Trouble they neglect their own private Affairs and Families and must be content with perpetual Vexations and Interruptions and to lose many precious Opportunities that might be improved to very wise and vertuous Purposes Upon all these accounts and to make them some amends every Man is bound not only to be obedient but so far as in him lies to ease them and bear a part of their Burden to be active and vigorous in their Support and Defence as looking upon their Dangers to affect the State in common and threaten the whole Constitution And if these Governours be such as do by no means answer their Character nor take the care that becomes them though we are not bound to vindicate their Errours or their Wickedness yet even in such cases we are obliged to pay them all that is due to the Dignity of their Post we must shew them all fit Deference and Respect and comply with their Commands as far as with a good Conscience we may But it is very fit I should now apply my self to the following Chapters and not quit my first Design which was to explain Epictetus and not to run out into unnecessary Enlargements upon the several Relations Men stand in to each other for otherwise while I teach my Reader his Duty he will be apt to suspect that I have forgot my own CHAP. XXXVIII Take notice That the principal and most important Duty in Religion is to possess our Minds with just and becoming Notions of the Gods to believe that there are such supreme Beings and that they govern and dispose all the Affairs of the World with a just and good Providence And in agreement to such a Persuasion to dispose your self for a ready and reverend Obedience and a perfect Acquiscence in all their Dispensations and this Submission is to be the effect of Choice and not Constraint as considering that all Events are ordered by a most Wise and Excellent Mind For this is the only Principle that can secure you from a querulous Temper and prevent all the impious Murmurings which Men are used to utter who imagine themselves neglected and their Merits over-look'd by a partial Deity Now for attaining to the good Disposition I have been describing there is but one possible Method viz. To disregard the Things of the World and be fully satisfied that there is no Happiness or Misery in any other thing but what Nature hath put within your own power and choice For so long as you suppose any external Enjoyments capable of making you happy or the want of them miserable you must unavoidably blame the Disposers of them as oft as you meet with any Disappointment in your Hopes or fall into any Calamity you fear This is a Principle fix'd in all Creatures by Nature and nothing can change or remove it to run away from all that seems hurtful and destructive and to have an aversion for the Causes of these Things to us And so likewise to pursue and court the contrary and love and admire the Persons we owe our Good to So that no Man can take pleasure in the supposed Author of his Mischief any more than in the Mischief it self Hence it is that Sons complain of their Fathers and reproach them for not letting them into a greater share of their Estates in which they place their Happiness Hence Polynices and Eteocles engaged in that unnatural War because they placed their Happiness in a Crown Hence the Husbandman cries out against God when the Season is unkindly and the Merchant repines at Storms and Losses at Sea and Masters of Families at the death of their beloved Wife and Children Now no Man can have Religion without mixing some prospect of Advantage with it nor can we heartily serve and adore a Being of whose Justice and Kindness we have not a good Opinion So that by making it our Business to regulate our Desires and our Aversions and direct them to worthy and proper Objects we do at the same time most effectually secure our Piety It is necessary also that you should offer Sacrifices and conform to the Custom of your Country in the Exercise of Religion and that all things of this kind be performed with Sincerity and Devotion not slovenly and carelesly but with a decent Application and Respect and that your Offerings be according to your Ability so temper'd as neither to betray an Vnwillingness or sordid Grudging in one extream nor to run out into the other of Profuseness and Ostentation COMMENT AFter the Duties expected from us to our Equals that is of Men to one another he proceeds now to instruct us what we owe to our Superiours viz. those of a Nature more excellent than our own And in all Disquisitions of this kind it is a very convenient Method to begin with those Things that are nearest and most familiar to us and so by degrees ascend to those above and at a greater distance from us Now these Duties are likewise discovered by taking a just View of the Relation between the Gods and us and that is such an one as Effects bear to their Highest and First Causes If then they are to be considered under this Notion it is evident that they stand not in any need of our Services nor can we add to their Happiness or Perfection Our Duties consequently and the Intent of them are only such as may express our Subjection and procure us a more free access and intercourse with them For this is the only Method of keeping up the Relation to First and Highest Causes The Instances of this Subjection due from us are Honour and Reverence and Adoration a voluntary Submission to all they do and a perfect Acquiescence in all Events order'd by them as being fully satisfied that they are the Appointments of Absolute Wisdom and Infinite Goodness These are such Qualifications as we must attain to by rectifying the Ideas of our Minds and reforming the Errours of our Lives The Ideas of our Minds must be rectified by entertaining no Thoughts of the Gods but what are worthy of them and becoming us as That they are the First Cause of all Things That they dispose of all Events and concern themselves in the Goverment of the World And That all their Government and all their Disposals are Wise and Just and Good For if a Man be of Opinion That there is no God or if he allow his Existence but deny his Providence or if he allow both these but think that God and that Providence defective in his Counsels or unjust in his Distributions such an one can never pay him true Honour and hearty Adoration nor submit with a resigned and contented Spirit to the various Accidents of Humane Life as if all were ordered for the best Again It is likewise necessary that the Life and Conversation
immediate Discoveries of Heaven for the benefit and support of Mankind such as Physick and Architecture and the like we have no more than some faint Shadows and imperfect Images remaining How I say is it possible that these and many other Calamities and monstrous Wickednesses which the present Age is perfectly overrun with should be matter of Pleasure or Contentment And who is there that can take Satisfaction I do not say in seeing or bearing a part in them but so much as to endure the very hearing them named except he be first forsaken of all Humanity and all Goodness Such Doubts as these which give sometimes great Perplexity not only to the Weak and Common Man but to the Thinking and more Accomplished Persons will receive satisfaction if either Epictetus be allowed to have any Authority in what he says or the great Governor of all things be granted to order the World in Wisdom and Justice For our Piety and our Advantage will be sure to terminate in the same Object as Epictetus himself will assure us more fully hereafter In answer therefore to the Objection I say That if all these deplorable Accidents which the Objector hath given so Tragical an Account of be really Evil and such as they are generally esteemed to be it is not possible that either any Good Man should without forfeiting that Character be pleased to have them so nor could the Providence of Almighty God be acquitted from the Imputation of being the cause of Evil to us nor could Men ever prevail with themselves to Honour or Love or pay Adoration to such a Deity For let Men pretend what they will no Arguments in the World are able to produce these Affections for the Author of Misery and Mischief It is a Principle rooted in every Creature as Epictetus will shew you to hate and decline and run away from all things that are prejudicial to it themselves or the cause of other things being so to it But whatever is for its Benefit and productive of its Happiness these things it naturally courts and admires Thus much is certain upon supposition that these Accidents are really Evil but now if notwithstanding our dreadful Apprehensions of them they be in truth no such matter but rather Good as conducing very much to some mighty Benefit and directed to excellent Purposes and that if any Evil do indeed attend these Dispensations this is what the Nature of the things is no way concern'd in but is wholly owing to the Desires and strong Impulses of our own Minds In this case it will by no means follow that he who is well enough pleased all things should be just as they are is either a Vicious or a Barbarous Man nor can we with any colour charge the Evil we find in the World upon these Occasions to Almighty God but must acquit his Providence and acknowledge it to be infinitely Wise and Good Now the Things in which all these seeming Evils are and from whence they spring must be considered in this Condition of Mortality and undergoing the vicissitudes of Generation and Corruption either as Bodies or Souls And of these Souls again some are Irrational of the same Date and Duration with the Body and having none or but very little peculiar Excellence of their own their Office and Power extends no farther than meerly the animating those Bodies to which they belong and therefore all their Motions depend upon and proceed in Conjunction with the Bodies But other Souls are Rational These have an inward principle of Motion and an Essence and Excellence distinct from their Bodies they move by their own Choice and are absolute in the disposing their own Desires and Inclinations Now the Bodies belonging to these being in their own Nature purely Mechanical and deriving their Essence from External Causes are subject to the Motions of Heavenly Bodies which influence their Generation and Corruption and the various Alterations through which they pass But if we come nearer and descend to the Immediate and Material Causes then they are moved and affected by a mutual Operation upon one another For this is agreeable to all the Reason in the World that Temporary and Corruptible things should depend upon the Eternal for their Subsistence and be obedient to their Influences Mechanical Beings upon such as are endued with a Faculty of Self-Motion and those that are contained within others upon the Ambients that contain them This is the constant Method and Rule of Nature that these should follow the others Superiour to them as having no Principle of Motion in themselves no Faculty of Choosing no Power of Determining their Deâ—ires or Affections of their Nature no Merit or Demerit from Choice or Actions but are only Good or Evil in respect and proportion to their Causes Just as the Shadows of Bodies do not choose their Sides or Shapes as they please but are necessarily determined by their Causes and their Circumstances and are never the worse or the better for those Determinations Now as to Bodies whatever Changes they undergo this Variety can be no Ill to them whether they be Compound or Simple Bodies First of all because it is what the Condition of their Nature hath made them liable to They are bound in Laws irrevocable which they may neither controul nor resist and consequently can receive no Harm by whatever they impose as having no Power to do otherwise For Ignorance would be no Evil nor the most brutish and extravagant Conversation nor would the Rational Soul be one whit the worse for either had not Nature endued her with a Faculty of Discerning and Understanding the Truth and given her a Power over the brutish Appetites by which she is enabled to subdue and over-rule them Secondly Because the Compound Bodies which consist of simple Ingredients that are of contrary Qualities such as are perpetually strugling with and usurping upon one another by Diseases and Excess of Humours are sometimes strengthned by throwing off the corrupt Parts and sometimes by Decay and Death are delivered from all that Trouble and Pain and mutual Strife of contrary Qualities in them And in this Case each of the Simples is restored to its primitive Mass and recovers it self from that Weakness which was occasioned by this Opposition of contrary Humours For as each of the Ingredients in Composition made some Impression upon its Opposite so it likewise continually received some from it and suffered by it But now when the Simples are changed according to the Changes of the contrary Qualities they return again to their own primitive Being Thus Water evaporates into the Air from whence it came and Air is turned into Fire from whence it originally was And I cannot suppose any Evil in Things of this kind though Inundations or Fires or any the most violent Changes in Nature should be the Effect of these Inequalities in the Elements that compose the Universe or though Pestilences and Earthquakes should destroy and dash in pieces the
monstrous Impiety that Opinion is guilty of that taxes God with such Infidelity and Baseness to his Charge as not Men only but even brute Beasts disdain and abhor Indeed if we consider the thing only in the general it is most irrational to conceive that the Offerings of wicked Men should ever prevail upon God or encline him to be propitious at all 'T is true he graciously accepts those of the Pious and Upright not for any respect to the Gifts themselves or any occasion he hath for them but for the sake of the Votaries who when they thus apply desire that not only their Minds but their Estates and all they possess may be consecrated to his Use and Service There is likewise no doubt to be made but the matter might be so ordered as even to render the Gifts and Prayers of wicked men acceptable to him that is provided they came with a purpose of growing better and begg'd to be reformed by his Punishments and were ready to submit to the Methods of their Cure But if the secret and true Intent of their Devotions be only to avert his Judgments and confirm themselves in Vice it is most absurd to suppose they can ever be well received upon these Terms for though there were no Guilt to be laid to their Charge yet this alone were sufficient to render them abominable in the Sight of God That they suppose him a Base and a Mercenary Being and hope by Bribery to soften his provoked Justice and buy off their own Punishment And now I expect to have the Question put from whence this Notion of God's pardoning mens Sins came to be so universally received and what Foundation there is for saying and believing as almost every Body does That Oblations and Works of Piety that Prayers and Alms and the like have a power to make God flexible and Propitious For sure the World hath not taken all this upon Trust and yet they are much to blame to lay that stress they do upon it and propagate this Opinion with so much Confidence if it be unsafe and impious to be believed than God forgives wicked Men and passes by their Offences without punishing them as they have deserved In order to the satisfying this Doubt we must observe That where men are duly sensible of their Faults and heartily penitent for them these things contribute very much to their Conversion as being decent and proper Testimonies of a sincere Repentance The Bending of the Knees and Bodily Prostrations express the Sorrows and Submissions of a dejected Soul and the Offering up their Goods or laying them out to Pious and Charitable Purposes such as God peculiarly regards and delights in proclaims how entirely their Minds and Persons and all they have are devoted to him For when we are told That our Sins turn God's Face away from us That he is angry at them and leaves or forsakes us upon the Provocation they give him These Expressions must not be taken in a strict and literal Sence They speak the Passions and Infirmities of Creatures such as carry no Congruity with the Divine Nature and its immutable Happiness and Perfections But the Truth is we deprave and debase our selves by forsaking the Dictates of Nature and Reason we deface the Image of the Divinity in our Souls and by our Wickedness and Folly fall off and withdraw our selves from him Not that we can run away from that watchful Eye to which all things are present but we change the manner of its Influences upon us and expose our selves to a different sort of Treatment for now we have brought a Disease upon our Souls and made Severity and a harsher Providence necessary for our Cure But when we recover the soundness and perfection of our Nature and make nearer Approaches to God by restoring that Image and Character of his Divinity in us which consists in the imitation of his Justice and Holiness and Wisdom we then return and are admitted to a more easie Access we renew our Acquaintance and contract a sort of fresh Affinity with him And this return of ours to God we often express in such Terms as if it were his return to us just as men at Sea who when their Cable is fastned to a Rock while they draw themselves and their Vessel to the Rock are so idle as to imagine that they draw the Rock to them And this is our Case mens Repentance and Devotions and Works of Piety and Charity answer exactly to that Cable For these things are the Instruments of their Conversion and the best Proofs of its being unaffected and real When we cherish and support either the Persons selves who have suffered by our Oppression or our Insolence or our Slanders or if that cannot be make Satisfaction to their Families and those that are in necessity when we hate Injustice when we decline the Conversation of naughty men and become the Companions and Friends of the Wise and Vertuous and when we are full of Indignation against our selves and content to turn our own Punishers And if we would be throughly reformed indeed we must persevere in this method and not suffer our Resolutions to be fickle and uncertain or any Intermissions to cool our Zeal till we have acted a sufficient Revenge upon our selves and perfected the Design of our Amendment And there is not there cannot be any other certain Testimony of a sincere and perfect Repentance but only this One That of forsaking our Sins and doing so no more Nay I must add too The not allowing our selves in any less or lower degrees of Guilt or complying with the Temptations and Tendencies toward them For in this Case we must behave our selves like Sailers who steer their Course beyond the Point they would make and bear down towards one side when they would cross over to the other Now as to the Efficacy of Repentance whether it be of Merit and Power enough to restore the Soul to its primitive Purity this I think can admit of no Dispute when it is considered That Almighty God does in all his Dispensations propose it as his End and always cleanse and reform us by this Means For what other account can be given of all the Punishments and those dire Effects of his Vengeance upon us both in this and the next World but only that they are designed to change the Soul by the Sufferings and Tortures inflicted upon it that a Sense of her own Wretchedness may provoke her to a just Detestation of the Vices that were the wicked Cause of it and inflame her with the more servent Love and impatient Desire of Vertue There is indeed something very instructing in Affliction and a strange Aptness in the rational Soul to hearken to it and be taught by it But a Man is never so well disposed to learn nor makes such quick and sure Progress as when he exercises this Discipline upon himself because then the very Punishment is voluntary and the Improvement is