to follow their Vertues But I may rather wonder with what face men can speak against those who neglect the observance of these Dayes when they themselves are the chiefest cause of it or the best colour for it They dishonour all holy rites and bring a reproach upon holy times and if it had not been for such as them those dayes might have been in more credit even with those who now despise them What do we see say those scrupulous persons but riot and luxury at such seasons All places are full of vomit and men seem to be celebrating the Feast of Ceres and Bacchus i. e. of Bread and Wine of some heathenish drunken belly-god They fancy there is no restraint layd upon their appetite if they do but strictly forbear their ordinary labours They are like some bad Christians in the old times who made no doubt of being drunk so they did but take off their cups as they sate on the Martyrs Tombs It is easie indeed for these objectors to see something else They might behold some devout people who frequent the Worship of God and rejoyce most in remembring their Saviour and his great Grace in sending those that Preached the Gospel to the World But the number of the other are so great who never regard such things that by looking on them they are tempted to take no notice of all the rest The Taverns are fuller by far then our Churches and the Theatre is more frequented then the House of God And therefore it is for such as you to set your selves a work to take away this objection which they will not take away themselves Do you satisfie them that these dayes are no necessary cause of doing evil by your own example of doing good Leave their Argument no force at all for it is in your power to do it and let them see that the marriage between these Festivals and Profaneness is not so legitimate but they may be divorced Deprive them of this colour and leave their peevishness so naked that it may be exposed to the view of all Or if they have taken a real offence remove it out of their way and let all that they alledg have a full confutation in your holy life Answer them by your behaviour that there is no need to take away these dayes for you can take away all the wickedness and leave them still remaining Let them see that you can rest from your labours and yet not spend your whole time in sport and play Let them find the Bible or some good book in your hand oftner then they do the Cards Let your Spirit rejoyce in God your Saviour more then your body doth in meat and drink Feed your soul upon the Heavenly mysteries of our Religion and do not live as if the Saints were only good Purveyors for our Kitchins So will you both bring these dayes into esteem with others and your self into greater favour with God And I beseech you desire all you know that they would not sleight such admonitions as these I give you But that for the Honour of our Lord for the credit of his Church who hath appointed these solemnities for the love of their own souls who are intended to receive the benefit of them they would behave themselves soberly and religiously at such seasons That so the Church may not be forced to do with these as it hath done with the Feasts of Love and other rites used by the Apostles themselves i. e. abolish and banish them because of mens obstinate abuse of them For it is a very absurd thing as one of the ancient Guides saith to study to honour the Martyrs with too much fulness who we know pleased God by fasting and abstinence It is a prosperous way of doing honour to our Saviour by pampering and pleasing our selves who it is known did honour his Father by denying himself and despising all the pleasures of the flesh Therefore exhort every one to feast themselves with an holy fear Let them make Feasts of Charity and doing good to their poor neighbours Let them be Feasts of Love to make us friends one with another Feasts of the Spirit to put us in mind of the joyes of the Lord and the eternal Supper of the Lamb. And now I think I may have leave to conclude my directions having put you into the hands of better Guides then my self the sum whereof is briefly this Let your principal design ever be to knit your heart to the Love of Jesus and the ardent desire of being with him at Jerusalem Let this be your great business to set your Soul directly towards the place where he is and to stir up in it such longings as these O that I were with Jesus when shall I come to Jesus And since he is the Way to himself there is nothing more needful for the accomplishing your desire then to propose him before your eyes for your imitation As for Prayer Meditation and such like things they are to be designed to this end that your Love to him may be inflamed your Desire after him increased and your Resolution of doing his will and treading in his steps be made unmoveable Whatsoever therefore you find proper to advance that Love that Desire that Resolution be it Praying or Reading Discoursing or Solitude Walking or Reposing your self Visiting of others or Keeping at home make use of it for the time that your Soul rellishes it and as long as it quickens your Desire and indeavour of enjoying the love of Jesus and the blessed sight of him at Jerusalem But when any of these shall prove irksome to you be not troubled at it but try for that time some of the rest which may be then more useful because more pleasant to you And when any of those Enemies I have mentioned shall disturb your peace beat them off as soon as you can but be not troubled because they do not presently yield provided you do not yield to them neither And if after a Victory they rally in the same manner again be not affrighted at that neither as if now they had greater courage but endeavour only to beat them as before and by obtaining a new Victory to show that it is your courage which is increased And do not think you shall be in danger to lose the Victory over them if you suffer your Bow sometimes to be unbent Do not think a Pilgrim must be so severe as never to recreate himself in the way he goes By perpetual Watchings and labours your enemies may undo you as well as by any other means Take but heed that you fall not into their Quarters when you divert your self and let but your pleasures still lye in your way and you need not fear to make use of them Remember the Example of the Saints of God and stir up your self to imitate their zeal and their discretion both together And rest assured my Friend that this good Desire thus cherished thus augmented and
to all the rest of its neighbouring parts together with the exact and admirable order of the Whole And can you imagine into what transports it will cast your soul to hear the praises of the Creator sung by all his Works of wonder And yet that is another priviledge of this blessed place by the advantage of whose holy silence you will receive the chearful hymns wherewith every creature you behold doth celebrate the wisdom power and goodness of him that made it You have heard no doubt of the Musick of the Sphaeres which they say would ravish souls from these mortal bodies should it but strongly touch their ears and therefore is almost drown'd by the noise and clatter of this lower world This is it which I am now commending to you that sweet concent which all creatures make among themselves that rare harmony which there is in the motion of all the heavenly Orbs which strikes the mind so agreeably that one cannot chuse but dance for joy together with them But it is the proper entertainment of those who dwell in that still Region in which alone it can be distinctly heard and where an everlasting song to the Creator of all doth melt their hearts to joyn in consort with that Universal harmony But yet the place is nothing so considerable as the Persons that inhabit it nor will it be so useful to draw their pictures curiously as to describe their life and manners Enquire not therefore of the vastness of this place the stateliness of its buildings the riches of their furniture and such like things but know that it is the City of the Great King the seat of the Imperial Majesty of Heaven and Earth the place where the Lord and Governour of the whole world whose Dominion is an everlasting Dominion and who reigns through all Generations keeps his Court. Do you not think it will be a pleasingly amazing sight to behold the Majesty of his Glory Or What greater happiness can you wish if you were to be the disposer of your own fortune than alway to stand before the Soveraign of the World as one of his Ministers and Attendants and to live in his blessed presence as one whom he highly favours To behold the wisdom of his Government the righteousness and goodness of his Laws the admirable contrivance of all his Works the universal care which he takes of all his Creatures the infinite extent of his Providence and the power of his Authority whereby he doth whatsoever he pleases in Heaven and Earth and Sea and all deep places To see how he brings those things together which were removed far asunder and dissolves the combinations and confederacies of those things which were closely united To contemplate how he hereby makes those designs abortive which were just bringing forth how he disappoints the devises of the crafty and confounds all the subtilty of the world and catches it in its own snares It will strangely transport you to see the beauty of his Holiness the splendor and brightness of his Understanding the largeness of his Love his uncorrupted Justice his unexhausted Goodness his immoveable Truth his uncontroulable Power his vast Dominions which yet he fills with his presence and administers their affairs with ease and is magnified and praised in them by the throng of all his creatures These things I will leave to your own private thoughts that I may have time to speak of the rest of the caelestial Inhabitants but especially of the Kings Son who is a principal ornament if I may speak in so low a phrase and a great glory to this place And of him I shall need to tell you no more than this that in his person there is to be seen at once the most illustrious Lover and Warriour that ever was His Conquests have been innumerable His Victories no History but one of his own inspiring is able to recount He hath trodden down the most potent and giantly enemies He hath triumphed over the Powers of Earth and Air. He hath trailed the greatest Tyrant that ever was seen at his Chariot-wheels And there is one universal triumph of his over all things still behind wherein there will be special marks of honour set on all the Citizens of Jerusalem who are to bear a part in it which will astonish and ravish all their hearts with Admiration Love and Joy This will be the most splendid shew the most illustrious appearance that ever the Sun saw for all Angels and all Men all that ever have been are or shall be will there be summoned to attend in some sort or other upon the Pomp of that great day Then all the Citizens of Jerusalem will be seen with Crowns of Gold on their heads which this great Prince will bestow upon them then they will appear on the Theatre of the world as so many Kings raigning together with him and then all the Heavens will ring with shouts of joy and praise to him that redeemed them as they march along in his train thorow the Air to Jerusalem For as I told you he is the most glorious Lover that ever was and the greatness of his valour and courage doth not at all extinguish his nobler flames He is owner of the most tender heart that ever was in any breast and hath rendred himself redoubtable to his greatest enemies by nothing more than this that he hath won so many hearts and triumphed over so many brave souls who were vanquished by nothing else but the power of his mighty Love Such a generous Lover he was that though he was rich he became poor that they on whom he had set his heart might be made rich He laid aside the Robes of his Glory that they might be invested with them He took upon him the shape of a servant that he might prefer them to be the Sons of God and Heirs of a Kingdom And at last he voluntarily and without any compulsion but that of his Love dyed upon a Cross to save the lives of those who were so far from having any resentments of Love to him that they had the hearts of most desperate enemies against him For you must know that he is such a Lord of Love that the hatred and malignity of men could not extinguish the fervours of his passion All the discourtesies they could do him were not able to prevail with him to lay aside his thoughts of kindness toward them The innumerable affronts which he received could not make him go back to Heaven and forsake this ill-natur'd world till he had expressed all the Love conceiveable unto it No he dyed for those who took away his life His bowels earned toward those who were ready to rake into them with their bloody hands His heart burnt with affection to those wretches that cruelly pierced it and thrust it thorow with a spear And therefore I cannot but think you would have a mind to take a journey to Jerusalem and judge your pains and travel well
his disposition towards them but he continued to do them good to beseech and entreat them to weep over them and sigh for their Infidelity And when it grew to such an height that they sought to kill him who had saved the lives of so many yet so great was his Charity that he passed by their offences sought not for revenge which it was easie for him to find and to speak all in one word forgave the most ungrateful enemies that ever were I believe you will easily grant that it is a matter of less difficultie to forgive the injuries we receive from one that never was obliged to us then to pardon him to whom we have expressed the greatest kindness and used with the highest civility especially if his malice arise so high as to seek our life And yet so loving was our Lord and so desirous to set us a noble example that he never expressed greater Charity than when he had the greatest reason to be incensed He freely remitted the wrongs of those who not only hated him without a cause but who had great cause to love him above all the world And though the wrongs were as great as the benefits he had bestowed and they were beyond all measure yet as his benefits did not make them become his friends so their wrongs could not make him become their enemy What greater malignity is there than that which moves men to bereave others of their life and what greater Charity than that which endeavours to preserve it We can conceive of none higher unless it be this to sacrifice our own life for the preserving of other mens especially of theirs that take it away And such was the Love of our Lord who was so great a friend to so great enemies as sought for that which he was ready to offer for them You know very well his words upon the Cross when he made intercession for the transgressors saying Father forgive them Could he more effectually at that time testifie his kindness than by such an indulgence in the midst of their cruelty toward him What do we expect more from a Parent than that he should overlook the faults of his children when they repent and submit themselves to him And yet our Lord uses these men with greater clemency and gives them his pardon whilst they were committing of the fault Nay he not only forgave them himself but desires God to grant them remission too that he might be the only sufferer and they be free from punishment You see then how your way lyes if you will travel to Jerusalem and desire to be with Jesus The roughness of your way and the asperities of mens manners must not spoil the smoothness of your soul nor exasperate your spirit but you must be loving and kind to all even to the greatest offenders Nay if your nature be crabbed and austere you must look so stedfastly upon Jesus and steep your thoughts so long there till he infuse himself into you and change the harshness of your disposition into a sweeter humour The way to Jerusalem I assure you is full of sad spectacles which will afford you no other pleasure but that of having a tender sense of their miseries and doing of them good You must be civil and affable to every one you meet upon the rode You must pitty and succour those who are ready to perish You must counsel and advise the Ignorant and those who are out of the way You must bless those that throw a curse at you as you go along You must pray for those that do you wrong And if any fellow-traveller to whom you have afforded your help should prove a robber and make an assault upon you you must still preserve your love to him and not suffer him to rifle you of your grace to forgive him And indeed when we consider how much more reason there is that we should do good to others then that God should do good to us and when we think also how much more he hath done for us then we can do for others and when we remember withall that they are our equals in the chiefest things and that in some they may be our superiours when as he is so much above us in all it will set our hearts wide open and make them free and generous though they were never so fast locked and barred before and render them soft and tender though they were as hard and stubborn as bolts of Iron We shall not then be backward to forgive injuries to do good to enemies to repay wrongs with courtesies to bear with mens folly and weakness to envy no mans prosperity but to rejoyce in the good of all as if it were our own happiness But poor Pilgrims will find themselves in such need of the charitable help and comfort of others that I think it is not necessary to press you any further to this thing which will be nothing more then to do to all as you would that all should do to you Let me therefore proceed to tell you how Jesus bore the contumelies reproaches and slanders of others with the greatest meekness though he was a person of the greatest quality and of the highest dignity and worth No man ever did things with a better grace or deserved more to be accepted with admiration and praise and yet there never was any person entertained with greater scorn or suffered more obloquies and ignominious usage from the World But did he receive them with that choler and wrath which they who call themselves High Spirits do suffer their souls to be transported with all No such matter but he was dumb as a Lamb before the shearers and did not so much as open his mouth though considering his high birth and the manner of other men he was tempted to roar like a Lyon and speak with a voice of thunder against his insolent despisers I will not recite all the vilifying language nor give you a catalogue of the contemptuous actions which he was affronted with but leave it to your own diligence to observe them and together therwith the mildness of his spirit and the admirable temper and moderation of his mind in the sharpest provocations to anger and displeasure When they called him Devil he confuted the calumny by not suffering the least spark of that hellish fire to kindle When they said he was an impostor and came to deceive the world he was only excited thereby more boldly to speak the Truth And when they charged him with treason he asserted his innocency by no other means then subjection of himself to the vilest death When they scourged him on the back and buffeted his face he did not return them so much as a lash or a blow with his tongue When they committed all the outrages that could be devised upon him they only served to prove how free he was from passion and rage Which methinks should be sufficient to cool the boiling heats of the fiercest spirits
be more observant of your words hereafter for if I should not preserve them I see I am lost my self and that in their safety is my security Here the good Father perceiving he had given him some satisfaction could not but interrupt his speech and being filled with pitty and love and joy and wonderment altogether burst out into these expressions of them Now blessed be Jesus who hath brought me to you so opportunely O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together We can never admire thee enough O sweet Jesus who art wont so seasonably to interpose thy power to save us when we have lost our selves Whither should we stray didst not thou so gratiously seek us What would become of us didst not thou so lovingly hold us in thy hand and resolve that none shall pluck us from thee We are astonisht at the vastness of thy wisdom Thy Goodness is unfathomable else we should have sunk long before this beyond the depth of it When we wander thou followest us and callest us back When we fall thou runnest to us and liftest us up When we are discouraged thou art the strength of our fainting spirits and speakest comfortably to our hearts Tea by the rareness of thy heavenly arts thou turnest our deepest sorrows into the greatest occasions of excessive joyes And there where we thought to find nothing but trouble and heaviness thou makest gladness and light to spring up unto us O how unsearchable are thy wayes who meetest us when we are out of the Way O how unmeasurable is thy Mercy which cureth us by that which we love even when we are doing that which thou dost not love We cannot but present thee with the best of our acknowledgements who are so happily together here not by our own but thy Providence We cannot do less then bind our selves together to thine Altar and offer all we have as a sacrifice of Praise unto thee And have us still O Lord in thy care Let thy good Spirit alway go along with us as our Guide And let thy good Angels never fail to be our Guardians Uphold our goings in thy paths and suffer not our feet any more to slide Hold thou us up and we shall be safe and we will have respect continually unto thy Statutes So will we bless thy name at all times thy praise shall be continually in our mouths In the Courts of thine House will we praise thee yea in the midst of thee O Jerusalem will we sing eternal praises Hallelujah I thank you most heartily said the Pilgrim when the other had ended this acknowledgment for these good thoughts you have breathed into me I feel my self as if a new Soul did informe me and my Spirit doth not so much return as another more divine seems to enter into me and invigorate all my faculties with an higher degree of strength and courage Sure if you would be alwayes with me I should never miscarry no nor grow dull and lumpish any more May I not beg that favour of you to take me under your wings Is it too great an happiness for me to ask that you would become so much my Friend as to take a particular care of me and let me travel in your company I can never expect so much security and so much comfort both together as under your conduct and therefore if I shall not be too great a burden carry me along I beseech you with you and let me never be left as I was alone without your society You were pleased to compare me to another Hercules because of some resolution which you discerned in me But let me tell you Sir that together with the joy you have made to return I have recovered also the memory of so much of the small learning of my younger dayes as to know that while Hercules was cutting off the heads of Hydra there was one Iolaus ready at hand to apply fire to them to hinder their springing up again It seems this great person was not strong enough without one to back him He durst not travel through the World unless he took a companion with him I never heard of any Worthy that had not some Genius or other to assist him and the society also of some friend to second his undertakings Do not expect then from me that I should be more then a Miracle Do not blame me that I cannot be so hardy as to travel any further alone toward Jerusalem Though I should call for all the supports and aids that my courage can give me yet I must be beholden to the help of some associate in my labours And O that it might be my lot to fall into your company or custody rather for I shall acknowledge you for a kind of Tutelar Angel a good familiar spirit and receive you as the richest present that Heaven could have made me I do not beg you see a friendship of you that shall serve only to pass away the time and deceive the tediousness of being alone but such an one as with the pleasure will bring me in an inestimable gain Do not deny me therefore either that pleasure which I hope will not displease your self or that profit which will do you no hurt Make me rich since you will not thereby become the poorer Impart an happiness to me which will not abate any thing of your own repose And truly Sir I do not know whether Heaven have not designed you for that end and given you a frame of nature so fit for conjunction with mine that both together will make one perfect man You see how earnest and violent I am and I am very sensible of your great sobriety and discretion Now I have somewhere read that a friendship between two persons thus disposed is like the Marriage of Iron and Steel where the one gives toughness and the other edge Let us joyn then our hands and our hearts together if you do not think me unworthy of such an honour Let this be our wedding-Wedding-day and from henceforth take me for your inseparable Companion To this unexpected suit the good Father made a reply to this effect Though it be a great thing which you require yet I would have you think that Love esteems it a very small matter to give I have called you often My Friend already and since you will have it more than a term of civility or common affection I ought not to be less forward than your self to advance it unto a more noble signification I have no cause at all to suspect you of the vanity of Courtship and Complement and therefore I will be so presumptuous as to believe you have conceived for me an affection so high as that you express provided you will also acknowledge the great passion which I have for your service It seems so strong an obligation upon me for a person of your desert to think of giving me his heart that I cannot think it Justice to keep mine any
And was you not glad to behold so many kind neighbours assembled at that decent entertainment To me there is not a more agreeable spectacle than a company of select friends vacant of business and full of chearfulness met together at one table And I cannot imagine that a man who understands pleasure can wish any equal to this that he might make one in such an happy society You may think indeed that it is sufficient to our delight if we can meet our friends any where But I am of the mind that the pleasure is redoubled when they refresh their bodies and their minds both together I hate indeed your great Feasts where persons that never saw one the other before nor ever shall perhaps again are mixt together where there is much talk and little or no discourse But these Love-feasts me-thinks do call to my mind the dayes of Innocence and make me wish for nothing when I enjoy them but only such another pleasure Here we know that we pledge an hearty Love when a man presents his kindness to us Our mind is entertained with a greater variety than the body enjoyes The very taste of our meat is exalted by the inward delight which we feel in our hearts And whatsoever satisfaction we then receive we impart as much to those that give it The weak and languishing appetite is excited by the sight of friends and the pleasure of their discourse and the discourse flows more freely by the moderate satisfaction of our appetite Our dull spirits are raised by communication with our friends and that Communication grows more lively by the exaltation of our spirits Or if you please so to consider it Friends never talk with greater wit and more freedom than when they take an innocent repast together and their meat never doth their bodies more good than when this sweet conversation is the sauce for it Indeed said the Pilgrim I had forgot to reflect upon that part of those good mens satisfaction which I take to be so great and yet so harmless withall that I shall ever be a friend of such pleasures and permit my self to be merry in such worthy company They have convinced me that I ought not to affect a sad brow and an heavy countenance They have reconciled me to smiles and mirth And provided they will keep within such bounds I will never quarrel with my passions any more But there is none that I have a greater kindness for than that of Love the pleasures of which as it self acquaints me withall so the usefulness of it those excellent men have also taught me And not to part so soon from so good a meeting I must let you know that they understood afterward a great part of the discourse at that Table was about friendship and the happiness of him that had found a faithful friend Which when it was repeated to him by one that was there it was a great means of confirming this affection in our Pilgrim and making him rejoyce in his advantageous choice My memory is not so good as to carry away all that I heard was said on this argument but it begun with a commendation of that saying of the Son of Sirach A faithful friend is a strong defence and he that hath found such an one Ecclus. 6 14 15 16 hath found a Treasure Nothing doth countervail a faithful friend and his excellency is unvaluable A faithful friend is the Medicine of Life and they that fear the Lordshall find him He speaks like an Oracle said one of the company for a friend me-thinks is the only universal Medicine against all the evils of this present life And with your permission I will make a Comment upon this Aphorism or rather I will recite you the words of a good Author who though I believe he never saw him hath glossed me-thinks most excellently on the Text of that wise Hebrew To which when they had all most willingly accorded he thus proceeded There is no Remedy in the World saith he Dion Prus 1. equal to that of a friend for other Medicines are profitable to the sick and superfluous to those who are in health but He is necessary to both He supplyes the wants of Poverty He adds a brightness to our glory and he obscures and hides our Ignominy This one things lessens the difficulty of those that are troublesome to us and increases the happiness which all our injoyments bring us It makes evil things little and good things great By this sweet society our griefs are divided and all our joyes are doubled What calamity is not intolerable without a friend and what felicity is not ungrateful if we have none to share with us in it We suffer not so much when we have some to condole and suffer with us And we rejoyce the more when our felicity gives a pleasure not only to our selves but to others also If Solitude and want of company be so horrid so dreadful a thing it is not to be understood of the want of men but of the want of friends For it is a good Solitude not to dwell with those that do not love us and a man would chuse such an Hermitage where he might not be troubled with them who bear no benevolous affection to him But for my part I cannot think it to be an happiness which hath no friend to participate in its pleasures A man may more easily bear the hardest Calamity with his Friend than the greatest felicity alone So that I judge him the most miserable who in his calamity hath many to insult over him and in his felicity none to taste of his joyes and rejoyce with him Who is there more speedy in his succours than a Friend Whose praise is sweeter to us than his And by whom is Truth spoken with less grief than by such a mouth What Castle what Bulwark what Arms and Weapons are more potent to secure us than the custody of those who are well-affected to us For in truth so many Friends as a man hath gained with so many eyes doth he see and with so many ears doth he hear and with so many understandings doth he think of that which is profitable for him It is all one as if God had given to a man in one body a great many Souls every one of which do tenderly consult and care for his good Nay if our eyes and our tongue and our hands are much to be prized not only for the delights of Life but that we may live Friends are not only as profitable but more necessary than these For your eyes can scarce see those things which are under your feet but by our Friends we may see those things which are in the furthermost parts of the earth By our eares we hear only the things that are very near us but by our Friends we hear them which are most remote The tongue signifies only to those who are present and with the hands the strongest man can do
to which Christ was tyed when they brought him to be examined by him For you must know by the way that Annas being fast asleep when he was taken and they being loath to awake him they got a cord and bound our Saviour to this tree lest he should slip away before the High Priest arose But especially I intend to visit the Holy Sepulchre and to behold the place where he lay which I have heard is an action very meritorious And I said a fourth am ingaged to go to our Lady of Loretto to see the very Chamber where she was born and where she was educated by Joachim her Father and Ann her Mother and where the Angels came to her and she conceived our Lord. This I hope is as meritorious if not more as to travel to his grave and besides it is a shorter journey for I have heard one say of this place as I believe you never heard any say of the other that the words of Jacob do well befit it This place is dreadful it is no other then the House of God and the gate of Heaven You speak so highly of these holy places said a fifth that I should have a great mind to accompany you to some of them were I not now returning turning home from a Pilgrimage which I have made to St. James of Compostella wherein I have spent more time then I could well spare from my necessary affairs O then said the Father who had listned attentively all this while to them without speaking a word you have brought home I presume to your family one Feather at least of the Holy Cock or Hen which are kept in a certain Church of an ancient City not far from that place I hope you will favour us with a sight of it for here is no air stirring to blow it away if it should chance to fall and this company I believe would be glad if you would bless their lips with a kiss of it I do not know well what you mean said the man for I never so much as heard of any such thing That is very strange replyed the Father that they should either suffer so sacred a breed to perish or that the fame of them should not come to your ears There is scarce any Pilgrim who passes that way who doth not go to see them and therefore I may well marvel that you should hear no news of them though I shall sooner believe that than that they should be so careless as to let those Holy Chickens dye whose great Grandfather and Grandmother were so miraculous an instance of the Vertue of St. James of Compostella I pray Sir said another of them be pleased to let us hear the story of these Sacred Creatures for we are all I believe very ignorant of it I will tell it you then said he just as I received it from a person of no mean account that lived in Sicily but was well acquainted with all these Countryes Luc. Marinaeus de Reliq There was on a time a certain man a great friend of God whose name he was pleased to conceal who undertook a Pilgrimage together with his wife and son to the Saint forenamed It was their fortune being in their journey thither to take up their Quarters one night in an old City not many miles from it they being not able that day to reach as far as Compostella Now in the house that entertained them you must know there was a maid not so good as she was pretty who beholding the beauty of their son fell in love with him and made such undecent expressions of it that he was forced to be more uncivil to her then otherwise he should have been This turned her love into a great hatred and made her study a revenge which she took in this manner There being a little silver cup which they used in their Chamber she neatly conveighed it into his Capouch and when they were gone out of the City caused them to be pursued by the Alcalde or Justice of the place and accused them of theft When the Father and Mother had been searched and nothing was found they were some thing troubled at the molestation which they had given them but as soon as ever they came to the son they happened to feel it there where they little expected to have found it and so carried them back again The young man being brought before the Justice could only deny the fact but was no way able to purge himself and therefore was condemned to be hang'd On the Gallows then his Father and Mother were fain to leave him and as the story goes there he hung by the neck till they had been at Compostella and performed all their vows to the Saint And his Mother going to visit the Gibbet at her return and to spend a few tears at the place of execution found him in the very same posture wherein they left him But she had not poured out many complaints nor lookt upon him long with her eyes full of tears before he called out to her and said Dear Mother weep no more I beseech you for me for I am not dead as you imagine but alive being preserved by the Mother of God and the intercession of St. James whom you went to honour from suffering the death which my enemies intended me Go to the Judge therefore and make no longer stay here Let him know how it is that I was accused out of meer malice unjustly condemned and thus miraculously saved by them that protect the innocent and are grateful to their Worshippers She did so without examining him any further about the matter and the Judge was just sate down to dinner when she came running in saying Sir I beseech you cause my son to be taken down and let him hang yonder no longer for though I must confess that he is still alive yet it is by the power of God and his Saints At which news he smiling said Good woman be content thy Son is as much alive as these two Birds pointing to a Cock and Hen which were ready roasted upon the Table before him He had no sooner said the word but they both leapt out of the dish and walkt about the Table being as ready for a dinner as himself And as for the Cock he moreover clapped his wings and fell a Crowing for joy to find them unpinion'd and to feel that he did not carry his giscern thereabouts any longer Which when the Judge beheld he was the most astonished man that ever was seen and could not of a good while recover himself to speak a word But as soon as ever the passion was over away he went without so much as thinking of his dinner and called the Priest with the Principal men of the City who all went together to the place where the Youth was hang'd and found it to their no small wonderment just as the good Woman had said Whereupon he was cut down and restored to his
I should ever have had an occasion to answer such a question as that you propose for sure you never discerned that I had a mind to be separated from you And truly I never discerned any such thing in my self nor have you given me cause to be less your Friend then heretofore unless it be by this unfriendly jealousie which as I told you a little while ago I thought you would never have entertained And since I see it proceeds rather from an ill opinion of your self then any you have of me I recall that word and pray you to believe that you are as dear unto me as ever that is my friend And what I pray you is the office of a friend if not to relieve the wants of those he loves and to bear those burdens with them which they are not able to carry alone If they themselves therefore by reason of any heaviness of Spirit prove the burden that he must sustain He will not complain of it It is their unhappiness he knows both that they are so heavy and are in danger they think to be a load to him and He will not let them be more unhappy by becoming heavy himself and groaning under that easie weight which they lay upon him Easie I call it because it is a pleasure to do any kindness for our friends and the pleasure encreases proportionably to the pains that we take in doing of it You shall hear the Judgement of a Philospher in this case if you please and of one that loved ease more then any of his fellows Though a wise man he thought might be content with himself yet notwithstanding he granted that his happiness would be greater with a friend Of such a companion he cannot but be desirous if it be for no other end but to exercise his amity and that so great a vertue may not remain without use He doth not chuse a friend saith Epicurus himself to have some to assist him when he is sick or to succour him if he be in prison or such necessities But contrary wise that he may have one whom he may help and comfort in the like distresses For he hath an evil intention that only respects himself when he makes Friendship And so shall he end his friendship as he begun the same He that hath purchased himself a friend to the intent that he may be succoured by him in prison will take his flight as soon as he feels that he is released of his bonds Both the chains shall be knockt off together those of his prison and those of his friendship These are the friendships which we vulgarly call Temporary being made only to serve a turn He that is made a friend for profit sake shall please as long as he may be profitable and so they who are in felicity see themselves inviron'd with a multitude of these followers But where the distressed dwell there is nothing but solitude For such manner of friends alwayes avoid those places where they may be proved It is necessary that the beginning and the end have a correspondence He that hath begun to be a friend because it is expedient he that hath thought there is a gain in friendship beside it self may well be suborn'd against the same by the appearance and offers of a greater gain For what cause then do I entertain a friend To the end I may have one for whom I may dye whom I may accompany in banishment and for whose life and preservation I may expose my self to any danger For the other which only regards profit and makes account of that which may turn to its own commodity it is rather a Traffique then Friendship Certain it is that Friendship hath in some sort a similitude and likeness to the affection of Lovers Whose scope is neither gain nor greatness nor glory but despising all other considerations love it self inkindles in them a desire of the beloved form under hopes of a mutual and reciprocal amity Thus he Unless you will number me then among those Summer friends which he speaks of or think that friendship in me is feebler then it was in Pagans you must not hold me any longer in suspition And indeed if you did but know how great a favour you do me in letting me know your griefs and making me the Witness of your Conscience and relying upon me for advice and thereby giving me an opportunity to serve you the best I can you would presently throw away all these Imaginations which the enemy of Souls and of Friendship would instill into you For my part I did not so lightly and in sport receive you into my conduct as that any difficulty or a multitude of them should make my employment tedious to me Nay how can it be irksome when you your self acknowledge that the labours of Love are all pleasure and carry their own rewards in them You may think perhaps that love grows old as well as all other things and that time works its decay and renders it feeble and weak Thus Attalus was wont to say that it is far more pleasant to make a friend then to have one As it is more agreeable to a Painters fancy to draw his lines then to have finished the picture After he hath painted indeed he possesses the fruit of his Art but he took pleasure in the Art it self when he painted Just as the youth of our children is more fruitful to us but their infancy is more sweet But assure your self I do not live by any of these Maxims Friendship is like Wine the older it is the better It grows more pure by age its spirits are more disingaged and it warms the heart more powerfully then when it was but new and green Nay your friendship is more pleasant too whatsoever you may think now that it is grown then it was in its childhood I enjoy the remembrance of those pleasures and have some new ones besides just as a Painter thinks on his Art when he beholds the piece that he hath brought to perfection I beseech you then if you have any love to me that you will not call in question mine to you And if all this will not satisfie you let me intreat you for the Love of our Lord that you will ask him whether I do not love you I know he is so much a friend to Truth and unto Love too not to say to you and me that he will do me the favour to perswade you that I do And therefore let not the Evil one who loves nothing less then our Friendship sow this jealousie in your heart that I grow weary of you But be confident that as our Lord loves you so he imparts true love to me and that if the armes of these two can do any thing you shall be carried safe to Jerusalem And now since I have told you my very heart let me know I pray what further doubt it is that troubles yours It cannot be so great sure that
because they think whatsoever you do is due to their merit They would be loved by all without loving again They will command in all companies and have every one yield to their humors They will teach all and learn of none They are incapable of gratitude and think you are honoured enough for your services if they do but receive them They would draw all to themselves and are unacquainted with that which charms all the world I mean bounty and liberality The Humble man no doubt then is the most agreeable person upon earth whom you oblige by a good word which he thinks he doth not deserve who thanks you for the smallest courtesie who had rather obey then rule who is desirous to learn of the meanest Scholler who contemns no body but himself who loves though he be not loved who thinks nothing too much to do for those that esteem him and who is afraid he hath never recompenced enough the civilities which are done unto him In short this Humility is of such great value and so good natured that there is nothing comparable to it but its twin sister Divine Charity This amiable pair are like the right foot and the left by which the traveller performs his journey There needs no more but this happy couple to carry you through all the paths of piety and bring you safe to Jerusalem Let us turn our eyes then if you please from the one to the other and look a while upon the beauty and graces of Charity whose charms are so powerful that you cannot chuse but open to it your embraces CAP. XII Of Divine Charity The Power that it hath both to establish his Resolution and furnish him with all other Requisites for his Journey ANd that which will very much inamour you at the first glance is the power which you will discover in it to establish your Resolution and to make it so firm that it shall not be shaken by all the force of all the world which is nothing so strong and mighty as Love I know this touches you with a strong inclination to it if you have any mind to offer your will to God as I advised and therefore you will not think I importune you with a tedious discourse if I make you more sensible of this following truth That Love makes one will of two and causes us to sacrifice all our own desires to the will of that we love if we esteem it better than our selves For what I pray you can we say of Love but which a wiser man than you or I hath told us who calls it that emotion of the soul whereby we joyn our selves in will and heart to that which is presented as lovely and convenient for us It is such a consent I say of the heart to some fair and inviting object that we consider our selves as joyned and united to it Insomuch that we do not look on our selves and it as remaining any longer two things which subsist asunder but we conceive a Whole whereof we think our selves but one part and the thing beloved to be the other Is it not necessary then that we have a mind to cleave to this and eternally live in dear imbraces of it Can we endure the thought of being torn from this and so dissolve the Whole which Love hath made Do not we naturally desire to conserve things especially those of our our own creating It is unavoidable then that in any contest which may arise between these parts we yield to the will of that we love for fear of a separation unless that thing be worse than our selves and so we hope to gain by the dissolution If one of these two must be displeased we shall ever chuse that it be our selves unless we esteem the other to be of less value and worth than our selves There is but that one Exception lyes against this general Truth which I shall not stick to reiterate that Love doth so tye us to that we love that we and it become but one whole consisting of two parts and that we shall sooner suffer that part which we make to be crossed in its desires than the other to which we have joyned our selves to be disgusted Do you doubt of it Observe then that Love being placed on things that differ in three degrees it comes to be divided into three sorts Either it is to things below us and then it is called a bare Affection or to things equal to us and then it is termed Friendship or to things above us and then it arrives at the name of Devotion Thus I have learnt from a wise man of my acquaintance Now the nature of Love in every one of these being such that it joyns our hearts to the thing beloved and we and it make but one whole in this only they differ that though we may consent to part and break with that which we esteem less than our selves yet we can never agree to be separated from that which we esteem greater The less part will alwayes be abandoned to the conservation of the greatest we must alwayes sacrifice that which is worst to keep intire the best And therefore though in bare Affection a man alwayes prefers himself before that he loves when one must suffer a displeasure yet it is quite otherwise in the highest Love and sometime in the second sort which we call Devotion for there a man prefers the thing he loves so much before himself that he fears not to venture his very life for the conservation of it He will sooner sever Soul and Body than consent that this and his Soul should be divided He will rather quit all the world and never see it more than forsake this and be banished from it Because as there is no compare he thinks between all the world and this so he is tyed with an incomparably stronger bond to it than to all the world Now of this sort is the Love that we call Charity which is an high Devotion to our Lord. Who since he is Lord of all the Lord of life and glory the Author of eternal Salvation the only begotten of the Father full of Grace and Truth if it were possible for us to leave some things that are better than our selves in expectation of something better than them to which we will give that Love which they have lost yet he will make us love him eternally above all and live in inseparable union with him because there is nothing else superiour to him on which to bestow our Love if we take it from him If we once sincerely love him if we become one with him it is manifestly in the nature of this sublime affection to make us part with our selves for his sake to resign up all our own desires that his will may be done to lose whatsoever we call ours that we may keep him and his good esteem of us It is not possible that we should grant our consent to have that knot untied which
on fire with these words and at last found means to vent himself and burst out in such expressions as these O Sir what have you done I feel the Love of Jesus burn so vehemently in my breast that I shall be devoured by it if it last a moment longer in this force I have scarce any breath left to tell you that you have made me love your self also with a violent passion I have no power no more then desire to resist this Almighty Lover of Souls I render my self his prisoner and wish to be eternally held in his chains You have linkt me to your self too so fast that I am at once become his slave and your servant I would go to the worlds end to seek these two Companions Humility and Charity if they were not already become my guests by your means You have given me a greater treasure then I thought to find in those few words which I received from you and methinks I feel already that I am nought and I have nought and I desire nought but Jesus and Jerusalem If it be not absurd to speak in such terms I am in love with this Love which you have described I see methinks Humility and all things else in its armes I embrace them both with all my soul I welcome them with my best affections into my heart And if I had more hearts then one I would offer them all to the Humble Love of my sweetest Saviour Go on Sir as long as you please if you have not taught me all my lesson in teaching me to Love You have tyed my ears to your tongue and they cannot but listen to your speech Nor shall I ever feel any weariness in hearing of you for you have made me in Love with your discourse by breathing the Love of my Lord into my heart Here he making a little rest the Guide had leave to resume his office though he was so fill'd with joy to see the good effects of what he had said that it was not easie on a sudden to find room for any other thoughts The desire also that he felt of speaking something extraordinary on this occasion had like to have imposed silence on him and denyed a passage to his words But his Prudence telling him how necessary it was to keep himself now from such transports he soon reduced himself to his usual temper and thus began to renew his discourse It is no wonder to find that Jesus captivates hearts and that the Love of a dying Saviour is so powerful as to inthral them to his service All that surprises me is no more then this that such feeble words as mine should so sensibly touch your inclinations to him and with such speed excite so high a degree of Love in your heart It gives me great incouragement to continue my instructions and affords no less incouragement to your self to continue your attention For if you are already under the power of Love by what hath been now delivered I shall make you love unmeasurably before I have finished this discourse You have seen but half of the riches of that golden sentence and there are greater secrets still behind in those two pretious words which are at the conclusion of it For I pray you satisfie me in this demand Have you well considered what Jerusalem is to which you now direct your face I will not stay for your answer but proceed to tell you that I am now going to give you such an Idaea of it that if you keep it fresh in your mind you cannot imagine how it will snatch you from the world and heighten your love unto your Saviour and lift you quite out of your own will if you had a mind to fall into it back again And truly I cannot think that you should have any great list to travel long or that you should not soon feel a weariness to invade your members if you go you know not whither and carry not along with you a true information of the happy repose you are like to meet withall at your journies end Let Jerusalem then be the subject of our next discourse and suffer your eyes to be drawn to that blessed place which I believe you have often heard commended as the Perfection of Beauty and the Joy of the whole earth CAP. XIII A Description of the City Jerusalem and of the happiness be should there meet withall I Have no faculty it must be confessed of making good descriptions of those places which I have seen and therefore it must not be expected that I paint you exactly a place which I know but by report It is sufficient that I tell you nothing but the truth and do not imitate them who fill their Maps with Chimaera's of their own brain though I do not compleatly delineate every part of it but leave many spaces void to be filled up by your self when you shall have the happiness to arrive there Know then that as to the scituation of this City it is agreed by all to be incomparably sweet beyond the fairest place that this world of ours doth afford For it is seated on a very high mountain loftier then Olympus it self which yet is said to lift its head above the clouds and to be obnoxious to none of our storms and tempests and to be deprived of the Sun beams by nothing else but only the night it self It is advanced I say far above the highest part of this heavy earth and foggy air aspiring into the purer sky where the Sun never withdraws its rayes and where there is not the least shaddow of mist or vapour either to obscure its light or to offend the most delicate sense that can be conceived There are nothing but pure and fragrant odors which perfume that happy climate there is a perpetual calm and quiet which reigns in that noble region there is no noise but that which infinitely delights and charms the soul into still and quiet meditations But that which is of greatest remark and most to be remembred is the glorious Prospect which a place of this advantage yields All the world here presents it self before ones eyes and makes them the center in which the beauty and glory of it conspires to meet I would not have you think I mean a world so small as that which we inhabit upon this Globe of Earth but one which comprehends the Sun and Moon and all the other adjoyning orbs which are there beheld to move in comely measures about that Prince of lights Those balls of Fire also which you see fixed in the firmament so remote from you will fall into your better view who though they seem here but like blinking candles and sickly flames will there appear most noble lights designed for some greater end then to lend us a feeble comfort in the night It will be infinitely contenting to see the beauty and fair proportions of every part of this vast frame the fitness usefulness and correspondence of it
where you thought there was nothing but horrid deserts salvage souls and barbarous customs they may produce you many worthy minds whose renowned acts it will give you an infinite joy to have rehearsed But there is nothing I believe will touch you with a greater inclination to their converse than the knowledge of the singular love and friendship that is between all the Inhabitants of that City provided you be already touched with any sense of the pleasure of that noble passion They are a people I told you of the most excellent nature and the sweetest disposition in the world They are void of all deceit and guile of all hatred and envy of all covetousness and self-love of all anger and peevishness with whatsoever other things there are that disturb our peace and spoil our converse here below So that they make the most agreeable society that ever was and interchange to each others such pleasures as my tongue hath not expressions powerful enough to paint them forth There is no strangeness at all among them You can meet no body there but they will entertain you with as much kindness and sincerity as if they had known you many years And when many come together in one place there is no danger of their jarring by reason of their different sentiments but they bring a great addition of pleasure and make the most delicious harmony that ever moved the heart of man There they entwine in the dearest embraces There they open to each other their very hearts There they study to increase not to diminish their mutual happiness There they think all that another injoyes is as if they did injoy it themselves And what they have of their own it is not for themselves alone but for every body else There you shall meet with no pale fears no anxious cares no fruitless wishes no tormenting jealousies and no amorous sighs neither for every one will love others as much as they desire and wish for no return again but only Love If there be any particular Friendships there they do not at all spoil the universal kindness of the place Others will not be loved the worse for them but rather loved better because they will teach those united hearts the greatest Love They may be esteemed also one of the beauteous spectacles of the place and be reckoned among the grateful varieties which will entertain us When after the pleasures of a more general and large conversation every one may retire to the company of those he loveth most There you will be met with such great and shining lights as St. Paul who set all the world on fire with the flames of their love You will fall into the company of those burning hearts who were martyr'd first by their own Love and then by their Persecutors fury for the good of the world And do you think they have put off their affections when they laid aside their rags of flesh Did all their fire go out when they suffered a dissolution of their house of earth Or shall we imagine that this generous passion is the off-spring of our body and ows its being birth and strength to this corporeal nature We may not so defame and asperse the Love of our Lord who no doubt hath a more tender heart in the heavens then he had upon the earth We may expect to find there more Love in the breasts of these holy Lovers who followed him then here they were owners of though they had then so much that it was large enough to embrace the whole world They have not left their nature but only its imperfections They have not changed their affections but only heightned and improv'd them And therefore judge how happy you will be in the acquaintance of such persons and how much more happy in their excellent friendship Your Love will be raised to a strange pitch when you approach such intense and vastly increased flames Your heart will be all Fire when you come near to such huge furnaces the heat of whose Love in this cold region was so strong that it would have forced a sensible soul to expire with them And is the joy think you conceivable which you will feel when you find your self in the arms of those mighty Lovers For my part I can imagine nothing but an Ecstasie when we shall be placed in such great Hearts which are nothing else but Love and Joy to see us at Jerusalem I cannot propound to my desires a pleasure more charming then this unless it be to joyn both heart and voice with the whole number of those glorious friends to chaunt the praises of our Creator and Redeemer And indeed it is beyond the measure of my poor skill to invent any words that can tolerably describe the Melodies which will then be made when the glorious company of the Apostles the goodly fellowship of the Prophets the noble Army of the Martyrs the glittering Troops of Confessors and the innumerable Hosts of triumphant Souls shall compose but one Quire to sing their Anthems and Hallelujahs to the God of Love But yet I am apt to think that their Musick will receive no small part of its graces from hence that there will be no discord in their hearts nor jarring in their affections but that Love will exactly tune them to a perfect harmony Nay this seems to be the sum of what we can say of the happiness of that estate that it consists in a rapturous Love of God and a most passionate Love of one another And truly this is a thing so inviting and I have such a particular affection to this Vnity of Spirit among Brethren that I should be tempted here to speak a little of that Charity which you ought to have to your neighbour as I have already instructed you about that you owe to God but that I have assigned another time and place for that discourse CAP. XIV The manner of their life who live at Jerusalem and that all things concur to make it the most pleasant of all other YOU have great incouragement then to make haste to Jerusalem for you see they pass their time there more delightfully then in any other place and lead a life so much to their content that one may truly say their imployment is to please themselves and to do according to their desires The most vigorous Soul that this earth affords is but a drone in compare with the sprightly air of them that inhabit those Caelestial Regions You would say the most pleasant dayes that here we lead and study to prolong to an hundred years are but like a sleep and a dream a meer image and shaddow of life if you could but be raised for one minute to the strength and activity of those happy people and receive but the sleightest taste of those lively and essential delights which force the whole soul to attend unto them The briskness and chearfulness of our youthful time doth not so much excell the flat and
whatsoever is good we are afraid may perish there whatsoever we receive will be preserved by him that gave it Here there is death and there is nothing but life Here we enjoy what the eye and the ear and our thoughts present unto us but there we shall see what the eye hath not seen and hear what the ear hath never heard and understand what the heart cannot now comprehend And seeing hearing and knowing after that manner we shall rejoyce with joy unspeakable For what kind of joy must that be when thou seest thy self in the company of Angels a partner in the Kingdom of Heaven to raign with the King of the world desiring nothing to possess all things rich without covetousness charitable without mony triumphing without the fear of any barbarous Invaders and living this life without any death O sweet life the more I think of thee the more I love thee the more vehemently I desire thee the more I am pleased in the remembrance of thee I love to speak of thee I love to hear of thee I love to write of thee to confer of thee to read of thee that so I may refresh the pains and the sweat and the dangers of this tedious life by laying my weary head in the bosome of thy secure pleasures For this end I enter into the Garden of the Holy Scriptures I gather there the sweet flowers of Divine Sayings that which I gather I eat that which I eat I chew over again and that which I have tasted I lay up in mine heart that by such sweetness I may allay the bitterness and irksomeness of this miserable life O that my sins were done away O that laying aside the burden of this flesh I might enter into thy ease and quiet To receive the Crown of Life to be associated to the caelestial Singers to behold the face of Christ to see the uncircumscribed light and without fear of death to rejoyce without any end There is the goodly fellowship of the Prophets there are the glorious twelve Apostles there is an innumerable Army of Martyrs there is the holy Company of Pious Confessors there are the Divine Lovers of Solitude and Retirement there are the holy Women that have overcome the infirmities of their sex and the powers of the world there are the brave Youths and Virgins whose holy manners transcended their years there are the Sheep and the Lambs that have escaped the danger of glutting themselves with these earthly pleasures there perfect Charity reigns because God is there All in All. There they see without fear and love without measure and praise without ceasing There loving they praise and praising they love and it is their work to do so alwaies without any interruption But alas Who can tell what a Great Good God is as he proceeds in another place Who can declare how full he is or relate the happiness that he will give us We cannot tell it and yet we cannot hold our peace It is more than can be uttered and yet we cannot chuse but talk of it And if we cannot tell it because of our ignorance and yet cannot hold our tongues because of our joy for what we know in what condition are we which will neither let us speak nor yet be silent What shall we do with our selves if we can neither tell what it is nor yet cease to speak of it I le tell you in two or three words Let us rejoyce Let us praise God Let us keep a perpetual Jubilee here in our hearts thanking him very much that we know so much of this happiness and thanking him more that it is so great that we cannot know it all Here if the Guide had not made a little stop I think the Pilgrim had interrupted him for he had kept his silence thus long with great difficulty and now cryed out with a more than ordinary vehemence Blessed be God that he hath brought me to this place This is none other than the suburbs of Jerusalem this is the Gate of Heaven Happy was the day which let me see your face I heard something of Jerusalem before by the hearing of the ear but now mine eyes see it and I am all inamoured of it You have shown me a sight so glorious that it is beyond our thoughts and beyond our desires I was going to say beyond our Faith and beyond our hope Sure you are one of the Angels of God sent from Jerusalem to fetch me thither You had inflamed me with an high Degree of Love before but now you have put me in a fiery Chariot and methinks I am not upon the earth but ascending up to those heavenly Regions Nay you have transported me to the City of God already Methinks I see the Lord of Glory I behold the Thrones that are erected for all the Noble Travellers to that Holy Land I fancy my self in the dear embraces of those Glorious Lovers And I am apt to embrace you as one of the Seraphims that have fired my soul with the same Love I see the blessed Jesus preparing himself for his appearance and begin to think that I am triumphing with him Or if I am but in a dream of these things yet it is so pleasant that I could wish it might last for ever and that nothing might awake me out of such a delightful slumber Not so said his Guide interrupting his speech I love you better than to let you enjoy such a wish and I would rouze you up to demonstrate their reality if I thought you took these things for charming dreams and painted shadows You shall not make such a mean supposal nor content your self with such aiery pleasures for I will make you know at once both that there is such a blessed place as I have described and discover to you more perfectly the way unto it There is another dear name inclosed in those words which I told you must alwaies be sealed upon your heart and that is the Holy JUSUS On whom I do not intend that you should look only as he sits on his Throne of Glory at Jerusalem but as he walked up and down the world and was a Pilgrim like your self travelling to that place He published the Glory of it He brought life and immortality to light He set open the Gates of Jerusalem to all faithful Travellers He run the Race himself wherein you are to follow and for the joy that was set before him when he should come thither he was not ashamed of a poorer habit than the meanest Pilgrim wears If you take a view therefore of his life and trace his holy steps you cannot miss the Rode which I would have you take nor fail to be convinced that it can carry you to no other place but the City of God For Do you not remember that this person hath stiled himself the WAY There is nothing so necessary than in all that sentence as this one word Jesus to have alwaies in your mind whom
I shall now describe unto you as a fair Copy not only of that Humility and Charity which I named before but of all other things that you must resolve to undertake if you mean to come at Jerusalem CAP. XV. A Description of Jesus ' who is the true Way to Jerusalem In which he is propounded to the Pilgrims imitation ANd first I must set this Jesus before your eyes as one that was dead to these outward things while he lived among them and that withdrew his heart from the world while he conversed with it He was not a person cloyster'd and retir'd from the society of men He led not an Anchorets life which obliged him to shun their company Nor did he put on a sullen gravity that should affright men from his fellowship but he used the greatest freedom and treated men with such familiarity that he invited them into it He did eat and drink as other men do he refused not their invitation when they were desirous to entertain him and even at a Marriage he denyed not to be a Guest when his presence was welcome to them He had opportunities of inriching himself as well as other men Honours would have waited upon him if he had pleased without a Miracle It depended upon himself alone to become the greatest man in the world And the pleasures which others seek would have pursued him if he had but given them encouragement Herein he made himself glorious and hath left us a noble example that he was mortified to all these carnal delights when they were ready to thrust themselves upon him that he denyed the desires of wealth when it would cost him no more pains than to receive it and that he refused all the Kingdoms of the world which would have easily disposed themselves to his obedience He walkt into Cities and Towns and was still as unspotted from the world as he was in a wilderness He lived in the thickest of its temptations but none of them could fasten or stick upon him He had power at will and his will set bounds to it when it had none of its own He was a Soveraign Lord but made no advantage thereby save only to be better and to do more good than any of his subjects He used greater moderation in all injoyments than those did on whom he bestowed them He lived in a sense of the Spiritual World while he was a man of this and incompassed about with our infirmities He was a stranger to all the evil manners and customs of men while he was familiar with themselves and he testified against their wicked deeds while he kept them company Nay he purified many by his example remaining uncorrupted by any of theirs And truly such a life it is that you are to lead Your way to Jerusalem lyes through the World You must not think to step into none but Religious Houses or to fall into no company but that of the Pious much less must you expect to lye immur'd from the spectacles of Vanity and to secure your self from temptations within the inclosure of high walls which they cannot climb over to approach you But your manner of life will lead you through the crowd your way will bring you into open fields and expose you oftentimes to the throng of sensual objects against which you will have no defence but your own valourous resolution You will not be able to refuse them your company or to pass along without their acquaintance It will not be at your choice whether you will see and hear and feel those things that are amiable and delightful nor can you stop your ears so close but you will perceive they invite you to a friendship with them Your skill and your courage therefore consists in this that in imitation of your Master Jesus you live and converse with all these things as a man that is Dead You must keep them company in such a sort that they may find it is but the shadow of you that is among them and that they do not possess your self Let them know that they may as well invite a Ghost to their intemperance uncleanness and greediness of the world as waste their time in solliciting of your affection Make them feel that is but half of you and the worser half which walks among them and that it is impossible they should have the better part Let men have your company but be not partaker with them in their sins Follow your affairs like other folk but take heed and beware of covetousness and watch that you be not overtaken with surfeiting and drunkenness or the cares of this life Let the World understand that you can see it every day and not fall in love with it that you can deal and traffique with it if need be and yet not be unrighteous that you can behold all its honours and not be ambitious that you need not hide your eyes from its beauties and yet retain your own and live in purity of heart Beware of pleasing and humouring any of your senses Suffer them not to feed too greedily upon any object lest your soul be inchanted and cast into a forgetfulness of Jerusalem And remember alwayes that you are to sue all these earthly things rather of necessity then of choice and to afford them your company but not your friendship And this let me tell you is a more excellent and useful life I may add more laborious too then any other though the austerities of Monks and Hermites seem so grievous and horribly affrighting Notwithstanding all the sharpness they injoyn themselves they reap a great deal of ease who are sequestred from publick offices and live without the incumbrance of many affairs Though their Rules to which they are tyed appear so rigorous yet they are neither so many in number nor so thorny in their nature nor have so many faces as those which bind a man of exact integrity in civil life They have but a few things to imploy them and he is ingaged in a multitude and they have the same things to do over again but his rules vary with a thousand circumstances It is a pleasure to avoid the pains of well doing among those that are evil It is a repose to have but few enemies and those such as have been beaten an hundred times These people may have some other glory but that of overcoming difficulties methinks belongs not to them Moderation is a vertue much more toilsome then their Sufferance That hath a thousand several fashions whereas this hath no more then one It is no wonder that a man should be good where he sees nothing that is bad He may well keep his innocence where it is hard to lose it and soon secure his soul when there is nothing offers to rob him of it He is a very unfortunate man as I have heard somebody well express it who drowns himself in that place where he can scarce find water enough to quench his thirst His hap
rest that they include them every one and carry them in their Bosome All the Vertues resort hither at the time when these are to be perform'd Here they all agree to meet and as I may speak to keep their General Rendevouz the better to strengthen and advance each other At these holy retirements they all come together to consult for the preserving of their common interest There is not one of them absent when we pray as we ought or address our selves in due manner to the Table of the Lord. Then they assemble themselves to joyn in one Band in order to the making a more powerful impression upon their enemies and to increase their strength the better to incounter them at all times else They are all in Action at once upon these occasions And by their united force do more mightily ingage the will to the love of them at all other seasons When we pray we make a solemn acknowledgment of God in all his attributes We confess him to be the Cause of all things We extoll his Soveraign power and Supremacy over all creatures We acknowledge his Independency and our selves to live and move and have our being in him We ascribe to him Liberty and Freedom in that it is in his will and choice what and when and how much we shall injoy We give him the Glory of his Fulness and Alsufficiency of his Immensity his Omnisciency his Eternity and Immutability his Goodness and Bounty and of whatsoever other excellencies belongs unto him We humble our selves also before him We profess our Faith and confidence in him for all that he hath promised We hope in his Mercy and resign our Souls and Bodies into his Hands to be governed by his Holy Laws Prayer is the Silence of our Souls the stilness and calm of all our Passions the satisfaction and contentment of our Desires and in one word it is the Union of our Wills with the Divine And if you turn your eye from hence to the Holy Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood there you will find the very same concourse of all the Graces to assist at that solemn time They all conspire to be present then to wait upon our Lord and to improve themselves by exerting their utmost vigor and strength in that Holy Action The very business and imployment of a Christian soul at that Feast is to celebrate the Divine Goodness with our highest praises to profess our selves the Disciples and followers of the Crucified Jesus to express the greatest passion of Love to him to offer our Souls and Bodies to his service to accept of his yoke and take his Cross upon our shoulders to embrace each other with a fervent Charity to open our hearts unto all the World to excite our selves to the doing of good and to proclaim forgiveness to all that have done us evil Here all our troublesome Passions are laid asleep and dare not so much as stir being now in the presence of our Lord. They are all husht and still out of the Reverence they bear to him and his Soveraign Authority Here we can neither be careful nor angry nor fearful nor desirous of any other thing but only Him and his Love Nay here all the inordinacy of them is quelled subdued and brought under the Government of his Laws They are not only cast into a sleep but mortified and slain at the sight of the Passion of our Lord. Anger and hatred give up the Ghost and yield themselves victims to his conquering Love All our care for the World expires into the Bosome of God All Fear vanishes and turns into Faith and trust in his Providence All Pride and Vainglory dyes at the feet of his Humble Majesty The Impure desires of the Flesh receive their mortal wound when we feel the pangs and agonies and travel of His soul There is nothing left but an indignation at our sinful selves a care to please him an holy fear to offend him an hatred of the very garment spotted with the flesh a love of Piety and an ambition to be like to this Holy Saviour It would be too long if I should tell you how all the life of Jesus was at once expressed in his death and how as he hung upon the Cross he acted all the Vertues which he had so long preached and practised But you will soon discern by your own observation if you please but to look upon him in that last Scene of his Tragedy that he never gave greater instances of his Humility Charity Meekness Patience Confidence in God and contempt of the World then when he left it in those shameful and ignominious torments And therefore since this Crucified Jesus is so lively set before our eyes in this Holy Sacrament we must either shut our eyes or else he will imprint such an Image and draw such a Picture of himself upon our hearts that all those Graces will shine together there CAP. XVIII Of the many enemies he was to expect that would assault his Resolution Some from within some from without Of their subtilties and various arts to deceive HEre the Good man made a pause the Other seeming as if he had a mind to interpose some doubt or to make some observation upon what had been said But he modestly praying him to proceed and telling him that he had no desire to do any thing but only to hearken to his Instructions which would sooner tire the Giver then the Receiver it was no long stop to his speech which thus continued I am so desirous you should think it is easier to understand then to follow the Christian course which leads to Jerusalem that I would have you know there remains not much more to be added then what relates to those things which have been already spoken But you having thus disposed of your affairs and put your self in such good order as I have directed it will be time to begin your journey in Gods Name thither Only be sure at your setting out that you confirm the Vow you have made by setting to it the Seal of that Holy Sacrament of which I have now discoursed It will be a very good Viaticum for you and in the strength of this Food you may travel many dayes still looking at Jesus whom you beheld there so feelingly represented And truly you will find there is great need of fortifying your self very well for I must let you know that at your first stepping out of doors before you have gone many paces you will be incountred with a World of enemies of several sorts that will beset you round about and boldly assault your resolution of going to Jerusalem We are told indeed as I have heard some relate out of Diodore of Sicily that among the ancient Indians there were certain officers appointed on purpose to take care of Travellers and Strangers and to see that no body did them any wrong And if it chanced that any such person did fall sick they provided a Physitian
all their deformities and so present them to God without spot or blemish that they may reign as so many Kings with him for ever Suppose I say that such a discourse were made with much affection and I believe you have sometimes heard the like would it not as agreeably move the imagination of a fleshly man and be as apt to touch his heart with an inclination to this beautiful person as a lovely face presented before the eyes doth give him a pleasure and stirs up a passion in him toward it Truly I nothing doubt but this picture of Christ might impress such a conceit of him in the fancy as might excite admiration desire love delight and such other passions as shall be the imitation of those that are in pious souls who are in love with the Vertues and Spirit of our Saviour He may not at all suspect but that he bears an affection to the Lord Jesus and in great zeal anathematize and curse all those who are not just affected like himself He will condemn as much as your self all those dull and gross souls who are imployed in setting the postures of the face and amusing the world with countenances He laughs at them who are busied in ordering the motions of the head and bending the eyes to devotion He is far above these actions of the body and feeling his soul in a devout posture and toucht with Religious passions he knows no reason why he should not think himself to be worthy to wear the name of devout and Religious And when these apprehensions and emotions as we call them are once begotten it is no hard matter to maintain and breed them up to a greater growth They may be fed perpetually with new objects that yield a fresh delight The description of Jerusalem may be made so full of pleasure that an earthly man may be ravished therewith And he hearing also certain signs and marks given of those who are said to have an interest in Christ and shall be Heirs of Jerusalem it is very easie to conceive how such a man may set himself a work first to imprint his Fancy with such Characters and then to form his passions to some expression and Apish imitation of them Fancy you know hath a great command over all the passions and being acquainted very well with the way to them and the manner of awakening them can call them forth upon this occasion as easily as upon any other It can make them as busie when these divine matters present themselves as when sensible objects knock at our doors and demand to be admitted to our converse There are no names of dearness which men of this stamp cannot bestow upon Jesus They can speak of him with an high pleasure and pray in a pathetick style and not without devout transport They find a Love to this kind of Communion with him They can rejoyce to think of his fulness and sufficiency They can be astonished at the freeness of his Grace They can mourn for their sins and then call themselves blessed for so doing Nay more than this they can excite the passion of gratitude in their hearts and if they hear withall that they must be regenerate and born again they can follow the Fancy of that so long till they think that they feel the throws and pangs of the new birth a change wrought in their souls and all the rest in the method and order wherein they had it described to them They will first be cast down in great humiliations They will complain of the naughtiness of their hearts and the corruptions of their natures They will loathe and abhor themselves as abominable creatures They will disclaim all their own righteousness and strength and think of bringing their hearts to the Promise And if they have heard any better language to express this work they will bring themselves to an imitation of all that is contained in that also They will labour to detest their former courses and to make a choice of a new life They will strain themselves to spit upon their sins and to cast a smile upon the wayes of Virtue They will at least offer themselves to Christ to be formed anew and pray him to make them such as he pleases Thus is one of the Religious Puppets of the world produced This is the beginning and progress of that piece of work which a good man now at Jerusalem was wont to call a Mechanical Religion And if you doubt at all whether or no there be such an Artificial Device as this which passes for Piety do but call to mind one thing which you cannot but know if you have been a person of any observation and you shall be convinced of it There arises you see very often new modes and fashions of Religion among us The old wayes are much decryed and the last invention is voted to be altogether Divine Now if one of these persons whom I have spoken of shall chance to fall into the acquaintance of a Sect that is much different from the present which he hath long followed you shal see him easily shift his form and speedily turn into another shape He can soon quit the way wherein he was and become religious after the manner of this novel plat-form All the old signs and marks of Regeneration shall stand for nothing and now he distinguishes himself from the men of the world by other Characters Which is an evident token that he is moved by the power of imagination and as external objects shall strongly impress themselves that he hath no internal life but is carried by the impulse of forein things which change his motions at their pleasure He seems to himself to be alive and to be no less than divinely acted but alas he is only a walking Ghost as appears in this too plainly That like those Images of living Bodies he can alter himself so quickly and be moulded into another figure Such a shadow of a Christian perhaps was he that hath been the occasion of all this discourse whom we are not to think to have an inward life because of the noise and bustle that he made and the confidence wherewith he spake for these do but still render him more like those Ghosts who have a greater boldness and cause many times more stir than they that are really alive That we may be sure therefore that you are a living man you must expose your self to our touch and demonstrate it to the sense of feeling You must say as our Saviour did when his Disciples took him for an Apparition come near and handle me and you shall see that I do not cheat you Let those that approach you perceive that Christ liveth in you and shew forth your works out of a good conversation and that in meekness of wisdom I mean in plain words that it must appear to the world that you are a substantial Christian by all the acts of an Holy Life You must make them sensible
mind then in Humility and Meekness to condescend to others yea to lay our selves at their feet and beg of them for the sake of the Lord of Peace that they will be the children of Peace This is to become the sons of the most High and heirs of the greatest Glory And now let me ask you for what end would you shut up your self in your Closet or make a Cell of your house Is it not that you may improve your self in the knowledge of God and do you not hope there to converse more with Heaven you need not then be put to the trouble of this confinement for I assure you nothing will so much promote your end as Love of your neighbour This will make you feel what God is and give you the clearest and strongest sense of him And the larger and wider your Charity grows the more able will you be to conceive the vastness of Gods Love and the less doubt you will have of his Universal good will It will dispose you also more then any thing else to believe the Gospel and will win your assent to those reports which seem most incredible When you find in your self such a great loye to others it will be easier for you to conclude that God might love us so much as to send his only Son into the World and give him also to dye for us sinners And if there be any thing of greater force then other to bring you acquainted with the joy and peace of Jerusalem and to make discoveries beforehand of it this must be that happy Spy For they consist very much in the dear love and friendship which there is between all the inhabitants of that blessed place But these things I will leave to your own thoughts and only pray you to imploy your mind in all your secret retirements so much in these meditations that you may issue forth from thence very full of God and as a man inspired to do much good For this active devotion is that which God loves He will impart more of his blessings to you if you open your hands in doing benefits to others then if you should lift them up all day in prayers to Heaven He refuses nothing to the stirring and diligent souls whom love and good-will have set in motion He delights to give to those who imploy his Grace It is a pleasure to him to bless those who go forth to meet his favours and do not expect them in their Chambers But we never imploy his Grace better then when we imitate the effusions of it upon us in our kindness and benignity to others And we are never more like to meet his blessings then when they are blessing of him for the good that we have brought unto them I know you will be ready to say hereafter that you can design a great deal more than you doubt you shall ever do That the Idaea you have of this Noble quality is very high but you are affraid it is above your reach And therefore I pray you before hand that you would not trouble your self with such thoughts but only remember these two things That when you have done all the good that ever you can that will dispose you still to do more and in the mean season you are to take care of this to rejoyce heartily that there are others in the World who can do more good then you If we were once arrived at this noble disposition of rejoycing in the good of others either in that which they enjoy or that which they can do we should be so far from wanting Charity that we should equal our selves with the most excellent and blessed natures As we should have no cause to complain that we are not in the same throne with Princes nor to envy the learning of those who sit in the Chairs of Wisdom so we should not come behind the devotion of the greatest Saints nor be much inferiour to the Angels who think it no small part of their happiness that they can rejoyce in God and in all the marks of his goodness wheresoever they can discern them Are we less happy because our Wit is not so strong our revenues not so large our station not so high and so our power to oblige others not so great as those of many of our neighbours No such thing but we shall rather be the more happy if in the midst of a low condition and in a meaner rank we can keep our selves from the rust and canker of envy which is wont to grow soonest in such places as are low and damp He hath raised himself to a very high pitch whose soul surmounts all discouragements and rejoyces in the Universal good of mankind by whomsoever it is procured Hereby we shall make the happiness of every person that is above us to be our own For how is he more Happy then I who gets a victory if I triumph in it as much as himself Wherein is he Superiour to me whose riches increase if I be not only contented therewith but much better pleased in his prosperous estate then I was before he injoy'd it Nay if it make me well to see him in health and refresh my spirit to see him merry and really render me better to behold his progress in wisdom and vertue then I have the benefit of all these and they become mine as much as his in whom they are And can you contrive a better way then this to make your soul the resort of all pleasures the very Center wherein the happiness of the whole world shall meet the Rendevouz if you will give leave to that word of all those joyes which are scattered every where among Gods creatures It is not possible for you to do it nor is there any delight so noble and sublime so pure and refined as this that with so much ease you may enjoy It is the very extract of all other pleasures it is the Essence and Spirit of them without the grosser parts which are wont to detain half of the pleasure from us Though other pleasures make more noise yet this gives greater contentment They make a louder sound but the commendation of this is its silence and quiet The world takes more notice of others but the very secrecy of this joy increases its sweetness and vapours not out the purity thereof Other injoyments may be greater in bulk but this is more in value They are obtained at a great charge but this we injoy at other mens cost Those persons have the labour and sweat together with their delight and we have the pure pleasure They work not for themselves only but they must do us some service thereby We come in for a share of all their gettings and want nothing which they have but only the toil and the pains And yet so innocent is this pleasure that while we enjoy all that others do we leave them all they had and take nothing away from them As the Bees suck an
see men mad to have their fill of bodily pleasure But how doth it fare with them at that season Have not these desires brought a torment to them No doubt they have much more pleasure than in abstaining from that of which they were so greedy than in continuing to enjoy it Why should it not be thought better than to do that out of vertue which disordered fulness forces them to Is it not much more eligible to abstain out of choice than not to forbear till we are constrained Yes verily and men would receive a greater satisfaction in subduing such mad desires than it is possible to do in the fulfilling of them It is with these carnal people saith one of the old Directors in the way to Jerusalem as if a man should be so dry that he calls for one cup after another and though he drink never so much yet cannot quench his thirst Certainly such a man cannot be esteemed happy because he never wants liquor but hath still at hand as much as he desires No he is the happy man who feeling no thirst is free from this necessity of drinking so much and is no way urged to desire it For the first is like a man in a burning feavour and the other like one that injoyes a perfect health And there is another of them also who verifies this in his own example For he confesses that walking one day with some friends through the City of Milan having his head full of an Oration he was to make in the Emperours praise and his heart thirsting after Glory and preferment which he thought it would procure him and therewith very much contentment He chanced to cast his eye upon a Begger who having newly received an Alms was very blithe and of a pleasant countenance At which spectacle he fetcht a deep sigh and said to his company What a mischief is this that I should thus drag my own infelicity after me by the fury of my desires and with so much trouble seek in vain for that satisfaction which this poor fellow is already arrived at without so much ado It is better by far to have none of these longings then to take such pains and perhaps without any fruit to give them contentment If we should have all that our desires crave yet it is a shorter way to make us happy To be without them For why do we desire those pleasures or honours so inordinately Is it not for the satisfaction and joy which we expect to meet with in them But that we may have sooner if we can be rid of those desires Especially since by wanting them the soul hath leave to fill it self with better pleasures Such pleasures as we cannot desire but we shall have them and which we cannot have but we shall be filled and which by filling of us do only more enlarge our souls that we may receive a greater fulness But there is something still more considerable in those words of Jesus which have occasioned this discourse course for if the propriety of that word be examined whereby he expresses the condition of the Way it doth not seem to signifie so much the narrowness of it as the roughness stoniness and external difficulties wherewith it is incumbred There are many afflictions and crosses which may lye in this way and they deterr so much the more delicate sort that they seem to be the greatest rub they meet withall and the strongest objection which they make against what I have said of the pleasure of these paths But let me tell you that if you imagine it to be far more pleasant to live after the flesh then to take up your Cross and follow Christ in his sufferings there is not a grosser error that can possess your mind For he was made perfect through sufferings And there was a joy set before him which made him dure the Cross 1 Pet. 4.13 14. And his followers bid us also rejoyce in as much as we are partakers of the sufferings of Christ that when his Glory shall be revealed we may be glad also with exceeding joy Nay for the present they say we shall feel our selves happy if we be reproached for the name of Christ for the Spirit of Glory and of God resteth upon us It is a most Heroick and Divine temper of mind which expresses it self in meek and chearful suffering Then we have opportunity to use the most glorious vertues Then those Graces of God shine most illustriously which else would be obscured And cherefore one of these great souls cryes out and sayes Behold Jam. 5.11 we count them happy which endure The bravest men that ever the world bred were of the mind that there was no joys comparable to those which are proper to couragious and patient Vertue It was impossible to gratifie them more you could not lay an higher obligation upon them then if you presented them with an occasion to show their Constancy their Faith and their Valour You know who he was that refused to be called the son of a Kings daughter choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Heb. 12.25 26. esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches then the treasures of Egypt for he had respect to the recompence of reward Nay I have learnt thus much from Heathens themselves for I do not think them unfit for my converse that it is necessary for good men to enter into agonies and conflicts They are in need of some thing or other to combate withall and therefore afflictions and troubles are the Antagonists of Vertuous souls without whom they could not be lawfully crowned The Generosity then of Christian Religion I am sure is such that it will make you welcome Crosses and stretch out your arms to receive them with more resolution and chearfulness then ever Pagans did You have been a School-boy it is like in your time and then you could not but hear as well as I the story of Vlysses How he was persecuted at home and abroad how he encountred Gyants barbarous and inhospitable people how he was in danger of Witchcraft and inchantments underwent cold Winters Shipwracks and Beggary being forced to wander about in rags And I can receive no other account of all this from the Wise men of those dayes but that he being a good man Max. Tyr. diss 22. God was pleased in meer love and friendship to him thus to exercise and try his Vertue proposing him as an example of the contentment which both God himself and vertuous souls do take in their induring the hardships which heaven layes upon them And what do they say think you of that great man Hercules the beginning of whose story you heard before They tell us that he was beloved of God and had the highest place in his favour nay they call him his son and say that God committed to him the Government of the World And yet he
of a mans self as the liberty of a friend And as one thing usually draws on another this brought to his thoughts a handsome discourse of another person whom he had met withall which very well illustrated the reason of it and was to this effect Every man we say is nearest to himself but yet he is too near to be his own Counsellor in things which concern himself There is not space enough between both wherein to debate the counsel which is given and which is received He cannot hinder those two Reasons which deliberate in him from confounding themselves in communication for that which proposeth is too much mixt with that which concludes He can find no place free wherein to weigh his Reasons But he proposes those which will favour his own humour and then he inclines unto them because they are his own He who counsels therefore must be another person distinct from him who is counselled The objects must be set at a proportionable distance from those faculties which judge of them And as the most quick-sighted can never see themselves so the greatest wits want perspicacity in things that respect their own interest In such delightful and useful talk as this they beguiled the time and shortned the length of the wayes And it was no small contentment you may well think to the good old man that he was possessed of such a friend who could refresh him with his apt discourses and give as well as receive instruction But though the young Pilgrim was a person of such competent abilities and had so good a friend as this to assist him imagining also when the first contract was made between them that he should now be no more disturbed yet he was not without some melancholy thoughts at certain seasons of which this as I remember was the chief They two being talking one day about the Pleasures of Jerusalem and the great happiness they should enjoy at their arrival there which ought to sweeten by its expectation all the difficulties of the way he askt his companion with a very sad and desponding countenance if it might not admit of some dispute whether there was such a place or no and how he would prove the existence of it At which Question because he seemed to make a real doubt the Father gave a very great start and said with a more than ordinary vehemence What Are we now to begin again and do you remain unsatisfied of that which was the first thing you learnt What was it that made you stir one foot in this Journey if you were not perswaded you should come to Jerusalem Or how came you to hold out thus long and that you did not tyre many months ago And did you not once when you were tempted by some idle persons to disbelieve it reject with anger all their frivolous allegations Good God! What a thing is the Soul of man How weak and infirm is our nature How fickle and uncertain are our most serious thoughts And what a great patience is it that we exercise every day Surely if thy Love were not wider than the Circle of Heaven we should throw our selves out of the compass of it Say no more said the other who here interrupted his speech for I am very sensible of the truth of what you affirm The Soul of man is an object very worthy of your pitty and whose state can never be sufficiently deplored Nor do I know any Soul that deserves it more than mine which is made it seems to exercise your patience as well as God's We cannot help it I think so short and forgetful are our Thoughts but we must go backward and forward Sometimes we are confident and sometimes we are doubtful Now we are merry and presently we are sad even because we were merry Nothing will shake us in this temper but in another a leaf or a feather will make us turn aside But do not I beseech you upbraid unto me this misery which rather implores your charity to find a cure for it Well then said the other in compliance with your necessity let us step back a little which I hope will not prove a very great hinderance to us and let us search if we have foolishly undertaken this Journey to Jerusalem So he led him by the hand to a certain friend's house which they had not left much behind and there without accepting of any refection which was offered to them presently called for a certain Book which was full of Mapps attended with Discourses of several Countries in one of which was a description of the promised land and the famous City Jerusalem And that he might be assured of the faithfulness of it he bad him cast his eye to the bottom and there he should find the name of the man that was the Author of those fair Tables and who should that be but Jesus together with a servant of his St. Paul who finished by his direction what his Master had begun There he found that the former of these persons professed that he came from Heaven which he proved also by many Arguments of Divine Authority and the latter that he was caught up into Paradise and the third Heavens where he had a perception of such things as could not be painted in those Papers And then turning over several leaves that treated of this Country he shewed him such an exact Description of the Situation and Nature of the place of the Quality of the Inhabitants of the imployments wherein they are ingaged of the Fruits of the Soil of the Way that led to it of the Travels of several persons that had gone thither of the return of one of them even Jesus himself upon several occasions into this World and of the descent of Angels which assured men of it together with the testimony of many undeniable Witnesses all servants of Jesus concerning the truth of these things whom he also there examined over again before him that he was ashamed of his incredulity and blusht to think that he had given him this new trouble But above all the Good man show'd him that Jesus by his last Will and Testament had made over an inheritance in Jerusalem to all his faithful Followers And that he had sealed and ratified this Will with his own dearest blood And that God had set to it his Seal also by raising him from the dead and giving him Glory at his own right hand And that this was demonstrated and that Deed of Christ further established by the sending of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles and those to whom they Preached For this made it evident said he that Jesus is Crowned King in Jerusalem from whence he sent these Royal gifts to men and it is the earnest of our inheritance and by it we are sealed to the day of Redemption All which and much more for his further satisfaction and better remembrance he afterward got one to comprise in a little Book wherein was shown that This is
him then the open World and all the bravery which it hangs out to us But he told him also that he was to be blamed for thinking himself less pleasing to God in what he was a doing because he was less pleasing to himself For do you not know said he that God hath bidden us serve our neighbour as much as we can and that it is an idle pretence to say we love God whom we never saw if we love not our Brother whom we see continually And hath he not placed us in a Body which must be fed and that cannot be nourished with Thoughts and live upon Meditations nor be supported without the labour of its own hands Why then do you complain that it cannot be filled with a Prayer and have its hunger satisfied with an Hymn Perhaps it may so fall out that a great many things shall require our service at one and the same time and though we call not for them all together yet they call on us and bid us mind them or else they say that they will be gone and not wait upon our leisure Is there any reason now to turn those things away that will not come again or shall we trouble our selves that we have not the disposal of other mens wills and cannot make them come to us only when we please to call them why may we not be contented to let all necessary affairs take as much of our time as they ask seeing God will have us so imployed Contented I say for I did never yet forbid you to desire more time wherein to recollect your self and retire unto God but would rather have you to wish for that while you are forced to serve other things He is not to be commended that is glad of a multitude of businesses and loves as we say to have his hands full of the World but yet he is no wayes deserving of our praise neither who when his Calling thrusts it upon him and he is got into the midst of it is still bewailing himself and troubled at his portion The true way to peace is to set our hands with all diligence to the necessary works of our calling but to set our hearts upon the more immediate service of our Lord. To do our business whatsoever multiplicity there happen to be in it but to long to do something else if that would permit us Yet still I say we must so long after the Higher life that our desires do not breed in us any disgust or impatience in the Lower which will both make our business longer and unfit us for our spiritual employments You remember I make no doubt the story of Jacob how much he was inamoured of fair Rachel but that though he served several years for her yet he was put off with the embraces of Leah and forced to endure another apprenticeship for his most beloved And the reason of it you know is there rendred because it was not the fashion of that Country to dispose of the Younger before the Elder Sister I have sometimes thought that this may not unfitly be accommodated to represent unto us the estate and condition of Pious souls while they are like Jacob in this Pilgrimage far from their Fathers house They are extreamly desirous to be wholly wedded to the fair and amiable life of Contemplation Prayer and constant passions of love of God This they court and woe above all other things hoping in a little time to obtain their suit and spend their dayes in such happy enjoyments But so it is that they must be employed a long while other wayes before they can reasonably expect to arrive at the felicity of being wholly sequestred unto that Life And such is the necessity of this World that when we imagine we shall now be at perfect leisure for it some thing or other still thrusts us into a different way of living Nay the manner of this Country is such that we must be contented to serve first in these baser employments before we can be permitted to come to those nobler retirements With this Worldly life we all begin and it is the Elder of the two Nay most of us are forced by many years labour in providing for the lower man to procure to our selves a liberty of being more vacant to the service of our souls And it it is very well I assure you if after more years then Jacob served God shall be pleased to bless us with such a proportion of these Worldly goods that we may repose our selves with greater quietness in the bosome of a more contemplative life Then we may be allowed in compare with this beautiful Rachel to hate Leah and all her earthly business yea it will be expected at our hands when we are furnished as Jacob was with flocks and herds and can say We have enough that we quit the world and retreat from our secular affairs and betake our selves more intirely to the Higher life And this favour perhaps our Lord may indulge us when we are grown a little older and shall be more ripe for it but till that time let us be patient as the Patriarch was and in hope at last to injoy this sweet this beloved life not suffer the other to seem at all a tedious state unto us This discourse did not a little gratifie our young Traveller who now fancied himself another Jacob wishing for nothing so much as to have the fair Damsel we spoke of given him to be his wife And so much he had impressed his mind with the Idea of that more excellent conversation that had it not been for the last words his Friend spake and that he considered also it is wont to remain like Rachel a great while more barren then the other he had faln into reproaches of this Blear-eyed life which makes us such strangers to Diviner objects that when we behold them our eyes smart and grow sore by reason of their splendor It is too little to say that he loved it for he burnt with desire after it When he was employed about the affairs of this life the time seemed like the cold frosty nights wherein Jacob kept the flocks of Laban in the field Then were his Sunshine dayes and his Heart all in an ardor of Love and Joy when he was within doors secluded from the herd of the World and shut up with God in his Soul If there was any heat and eagerness in the dispatch of his ordinary business it was by a reflection from these greater flames which excited him to pursue that with the more agility that he might the sooner quit his hands of it and be free for God And thus having placed his affections I need not tell you how oft he used to steal a glance of those Heavenly objects even when he was in the midst of some of his worldly occasions This I alwayes observed that when it was left to his own choice what part he would take to manage he would ever lay hold
can rob me of it and leave me my liberty and life They that have taken away my goods and have banished me into the Woods cannot hinder the Earth from putting forth the Flowers nor the Trees from yielding their fruit nor the Birds from singing among the branches no nor me from entertaining my self with all these pleasures at least from being contented And truly I ought me-thinks to rejoyce that these satisfactions are remaining rather than repine that those are gone which could never have given me full satisfaction But I suppose I speak to those who are not unacquainted with some wants and therefore I may forbear to say any more than this that if you can tell what it is that keeps you from being miserable that very thing is the comfort of my Poverty For he that can rest contented in one condition can satisfie himself in all and he who is not pleased in his present state will alwayes find some matter of complaint Our young Pilgrim would fain have had him to proceed in declaring the sense of his Soul to them because he took him to be so happy But yet he could not chuse but yield to the equity of that which he had now said and therefore after they had requited the Poor mans generous freedom with a long discourse which both testified their sympathy with him and added much to the contentment of his mind He entred into a debate with the Father when they were alone about those things which will prepare the Soul to receive satisfaction in the meanest condition into which they might fall For my part said he I cannot but look back upon the felicity of those who lead a temperate life in the midst of all the abundance of this World Every thing lets me see the necessity and excellency of that Vertue and gives me occasion to renew my commendations of it The moderate use of all pleasant things doth most effectually teach contentment because it shews us how little will serve our turn It weans us also from the love of sensual delights which is the only thing that makes the want or the loss of them so troublesome unto us It makes room for wise and sober thoughts And me-thinks is nothing else but a constant exercise of contentment in one particular which must needs dispose our minds to the practice of all other parts of it It is no great matter to be debarred of that which we have oft forbidden to our selves There is nothing taken away but what we could spare We want nothing but what we could want while we were possessed of it We are not forced to be without these things for we chose before to enjoy but a little of them This is to praeoccupate and forestall the blows of fortune as the Heathens I have heard were wont to say when they spoke of the changes that we suffer in the World We are before-hand by this means with any alteration Nothing can give us any wound that shall make us smart because we have felt the point of it already We have made a tryal of its power and know what want can do upon us We may cry out as a generous Soul once did I have got before thee whatsoever Necessity thou art that intendest to come upon me I have taken thee and hold thee fast in my hands I have intercepted all thy assaults and thou canst not touch my heart Nothing can arrive but what is here before I know the worst of all things for I have inured my self to bear them You are in the right replyed the Father and I thank you for this good reflection They do very ill sure who desire to lead a contented life and yet use themselves to fare delitiously every day They forget what is a coming who love to swim in pleasures and to gulp down as much as they are able of these sensual delights They are but preparing their own prisons and twisting the whips that must scourge themselves They do but make themselves more tender and apt to shrink at the prick of a Pin. They will cry out most bitterly under those lashes which sober men will scarce feel And yet let me tell you that you would have done well to have cast your eyes a little further back to some things of which we have not so lately spoken You carry your contentment about you continually and it lyes in a little room if you have not forgot the very first Lesson which I taught you at your setting out These few words I am nought I have nought I desire nought but Jesus and Jerusalem I told you were like a little Bottle of Essences which a Traveller must alwayes have in his pocket and of which if he do but take a sip he will instantly find relief in any condition of life Humility and Charity I mean are sufficient to carry us thorow this evil World with an equal and well-poised mind For as for the first of them what is it but the submission of our wills intirely to God which is the very secret of Contentment It is a great sense of his Supreme Authority over us with which it is a folly to dispute and of his Supreme Wisdom and Goodness out of whose hands it is a folly if we might to take our selves It makes us think that we deserve nothing at all and so to be well-pleased that we have not less than we enjoy It teaches us to renounce our own understandings and to think that best which is so in Gods account But I will not take a great deal of pains in an easie argument and therefore let us only consider what the matter is that no man is satisfied with the portion which Providence hath allotted to him From the greatest to the meanest we see that men are ever complaining of their fortune It is in vain that Heaven bestows many blessings upon them for they turn all into gall and bitterness and have something within which destroyes all their happiness The taste of what they have is spoiled by a perpetual thirst after something or other which they want But might they not enjoy themselves well enough without it There is no question to be made of it For otherwise he that hath given them greater things would not permit them to be without the less The Life is more than meat and the Body than rayment What is the reason then that they desire that so passionately of which they have no real need and never take any comfort in that which they cannot be without Truly I can find none save only this that though they do not need many things to their happiness yet in the opinion of the World they do and it will not account them happy without them The World thinks him no body who does not wear fine Cloaths who hath not a great Estate who is not able to leave his children very rich who cannot revenge himself on his enemies and have a large command over others though he can
not advance so fast as you would Do not follow your Saviour with a sowre heart dejected looks and faln wings as many are wont to do who perpetually lament their faults and cannot yet amend them But render him most humble thanks that he hath given you the knowledge of them and an earnest longing to be without them and a study to shake them off together with good hopes that they may be cured or that as some go to Heaven in the height of Vertue so others may accompany them with as much as they could possibly attain All have not the same Temper the same Diversions nor the same Businesses in the World and therefore be content with that degree which your condition will permit you to rise unto and resolve not to vex your self unreasonably about that which is not in your power to remedy You have often heard I believe that there is no Peace to be had here but by Patience And in my opinion he said true who told one of his Disciples That it is no Patience when a man is content to bear with his neighbour if withall he be not content to bear with himself Not to the end as I told you that he should indulge himself in idleness and not strive to grow better but that all the pains he takes to be so should not end in sorer pains and greater torments because he is yet no better Many other things he added to the same effect and at last prayed him that if he was faln into such a dislike of himself as to be weary of long discourses as well as of his condition yet at least he would observe these three things not unworthy of his notice though they were the advice of Heathens Hecaton hath this saying Askest thou wherein I have profited I have begun to be a friend to my self Such a man hath gotten very much He will never be alone but alwayes hath a good Companion with him And he that is a friend to himself will not fail to be a friend to every body else I believe you cannot deny that you might have made this Answer to the same Question You have begun to take a great care of your Soul Nay you have a long time made it your business to do it good And if you ask other men they will tell you that you are a friend to them and have done them also a great deal of good How came you to grow into this familiarity with your Soul What made you to let it have so much of your company sure it is a sign of some proficiency that you are so well acquainted with it And this brings to my mind another mark of your increase in Vertue which is visible even in your complaints It is an argument saith Seneca of a mind that is changed for the better when it is acquainted with those faults which it was ignorant of before To which I may add a third Do you not will and will alway the same things Are not those things the matter of your choice to day which yesterday you desired This is a testimony of your profiting to be constant to your self And therefore take heed I beseech you of this sowre loathing of your self for in time it will breed a dislike of your duty too and spoil your appetite to any thing that is good While you are inordinately troubled that you cannot do as you would you will not do what you can And in a multitude of confused desires after a better condition you will waste the time which ought to be spent in doing your best in your present estate With these good Counsels and other Remedies too long to be related he recovered the poor man to a better state of health and brought him to conceive a better opinion of himself And yet his health was not so confirm'd but that afterward he fell into a little distemper and languished under a new trouble very near of kin to this and which it brings to my mind It was a great despondency arising from the observation of some weaknesses he felt in his Soul which bred in him a diffidence and distust of his own constancy and a fear that he should never hold out in his Journey but at last sit down short of Jerusalem This madet him exceeding pensive and to go drooping a gread while because he thought that every mile would prove his last or at least that he should never be able to travel so long till he had finished his course Which jealousie discovering it self by some means or other unto his friend though he did what he could to conceal it He was moved with a great deal of pitty towards him And beseeched him earnestly not to let every suspition of himself which started up in his Soul make such a deep impression there before he had advised whether there were cause to entertain it or no. For if you had asked me about this matter as soon as you moved the doubt I could soon have made you give your self satisfaction and laid such a scene of new thoughts in your mind that you should have remembred the former no more For tell me I pray you who brought you thus far in this long Journey wherein you are engaged Was it your self or was it some body else If it was your self you know upon what reasons it was begun and if they were worth any thing they may make you to go on And it should seem also that you have more strength than you imagine if you have travelled so many leagues without any support upon your own leggs But I perceive you so ill opinionated of your self that you are inclined by that if there were no other reason to ascribe your happy progress to some higher cause Thither let us go then and ask of God if he uses to forsake the work of his own hands and to lose all that he hath done already for want of doing a little more Will he now forsake you after you have served him so many years Will he disown one that hath been so long a Client to him and still seeks for his wonted protection Doth he love his Friends no better than to shake them off when they grow old If I would at all have suspected his Constancy it should have been in the beginning of our acquaintance and not now that he hath been tryed for half an Age. Was there any reason at first why he should bear a good will to you or was there none If there was none then there needs none to move him now to continue his Love If there was any then there is a greater reason now because he hath loved you so long and you are also more worthy his Love Do him the honour then that you would do a friend to believe that he is not fickle and inconstant Or do but justice to him and think that he is not unfaithful but true to his word And then as long as your Lord lives you shall live
I should not find a remedy for it and you need not fear that it will procure me too great a trouble since it is become as you see one of my chief pleasures to ease you of your troubles It must be so indeed said the Pilgrim if you have any pleasure at all For I live as if I had nothing else to do but to find some new occasion to perplex my self that I may be disintangled by you You think that I am advanced a great way toward Jerusalem and truly I hope that I am gone further then I lately thought my self But alas I am nothing so strong so steady much less so wise as you seem sometimes to imagine A little thing you see shakes me and there are lesser matters that you have not yet been privy to that put my thoughts into confusion The very puff of a confident mans breath doth indanger to make me reel And though I understand my self very well in those things wherein you have instructed me yet the meer zeal and earnestness wherewith some persons assault me when there is no reason in what they say is apt to make me suspect and distrust my self nay to fall into a trembling lest all should not be well with me This you will say is a small matter and not worthy to be called a trouble and truly I am glad and thank God for your sake that it is no more yet when I give you an instance of it you will think I had some cause to complain as I did though not so much as my words in the late passion wherein I was might import Your discourse of Faith and Confidence in God for which I am obliged unto you revived at first the memory of my weakness instead of giving me strength and made me think with my self Alas I have made it a Question whether I have any Faith or no. For to tell you the truth I met lately with an acquaintance of mine when you were absent about some business who would needs perswade me that I was drawn away and was no true Believer because I described Faith unto him in that manner as you had taught me I told him that I was heartily perswaded that Jesus was the Son of God and that he had taught us all his Will and that he having dyed for our sins did by the same death confirm unto us great and precious promises and that he lives and raigns in Heaven for ever and that he will give eternal life to all that obey him and that hereupon I was become obedient to his voice and quitting all present enjoyments was willing to follow him to the death And yet after all this he mis-called my Perswasion by a word which I think he did not understand saying that I was indued only with an Historical Faith which would not save me I explained that word as well as I could and told him that a belief of the History of the Gospel of all that is related there when it produces obedience to the Laws of it was Saving Faith But he smiled at my ignorance as he esteemed it and told me that the Faith which justifies and so saves us was only a recumbency on Christ an application of his merits to my Soul with a number of such like phrases the obscurity or lameness or danger of which though I represented to him yet would he not yield a jot nor cease to importune me that I would take heed of the danger of unbelief And indeed I knowing him to be a good man himself and he affirming that all godly men of a long time had been of his mind and using such confidence and vehemence in his words and sometimes thundring also so terribly in my ears the danger wherein my Soul was I must confess such was my weakness that I trembled a little though I knew no cause and was afraid that I had been mis-lead out of the company of so many Believers as he told me of This hath been a double trouble to me sometimes to think that I should be afraid without reason and sometimes suspecting that there may be reason in what he saith and my eyes so blinded that I cannot see it Now I have opened my heart to you very freely and I pray be not angry that I should doubt either of your fidelity or of your ability in the instructions you long since gave me There is no cause for this Petition said the Good Father I am willing you should hear what every body saith for then you will see the difference It is better a great deal that you should doubt than that you should blindly resign up your self to all my dictates I am none of those that love to be believed because I say it nor that raise the sound of my voice to gain an advantage of them whose modesty will not let them be so loud I will leave that priviledge to such men as are in need of it having nothing else to serve them to some of whom I doubt your acquaintance is made a Proselyte Lord Bacon For there are a company of men in the World as hath been noted long since by a Wise man who love the salutation of Rabbi or Master and that not in Ceremony or Complement but in an inward Authority which they seek over mens minds in drawing them to depend upon their Opinions and to look for knowledge only at their lips It is not the Lord Bishops as he speaks but these men that are the Successors of Diotrephes the great Lovers of preheminence They will be Lords over mens Faith and overawe them into a belief of all that they preach None may dissent from their assertions unless he be content to bear the brand of an Vnbeliever It is all one to forsake the Gospel and to forsake their Opinions You leave Christ if you leave them and the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints is solely in their keeping That which makes them the more usurp upon others is that they have the hap to light upon such natures who readily receive that which is confidently spoken and stifly maintain that which once they have embraced Such are men of younger years and superficial understandings that are carried away with partial respect of persons or with the enticing appearance of godly names and pretences There being few as he observes who follow the things themselves more than the names of the things and most the names of the Masters Nay most do side themselves with these Masters before they know their right hand from their left And they skip from meer Ignorance to a violent Prejudice from knowing nothing to an Opinion that they know all things or at least to a confidence that they are not mistaken in what they know This strong prejudice is rarely overcome for the honourable names of Sincerity singleness of heart godliness and the glory of free grace being put in the front and marching before their Doctrines they can never be touched by