do him harme or hindred to do him good or deprived of the good he might do to the publique that worthy man must not altogether neglect to rectifye the misconceits taken against him which he may with lesse difficulty atchieve by a serene and constant course of integrity then by finding and proving confuting and keeping a great bustle to bring contrary witnesses face to face Innocency and the confidence that attends it must needs stand so high above the babling of the vulgar as to be no more moved with it then the Starres with the wind â—â—owing in the lower Region The dishonour that hath some ground in the truth must be wiped off not by excuses but by amendment Is one blamed for being vicious He must be so no more And that out of hatred of vice not of dishonour which being but a shadow of it will vanish at the rayes of Vertue CHAP. XII Of the evills of the body Unhandsomnesse Weaknesse Sicknesse and Paine OUr judgement being satisfyed that the good of the body beauty strength health and pleasure are none of the great goods we ought also to bee perswaded that their contraries are none of the great evills And if our very bodies must not be accounted ours because we cannot dispose of them at our pleasure and because by the undermining of age they sinke and slip away continually from themselves the commodities and incommodities of these fraile tenements at will where our soules are harboured for a few daies as ought not to disquiet us matters of any importance To beginne at Unhandsomnesse if a woman be unhandsome for that sexe is especially sensible of that disgrace let her stay but a while age will bring all the beauties to her row within few yeares and death after That last day draweth neere which will make faire and foule alike strong and weake sick and sound them that are tormented with dolour and them that torment themselves with voluptuousnesse and curiosity Whosoever is much grieved with those incommodities never apprehended aright the frailty of the opposite commodities We must not be vexed for the want of things which by their nature decay and perish very houre There are few incommodities but have a mixture of commodities which a wise lover of his owne tranquillity will pick and convert to his advantage The unhandsome woman shall not be admired but in recompence she shall not be tempted nor importuned as a prey by lust and insolence She hath with her a perpetual exhorter to humility piety and all vertue and to recompence the want of beauty with goodnesse Seldome is unhandsomnesse reproached to women but to them that aggravate with malice envy their disgraces of nature Beauty cannot be acquired but goodnesse may Yet among them that want beauty some are so wise and so good that they become handsome They are commonly more happy in marriage then great beauties for they give lesse jealousy to their husbands and study more to content them Persons of weak constitution are lesse obnoxious to acute sicknesses which many times will kil strong bodyes in three or foure dayes They are lesse tainted with that stupid pride which commonly attends great strength of body Finding themselves inferiour to others in excercises of strength they apply themselves to exercises of wit to which commonly they are more apt As weezels have more mettle and nimblenesse then Oxen there is often more industry and quicknesse of wit in little weak men then in men of of large and brawny limbs for the predominancy of blood and phlegme which makes the body large is the duller temper for wit whereas choler and melancholy which by their contractive quality limit the stretching of growth to a lesser extent serve also the one to sharpen the wit the other to give solidity to the judgement Weakenesse reads to a man a continual Lecture of prudence and compliance for being not able to carry on his designes with a high hand dexterity onely will serve his turne Also that want of strength teacheth him to make God his strength sticking fast to him by faith and a good conscience That way the weakest become too strong for all the world When I am weake then I aâ— strong saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 12.10 Of this Gods children have a blessed experience in sicknesse whereby God makes their body weake to make their faith strong and their soules by the dolours and lingring decay of their bodies susceptible of many salutary lessons for which health and ease have no eares Sicknesse and paine are evill in their nature but they are good by accident when God is pleased to turne evills into remedies to bring a man to repentance and make him looke up to the hand that striketh They are punishments to sin and wayes to death but to the faithful soul they become instruments of grace and conveighances to glory Many of them that beleeved in the Lord Jesus while he conversed among men were brought to it by bodily sicknesses And he when he healed a sick person often would say Thy sins are forgiven thee To give an impartial judgement of their quality and measure one must rather beleeve what he feeles then the cryes and compassion of them that love him and have interest in his preservation They say that a man is very sick when he feeles not his sicknesse Yet he hath so much good time till he feele it If the paine be sharp it is short If it be little it is tolerable If the evill be curable be patient good Cure will heale it If the evill be incurable be patient death will heale it No evill is superlative when one is certaine to come out of it By life or by death there must be an end of thy sicknesse All the remedies that Pagan Philosophy giveth in extremities come to this that patience is a remedy to evills that have none But here Christian Philosophy openeth the treasure of divine comforts which to make the faithfull man patient in tribulation make him joyfull in hope shew him the crown ready for him at the end of the combat In the combat he is strengthened by faith and the comforter whom Christ promist to his disciples powerfully assisteth him in his last agony Or if his triall be prolonged he tels him as Paul buffeted by a messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12.9 my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse By that grace sicknesse beates downe pride quencheth lust weaneth the heart from the love of the world makes the soule hungry and thirsty after righteousnesse Theodoricus Archbishop of Collen with great wisdome exhorted the Emperour Sigismond to have the will in health to live holily as he said when he was tormented with the gravel and gowte Sicknesses give to a godly man a sense of his frailty when wee feel these houes of mud our bodies drooping towards the ground their originall then doe we sigh for that building of God that house not made with hands
for felicity but together is impossible to nature For so farre they say true that for a perfect love the soul of a friend must passe into his friends soul But that being improperly and hyperbolically ascribed to love betwen men is true and reall in the friendship between God and man sanctified especially when he is glorified For God graceth man so much as to make him his friend and to call him so I have called you my friends saith Christ to his Disciples Joh. 15.15 And in that friendship there is such a strict union between God and the soul that thereby the soul is refunded into her original being The spirit of God gets into mans spirit and the spirit of man poures it selfe into Gods spirit as the river falls into the Sea and the Sea floweth into the river Their wills become one their interesses one the glory of God and the salvation of man become the same thing Man seeking above all things to glorifie God glorifyeth himselfe and is advanced by debasing himselfe out of his love to God till finally seeing God and being seene of him 2. Cor. 3.18 he is changed into the same image and made partaker of the divine nature 2. Pet. 1.4 When the Pagans from their contemplations upon friendship passe to examples they shew how remote their imaginations are from the nature of things and that their characters of friendship are fitter to be lookt on than copied out For none of these paires of friends which Antiquity extolls is come neere those compleat Ideas which they fancy Most of them that would strive to expresse them in their practice have made themselves miserable and their friendship a bondage Also among the vertuous examples of friendship they set forth vicious presidents as that of Blosius who being convented before the Senate about the sedition of Tiberius Gracchus whose intimate friend he was and asked what he would have done for him answered that he would have done any thing at his request And what sayd the Judges if he would have requested thee to set the Temples on fire wouldst thou have done it I know replyed he that Gracchus would never have had such a will but if he had desired it of me I would have done it I am scandalized to see that answere commended by Christian writers Montagne and Carron Let them comment upon it as much as they please it is certaine that such a deference to a friend's will is the highest homage that the creature can make unto the Creatour whose will is the onely rule of righteousnesse If any preferre his friends will before the observation of that Soveraine will his amity is enmity against God and becomes a plot and a conspiracy to offend him These old characters of perfect friendship perswade some to imitate them but commonly they are young men that know neither how to choose what they ought to love nor how to love what they have chosen and they that choose a friend with most judgement and preserve him with most care soone find that human nature though inricht with grace affords neither the perfect objects nor the firme bond nor the solid content of Friendship Yet since we live in the world we must make friends in it and leaving heroique characters to romances content ourselves with such as the earth beares and neighbourhood presents chusing them such as have at least piety honesty and ingenuity matching ourselves with our equalls or rather a little above us then under preserving their love by respect and good offices and conversing with them with a cheerfull and innocent facility But seeing that a great affection is a great servitude filling the minde with care and feare he that loveth his owne tranquillity will take heed how he engageth himselfe in a friendship whose value doth not recompense the interesse he takes in it and will not suffer his affection for any person to grow to the losse of his liberty and peace of mind It is a great folly for one to make himselfe miserable out of too much good nature and to lose the sweetness of friendship by a perpetuall carefulnesse and allarum Good things become evill to us when we love them beyond measure There is but one friendship where we may love without any measure where the greatnesse of the affection brings rest serenity to the soul It is the friendship with God the only Good perfect and worthy of all our love who being so great yet is able to contract friendship with us that are so little If we have the grace to entertaine that friendship which fills the soul with joy and goodnesse we shall easily be comforted about the rarity and weakeness yea and the losse of humane friendships CHAP. III. Of Gratefulnesse I Have observed two duties of charity which contribute much to the Rest and content of the soul The one is to relieve them that need it the other to love them whose vertue deserves it These two duties require the company of another which is To be gratefull to them of whom we have received some benefit For speaking now to generous soules I may observe that nothing lyeth more heavy upon their heart then this reproach of their own mind that they have not sufficiently shewed their gratefulness unto their benefactor Our first benefactor is God for to him we owe all even what we owe to men We owe him all that we have and all that we are our being and our wellbeing To him then we must do homage for all and our life being well sustained by a continuall influence of his love must also be a continuall course of thankfulnesse That duty we must tend with our words with our thoughts with our actions and more with our affections But because the creature cannot properly give any thing to the Creatour because all is his who gives all and receiveth of none but himselfe our gratefullness to God must be shewed to them whom he hath imployed to do us good We must beginne by paying debts If a friend hath opened his purse to us in our need or hath helped us with his commodities of which he makes profit expecting our conveniency to pay for them It is not only a theft to be slack to satisfie it is ungratefulnes which is farre worse for the plaine theefe abuseth not the goodnes of his friend but the ungrateful man renders evil for good and defraudeth his friend because he had pitty on him One may doe greater and more profitable kindnesses then lending of money Yet there is none where ungratefulnes is more sensible because of the love that every one beares to his money and the trust that is reposed upon it as the staffe of life Wherefore conscience and generosity must sollicite the debtour to pay and be stronger then bonds and compulsions of law to bring him to his duty St Paul enjoines us to owe nothing to no man but to love one another A text full of Philosophie For there are some debts
grace is joined with ours we have but our performance to examine looking upon Gods worke with reverence and ascribing to him all the good that is in us Which reverence must be redoubled when we consider in us that worke of grace where the worke of man hath no share and such are the heavenly comforts and spiritual joyes Of these we must not curiously examine the manner and measure as though the seale of our adoption consisted in these for it is not in feeling comfort but in departing from iniquity that this seale consisteth as we learne of St Paul 2. Tim. 2.19 Confidence is a great evidence of grace but Love is a greater Let us imploy spiritual joyes when it pleaseth God to send them to improve love and gratefulnesse in us Do we find ourselves destitute of those joyes let us study to find out in our conciences the causes of that want that we may remove them labouring to clarifye our souls of all mire of the earth that they may like pure Crystals receive the gratious and comfortable rayes of the Sunne of righteousnesse But as long as God gives us the grace to love him and cast ourselves upon him Let his grace be sufficient unto us for his strength is made perfect in weakenesse 2 Cor. 12.9 Joy and comfort cannot but follow faith and love Perhaps not very close but feare not they will and must needs follow Let us expect their comming in silence and hope and take heed of putting them back with curiosity and impatience CHAP. VI. Of the care of the Body and other little Contentments of life SInce we seeke the content of the mind the body must not be forgotten for as long as they live personally united in this world they can hardly be content the one without the other That the body may do good service to the mind the mind must be a good Master to the body and maintaine it with great care I say with great care not with much tendernesse for we must use it to be contented with little and with things easie and ordinary looking lesse for pleasure then health which yet is the way to get a lasting pleasure Of all earthly treasures health is the most precious Without the health of the body the mind hath much adoe to maintaine his liberty and stability The disorder of the humours of the body makes the mind turbulent froward and sometimes reason is quite turned upside downe by a corporall indisposition It is then the part of a wiseman to take a most speciall and exact care of his health It is preserved by these three principal meanes Serenity of mind a sober diet and exercise Of these three antidotes against all diseases the chiefe is Serenity of mind This and the health of the body maintaine one another But the mind is a more powerfull agent upon the body then the body upon the mind A meek and cheerefull spirit keepeth his body healthfull whereas frequent excessive fits of choler and deep sadnesse sowre the whole masse of blood and poyson the fountaine of animall spirits Whereby the body loseth his lively colour and his good plight and droops into a lingering consumption Heavinesse in the heart of man makes it stoop By sorrow of heart the spirit is broken A merry heart doth good like a medicine but a broken spirit dryeth the bones saith Solomon And to get that merry heart he enjoynes us to keep our mind in a milde temper Prov. 11.17 The mercifull man doth good to his owne soule but he that is cruell troubleth his owne flesh The body thus preserved in health by the serenity of mind payeth him readily for that good office for the mind is kept tranquill and serene by the good constitution of the body To preserve both sobriety is necessary there being nothing that weares the body and sets the mind out of frame so much as intemperance doth Neither are those that glut themselves vvith meate and drink the onely that need to be exhorted to learne sobriety Many that go for sober need that exhortation For generally all that live with some plenty eat and drink too much and confound in their stomack too many various ingredients giving to nature more then it needs and more then it can dispense Which superfluity that especially of the third concoction turnes into ill humours whence variety of diseases is bred answerable to the variety of our dishes as in the Commonwealth uselesse persons and such as have nothing to do are they that stirre seditions and trouble the State Then naturall heate which serves to the nutritive faculty weares away before the time when it is put to an overgreat labour and the spirits serving to make the pot boyle below leave the intellectual part ill served in the upper roome That overplus of aliment growing to pride of blood breeds no better effect in the soule then to swell the appetite and stirre it to rebellion against the reason If we could bring ourselves to a more simple and lesse abundant dyet both our bodies and minds would enjoy more health The fewer vapours the belly sends to the braines besides the necessary the clearer is the skie in that upper region Therefore to keepe health and serenity such as have a daily plentifull fare and feare that their stomack hath more appetite then strenght shall doe wisely to fast sometimes to give it time to rest and recover strength Most sicknesses in their beginnings may be healed by abstinence On the other side they that use a more sparing dyet should allow to themselves some intervals of good cheere It oppresseth those whose ordinary meales are so many feasts but it reneweth the vigour of those that use it seldome Wine is especially given of God to make glad the heart of man Psal 104.15 It is of singular vertue to charme cares Two draughts of it extraordinary when the minde is vexed with crosses will put upon a mans buzinesses a smoother and calmer face The third preserver of health is Exercise without which the body becomes an unwieldy bagge of corrupt humours Great eaters need more exercise But the most sober need some The naturallest and pleasantest is walking to which they that lead a sedentary life must allow some time But to most men their buzinesses give bodily exercise enough many times too much to the prejudice of the minde which thereby is neglected and made servant to the body If one be shut up or hath lost the use of his legs he must invent some other way instead of walking to exercise his body and prevent sicknes And if he cannot put his body to any exercise he must cate and drinke the lesse It is a wise course to harden the bodies of children and young men especially against cold the cause of most sicknesses in aged persons But when one hath bin tenderly brought up it is imprudence to goe about to inure his body to hardnes in his declining age The minde may be capable of that
by it wee appeare righteous before God This is the summary of the Gospell This is the onely comfort of the faithfull That being justifyed by faith wee have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 5.1 Without that persuasion all the moral precepts and all the reasons of Philosophy cannot set the mind at rest much lesse the riches honours pleasures and pastimes of this world for who can have peace with himselfe while he is in dissention with God And who can have peace with God but by the mediation of his beloved sonne Jesus there being no other name under heaven by which wee must be saved The chiefe impediment of the tranquillity of minde being the remorse for sinne against God and the apprehension of this just and terrible threatning Cursed is he that continueth not in all the words of Gods law to doe them Whosoever embraceth the merit of Jesus Christ by faith is fenced against all the threatnings of the law and all the accusations of his conscience For to them he will answere As Gods threatnings are just so are his promises now he hath promist that if wee judge our selves wee shall not be judged of the Lord. 1. Cor. 11.31 That he that heareth the word of the sonne of God and beleeveth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is past from death to life Joh. 5.24 That the blood of Jesus Christ the sonne of God clenseth us from all sin 1. Joh. 1.7 That he hath blotted out the hand writing of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his crosse Col. 2.14 Wherefore these threatnings that God will bring every work to judgement and that even for one idle word account must be given reach not to those evill workes of which beleivers have repented and embraced the remission by faith in Jesus Christ Those threatenings of judgement doe not reach me since I have already past judgemont upon myselfe by a serious contrition and have received my Absolution by the merit of him that was judged and condemed for me If account must be given for my sinnes Christ must give it who charged himselfe with them But that account is discharged My sins are put out of Gods score The curse of the law to a soule that beleeveth in Christ as I doe is a handwriting taken out of the way a Bond torne and nailed to the crosse of Christ God is too just to make use of a bond vacated to proceed against me the merit of his Sonne which he received in payment for me is of too great value to leave me in danger to be sued for the debts which he hath payd for himself was arrested by Death the Sergeant of Gods justice and put in that jayle whence there is no comming out till one hath payd the utmost farthing and being come out of that jayle by his resurrection he hath made it manifest that he hath payd the whole debt which he was bound for in our behalfe unto Gods justice What though my sins be great yet are they lesse then the merit of Jesus Christ No sinne is so great that it ought to take away the confidence in Gods promises No sinne is so great that it may damme a soule beaten downe with contrition but together raised by faith and washt in the blood of the sonne of God Indeed the remembrance of my sins must be bitter unto me yet that bitternes must be drowned in the joy of my salvation my repentance must be a step not a hinderance to my confidence So I will say to God every day with a contrite heart Forgive us our trespasses And at the same time I will remember that I make that prayer unto our Father which is in heaven who commands me to call him Father to assure me that he will spare me as a man spareth his owne sonne that serveth him Mal. 3.17 to stile him heavenly father to whom the kingdome and the power and the glory belongeth to lift up my hope to that celestial glory which he fully possesseth and which he will impart to his children in their measure I will walke before God with humility and feare thinking on my sins past and my present weakenes and sinfulnes but together I will goe in the strength of the Lord and make mention of his righteousnes The righteousnes of God that frighteth sinners comforteth me and his justice is all mercy to me For the infinite merit of his Sonne being mine he is now gracious unto me in his justice Hereby the peace and assurance which I enjoy through faith is advanced to a joy of heaven upon earth and to this song of triumph Isa 61.10 I will greatly rejoyce in the Lord my soule shall be joyfull in my God for he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation he hath covered me with the robe of righteousnes as a bridegroome decks himselfe with ornaments and as a bride adornes herselfe with her jewells This is the peace and contentment of the faithful soule that feeleth and relisheth her blessed reconcilation made with God through Jesus Christ For he that hath peace with God hath peace also with himselfe And the love of God powerfully growing in his heart by the consideration of the bounty of God whose sweetnes wee may taste though not conceive his greatnes breeds there together the peace of God which passeth all understanding banisheth tumultuous and unlawfull affections and brings the lawfull under its obedience so that all the affections of the regenerate soule meete in one and make but one which is the love of God as many brookes that lose their names in a great River When the love of God brings not that great peace to the soule and the absolute empire over the passions it is because love is as yet imperfect and the cause of that imperfection is the deficiency of faith which doth not yet embrace aright the reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ and faith is deficient when it is not maintained by good workes her food without which it pines away and falls into a shaking palsie and when that foundation is shaking all that is built upon it cannot but be tottering This then must be our first and earnest taske to make our selves sure of our peace with God by a lively faith whereby our hearts may be purified from evill workes and made fertile to all fruits of holinesse For hereby we shall have peace with our selves and shall be masters at home Hereby also wee shall have peace with Gods creatures receiving temporall blessings as testimonies of Gods reconciliation with us and in every bit of bread wee shall taste his love Prosperity and adversity will prove equally good unto us being dispensed by his fatherly care If God multiply our afflictions it will be onely to multiply our deliverances He will never put us to the tryal but to refine our faith weane
that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened When this direfull remembrance sinkes into a conscience how man was put out of Paradice and Cherubims were placed at the gate with aflaming sword to keepe him out that he may not finde the way to the tree of life it is enough to sinke one downe with feare and anguish and make him cry out standing upon the brink of despaire Must I be driven away from God for ever and what way is left for me to returne to the tree of life without which I cannot shunne eternal perdition Upon that perplexity Prayer comes and offers her helpe saying I will bring thee thither and will goe with thee without any let of the flaming sword for I know a way to the tree of life where the terrour of the law doth not keep the passage the sonne of God who is the way the truth and the life hath made me way unto the throne of grace to which I goe with full assurance to obtaine mercy and finde grace to helpe in time of need This freedome of prayer to approach unto God was in some sort represented by the sacrifices That they were figures of prayers wee learne it out of the Psalme 141 where David beseecheth God that his prayer may be set forth as incense and the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice Ps 141.2 As then the smoake of the sacrifices did mount up toward heaven which is a way which cannot be stopt likewise faithfull prayers have at all times a free passage to heaven and although Satan be called the Prince of the aire he cannot disturbe them in the way But that they may reach to heaven the incense of the merit of Christ must be layd over the sacrifice of prayer To that holy duty wee are encouraged by Gods commandement and promise Both are in this text Ps 50.12 Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shall glorifie me And so in this Come unto me saith Gods eternal Sonne all you that labour and are heavy laden and I will ease you Math. 11.28 None that prayeth to the father through the merit of the Sonne returnes empty For either he giveth us what we do aske or what wee ought to aske and that which is fit for us He that keepeth that holy correspondence with God is never dejected with sorrow or perplexed with feare for he finds in that divine communication a plaister to all his sores and an inexhaustible well of life and joy David had found it so when he sayd Ps 16 I have set the Lord allwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shal rest in hope By prayer wee ground our soules in faith raise them with hope inflame them with charity possesse them with patience during our life and yeeld them to God with joy in our last breath To reape these benefits by prayer wee must understand well the right use of prayer which is double It serveth to aske of God our necessities both of body and soule for since in him wee live and moove and have our being wee must continually seeke to him by prayer of whom wee continually depend But the noblest and most proper use of prayer is to glorifie God and converse with him because wee love him and because he is most perfect and most worthy to be beloved coming to that holy duty not as a taske but an honour the greatest honour and delight that a creature can be capable of in this world stealing away from affaires and companies to enjoy that pleasant and honorable conversation as lovers will steale away from all employments to entertaine their best beloved For what is sweet in the world in comparison of this sweetnes what is honorable compared to this honour to have familiarity with God and be admitted to his presence at any time to be received of him as his children and when wee lift up our affections to heaven the habitation of his glory to finde that himselfe is come to meete us in our heart and hath made it another heaven by his gracious presence In that meditation a faithfull man will call Gods benefits to minde and to conceive their excellency to his power he will from the consideration of Gods grace reflect upon that of his owne naturall condition sometimes criminal miserable and Gods enemy but now through Gods preventing love and unspeakable mercy changed into the quality of child of God and heire of his kingdome He hath bin provoked to pity us by the depth of our misery wherefore in all reason wee must be provoked to thankfulness by the height of his mercy And this is the chiefe employment of prayer an employment which paying our duty brings our felicity and though wee have payd but what wee owe and scarce that giveth us a present payment for the duty which wee have payd O what a heavenly delight it is to lose ones selfe in the thought of Gods mercyes which are beyond all reckoning and above all imagining and to say to him after David Ps 40.5 Many O Lord my God are thy wonderfull workes and thy thoughts which are to us ward they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee v. 8 If I would declare and speak of them they are more then can be numbred I delight to doe thy will O my God yea thy law is with in my heart Ps 86.11 Teach me thy way O Lord I will walke in thy truth unite my heart to feare thy name I will praise thee O Lord my God withall my heart and will glorifie thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell Such a conversation with God to rejoyce in his love praise him for his graces and crave the leading of his spirit to walke before him unto all pleasing is an imitation of the perpetual imployment of Angels and glorified Saints It is a beginning of the Kingdome of heaven in this life In it consisteth the true peace of the soule and the solid contentment of minde CHAP. V. Of the love of God BEing entred into the meditation of the love of God let us stay upon it It is good for us to be here let us make here three tabernacles And more reason have wee so to speak in this occasion then St. Peter when he saw Christ transfigured in the Mount For by planting his abode there he could not have made Christ to doe the like nor given a settled continuance to that short bright lightning of glory But by our meditation upon the love of God wee make him to stay with us and our soul is transfigured with him being filled with his grace and his peace and already enlivened with a beame of his glory Now because the ground the spring and the cause of the love that
wee beare to God is the love that he beares to us wee must before all things study to conceive as well as wee may of the great love of God to us-ward Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that wee should be called the sonnes of God 1 John 3.1 This is the principall point of his love where all other testimonies of his love doe beginne and where they end Without this none can say that he is beloved of God For to be the work of Gods hands and maintained by his providence is common to all creatures and to be made after Gods image and by his liberality to enjoy the plenty and service of nature is common to all men good and evill But because creatures without reason and men without goodnesse beare no love to God it cannot properly be said that God loveth them though he be their maker and preserver Love being the bond of perfectnesse Col. 3. Gods love would not be the bond of perfectnesse if he loved those things that never return him love For that love may be a bond the two ends must meet knit together now these two ends knit when a creature beloved of God beares a reciprocal love to him For thereby not onely the man that feareth God joyneth with him but the whole nature also and all the creatures are re-joyned with their principle and Origine And whereas some creatures cannot others will not love God the true child of God because he gets some utility out of them all yea of those that are Gods enemies loveth him and gives him thanks for and in the name of all and so by this meanes love proveth a true bond of perfectnesse which proceeding from God and knitting with God againe embraceth and holds fast together the whole creation and brings it back to its Creator A consideration which cannot but bring a singular content and a great peace to the soule Being perswaded of the love of God to us whereby we are called the sonnes of God we looke upon all creatures as the goods of our fathers house prepared for us And though others which are none of Gods children enjoy them also yet they are for us since the wicked are for the good either to exercise their vertue by tryals or even to serve and sustaine them For as the angry waves roaring and foaming about the ship where Christ was with his disciples yet were bearing the ship likewise the enemyes of God and his Church while they are beating and storming against it beare it up in spite of their hearts The agitations of the great sea of the world make Gods children more sensible of the great love which the Father hath bestowed upon them to have given them his beloved sonne to be in the ship with them to keep them safe in the storm and the dangers that overwhelme others are helps for good unto them that love God All the deliverances that God sends them all the blessings that God powreth upon them they take them as productions of the fatherly love of God who hath adopted them in his Sonne They taste that love in the enjoyment of present goods they breath that love in the enjoyment of future eternall goods they rest upon that love when they sleepe they leane upon that love when they walk they find that love in all the occurrences of their life with what face soever the various accidents of the world looke upon them they see through them the evident love of God being certaine that nothing happens to them but is directed by the good hand of their loving Father These pleasant rivers of the love of God conduct our meditation up the streame to the great Source that love which passeth knowledge that mysterious deepe love which the Angels desire to looke into whereby of his enemyes that wee were he hath made us his children giving for us even to death his owne precious Sonne entitling us by him to his eternal glory and giving us the earnest of it by his good Spirit crying in our hearts Abba Father O incomprehensible love which hath undergone overcome death to give us life and that he might have from us an immortal love That immortal love ought to be the effect of this meditation So that having conceived to our power how much God loves us wee may also to our power apply our heart to love him acknowledging that all our heart all our soule and all our understanding is yet too little to returne him love for his love It it true that this is a debt from which we can never be acquitted and wee owe it even after wee have payd it But as this debt must be payd continually the continual payment yeelds a continual satisfaction to him that payeth it oweth it still For whereas pecuniary debts make the heart sad this debt of love makes it glad when our duty meetes with our inclination and when wee most desire to dok that which wee are most obliged to doe Besides this debt is of that nature that when wee pay it wee make together an acquisition for although the love began by God he takes it upon him to repay us the love that we pay him Ps 91.14 Because he hath set his love upon me saith the Lord therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high because he hath knowne my name Pro. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seeke me early shall finde me But love is due to God not onely for the love that he hath done us and for the good that wee hope from him but for the good that is in him and because he that is the soveraigne beauty and goodnes must be beloved in the chiefest highest manner All that is beautifull and good in Nature the glory of the celestial bodies the fertility of the earth the shady greene of trees the fragrancy of flowers the variety and utility of animals the rational inventive vivacity of intellectual natures the admirable order of the Universe both in disposition and conduct All these are so many productions of the great bottomlesse depth of beauty bounty power and excellency and who so wisely considereth them presently conceiveth that the Authour is possest of an infinite perfection onely worthy to be beloved for his owne sake and that all the good and beautifull things that he hath done must be beloved onely in relation to him and for his sake To which if you adde two other points of which Nature cannot sufficiently informe us and wherein the Word of God supplies the deficiency of Natures teaching which are the justice and the mercy of God towards sinners O who would not love that infinite love and excellency though he had no interest of his owne in it But how can we barely consider Gods excellency in it selfe with an abstraction of our interest Certainly the consideration of our concernment will go along though unsent for with the contemplation of Gods supreme
vertue and goodnesse And it is impossible to consider God as the onely worthy object of love without conceiving even with the same thought that our soveraigne good consisteth in loving him reputing what a height of honour and content it is when that great Creator who is all bounty all beauty and all perfection is pleased to contract amity with the creature For in this consisteth the great and only excellency of man that God hath given him a nature capable to entertain freindship with his Maker A capacity which being obscured by sin is restored to him by grace And God who as the only absolute Soveraigne is above all Laws condescended so farre to us as to binde himselfe to the Laws of friendship with man which Laws on his part are most inviolably kept the whole defect in that mutual love is from man As then friends disjoyned in place are joyned by love so are God in heaven and man upon earth God indeed is every where yet God and man are more remote in degree of nature then any two can be in place But they are joyned in a way farre more excellent real for the thoughts of two mortal persons make no mutual impression when they are without the line and reach of communication whereas God is never remote from the faithful soul and they may commune together at any time God makes his love sensible to the faithfull soul and saith to it by the presence of his spirit Soul I am thy salvation and the soul saith to him Lord thou art my God I am thine save me teach me to do thy will God communeth with the soul by his word and spirit and the soul communeth also with God by her word and spirit that is by prayer and holy aspirations It is also a law of friendship that friends bear the one with the other and that the strong support the weake Wherefore God all perfect having knit a friendship with the creature subject as yet to much imperfection supporteth her defects with his love and covereth her sins by his righteousnesse Man also for his part must patiently bear what chastenings God layeth upon him taking all kindly at his hands for as he must be assured of his love he must also be certainly perswaded of his wisdom and beleeve that Gods dealing with him is all love and wisdome It is a law of perfect freindship that friends declare their secrets one to another So God deals with his freinds and Jesus Christ useth this for a reason why he calls his Disciples his friends John 15.15 Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knows not what the Lord doeth but I have called you friends for all things that I have learned of my Father I have made known unto you And Daniel saith that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him not the secret of his Councel but that of his Good will towards them in that which concernes their duty and their salvation which is the sence of the following words and he will shew them his Covenant We then to shew our selves true friends to him that honoureth us with that title must also disclose unto him the secrets of our hearts It is true they are open to his all-seeing eyes and if we would hide our secrets from him we could not But God takes a delight that we give him an account of our selves not that He may be better informed but that we may be better and happier for they that disguise themselves before him are incapable of his grace and dissembling is a violation of the lawes of friendship It is the comfort of the godly that while they confesse their sinnes to God as unto their clear-sighted Judge they discharge together a duty of friendship declaring to their supreme friend their private infirmities and secret diseases to call upon his help What benefit we may expect by that free dealing with God we learn out of Davids experience who speakes thus to God Psalm 32.5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him Into the bosome of that friend we must powre our secret sighes to him we must lay open our most intimate desires and feares that we may say to him with David Psalm 38.9 Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Which as it is true in regard of Gods all-seeing knowledge let it be true also in regard of our sincere unbosoming of the secrets of our souls before God Now that the secrets of our soules and the meditations of our hearts may ever be acceptable in his sight and because the heart of man is so close and full of windings of hypocrisy that man himself cannot finde the bottom of his own inside let us call upon God to assist us in that search by his good spirit saying Psalm 139.23 Search me O Lord and know my heart try me and know my thoughts And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Before we have sincerely laid open before God all that is within us we have no reason to expect the blessing of serene and innocent peace in our soul For God who is jealous of his glory takes it as a high contempt when his creature will offer to avoid the all-seeing eyes of the Creator besides he is jealous of our love taking it as a derogation to the love due to him when we go about to conceale our thoughts our affections and our projects from him Wherefore the sence that the conscience hath of this jealousy of God holds her in continual anxiety Whereas he that is true to a resolution to call God to witnesse of his most secret actions and intentions as he is whether we will or no gets two benefits that way The one that finding himself obliged to impart all that he hath in his heart to God his eternal friend he will take heed of doing yea and thinking any thing that is displeasing unto him and by his uprightnesse will prevent the shame of opening many impurities before that holiest of Holies The other that by this free and open dealing with God he shall get a great tranquillity in his conscience For if in humane friendships we presume that by disclosing the secrets of our hearts to a generous friend we oblige him to love and fidelity and after that action of freedom we find our heart much eased how great must our ease and contentment be when we have poured all our heart into Gods bosom that perfect friend who is truth and sincerity it self It is a wise part to conceale nothing from God The only way to possesse our soul with
there were no Passion there would be no vertue If then the Passion be sick it must be healed not slaine and much lesse must it be slaine when it is in health lest it fall sick It may be sayd for the Philosophers that would cut off or rather root out Passion that it is an errour that doth little harme for man being naturally too passionate we must pull to the contrary extreme to bring him to a vertuous moderation for after we have rooted it out as much as may be there will remaine still too much of it Beasts have also their Passions and by them men are allyed with beasts But the Appetite of the beast is meerly sensual the appetite of man is partly sensual partly intellectual Passions may be marshalled into three orders according to the three principall faculties of the soul The inferiour order is of them that are onely in the sensitive Appetite and have their motions for the body onely as hunger and thirst Over these reason hath lesse power for she cannot perswade him that is hungry not to be so but she may retard the satisfaction of the appetite Other Passions are lodged in a higher storie and seeme to be seated in the Imagination as the Passion that one hath for curiosities and images of perfection increased by the desire These are more capable to be ruled by reason The third and highest order is of intellectual passions as the love of learning and contemplation These are more immediately in the power of reason It is the part of reason to forme and moderate those passions which are meerely under her jurisdiction and keepe a short bridle to those passions that are moved without her leave by nature chance or fancy As in a well governed kingdome all is done by the King the faculties of the soul must be kept in such order that within us all be done by Reason When that Soveraine is wise and well obeyed peace is in the inward State of man But when the Soveraine is made subject to his natural Subjects the sensual Passions then the soule is like a body with the heeles upward and the whole policy of the mind is turned upside downe Being to speake of the Passions as the winds that stirre and tosse that inward sea of the soule I must also speake of the Vertues that serve to represse them Not to treate of each severally and prolixely but to bring them to action and to minister to every Passion its proper remedy CHAP. III. Of Love LOve is the first of all Passions and the cause of most part of them It is the motion of the soule towards objects that promise rest and contenument By Love men are good or evill happy or unhappy as that Passion is applyed to good or evill objects In every soule there is a Master-love which beares rule over all the other Passions and subjecteth them to its principal object According to the quality of that object love is perfect or unperfect for as the objects of the sight change in some sort the apple of the eye into their colour and shape so by receiving the image of the beloved object into our soule our soule is transformed into it and wedded to its qualities He that loves a sordid thing becomes sordid Doth any love his hounds with that principal love his soule becomes of the same quality as his hounds He that loveth a high object becomes high by that love He that loveth God the soveraine good receiveth the soveraine good into his soule Many causes contribute to the contentment of minde but the chiefe cause of it is a worthy love And it may be truly sayd that neither in heaven nor in earth any thing is pleasant and contenting but Love God himselfe is love saith St Iohn 1. Ioh. 4.16 And I conceive as much as a finite mind dares conceive of the infinite God that in the substantial love embracing the three persons of the Godhead consisteth both their personal union and their felicity I have spoken before of the vertue of love which unites us with God and shewed that it is mans great duty and soverain felicity And hereafter I must speake of the Christian love due to our neighbours which is called charity and of the love of society which is friendship In all these relations love is a vertue either acquisite or infused But here wee consider it as a natural Passion which yet wee must endeavour to raise to a vertue and for that wee cannot but returne againe to the love of God The most natural love is the love of the sexe A Passion meerely sensual and common to men with beasts And yet it is that Passion which keepes the greatest stirre in mans heart and in the world That love softeneth magnanimous spirits and drawes downe the soule from the heaven of holy meditation to the dregs of the matter But for that Passion a man might come to a degree of Angelical purity in this world Wherefore there is great need to learne how to represse it To roote it out if one could find in his heart to doe it would be destroying nature and resisting the ordinance of God who gave that inclination to all animals for the propagation of their kind But because God gave also reason to men above other animals and his knowledge to Christians above other men the love of the Sexe hath need to be led by a better guide then Nature else it is brutish and that which is innocent in beasts is vicious in men By it men instead of the pleasure which they hunt after so hotly find sadnes remorse infamy destruction of body soule and estate It is a feareful sentence that no whoremonger nor uncleane person hath any inheritance in the kingdome of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 It is a criminal deplorable folly to turne into a snare of damnation that volupty which the indulgence of the wise creatour hath given to all animals to invite them to the continuation of themselves in their posterity and to climb up at the window with perill to steale pleasure with crime whilest marriage opens the doore to it unto which God men honesty duty utility and facility invite us Love altogether carnal doth not affect the person but the pleasure unless by the person a mansselfe be understood Love of beauty is love of onesselfe not of the desired person since beauty is desired for pleasure When that love of the sexe is joyned with a true affection to the person and that affection grounded in vertue and encouraged with mutual love then love and friendship meete and increase one another And if marriage followeth it may prove the greatest of temporal contentments But as in unlawfull love there is need of continence to refraine it so in the lawful there is need of temperance to moderate it Temperance is the preserver of love of pleasure also Both are lost by excesse As the flame of a taper turned upside downe is quencht by
the substance that feeds it so love goeth out by too much plenty of aliment But though love and pleasure could maintaine themselves in the excesse neither body nor mind losing any thing of their vigour yet there would be more losse then gaine in it for fervent passion troubleth the serenitie of the soul and any thing that subjecteth the understanding to the appetite degradeth the soule of her excellency especially when the appetite is meerely sensual Because in conjugal life two loves meete the love of the sexe and the love of society It will be a wise course to tye the last with all the bonds of benevolence These bonds are piety sweet conversation tender care of the beloved person patience to beare with her infirmities and a little winking not to see all that might diminish love omitting nothing to make the best of a bargaine which cannot be undone That indissoluble knot which unto fooles makes marriage a heavy yoake is unto the wise a helpe to contentment for by that necessity they are taught to love what they must love to seeke their delight in their duty The greatest fervour of love is not in matrimony for there one hath alwayes at hand wherewith to coole his thirst nor in unlawfull lust where also one knowes how to allay his heat though with the detriment of his conscience but in woing in longing desires tending to mariage That heat is increased by the lawfulnes of the end and the suggestion of a bewitched reason unto the conscience that one that loveth honestly cannot love too much And if that heat meet with opposition it increaseth againe by difficulty and often there is more love where there is lesse hope Quó que minùs sperat hôc magis ille cupit Passion will frame in a mans fancy an advantageous image of the beloved object which stands continually before him appears to him in dreames breakes his sleepe interrupts his best thoughts and his most important businesses makes his spirit a sea in perpetual agitation and his most quiet intervalls are sadnes and a browne study The worst is that God is forgotten and the love of heaven is put out by the love of the world Many not onely of the vulgar sort but of the bravest mindes having split their ship upon this rock there is need of extraordinary care to avoyd it So much greater because our Christian Philosophers have taken lesse care to appropriate their remedies to this sicknesse for when they inveigh against carnal and vicious love those lovers who are persuaded that their love is all vertuous because they would not though they could unlawfully possesse the beloved person esteeme that these censures belong not to them And yet God knoweth that their love is too carnal though they were virgins in their very thoughts for even the immoderate love of a mother to her child is carnal and vicious They need then to be put in mind that their love cannot be pure in the quality as long as it exceeds in the quantity excesse of love for a worldly object being a most impure quality for that master-Master-love which rules in the soul and brings all other Passions under is due unto God alone who will be loved with all our heart with all our soul with all our strength and with all our understanding This the Lord Jesus calls the first and the great commandement The great because it is the chiefe duty of man which comprehends all other duties And the first because it is a comment upon the first precept of the law Thou shalt have none other Gods but me As then we must adore none but God alone we must love none but God alone with that master-Master-love which gives to another the soverainty over ourselves for that love is a true adoration whereby all the faculties of the soul bow and prostrate themselves before the beloved object When carnall love is the master-Master-love in a soul then the soul hath another God then the true God and that Passion makes a burnt-offering of the heart to a false God some weake sinfull creature Certainly those impetuous burning fits of carnal love are violent rapines of the proper rights of God for to him belongeth the heart and upon him those raptures and strong agitations of love should have beene bestowed him onely we ought to love with all our soul and with all our strength O how farre are these violences from those which must take the Kingdome of God by force And how many teares and plaints of smarting remorse must fond lovers powre to doe penance for so many teares and plaints of carnal love that opinatre imbecillity whereby a man pines and torments himselfe for the love of another Sometimes these two sorts of teares proceeding out of such different causes have met together in generous and religious soules who being transported with those violences of humane love were at the same time strongly moved with godly jealousy the conscience grieving and expostulating with the Appetite for yeelding unto any but God the seignory of the heart Then the love of God opprest in the heart under the weight of the world and the flesh powerfully bestirred himselfe and getting strength by opposition overcame that rivall love and became in the end Master of the place But alas one victory doth not end the combat For carnal love when we think that it is shut out will re-enter having the porters of the soul the senses on his side which open the gate to its objects without the leave of reason and help it to make strong impressions upon the fancy Whereas the immaterial beauty of God hath no help from the senses makes no impression upon the imagination but in recompense it doth immediately illuminate the understanding and work upon the affections and so sanctifyeth and strengtheneth them that after many combats carnall love is subdued And if it pleade nature for staying with us yet it is brought to such a subjection that it moveth no more but orderly and within the limits of piety and reason possessing but such a parcel of the affection as it pleaseth the love of God to allow nature to hold under him The limits and rules of reason about the choice of the subject of that love are possibility lawfullnesse and conveniency The measure of love must be according to the price of the subject But when it comes to wedlock another measure is requisite that of oblgiation and duty before wedlock love is prone to overvalue his subject Let lovers remember that the most perfect persons are humane creatures therefore a humane love is fit for them not a divine service for then we serve them as God alone must be served when we make them Mistrisses of our heart Take the best of them their beauty will fade their sweetnesse will sowre and their persons must dye this bates much of their price Faire Diamonds would not be so deare if they could grow pale and weare out Know once the most
lovely persons you shall not admit them to competition with God for the possession of your heart Love aspireth to perfection He then must be beloved above all things who makes them perfect that love him It is more then Ladies can do though never so perfect But by loving God who is the soveraine perfection we become like him in our measure and are changed into the same image And since delight is the baite of love we must love him above all things that satisfyeth us with true delight Psal 16.12 God in whose presence is fulnesse of joy at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore Carnall love makes the heart sick It is sullen fantasticall and tumultuous It conceives great hopes of content and comes short of them It gives for one pleasure a thousand sorrowes But the love of God is a continuall enjoyment a constant peace a solid joy and if sometimes one suffer for him he repayes for one sorrow a thousand pleasures Many lovers of beauties are not beloved of them But who so loveth God must be sure that God loves him Yea that God loved him before he loved God the love which he beares to God is an effect of the love which God beares to him And is it not a great encouragement to love when one is sure to be accepted and beloved againe That subject which onely deserves to be loved with all our heart is easy to be wonne to a mutual love Other objects of our love being infinitely under that prime subject are farre more difficult to winne Our love of God is not crost with absence as the carnall For him we fetch no unheard sighes and shead no unseen teares God is alwayes neare them that sigh for him and puts up their teares in his bottle Psal 56. The Lord is nigh to all that call upon him He travelleth with them abroad He keepes house with them yea in them He sweetens their griefes he answereth not only then words but their very thoughts Many times we love them that can do us no good though they love us many times also we are impoverished by the love wee beare them But our love to God makes us rich for it gets already possession of God who is the Author of all good gifts Psal 36.10 With him is the fountaine of life and in his light we see light To love him is to raise ourselves to soveraine honour and felicity Briefly if one will have favours gratious countenance sweet individuall company possession enjoyment fullnesse of joy for ever let him turne the point of his love heavenwards Divine love will make him good and happy in the highest degree These benefits are not to be expected of carnal love A sicknesse which is the same in the appetite as a fever is in the blood sometimes in a cold somtimes in a hot fit It is a perpetuall ebbe flow of feare and hope and it cannot but be continually shaking and wavering since it pinnes the felicity of a man upon another who hath not felicity enflaming his heart to a subject weaker many times and more necessitous then himselfe And if these inconveniences be found in the honestest love of the sexe how much more in the unlawfull and unchast love Of this sicknesse the most usuall but not the best remedy is to drive out one Mistresse with another but the way to get liberty is not to change service In stead of getting out of the storme into a harbour they are tossed from one rock to another He then that will expell one love by another love must betake himselfe to a love that may change his servitude into liberty which the love of God will afford and none else So the grand remedy of carnall love is to exercise ourselves in the love of God and gladly to consider what a sacrilegious part it is to erect a little idol of our sensuall appetite in our heart which is Gods Sanctuary and what a hainous rebellion it is to chuse another Master then God Thence without an extraordinary mercy of God one of these two evills will follow Either God jealous that we love another more then him to whom all our love is due crosseth our designes and makes us misse that which we sought after with so much eagernesse Or in a greater indignation he gives us that which we preferre before him and whence we expect our highest happinesse which afterwards turnes into bitternesse and ruine You shal see many impetuous corrivals suitors of an evill woman as fishes justling one another striving for a mortall bayte The strongest and most unfortunate driveth he other away and by taking is taken and destroyed Solomon who had but too much experience in this matter gives this account of it Eccles 5.26 I find more bitter then death the Woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands Who so pleaseth God shall escape from her but the sinner shall be taken by her Women might say little less of men There is no cheat no witchcraft comparable to that of carnall love neither is there any thing that workes sadder effects Of which the most ordinary is the loss of the tranquillity of the soul A losse not to be recompensed by all the love-pleasures that lust can suggest to the imagination No Passion sinnes more against that rule truly Christian and Philosophical to dwell at home and not to seek our content out of ourselves which is the same thing as to seeke it in God for in God is our true being and God is found within us if we have the grace to seeke him there as we ought But carnall love makes a man to seeke all contentment out of God and out of himselfe so that he is never at home alwayes abroad and alwayes under the power of others Neither doeth any other Passion so enormously transgresse in the two extreames both to over-value and undervalue the price of things For a lover will raise the price of the beloved object above Nature and possibility and together cast away his estate his honour his conscience and hazard his life as things of no account to get that idolized object It were a wonder if young people being all naturally enclined to that burning fever did not get it after so much paines taken to bring them to it For how many bookes are written for that very end How many amorous fables which to write and to reade is the busines of them that have none There young men are taught that vertue consisteth in being passionate beyond all extremity and that great feats of armes and high fortunes and atchievments are onely for lovers There maides learne to be desperately in love disembling proud and bloody and to beleeve that all is due to their supremacy seing in those bookes the world torne with warres by the jealousy of some Princes lovers and rivals and many thousands of mens lives sacrificed to the faire eyes of a Lady There also they learne to be crafty Mistresses
to satisfie the desire of temporal things is to abridge it A counsel comprehending these two Not to depend of the future and to be content with little for the present Both are effects of an entire confidence in Gods goodnes and providence Of not depending upon the future I shall have several occasions to speake hereafter To be contented with little is an unspeakable treasure That way one may with much ease get plenty which a covetous man cannot get by heapes of money scraped up with a greedy labour He that desires onely what he can have obtaines easily what he will have And he that desires nothing but what pleaseth God hath obtained it already All things smile on him because he receives all things at the hand of God whom he knowes to be good and wise Little and much are all one to him for both serve alike for contentment as it pleaseth God to extend a blessing upon it Let us apply this to the three principal desires that cause so much tumult and disorder in the world Covetousnes Ambition and Voluptuousnes CHAP. V Of Desire of Wealth and Honour What I have sayd of wealth and honours will persuade any man of good sense that they are not satisfying objects of a mans desire therefore not to be eagerly followed It is our Saviours consequence Luk. 12.15 Take heed and beware of covetousnes for mans life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth It is also St Johns consequence who forbids us to love the world and the things that are in it because the world passeth away 1 Joh. 2. These are two powerfull reasons to moderate the desire of the things of this world drawne from their nature The one that they are not necessary the other that they are transitory And yet the covetous and ambitious seeke after them as if life consisted in them or they were to endure for ever Which they cannot thus desire without turning their affection from the onely necessary and permanent thing which is God Matth. 6.24 You cannot serve God and Mammon saith the Lord Iesus For as when a channel is cut for a river in a ground lower then her bed all the water will fall where it finds a slope and leaves her former channel dry Likewise the desire of man whose true channel is the love of God will turne the whole affection of the soule towards low earthly things when that slope descent of covetousnes and ambition is made in the heart and nothing is left for God For it is improperly spoken that a man pretending to great worldly honours is aspiring too high Rather he is stooping too low for the most precious things of the world yea and the whole world are very much under the excellency of mans soule and more yet below the dignity of Gods children Who so then enslaveth his soule of heavenly origine and called to a divine honour unto temporal things which in this low world cannot be but low debaseth his dignity most unworthily And in all earthly things high or low condition makes but little unequality for still it is earth Hills and dales are alike compared with their distance from Heaven But what as the Israelites quitted Gods service to worship the golden calfe the luster of gold and honour will so dazell mens eyes and inflame their desires that they transport unto things of this world that devout love which they owe unto God Wherefore St Paul saith that covetousnes is idolatrie Col. 3. And it is no wonder that the sensual objects prevaile more upon Nature then the spirituall Yet covetous and ambitious desires are not properly natural but enormities of nature for little provision serveth nature whereas if all the waters of the sea were potable gold they would not quench the thirst of covetousnes Nature is contented with a meane degree but crownes heaped up to heaven would yet be too low for ambition Greedines is an unthankfull Vice It makes a man so thirsty after that he hath not that he forgets what he hath and thinks not himselfe advanced though he see a great many behind as long as he seeth yet some before him He cannot enjoy that he hath because he hangs upon that he hath not Thus he is allwayes needy discontented unquiet and spares his enemies the labour to find him a continual vexation And whereas the proper use for which Desire was given to man is to supply his necessities he makes use of his desire to multiply his necessities To that sicknes these are the proper remedies The first is to abridge our desire and be contented with little To him that contenteth himselfe with little little is much But to him that is not contented with much much is little To abridge our desire wee must beare downe our pride That which makes a man think a great wealth to be too little for him is his too great esteeme of himselfe Whereas the humble and meeke though they have but little think they have more then they deserve Who so will calmly compare what he deserveth with that which God hath given him shall find great matter to humble himself and praise God and silence the murmuring of his greedines Let us remember our beginning Being borne naked a little milke and a few baby clouts served us Who would think that some yeares after whole kingdomes could not satisfie us Yet our need since that time is not much increased 1. Tim. 6.8 Having food and raiment wee may be therewith content A little is sufficient for necessary desires but for curious and superfluous desires the whole world is too little Let us employ our greedy desire to heale it self considering that this greedines for the wealth and honour of the world spoiles the enjoyment and takes all content from it for no man hath joy in these things but he that useth them as not using them That greedines makes us seeke them with torment possesse them with unquietnes and lose them with anguish Yea many times greedines hindereth the acquisition Good fortune seldome yeelds to them that will ravish her but to the wise and moderate who though they lose no opportunity woe her as little concerned in her and are alwayes prepared for the repulse That wee spend no more about worldy fortune then it is worth Put in one scale the splendour of honour and the plenty of wealth Put in the other scale the labour to get them the care and vexation to keepe them the peril the envy the losse of time the temptations offered to the conscience the stealing of a mans thoughts from God and the danger of losing heaven while wee goe about to get the earth Then the incapacity of those goods to satisfie the desire their weakenes their uncertainty and how one infortunate moment destroyes the labour of many yeares and then judge whether they be worth enflaming our desire and enslaving our affections With the uncertainty of these possessions consider the uncertainty of the possessours that
native ayre He is ashamed to see his person and robbes his subjects of their vesture to hide himselfe under the spoyle And yet that discord between man and nature is lesse then the discord between man and man For generally men advance themselves by their mutual ruine and seldome get any of the goods of this world but by the evill of another Warres lawsuits envies among Neighbours and domestique quarrells make the face of the world like unto a wild rugged field full of thorns bryers if not liker unto a stormy Sea where the waves break one another continually It is the raigne of discord and confusion And yet the discord of man with his own kind is not so grievous as his disagreement with his owne selfe I mean the naturall and unregenerate man For reason which bore a peaceable and uncontrouled rule within mans soule before he was estranged from God finds no more that ready obedience of the facultyes and affections His general inborne notions of goodnesse and wisedom are now and then darkned with the particular violent suggestions of the appetite casting a thick cloud before the eye of the understanding Reason her self studieth her own delusion putting a disguise of good upon evill Many times also a man knowing and condemning evill followeth it at the same time being alike unable to blind his judgment and rule his passion Then as passions are pulling against Reason they will also pull one against another as when subjects nave shaken off the yoke of their King the State breaketh into factions and every one is pulling for himselfe Wrath and lust wil fiercely bustle the one against the other as two land flood torrents falling from two opposite mountains The like between feare desire covetuousnesse ambition love and jelousie or if one passion raignes alone it doth tyrannize over the heart To teare a mans soul and bring him to slavery and misery there needs no more but lust or envy or impatience of revenge In a heart lying under that tyranny and helping his own slavery when God by his spirit begins the worke of regeneration then begins another kind of discord of which St Paul speakes Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the Flesh and these two are contrary the one to the other so that you doe not the things that ye would This is a more irreconcilable quarrell then the other betweene the vicious passions which many times will agree to do evill and yeeld one to another by turnes as the occasion serveth But between the flesh and the spirit that is betweene the feare of God and the corruption of our nature there can be neither peace nor truce Vice must fall and break his neck before the fear of God as Dagon before the Arke unlesse that God irritated by a pertinacious resistance withdraw his feare and knowledge from a stubborne heart and then it is not God but man that is overcome for while he shakes off the free yoake of piety he puts on the slavish yoak of his unruly appetite and becomes a drudge to feed the greediness of an imperious and insatiable master Isa 48.22 There is no peace saith the Lord for the wicked The case is deplorable of a conscience destitute of the feare of God and faith in his promises where the heady untamed passions have snatcht the rains from the hands of reason It is the fable of Phaeton turned into a story for reason too weak for the head-strong appetite is overturned from his seate the celestial light is quencht in the soule the fire of cupidity is kindled in the heart the unruly passions runne wild their severall wayes and the man is cast headlong into perdition That perdition is the final seperation from God and the endless discord with him which begins in this very life Yet as long as a man liveth upon earth he hath a share in that generall love of God to his creatures and the goodness and patience of God inviteth him to repentance But after this life is done God is an open enemy to those that have lived in emnity against him and abused his grace long patience To describe that miserable state the Lord Jesus calls it outward darkness worme that dyeth not a fire that is not quenched where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth Imagine if you can what it is to be shut out from God the father of light and driven away from him for ever After that a hideous darkness a worme gnawing a fire burning wailing and gnashing of teeth late remorse despair hatred of ones selfe and all imaginable distresses are but consequences of that misery of miseryes to be hated of God and hate him for ever Of that incomprehensible misery the suburbs are the torments of conscience in this life to which the racks the wheeles and the fires are not comparable How grievous those torments are many forsaken wretches have sufficiently exprest it who being tortured by their conscience and uncapable to conceive any deliverance from the dismal expectation of hell have chosen rather to leape into hell by a desperate selfe-murther then to endure any longer the angry face of God pursuing them And the miserable soules find there what they seek to avoid Amos 5.19 as if a man did flee from a Lion and a Beare met him The examples are frequent of those whom the secret lashes of conscience have forced to make an open declaration of their hidden crimes shewing thereby that they were upon Gods rack But truly the examples are yet more frequent of seared and benummed consciences which by pastimes companyes businesses and the deceitfulnes of riches divert their mind from that formidable thought of the quarrell that is betweene God and them cosening themselves as farre as they can with a vaine opinion that the way to scape Gods justice is not to think of it and that they may not think of it they enjoine their reason not to beleeve it But that numnesse is unworthy of the name of peace There is great difference betweene safety and security betweene having peace and not thinking of warre Such men are like passengers sleeping in a ship that is sinking or like that wee have heard with horrour and compassion that bestial souldiers condemned to death would drink lustick and goe drunk to the gallowes This I say is the behaviour of most part of the world who bearing their condemnation in their conscience make them-selves drunk while they are going downe into perdition sometimes with strong drink but continually with the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life and with worldly cares and projects being of opinion that it is needlesse to think of death because it comes without thinking But in that carnal lethargy conscience will start up by intervalls and pinch drousy hearts Especially when adversity lyeth heavy upon their persons and familyes and when sudden dangers overtake them Then doe they see the angry
peace and confidence is to make God our Confident It is also a great point of mutual friendship to yeeld to the interesses and desires one of another Herein God hath shewed the way to men having so farre condescended to the condition and necessity of men as to have put on their nature and taken their debt upon himselfe yea and to have discharged it He is dead like men and for men And being the soveraigne incomprehensible wisdome he descends to our capacity to declare himself to us and draw us to him He calls us indeed to denye ourselves that wee may give ourselves unto him but yet how much doeth he yeeld to our desires and feares And with what wisedome and sweetnes doeth he sort his tryals with our strength And where is the godly man that hath not found in his forest afflictions that kinde usage that St Paul speaks of 1. Cor. 10.13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man But God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to beare it Since then God who is so great doeth accommodate himselfe with us who are so little the law of reciprocall love requires that wee accommodate our selves with him who is so great that wee diligently informe our selves of his will to make it our will that wee observe the things which he loveth that wee may love them and the things which he hateth that wee may hate and avoyd them that all our interesses bow under his that the end of all our ends be his glory seeking not our owne things but the things of the kingdome of God Wee shall never be our owne till wee have wholly resigned our selves unto God Wee shall never have a true peace and content within till our affections be altogether subjected to his love and conformed to his will But then shall wee be peaceable contented and masters at home when God shall reigne within us and when wee shall know no more difference betweene his interest and ours Finally the highest point of love being an entire union and to have all things common it is also the purpose and in the end the efficiency of Gods love to us yea so farre that by his great and precious promises wee are made partakers of the divine nature 2. Pet. 14. and that Christ is in us and we in him Ioh. 17. What hath God reserved to himselfe that wee may not call ours Heaven and Earth are for us His providence is our purveyour His Angels are our keepers His kingdome our inheritance He gives us his good plenty his word his Sonne his Spirit his owne selfe Can any be persuaded of this beneficence of God and refuse to give him his body his soul his intentions and his affections Shall wee use reservations with God who keeps no good from us Would any poore man refuse to have community of goods with a rich man Now God who is the plenty and felicity it selfe will have community of goods with us Let us embrace the condition readily Let us give our selves to God and God shall be ours Or rather say wee God is ours let us render our selves to him for he prevents us in that Covenant since God is ours good reason wee should be his Blessed we that wee may say with the Spouse I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine for by that union of persons and community of goods with God the soul finds her selfe arrived to the soveraigne degree of riches peace glory and delectation CHAP. VI. Of Faith Faith is a Christian vertue whose most proper and natural office is to embrace that peace made for us with God by Iesus Christ And by it wee signe and seale for our part the Agreement made betweene God and man This expression is borrowed of John the Baptist speaking of the Lord Iesus He that hath received his testimony hath set to his Seale that God is true Joh. 3.33 All that we said before of our reconciliation with God by Christ how that reconciliation is applyed to our consciences is an explication of the duty and benefit of faith Yet we must speake of it againe as a consequence of Love For the principal most natural fruit of the love of God is to put our whole trust in Thus St Iohn having sayd much of the love of God to us and of the love that wee owe him for it addeth 1. Ioh. 4.18 There is no feare in love but perfect love asteth out feare because seare hath torment he that feareth is not made perfect in love Faith as the mother of all vertues brings forth the love of God but Love is soone eeven with faith and brings forth her owne mother For as wee love God because wee trust in him as certainly persuaded of his wisedome power and fidelity in his promises so wee trust in him because wee love him for in all our friendships our trust in the beloved person followes the measure of the love that wee beare to him He then that loveth God sincerely trusts in him And when calamity tempts him to unbeleeving fears he will observe Saint Peters exhortation 1. Pet. 4.14 Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in welldoing as unto a faithfull creatour It is impossible to love well without a good opinion of the person wee love especially of his fidelity and righteousnes Seeing then that God hath promised to pardon sins to those that confesse them with a serious repentance if wee love him wee shall trust in his promise that if wee confesse our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnes 1 Joh. 1.9 grounding our trust in his mercy upon his fidelity and righteousnes for since he promist it certainly he will doe it he is too faithful to breake his word and too just to punish us for those sins of which Christ hath borne the punishment in our name This gracious declaration he hath made Luk. 12.32 Feare not little flock for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdome Shal wee have such an ill opinion of him as to think that he hath promist more then he was willing or able to performe or that since the promise made his will is altered or his power diminisht Let us be sure that he that loved us from all eternity will love us to all eternity Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifyeth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen agnine who is even sitting at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us And if upon this safe ground we trust in God for the things of the life to come wee must upon the same ground trust his love for the things
of this life He that spared not his own sonne but delivered him up for us all how shal he not with him freely give us all things He that saved our soules from death shall he not deliver our bodies from the dangers of this world Certainly he that hath prepared for us eternal delights at his right hand will not denie us our temporal daily bread This assurance in his love will sweeten our afflictions and lay downe our feares for being persuaded that God as he is infinitely good is also infinitely wise wee must in consequence beleeve that all the evills which he sends us are so many remedies to other evils that our most smarting dolours are corrosives applyed by that wise Physician to eate the proud flesh of our corrupt nature that he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Lam. 3.33 especially when he chastiseth his children but is in a manner forced to that course by their necessity as when a man is pincht by his best friends to awake him out of a deep lethargy And since that eternal friend is every where present by his al-seeing knowledge and almighty power and hath promised besides his gracious presence to his friends saying I will not leave thee nor forsake thee what reason have we of joy confidence at all times in all places and in all the occurrences of this life having God with us allwayes observing us with his eye upholding us with his hand protecting us with his providence guiding us with his wisedome and comforting us with his love The last good office that Faith doeth unto us is in the approaches of death for then especially it doth represent the promises of God unto the faithfull soule and sealeth them afresh knitting that bond of perfectnes the mutual love between God and the conscience faster then ever By it God speakes peace unto the soule aspiring to heaven and makes it spread the wings of holy desires to passe with a swift flight from the combat below to the triumph above Faith bearing up the soule in that last flight changeth name and nature in the way and becomes love to embrace him for ever in glory in whom we have believed in infirmity CHAP. VII Of Christian Hope THe proper action of Faith is to embrace Christ and ground the soul upon him But it hath another action common to it with hope which is to embrace the benefits obtained to us by Christ Of these benefits the present grace is proper to faith which is justification otherwise the Reconciliation of God with the conscience the future glory by the contemplation of Gods face is more proper to Hope Both faith and hope bring a sweet peace and solid content to the soul that loveth God But it is peculiar to hope to adde to that peace a beam of glory much like those spies of Israel that entred into the Land of Promise before the rest of the people to whom they brought some of the fruit of the Land For it entreth into heaven beforehand and from thence brings us a taste of the promised inheritance Hope is the onely thing that puts some value upon the life of this world for all the good of this life consisteth in this that it is a way to a better and that the earth is the tyring-room of the godly soul where she makes herselfe ready for the wedding of the Lamb. But for that what were this life good for It would consist but in two things to do evill and to suffer evill The very goods of this life without that hope would be evill for none among the Pagans and all others that were not sustained by Christian hope was ever made happy The wisest of them have sought the soveraigne good out of the objects of the senses not finding any solid content in sensuall things or actions Solomon wiser then them all had found that all under the Sun was vanity and vexation of spirit and under all he comprehended intellectual as well as sensual things Neither could any give a more judicious verdict of all than he for he had tryed all things Where then shall we find any thing worth the paines of living but in Hope For if in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable 1 Cor. 15.19 Hope not keeping within the limits of the poor goods of this life liveth already with the life to come for it looks for the Kingdom of Christ which is not of this world as himself teacheth us where although he reigne as a soveraigne he reigneth not as a redeemer and so here is not the reigne of his redeemed We find it by experience Who so then will enjoy the peace of the soul and contentment of mind must have his hope and his spirit in a better place for why should we expect of the world more then it hath Can one gather grapes of thornes or figs of thistles May one expect peace of a perpetual agitation or a durable content from things of short continuance For the soul of man being created for permanency is contented with nothing lesse then a permanent good which is the essential reason why no man could ever find satisfaction in the world there being such a disproportion between mans soul and the objects that the world presents to her for all worldly things are finite but the soul though finite in her substance is infinite in her desire which nothing lesse then infinity can satisfie Now it is by hope that the soul enjoyeth in this finite world an infinite good It is by hope that we rise from the dead before we dy being advanced to a degree of grace that hath already a streak of glory Of which St Paul giveth this high expression Col. 3.1 If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God When Christ who is our life shall appeare then shall we also appeare with him in glory Worldly hopes flatter us and then disappoint us But though they did performe all they promise the present possession of the best things of the world is nothing comparable to the hope onely of heavenly things even that lively hope unto which God hath begotten us again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead To an inheritane incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away reserved in heaven for us 1 Pet. 1.3 O holy and glorious hope which already makes us partakers of Christs resurrection and followers of his ascention even to the right hand of God! already living with the life of Christ animated by his spirit Blessed hope by which we are preserved from the general corruption as with a soveraigne antidote and by which we subsist yea and triumph in afflictions Heb. 10.34 taking joyfully the spoiling of our goods knowing in our selves that we have in heaven a better and an enduring substance It is by hope that we look joyfully upon our bodies decaying
with sicknesse and age 2 Cor. 5.1 Knowing that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven It is by hope that the Martyrs all that suffer for righteousnesse see the crown layd on the top of their crosse and rejoyce in this promise of their Saviour Matth. 5.11 Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evill against you falsly for my sake rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven By hope we behave ourselves wisely in prosperity 1 Cor. 7.31 using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Hope beats down pride refraines lust and weans our hearts from the world Worldly hope disordereth the soul and makes a man go out of himself depending of the future and losing the present and is alwayes wavering and feaverish But heavenly hope although it transport the soul above herself and make her depend upon future goods sets her neverthelesse in a quiet steady frame because the soul rising to God receiveth God who makes her his home so that a man by hope enjoyes beforehand part of the goods which he aspires unto Hope groweth like rivers more and more as it draweth neerer the end of its course And when it hath brought the godly soul into the Ocean of felicity there it loseth the name of Hope and becomes Enjoyment CHAP. VIII Of the duty of Praising God SInce wee already embrace eternal goods by hope as wee desire to beginne now the joyes of heaven we must resolve to beginne the dutyes of that blessed Estate To seeke the first without the second would be an ungenerous disposition and an impossible undertaking If wee apprehend aright that the felicity of man consisteth in his duty and that the glory of the blessed Saints in heaven consisteth in glorifying God we will seeke in that great duty our felicity and delight to sing our part even in this life in the hymnes of those glorious spirits Nothing gives to the soule so great a peace Nothing elevateth the soule to such a Paradice like Joy The love of God is preferred before faith and hope because these seeke their owne good but that seeketh Gods glory Which to a godly soule being much more considerable then her owne happines yet is found to be the soveraigne happines of him that seekes it before his owne good Neither is there any more certaine and compendious way to get glory to ourselves then to seeke Gods onely glory In this then the godly man must delight and can never want matter for it all things giving him occasion to praise God either for his mercy to his children or his justice to his enemies or his power and wisedome eminently shining in all his workes or the infinite perfection that abideth in himselfe God hath made all creatures for his praise and none of his material creatures can praise him but man onely And of all men none but the godly praise him Or if others doe it for company it becomes them not neither are their praises accepted Then upon the godly lyeth the whole taske to praise God for other creatures that cannot or will not praise him But that taske is all pleasure as nothing is more just so nothing is more delightfull then that duty Look about upon the fields richly clad with the plenty and variety of nature Looke up to heaven and admire that great light of the world the Sun so wonderfull in his splendour vertue and swift nesse When he is set looke upon the gloryes of the night the Moone and the starres like so many bright jewels set off by the black ground of the skie and setting forth the magnificence of their maker See how some of them keep ea certaine distance among themselves marching together without the least breaking of their ranks some follow their particular courses but all are true to their motions equal and infallible in their regulated periods Then being amazed and dazelled with that broad light of Gods greatnes and wisedome let every one make this question to himselfe Why doeth God make me a beholder of his workes Why among so many different creatures hath he made me one of that onely kinde to whom he hath given reason to know and admire the workman a will to love him a tongue to praise him Is it not that I might render him these duties in the name of all his other workes And to this duty I am obliged by the lawes of thankfulnes since all these other workes are for me good reason then that I should be for God lending my tongue and my heart to the whole universe to love praise and blesse the great and good authour of this rich and beautiful Nature O the greatnes the goodnes the wisedome of the incomprehensible Creatour And among all his attributes manifested in this admirable workmanship O how his tender mercies are over all his workes How every part of this great work is compleat How all the parts are well sorted together helping and sustaining one another with a wise Oeconomy O if the worke be so perfect what must the workman be If the streames be so cleare what must the source be Upon these if wee fix our meditation with a holy attention wee shall heare that speech which St John heard being rapt up in spirit Rev. 5.3 I heard saith he every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them saying Blessing honour glory and power unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lambe for ever and ever From Nature looking to Providence let us observe how notwithstanding the opposition of spiritual malices and the preversnesse and blindnesse of men yea and by these very things God advanceth his glory maintaineth his truth and formeth a secret order in confusion For the execution of his decrees a Million of engines are set on work subordinate or co-ordinate among themselves wherby things most remote yet meet in the order of causes to produce the effects appointed in Gods counsel Where the chief matter of wonder is that many of these causes are free agents which doing what they will bring forth most part of the time that which they will not and by the uncertainty of their giddy agitations arrive to the certain End determined by God Who can comprehend the innumerable multitude of the accidents of the world all written in Gods Book and dispensed by his providence that infinitely capacious and ever watchfull wisdom ever in action though ever at rest which by the order he gives to the greatest things is not distracted from the care of the least He makes the heavens to move and the earth to bear and disposeth of peace
beard a childish understanding authoritatem senum vitia puerorum But certainly this is a false ugly vizard set upon a handsome and gracious face there being nothing more serene and pleasant then godlines and a good conscience A good conscience is that merry heart which is a continual feast To doe Gods will with a good will keepes a mans heart cheerefull to God and pleasant to himselfe Will you then make your hope sure of an eternal rest and of those pleasures for evermore at the right hand of God Doe but take the first course to make yourselves content and joyfull in this life which is to walke before God unto all pleasing to your power and to be rich in good workes Was there ever a more winning invitation then this Make yourselfe joyful and contented in this life that you may be eternally joyfull and contented in the next CHAP. XI To redresse ourselves often by Repentance Wee have meditated upon the peace of God and the way how to get it in our souls and keepe it That peace brings a golden serenity and a solid content to our hearts But because the godliest persons in this world are subject to sinne and by sinning to trouble that peace and serenity it is necessary to redresse ourselves often by repentance Of that duty I have spoken in the third chapter of this first booke as the necessary way to embrace by faith our reconciliation with God and a maine part of the great worke of our conversion But after wee are reconciled and converted wee are men still Neither is any conversion so great in this life as to roote out sinne altogether out of mans nature Whosoever then will preserve his integrity and peace for these two commonly goe together must have this warning continually in his mind Lét him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall 1. Cor. 10.12 And if he fall let him take up himselfe presently by a godly repentance The more he esteemeth himselfe advanced and confirmed in piety the more let him mistrust himselfe and beware of the temptations of Satan For after holy resolutions and elevations of zeale and devotion great sins very often are committed because then the conscience is most subject to relent as over-confident of her good estare Much like besieged souldiers who after a brave sallie will remitt of their watchfulnes despising the enemy whom they have beaten and in their security are taken by surprise Conscience will fall asicepe but Satan never sleepeth and never misseth to take advantage of our negligence Heb. 12.1 Sin that doth so easily beset us saith the Apostle to the Hebrewes By saying us he comprehends himself acknowledging that the most perfect are easily beset by sin Some sins are presently felt and leave a sting as the Scorpion doth To that sting the remedy must presently be applyed by repentance and a faithfull recourse to Gods mercy through Christ also the assistance of his Spirit must bee implored else the venome will spread and the wound become mortal Other sins are lesse felt or creep in undiscerned yet leave a heavinesse upon the heart and make it slower to godlinesse and good workes Then the businesses of the life intervening the remembrance of many sins will slip out of our memory which neverthelesse worke their effect upon the conscience blunting the sense of piety and setting the soul further from God Wherefore it is the part of a wise Christian often to revisit the state of his conscience call himselfe to account and by a pious solicitude of repentance pick and sift out even the least dust that sticks to us of the worlds uncleannesse and our own scowring out that rust which conscience like iron will contract if it be not often handled If the uncleane spirit will not dwell in a mans heart unlesse he find the house empty swept and garnisht Matth. 12. that is void of all goodnesse and furnisht for his turne We must not expect that the holy Spirit will dwell in our heart unlesse we bestow our best care to sweepe it for him emptyed of the immundicities of sinne to garnish it with holinesse He will not keep house under the same roofe with the unclean spirit And unlesse we speedily put that enemy out of doores God may in his displeasure leave him the whole house Whereas if you keep it swept for God with daily repentance he will make it his Temple and say Psal 132.14 This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I delight in it But that our hearts may be cleane habitations for him we have need to call for the assistance of his grace Psalm 51. Create in us a cleane heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within us Since the Son of God honours us so much as to call us his friends let us religiously observe the lawes of friendship with him Even in humane friendships if we have sometimes the missorutne to give offence to one whom we especially love and respect we cannot be at rest till we have given him satisfaction And should we be so imprudent as to neglect God our great friend after we have offended him Shall we let the Sunne go down upon his wrath and our offence Let us returne to him without delay and humbly seeke his peace The speediest reconciliations are the best In this returne to God which must be every day let us call to our remembrance all the sins of late date and others of elder date not sufficiently repented of confessing them to God with contrition and craving pardon for them with humility and faith through the merit of his Sonne which to all repenting sinners is an exhaustible spring of mercy open at all times Zechariah meant this by that Fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleannesse And becaure many trespasses of ours are out of remembrance and some we have run into without our knowledge we must beseech God with David to clense us from secret faults Psalm 19.12 and that he be pleased to forget those sins which we have forgotten To that daily returne to God some extraordinary returnes must be added where fasting and alms be joyned to prayer Thereby these clouds shall be cleared off which trouble the serenity of the conscience and the soul shall get a great help to rejoyce in the love of God and glory in his bounty When one is come to that blessed state of the soul he must wipe off the teares of repentance and drowne that sadnesse in a thankfull joy For the sorrow of repentance is good by accident only because there is some evill to be healed It is like a medicine which gives gripings and disquieteth nature therefore not to be used but to recover health Although we cannot repent too much to have offended God there may be excess in the sorrow of repentance To seek merit or ostentation in penitent sorrow which is the face that vulgar soules give to
God in his breast that he should invite and then entertaine him there by a pure service a sincere love an entire cōfidence Many by much good Kindred many Friends and relations become lesse vertuous and industrious getting the ill habit of the Italian Signora's who walking in the streets beare more upon the armes of their supporters on both sides then upon their owne legs They have need to be sent from home to learne to stand alone without a Nurse to hold them None can be owner of any measure of stedfastnesse and content that makes all his support and satisfaction to depend of his neighbours That man hath more content in the world who having confined his desire to few things troubleth also but few persons and is desirous of Friends to do them not to receive of them good offices regarding their vertue more then their support When we have got good Friends we must be prepared to lose them Death separateth Friends and disolveth Mariages When that happens wee must remember without trouble or amazement that those persons so deare to us were mortal but indeed that should have bin remembred before A Philosopher visiting his neighbour who was weeping bitterly for the death of his Wife left him presently saying aloud with great contempt O great fool did he not know before that he had married a woman not a goddesse After we have condemned that cruel incivility yet must we acknowledge that it is a folly to lament for that which we knew before to be unavoydable Yet after all reasons when love hath bin very deare the separation cannot but be very sad Teares may be permitted not commanded to fall And after the duty payd of a mournful Adieu to the beloved person we must remember upon what terms and condition we hold of God that which wee love best even to leave it at any time when God redemands it And if besides we have good ground to hope that the person departed is received into peace and glory we must praise God for it which we can hardly do as long as our obstinate mourning repines against his will Lamenting for those that are well is ignorance or envy or selfe love If we would not rejoyce when they were in affliction why should we afflict our selves when they are in joy It is some recompence for the death of our deare Friends that our enemyes are mortal as well as they A wise man will consider his enemyes as rods in Gods hand and minde the hand rather then the rod. To destroy our enemies when they are in our power is a childish folly for so will Children burne their Mothers rod as though there were no more rods in the world Our enemies oftentimes do us more good then our friends for the support of our friends makes us carelesse but the opposition of our enemies makes us wary and industrious They make us strong and safe for they make us flye to God In nothing wisedome is more seene then in judging of an adversary A great serenity is requisite that feare make us not think him more dangerous then he is and that pride make us not despise him blinding our eyes not to see the good and evil that is in him and what harme he may do us It is a common and useful maxime for the conduct and tranquillity of mans life that there are few great freinds and no little enemyes When enemies are reconcileable all things past must bee taken to the best by charitable interpretation When there is no possibility of reconciliation al things to come must be taken to the worst both to strengthen us with resolution within and to encounter the evill without by prudence and vigorous wayes In the reconcilement we must pardon freely receive ill excuses and if there be an offence which cannot be excused never mention it The remedy of injuries is oblivion If an enemy can neither be mitigated by charity nor overcome by strength nor avoyded by prudence there remaineth still unto the wise Christian an intrenchment out of which he cannot be forced which is a good conscience and the peace of God in it These he must cherish and keep fast not onely as his last intrenchment but his onely possession and the strong hold only worth keeping It is impregnable as long as faith and love are the Garrison CHAP. XVI Of Death IT is the subject of which Seneca speakes most and of which there was least for him to speak for being doubtfull whether Death destroyed the soul or released it Mors nos aut consumit aut emittit and being more inclined to the first Opinion it was better for him neither to speake nor to think of it But what others of his rank that had reasoned before him about the immortality of the soul had quitted themselves so meanely of that task that out of their labours in that field he could not reape any satisfaction of his doubt This is the grand priviledge of the Christian that he seeth life through Death and that the last limit of Nature is the date of his franchising and the gate of his felicity and glory Death that moweth downe all the hopes of this world perfecteth Christian hope Death is the separation of body and soul It is the returne of these two parts of man so different to their several principles Eccles 12.4 Then the dust returneth to the earth as it was and the spirit returneth unto God that gave it Who disposeth of it either in mercy or justice Death is the last Act of the Comedy of this world To every one Death is the end of the world in his own respect In one sense it is against nature because it destroyes the particular being In another it is according to nature for it is no lesse natural to dye then to live Yea Death is a consequence of life we must dye because we live and we dye not because we are fick and wounded but because we are animals borne under that Law Wherefore considering Death in the natural way as Charron doth I approove what he saith that we must expect Death in a steady posture for it is the terme of nature which continually drawes neerer and neerer But I cannot approove that which he adds that wee must fight against Death Why should we fight against it seeing we cannot ward its blowes It is more unreasonable then if he had said that we must fight against the raine the winde for wee may get a shelter from these none from that Wherefore as when it raines wee must let it raine so when Death is coming and it comes alwayes wee need but let it come not thinking it more strange to live then to dye In stead of fighting against Death wee must acquaint our selves with it Indeed they that feare Death must fight against that feare Of them that feare Death there are two sorts Some feare it for its owne sake Some for that which comes after The former which are more in
substance and intellectual faculties of our soul of immortal nature which cannot be so offuscated with the mists of the flesh but she is cleared of them when she is freed of the body The other is that supernatural wisedome when it pleaseth God to endow our minde with it even his knowledge his love conformity of our will unto his will and faith in his promises Of other ornaments of the soul we cannot certainly say what we shall keep and what we shall lose It will be therefore wifely and thriftily done to labour for that which wee may be sure to keep when we have got it and of which death that takes away all other possessions shall deliver us a full possession It is a great discouragment to them that stretch their braines upon Algebra and Logarithmes and arguments in Frisesmo as it were upon tenterhookes to think that all that learning so hard to get will bee lost in a moment Who would take the paines to load himselfe with it seeing that it gives nothing but vexation in this life and leaves in the soul neither benefit nor trace after death unlesse it be the guilt sticking to the soul to have mispent the strength of wit upon negotious vanities and neglected good studies Yet am I not so austere and peremptory as to despise all the spiritual endowments which we are not sure to keep after death For many of them are such that as we are not certaine to keep them after death so we are not certaine to lose them by death Many of those perishable ornaments are neverthelesse good gifts of God But our minde must be so disposed that in these several ornaments of the soul we seek a contentment proportionate to the assurance that we have of their abiding with us We are most certaine that the knowledge and love of God are permanent possessions and impart to their possessor their permanency there then let us apply our study and place our permanent content We are not certaine whether the other spiritual ornaments will continue with us after this life Then let us not bestow our principal study about those things which we are not sure to keepe nor place our chiefe content in them Let the Soul lose none of her advantages let her glory in her eternall goods and there fixe herselfe Let her rejoyce also in those goods which she hath for a time according to their just value which must be measured by their use Before we consider the several ornaments of the soul more particularly we must consider her substance and faculties The Soul is immateriall and Spirituall bearing in her substance the image of her creator and more yet in her faculties and naturall endowments which before her fall were in an eminent degree of perfection for to be made after the likeness of God includeth all perfection in so much that this high expression to be adequate unto man hath need to be contracted to the proportion of a created nature Of that primitive perfection the traces are evident still in that reasoning quicknesse and universal capacity that goeth through all things and compasseth all things that remembreth things past that provideth for things to come that inventeth judgeth ordereth and brings forth ingenious and admirable workes The principal is that the soul is capable to know God love him commune with him A priviledge special to Angels Souls of men above all creatures as likewise they are the only creatures capable of permanency which is a participation with Gods eternity such as finite natures may admit Humility would not give us leave to conceive high enough of the price of our soul but that the onely Sonne of God God himselfe blessed for evermore hath shewed the high account that he made of her So high that he thought it worth his taking the like nature in the forme of a servant and suffering death with the extremity of paine and ignominy that he might recover and save her when she had lost herselfe The soul being of such an excellent nature and after her decayes by sinne restored to her primitive excellency by grace is a rich possession to herselfe when God gives us the wisedome to obey that evangelical and truly Philosophical precept of Christ Luk. 21.19 In your patience possesse your soules not giving leave to the impatience of cupidity and feare to steal that possession from us But the soul never hath the right possession of herselfe till she have the possession of God To possesse God and to possesse our soul is all one for the spirit cannot be free nor happy nor his owne but by his union with his original Being whereby God and the soul have a mutual possession one of another A blessed union begun in earth by grace and perfected in heaven by glory The contrary state which is to be separated from God is the perdition of a man and the extremity of bondage want and misery Here to undertake an exact anatomy of the soul would be besides my theame and more yet beyond the possibility of right performance For as the eye cannot see it selfe the spirit of man cannot looke into his owne composure and in all the Philosophical discourses upon that subject I finde nothing but conjectural It is more profitable and easy to learne the right government then the natural structure of the soul It is part of the knowledge of the soul to know that she cannot be known and that her incomprehensiblenesse is a lineament of her Creatours image The spirit of man is more quick and stirring then clearsighted and many times is like a Faulcon that flyeth up with his hood on He hath a good wing but he is hood winkt How many wits take a high flight and know not where they be And where shall you finde one that understands thoroughly the matter that he speakes of The Authors that write of all animals and plants understand not the nature of a caterpiller or a lettice how then shall they understand the nature of intellectual substances Certainly all our Philosophy of the nature of things is but seeking and guessing Job 8.9 We are but of yesterday and know nothing because our dayes upon earth are as a shadow saith Bildad Our life is a shadow because it is transitory but more because it is dark The Earth where we live is inwrapt in clouds and our soul in ignorance as long as we live upon earth and yet we are as resolute and affirmative in our Opinions as if we had pitcht our Tabernacle in the Sunne We could not speak with more authority if we were possest as God is with the original Idea's and the very being of things A wise and moderate man will not be carryed away by that presumption neither of others nor his owne but with humility will acknowledge the blind and rash nature of the spirit of man that knoweth nothing and determines of all things that undertakes all and brings nothing to an end Pure truth and full wisedome
lyeth in the bosome of the Father of lights Our soules are little unclean narrowmouthed vessels uncapable to receive it but by smal drops that little we receive we taint by our uncleanness In our soul we conceive two intellectual faculties the understanding and the will In the understanding three imagination memory and judgement Imagination is that which makes all the noise entreth every where inventeth reasoneth and is alwayes in action To it we owe all the ingenious productions of eloquence and subtility It s the inventor of arts and sciences the learner and polisher of inventions It is of great service and gives great content being well managed and employed in good things The office of imagination being to transforme itselfe into the things that it takes for objects it is transformed into God when it applyes itselfe unto God and is transformed into the Father of all evil when it applyeth itselfe unto evill Memory is the Exchequer of the soul keeping that which the imagination and judgement commit to her trust In the primitive ages when the world stood in need of inventions a quick fertile imagination made able men But in these last ages a well furnisht memory makes a rich and a full mind so she be not destitute of the two other faculties In vaine doth the imagination invent and collect industriously and the judgement prudently determine if the memory be not a faithful keeper of the inventions of the one and the determinations of the other and together a ready prompter at need of that she hath in keeping It is memory that keepes this good treasure of which the Lord Jesus speakes Matth. 12.35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things But she keepes evill as well as good and often more firmly then good An evill man out of the evill treasure of his heart brings forth evill things Of her nature she is indifferent to good and evill as a paper to write what one will upon and a chest that will keep any thing According to the things that are put into that chest it is either a cabinet that keepes jewels or a sink that receives ordure If we will have the right use content of our memory we must furnish her with good and holy things that she may alwayes prompt matter to our minde to commune with God to direct and comfort ourselves For when she is fraught with evill and vaine matter she will thrust evill and vaine things upon us when the occasion and our owne minde calls for things good and serious as an idle servant that brings his Master a pare of cards when he calls for a Book of devotion Many times we heartily desire that we could forget certain things which our memory importunately sets before us on all occasions Judgement is the noblest part of the soul the Chiefe Justice determining what the imagination discusseth and the memory registreth Imagination makes witty men memory learned men but the Judgement makes wise men The wise man is he that judgeth aright not he that discourseth finely nor he that learneth well by heart For the strength of the several faculties the natural temper of the braines doth much but study perfecteth them the judgement especially for some have made themselves a judgement by use and experience who had none in a manner by nature Of these three faculties the Imagination which is the seat of wit and invention hath a neerer kindred with judgement then memory with either for wit will ripen into judgement in distracted braines both are imbezelled together while memory remaines entire It is ordinary to see dull fooles have a great memory And it is credible that the largenesse of the memory especially when it is streacht with overmuch learning lesseneth the two other faculties as in three roomes of a floore if the one be made very wide the two others must of necessity be little The Judgement calls all things before his tribunal and examines them upon two points whether they be true or false good or evill There he stayes when the subject requires contemplation onely but when it requires action then the determination of the judgement makes the will to move towards that which the judgement hath pronounced to be true and good for to move towards that which we judge to be false or evill we cannot For although our will follow many times false and evill objects the judgment alwayes considers them to be true and good in some respect Neither would our will so much as bend towards any object unlesse our judgement did before warrant it to us true and good Truth and falshood have their springs without us But moral good and evill as farre as they concerne our innocency and guiltinesse have their springs within us and both spring from our judgment to which we must atribute what is ascribed to the heart by Solomon in whose tongue one word signifies both Prov. 4.23 Keepe thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Herein then lyeth wisedome the worker and keeper of contentment of mind to give a sound judgement of objects and thereupon to give good counsell to the will for embracing that which is good and resisting all oppositions to it by the armes of righteousnesse on the right hand and on the left so that the soul as a well balasted and a well guided ship cuts her way through the waves and makes use of all winds to steere her course to the haven of salvation and Gods glory possessing calme within among the stormes abroad But for that wise and blessed temper there is need of a higher wisedome then the strength of Nature and the precepts of Philosophy can afford to the judgement By the Judgement men are wise but by the Will they are good Wisedome and goodnesse alwayes go together when they go asunder they are not worthy of their name For that man is not wise that instructeth not himselfe to be good and that man is not good that doeth good actions not out of wisedome and knowledge but out of superstition or custome The chiefe vertue of the understanding is the knowledge of God and the chiefe vertue of the Will is his Love These two vertues comprehend all others and help one another They joyntly give tranquillity and content to the soul when we exercise our selves in the knowledge of God because we love him and when we love and obey him because we know him to be most good most wise most perfect and most worthy to be loved and obeyed The right bent and true perfection of the will man is an entire concurrence with the will of God in all things both to execute the will of his command and undergo the will of his decree in both walking so unanimously with God that man have no other will but God's He that hath thus transformed his will into Gods will possesseth a quiet and contented mind For when we will alwayes
and ill wives they have need to learne obedience but in these bookes they learne soverainty Women being more given to these bookes then men shew that though they have lesse fougve of love then men they have neverthelesse a more constant inclination to it Who so will keepe himselfe holy in body and affection and preserve his soule serene and free from the tempest of that turbulent Passion must avoid the reading of such bookes whose proper office is to raise those stormes in a mans blood and appetite And I know not whether it be more dangerous to reade dissolute bookes which make of carnal love a jigg and a matter of sport openly shewing the ordure and the folly of it or dolefull amorous fables which make of it a grave and serious study and under the colour of honesty and constancy of love managed with an artificial and valourous carriage hoodwinke and bewitch the readers minde with a pertinacious Passion making their braines runne wilde after chimera's and hollow imaginations whereby some have runne mad Indeed one cannot follow the fancies of romances without straying from right sense Neither is there any thing that makes the heart more worldly and carnal and brings it further from God I will be judged by all good soules that would betake themselves to exercises of piety when they were newly come from this kind of reading Let them say in conscience how farre estranged from God they found themselves and ill disposed to every good worke Sure it is not without reason that these writers set up false Gods as being conscious to themselves that their writings are deviations from the true God and ashamed to name the God of truth among their fables Also because with some of them it is a prime piece of love-complement to make discontented lovers to wreake their anger upon the Deity they will have this excuse ready that they are not blasphemies against the true God but against the gods of Homer and Hesiod's making But from these blasphemous expostulations with false gods the readers learne to doe the like with the true and to avenge themselves upon him of all things that cross their impetuous Passion The same bookes set up the murtherous discipline of duells as a gallantry of love wherby lovers seale their affection to their mistresses by the blood of their rivals or their owne There are other matches of the wilde fire of carnal love which must be carefully avoyded wanton discourses vicious companies occasions to doe evil conversation with vaine malicious women whose chiefe aime and taske is to catch all the men that come in their way not that they may keep them but triumph over them and cast them away and feed their owne vanity with the disappointment of their suitors Take heed of idlenes it is Satans pillow the counsellour of vice and especially the procurer of lust He that doeth nothing thinkes on evill Take heed of intemperance Carnal love is so inbred with the matter that whatsoever heateth the blood sets the appetite on fire Wherefore Jeremiah sets intemperance and incontinence together Jer. 5.8 They were as fed horses in the morning every one neighed after his neighbours wife There be two great remedies to take downe that heate The one corporal which is mariage instituted by God for that end a holy and honourable state When both the parties are good and love one another it is the greatest sweetenes of life But whether a man be married or desire to be he must think on the vanity and short continuance of the most pleasant things of this world the frailty of life the certainty of death the uncertainty of the hour thence to inferre the conclusion of St Paul 1. Cor. 7.29 But this I say brethren that the time is short It remaines that they that have wives be as they that have none And so they that are woing must be as though they were not woing that is they must impose moderation upon their affections out of a wise apprehension of the vanity of the world and life ver 31. using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Wherefore should wee love with so much fervency that which wee cannot keepe when wee have got it which we must leave or which must leave us The other duty is Spiritual and it is that great and perpetual duty to Love God Let that holy Passion alwayes rule in our hearts Let us give to God his proper right which he demandeth in his word Pro. 25.26 My sonne give me thy heart and let us keep such a watchfull guard about it that none steale it from him and us Our love to a worthy Consort being so moderated will become both lawfull pleasant Humane condition hath nothing so delightfull as a reciprocal love Yea of all things to which mans will doth contribute it is the onely pleasant thing But as navigable rivers enrich a country with commerce and plenty when they keepe within their shores but ruine it when they overflow with a violent landflood Likewise love while it keepes within limits brings pleasure and utility when it exceeds them it brings displeasure and destruction Love that is not reciprocal will weare away in time But a wise man will shorten the worke of time with reason and will not obstinately court a person that will not love him For of what price soever she be in our regard she is of no price if she be not for us Wee must love our enemies but wee must let them alone CHAP. IV. Of Desire DEsire hath a neere kinred with love for it is the motion of the appetite towards the beloved object This is the difference that Love regardeth the present Desire aspireth to the future Some desires are natural some besides nature Natural desires are good and easily satisfied as long as they keepe within their mounds the first whereof is nature then reason to rule nature and piety to rule reason But wee must take heed of mistaking corrupted nature for pure Pure nature is contented with little but corrupted nature runs to excesse and embaseth natural desites with the allay of desires besides nature It is natural for a man to desire a woman but it is besides nature that he will have her so noble and so rich that he increaseth the desired object with imagination and kindleth his passion by difficulty It is natural to desire meate drink clothing but it is besides nature to desire great feasts gay garments and costly buildings Reason indeed was given us to embellish and inrich nature but Reason if it be well taught wil in all occasions make use of nature to rule the desire and teach it that besides Nature there can be no necessity Thus if your coach breake farre from the towne instead of grieving and fretting remember that Nature did not give you legs to sit in a coach and that it is not necessary for you to be carryed as long as you can goe If you be
to be gotten but within us from God and ourselves and take those things for ours which are none of ours but depend of others and thereupon runne towards those objects thus mistaken with a blind impetuositie These are the true roots of Sadnesse which roots if we could pluck out of our breasts we should never be sad for any thing of the world But it is very hard to pluck out that weed for Sadnesse is like a nettle a malignant stinging weed spreading in the soyle where it hath once taken root and sucking all the vigour and substance thereof It makes a man murmure against God and envy his neighbours alwayes discontented alwayes needy suffering neither himselfe nor others to be at rest odious to God and men and to his own selfe The life of man being subject to occasions of Sadnesse a wise man will not adde voluntary sorrow to the necessary And since by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken Prov. 15.13 and a broken spirit dryeth up the bones Prov. 17.22 so that Sadnesse is the ruine both of body and mind he will take so much care of the preservation of both of which he is accountable to God as to banish from his breast with his utmost industrie that fretting consumption The best course for that is to exercise ourselves in the love and contemplation of God and faith in his promises By these Sadnesse is cast out of the heart and the soule is set in a pleasant and serene frame Next this wisedome must be learned of Solomon Eccles 5.17 It is good and comely for a man to eate and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he takes under the Sunne all the dayes of his life which God giveth him for that is his portion Obstinate Sadnesse is unthankfull to God for it drownes the benefits of God in an ungratefull oblivion and takes away the taste of them even while we enjoy them And what a double misery is that for a man to make himselfe guilty by making himselfe miserable For two things voluntary Sadnesse is lawfull and usefull for the evill that we commit and the evill that others commit Sadnesse for our owne sinnes is contrition Sadnesse for the sinnes of others is the zeale of Gods glory both commendable necessary He that hath not a sad resenting of his owne sins must not hope for pardon and is so farre from finding it that he cannot so much as seek it for he that feeles not his sicknesse shall never look for the remedy Mat. 11.28 Come to me saith Christ all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest None are invited by the Gospell but such as labour and are heavy loaden none but they can finde rest unto their sonles This comes to that I was saying lately that we must be sad for no evill but such as can be mended by our Sadnesse Such is contrition for sinne for it helps to heal it making us cast ourselves upon the great Physitian the Lord Jesus whose merit is the Soveraine remedy to that great sicknesse So that Sadnesse ends in Joy We must grieve also for the sins of others for since we must love God above all things we must be very sensible of the dishonour offered unto his holy name This made Daniel and Nehemiah to fast and pray and God shewed that their Sadnesse was acceptable unto him Sadnesse then is of good use for these ends so that we never seeke merit nor praise in it remembring alwayes that Sadnesse is evill in itself good onely by accident Sadnesse of contrition and zeale is good as Purges and letting of blood which are good onely because there is some evill in the body If all were well there would be no need of them As then we must take heed of too much purging and blood-letting so we must of too much Sadnesse either for contrition or zeale The use of Sadnesse in contrition is to make repentance serious and to humble the spirit that it may be capable and thirsty of the grace of God The use of sadnesse in zeale is to sympathize with Gods interesses and thereby beare witnesse to God and our owne conscience that we aknowledge our selves Gods children For these ends it is not required at our hands to grieve without tearme and measure For since the greatnesse of Gods mercy is as high above our sinnes as Heaven is above Earth it is Davids comparison our faith and joy in Gods mercy must also be very much above our sadnesse for our sins And as God saith that our sins are cast into the sea Mich. 7.19 meaning the deep Ocean of his infinite mercy likewise our sorrow for our sins must be drowned in the joy of his salvation Whereas also the blasphemies and oppositions of Gods enemies by his great wisedome and power turne to his glory our sadnesse for these oppositions must end in joy for that almighty power and soveraine glory of our heavenly father to which the greatest enmity of Satan and the world is subject and tributary for by pulling against it they advance it The consideration of the subjects of Sadnesse sheweth more then any other that man knoweth not himselfe there being nothing in which one is sooner deceived For many times we think ourselves to be sad for one thing when we are sad for another mistaking the pretence of our Sadnesse for the cause Many will impute their sadnesse to the sense of their sinnes but the true cause is in their hypoconders swelled and tainted with black choller oppressing the heart and sending up fuliginous vapours to the braines No wonder that so often all the reasons of Divinity and the sweetest comforts of godlinesse cannot erect a spirit beaten downe with sadnesse the plaister is not layd to the sore for spiritnall remedies purge neither the spleene nor the gall nor the braines whose peccant humours breed all those doubts and feares whereby melancholy persons so pertinaciously vexe themselves and others Indeed the resolution of a serene and religious spirit will preserve body and soul in a sound and quiet state But that resolution which is excellent for prevention of the evill will not overcome it when the humours of the body are generally dyed and infected with melancholy Wherefore let us beware betimes that Sadnesse settle not in our heart for the indulgence shewed to willfull Sadnesse will in short time sowre all the humours of the body and vitiate the whole masse of the blood and the magazine of vital and animal spirits with melancholy Then when the mind hath made the body melancholy the body doth the like to the mind and both together contribute to make a man miserable timorous mischievous savage lycanthrope and a heavy burden to himselfe When that habit of melancholy begins by the spirit it is more grievous when it begins by the body it is more incurable To draw a man out of that deep gulfe all spirituall and materiall helps are of
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God When the glory of the world fills a mans thoughts while it doth lift him up with pride it brings him down by cupidity under those things that are under him But when the glory of God ruleth in our hearts it brings us low with humility and together raiseth us up by faith and a holy generosity far above all humane things even as high as the right hand of God with Christ there to rejoyce in his love and sweetly repose our hearts upon his fatherly care None shall attaine to that blessed state of the soul which is already a heaven upon earth unlesse he beate downe his pride A vice which makes a man incompatible with God for it pretends to that which to God alone is due which is glory incompatible with his neighbours for it perswades him that all things are due to him and that the honour and advancement bestowed upon any but himselfe is ill bestowed and incompatible with himselfe for it tortureth a mans minde with envy makes him secretly murmure against God and men and renders him incapable of the grace of God which is onely for the meeke and of his kingdome which is onely for the poore in spirit Matth. 5.3 Here this method must diligently be observed to rectifie our opinion first that we may rule our Passion To bring downe the tumour of Pride let us get a right opinion of ourselves How we are begotten like beasts borne in lamentation lying a long time in our ordure living in a sickly flesh wilde and foolish in our thoughts corrupted in our affections vaine and wicked in our conversation blind wretched and guilty before God and after a few evill dayes returning to the ground of our ignoble principle In the midst of the gawdy luster of the world let us looke to our end a winding sheet putrefaction wormes mourning of our heires for a little while and then perpetuall oblivion Let us beare these things in mind and then be proud if we can Many Passions have their origine from Pride which must be called to our barre after their Mother CHAP. X. Of Obstinacy OBstinacy is a compound of pride and ignorance It is an overthrow of the right polity of the soule where the will must consult reason but Obstinacy makes reason to consult the will so that a man will do or maintaine a thing not because it is reasonable but because he did it and maintained it before Ignorance begins which hoodwinks the understanding with errour Then comes Pride which pins that hood fast about his eyes pretending that it is a shame for a man to go from his opinion By Obstinacy a man comes to that desperate case of the soul which Philosophy calls feritas that is a savage brutishnesse incapable of all vertue and discipline For he must be either in god or beast that takes his instinct for his perpetual rule and sets before him his present will and doing as an immutable patterne of that he must will and do for ever after When Obstinacy hath thus shut the dore unto discipline and stopt a mans ear against counsell one of these two evills followeth Either he is hardned in evill without remedy Or if by chance he light on the right side he spoiles it as farre as in him lyes maintaining truth and equity not because it is so but because he will have it so There is no greater enemy to Christian wisedome then that stubborne disposition For thereby a man stands in direct opposition against God challenging to himselfe that which belongs to God alone even to make his will a reason and a law When the light of reason or the word of God or the manifest course of his providence declares to us what the will of God is neverthelesse to set our will against it out of a pretended constancy in our former opinion and inclination what is it else but to make warre against God As Obstinacy is odious to God so it is odious in society It makes a man troublesome ridiculous and the undoer of himselfe And of his Country also if he be assisted with power and hath many persons and businesses depending upon him Expect neither wisedome nor faire dealing nor serenity within nor good actions abroad where the will takes no counsell of reason There is no place left for amendment when one thinkes himselfe obliged never to alter his minde As Obstinacy hardeneth opinions it doth the like to passions to those chiefely that have melancholy for their fewell as sadnesse hatred envy and love also for of these growne once inveterate many times a man can give no reason but that he will continue as he hath begun This vice is a bastard imitation of Constancy whose name it borrowes but very injuriously for constancy consisteth not in stedfastnesse to a mans own will but in a firme adhering to goodnesse That which is good one time perhaps will not be so another time Righteousnesse indeed is alwayes one and the same but variety of incidences and circumstances makes it change faces As the needle of the compasse that stands so fixt upon the North not to be mooved from that point by the greatest tempests yet will in an instant turne to the South when the ship is gone beyond the Equinoctiall line and to that contrary point will keep with the like stedfastnesse so long as it is in that hemisphere Likewise a wise and good man will be firme in his resolutions where his duty calls him So because his duty lyes not at all times the same way his resolutions also are not bent at all times the same way but will turne with his duty Jeremiah desired sincerely the preservation of the Kingdome of Juda the liberty of his Country But after that Zedekiah had taken the Oath of allegiance to the King of Babylon he adviseth Zedekiah and his people to yeeld Jerusalem to him In vaine Obstinacy aspireth to the praise of a great and brave spirit it is rather a womanish narrowspirited weakenesse It was the proper saying of a femall Mene incoepto desistere victam Must I be overcome and desist from my purpose Great houses have some roomes for winter some for Summer and severall apartements for severall Offices But in small cabines the kitchin and the bedchamber are all one and the same still in all seasons Even so great spirits have a space for diversity of counsels according to the diversity of occurrences and various constellations of times and businesses which continually alter but they are narrowbreasted men that have but one resolution and one course to carry them through all things and times It is for a low and timorous spirit to be afraid to change fashion and think himselfe lost when he must travell by a way that he never went before whereas great spirits are complying facile universall and their knowledge of the world makes them finde nothing new or strange Obstinacy should be overcome from the cradle Even then
I count them mine enemies But wee must take heed lest the hatred of iniquity bring the hatred against the persons and the persons must not be afflicted more then needs for the repressing of iniquity The more difficult it is to keep that temper the more earnestly ought we to endeavour to render all offices of charity and personall humanity to them whose party we justly seek to defeate for to love our enemies and to overcome the evill with good is the most ingenuous imitation of the Godhead It is his command joyned with his example Matth. 5.44 Love your enemies blesse them that curse you do good to them which despitefully use you and persecute you that you may be the children of your Father which is in heaven for he makes his Sun to rise on the evill and on the good and sends raine on the just and on the unjust There is need of a great measure of grace and wisedome to observe these two precepts together Psal 97.10 Ye that love the Lord hate evill and Matth. 22.39 Thou shalt love thy neighbour like thy selfe hating iniquity in the wicked and loving their persons and both for Gods sake The chiefe use of hatred is to be incited to good by the hatred of evill For that end it is not necessary that the greatnesse of hatred equall the greatnesse of the evill and we are not obliged to hate evill things as much as they deserve otherwise the great currant of our affection would runne into the channell of hatred and leave the channell of love dry Now it is in loving the Soveraine good with all our strength and with all our soul that our duty and happinesse consisteth not in hating the evill with all our strength and with all our soul The hatred of evill is not requisite of it selfe but by accident as a consequence of the love of good If the hatred of vice perswade us to vertue we shall be more yet perswaded to it by the love of goodnesse Many effects of hatred are the same as the effects of anger for there is no anger without hatred in some degree if not to a person at least to an action But there is some hatred without anger when one forethinks in cold blood the wayes to destroy an adversary All the destructions of the world where the will of man is an agent are wrought immediately by hatred They have many remote causes anbition covetousnesse carnall love emulation and all the violent passions but they destroy not but by accident till some opposition hath driven them into hatred which in the inward polity of the soul hath the same office as the hangman in a Citty for it is the executioner and avenger of wrongs Unto hatred all the cruelty of tyranny and malice must be imputed And yet all the blood spilt all the ruines and inventive torments outwardly wrought by hatred are nothing so grievous as the inward disorder wrought by it in cruell and revengefull souls and the separation which it worketh between God and man It is the finall and most grievous effect of hatred that by hating our neighbours we become Gods enemies 1 Joh. 4.20 If a man say I love God and hates his brother he is a lyer Hatred is a bitter venome which being once diffused soaked into the soul turnes a man into a hell-fury contrary to all good ready and industrious to all evil But with all the paine that such a man takes to doe harme to others he doth more harme to himselfe then to any consuming his spirits with a continual malignant fever banishing from his soul serenity charity and meekness vertues which are the soyle of other vertues and the givers of rest contentment to the soul It is often seene that while a man is gnawing his heart with a fierce hatred the person he hateth is healthfull merry and quiet as if imprecations made him prosper An ill grounded hatred drawes Gods blessing upon the party unjustly hated and persecuted Psal 109.18 It was Davids hope Let them curse but blesse thou Hatred is conceived for one of those two ends Either to avenge ourselves or to avenge injustice which is Gods cause As for the first Before wee think of revenging an injury wee must examine whether wee have received or done the greater injury for it is ordinary that the offender is harder to be reconciled that it may not be thought that he is in the wrong Then we must calmely consider whether the revenge may not doe us more harme then the injury though wee had nothing to doe but to breake our launces against a dead stock incapable to resent it For besides that there is no enemy so little but it is better to let him alone then to provoke him the harme that hatred doth within us cannot be recompensed by any sweetness of revenge though there were no other harme in hatred then to find delight in robbing God of that he hath reserved to himselfe Now he challengeth revenge as his owne exclusively to all others Heb. 10.30 Vengeance belongeth unto me I will recompense saith the Lord. To become incapable of rest incapable of doing good incapable of pleasing God are sufficient evils to deterre us from harbouring that inhumane passion enemy of men of God and of ourselves Pro. 11.17 The mercifull man doth good to his owne soul but the cruel troubleth his owne flesh It is a right godly and philosophicall study to strive against that tendernes quick to pick offences slow to take satisfaction And wee must be ingenious to devise causes of patience Are you condemned being guilty acknowledge Justice Are you innocent bow under authority Are you newly offended It is too soone to resent it Is the Sunne gone downe since It is too late Hath any wounded you look to your cure not to your revenge Are you well againe let not your mind be harder to heal then your body Are you offended by a friend remember the friendship more then the offense Are you offended by an enemy Doe your endeavour that he be so no more returning him good for evil Is he too strong for you It is folly to contend with him Is he too weake It is a shame Is he your superiour you must yeeld to him Is he your inferiour you must spare him And since Pride of which none is altogether free represents our enemies to us under a vile and unworthy notion let us fetch some good out of that evill Let contempt help patience to beare with their provocations for if a dogge did bite us wee would not bite him againe nor kicke at a asse that kicks against us Also when some body offends us let us remember that wee have offended some body The fault that wee find in another is in our owne bosome It is too great a flattery of selfe love to looke to be excused and excuse none Wee are evill and infirme and live among persons evill and infirme All have need to put on a
they have any godlinesse in them they will shew it in grounding those just hopes upon Gods mercy and promises The lesse invitation they have to flatter themselves with worldly hopes the more will they strengthen themselves with the hope of heavenly goods In both the fortunes a wise lover of his tranquillity will not feed or swell his hope but for one object which is The fullnesse of his union with God For any thing else he will clip the soaring wings of that aspiring passion and will not let her flye too high nor too farre In the appetite as there is a predominant love and a predominant desire so there is a predominant Hope When it is anchored upon the only good perfect and immutable object it keeps the soul firme and tranquill If it be moored upon quick-sand and such are all the things of the world in which there is no safe anchorage it will be carried away by every winde and tide and never keepe in a quiet station The vulgar thinkes it a wise and couragious part to be obstinate to hope well But a firme and unmooved hope ought not to be conceived or resolved upon but for firme and unmoved goods even those onely that are the subject of the promises of the Gospell But for things about which wee have no divine and especiall promise the more one is obstinate to hope well the more likely is he to speed ill because the obstinacy of Hope puts the judgement out of his office and leave tâ— no roome for Prudence And the ill successe is made more bitter by the preceding obstinate hope Whereas to him that stands prepared for the worst nothing comes against Hope And if good come he tasts it better for his successe hath exceeded his Hope The way to be little disappointed is to hope little and the way not to be disappointed at all is to confine our Hopes within us as much as we can and to the things above which the true Christian finds already within depending upon no future things but his perfect reunion with God Whosoever will proportion his hope to the nature of the objects shall never entertaine great hopes for worldly matters For there is a great imprudence in that disproportion to have great hopes for small things CHAP. XVI Of Feare FEare is a feeling beforehand of an evill to come yet uncertaine as least in the circumstance And when the evill is come Feare endeth and turneth to sorrow or despaire Feare is one of the most simple and naturall Passions It is found even in the most unperfect animals for God hath put it in all for their preservation The very Oysters will shrink for Feare when the knife doth but touch their shell As there are two evills to which men are obnoxious paine and sinne there are two feares answering these two evils the feare of suffering and the feare of sinning Of the first none is altogether exempt although the Spanish Scholler examined at Paris about his proficiency in Morall Philosophy and demanded what Feare was covered his ignorance with this bravado In nostra patria nescimus quid sit timor In our Country said he we know not what Feare is But without feare a man can have neither prudence nor valour for he that feares not the blow guards it not and is slaine without resistance The principall use of Feare is to prevent or avoyd evill But when the evill is unavoidable and now at hand then resolution must represse Feare Although even at that time feare doth good service for the feare of losing honour or life erecteth a mans courage Valour in combat is as often out of feare as out of magnanimity and it is often hard to discerne which of these contrary causes puts valour into a man The certainest marke of valour by feare is cruelty when he that hath disarmed his adversary in a duell kills him without mercy and after a field wonne puts all to the sword for he sheweth that he feareth his enemy even when he is out of combat But he that gives him his life sheweth that he seares him no more alive then dead The most valorous are not they that have no feare for it is naturall to all men but they that know how to moderate it A man cannot Feare too little for no evill can be avoyded by feare but may much better be avoyded by judgement To feare things which neither strength nor forecast can prevent is an anticipation of the evill It is a great folly to lose our present rest out of feare of future trouble as though it were not time enough to be afflicted when affliction comes But Feare doth more then to bring neere remote evills it creates evill where there is none And many evills which shall never come and are altogether impossible acquire by feare a possibility and a reall being We laugh at an hypocondriaque that thinks himselfe to be made of snow and is afraid to melt at the Sunne because he feares that which cannot happen to him But a rich man tormented with feare of falling into Poverty is much more ridiculous For which of the two is the greater fool he that feares that which cannot happen or he that makes it happen by fearing it The hypocondriack cannot melt at the Sun by the feare he hath of it but a covetous man by his feare of being poore is poore in good earnest so poore that he wanteth even that which he hath for he loseth the enjoyment of his wealth by his feare of losing it It may be truly said that there is no vaine Feare since all feares whether true or false are reall evils and Feare itselfe is one of the worst evils It makes a man more miserable then a beast which feeles no evill but the present and feares it not but when the senses give her warning of the neere approach of it But man by his feare preventeth and sends for the evill stretching it by imagination very farre beyond his extent many times also forging evill to himselfe where there is none and turning good into evill for it is ordinary with us to be afraid of that we should desire For remedy to that disease we must learne our Saviours Philosophy Matth. 6.34 To every day is sufficient the affliction thereof If the evill must come we must expect it not go fetch it Let us not make ourselves miserable before the time Let us take all the good time that God gives us Perhaps the evill will come but not yet Perhaps it will not come at all There is no Feare so certaine but it is more certaine yet that we are as often deceived in our fears as in our hopes And this good we reape out of the inconstancy of humane things against which we so much murmure that it turnes as soone towards good as towards evill Habet etiam mala fortuna inconstantiam or if it turne not to good it turnes to another evil The arrow shot against us with a small
declination of our body will miss us and hit our neighbours head A little winde will turne a great storme A sudden commotion in the State will create every where new interesses He that held us by the throat will be suddenly set upon by another will let us go to defend himself If we see no way for us to scape God seeth it After we have reckoned all the evill that our adversary can do we know not what God will do In the creation he made the light to shine out of darknesse and ever since he takes delight to fetch the comfort and advancement of those whom he loveth out of the things they feare That which we feare may happen but it will be for our good Unto many the bed or the prison hath bin a Sanctuary in an ill time Unto many the publique calamity hath bin a shelter against the particular Many times that which lookes grim a farre off smiles upon us neere hand And what is more common then to be promoted by those things which we feared most Exile and confiscation condemne us often to a happy tranquillity taking us from the crowd and the tumult to set us at large and at rest These considerations serve to decline not to overcome the evill Wherefore there is need of stronger remedies For that we may be healed of Feare it is not enough to say Perhaps the evill will not come or will not prove so terrible as it lookes Say we rather Suppose the evill must unavoydably come I do imagine the worst Say it be poverty close prison torture the scaffold the axe All that can take nothing from me that I may call mine God and a good conscience are mine onely true goods which no power and no violence can take from me All the rest is not worth the feare of losing Isa 12.2 Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song he also is become my salvation Then the remedy to the shaking ague of feare consisteth in knowing these two things The evill and the liberatour The evill cannot be very great since it hath an end No evill of this world but ends by death Death it selfe is good since it ends evills how much more when it begins eternall goods to the right Christian death is not a matter of feare but of hope Let us take away from the things we feare that hideous vizard which imagination puts upon them calmely looking into their nature and getting familiarity with them by meditation Let nothing that is incident to humane condition seeme strange or new to us What happens to one may happen to any other The ordinariest cause of feare is surprise That we be not surprised we must think betimes upon all that may come and stand prepared for all So nothing shall seeme strange when it comes But the chiefe remedy against feare is to lift up our hearts to the great Liberatour that hath goods and evills in his hand that sends afflictions and deliverances that brings downe and brings up againe that gives us strength according to the burden which he layeth upon us and multiplyeth his comforts with our afflictions Being perswaded that God is most wise and most good and that all things work together for good unto them that love him we will represse our feare of the accidents of life and second causes saying The will of the Lord be done we are sure that nothing but good can come to us since nothing can come but from God Wheresore instead of fearing to suffer evill we must feare to do it which is the safest course to prevent suffering He that commits sin is more unfortunate then he that suffers paine for suffering moveth Gods mercy but sin moveth his indignation That man cannot but feare sinne that beareth in mind that God hates it and markes it There then we must feare and the chiefe deliverance that we must aske of God is that he deliver us from every evill worke 2 Tim. 4.18 As we feare sufferings because of themselves so must we feare evill workes because of the evill that is in them besides the sufferings that attend them soone or late This Feare of love and revecence towards God puts out all other Feares He that feares God needs not Feare any thing else CHAP. XVII Of Confidence and Despaire OF these we need not say much having spoken before of Hope and Feare for confidence is the extremity of Hope and Despaire is the extremity of Feare Confidence which otherwise may be called a firme expectation is a certainty that we conceive of a future desired good or of the love and fidelity of a person whereby the heart is filled with joy and love Despaire is the certainty that the mind conceiveth of a future evill very odious or of the enmity or infidelity of a person whereby the heart is seized and in a manner squeazed with sorrow and hatred These Passions being so opposite yet ordinarily will passe the one into the other I meane Confidence into Despaire from Despaire to pass to Confidence it is rare The surest course to avoyd falling into Despaire for things of the world is to put no great confidence in them Moderate hopes being frustrated turne into moderate feares and sorrowes But a great and joyfull Confidence being disappointed will fall headlong into extream and desperate sorrow as they that tumble from a high precipice get a heavy fall One subject onely is proper for mans entire Confidence which is God all good all mighty and all wise Without him all things that men use to repose their confidence upon are waves and quicksands Men are mutable and though they could give a good security for the constancy of their will they can give none for the continuance of their life The goods of the earth faile our expectation or come short of our satisfaction or slip from our possession They will leave us or we them No wonder if they that repose their full and whole confidence in them are seene so often to fall into despaire Here then the true counsell for tranquillity is to trust wholly upon none but God on other things according to their nature and capacity They shall never deceive us if we require nothing of them above their nature There is a kind of Despaire improperly so called which is no more but to give over hoping a thing which upon our second and better thoughts we have found either inconvenient or impossible That Despaire will rather bring rest then trouble to the mind Wisemen are pliable and easy to be satisfyed with reason It is wisedome to despaire and desist betimes from unlikely and unfeasable designes It is a true Despaire when one seeth himselfe absolutely disappointed and excluded from the object of his chiefe love desire hope at which the soul is smitten with such a sorrow that she hates all things yea the very thing that she desired so much and herselfe more
the smaller and unworthyer the object is the more shamefull is the despaire about it but in recompense it is more curable For then one is easily brought to consider in cold blood that the thing was not worthy either of his affliction or affection But when the object is great and worthy the despaire is more guilty and lesse curable Wherefore the worst Despaire of all is when one despaireth of the grace of God so farre as to hate him for nothing can be worse then to hate the Soveraine good onely worthy to be beloved with all the soul Many distrust the grace of God who are not therefore desperate though they think themselves so to be Let them aske of themselves whether they hate God and let them know that as long as a graine of Gods love remaines in them there is together a graine of faith though opprest and offuscated by melancholy For it is impossible that God should be their enemy and their Soveraine evill while they love him To them this comfort is addrest Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me and those that seeke me early shall find me And this likewise 1 Joh. 4.19 We love him because he first loved us If then we love him we must be sure that he loveth us and we must fight against the temptations of despaire saying with Job Though God stay me yet will I trust in him Job 13.15 and with Isaiah Isa 25.9 Loe this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord wee have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation Confidence is good according to the goodnesse of the subject that it reposeth upon Wherefore Confidence in God the only Soveraine good perfect solid and immutable is the best of all and the onely that can give assurance and content to the soul He that is blest with that confidence is halfe in Paradice already He is firme safe meek serene and too strong for all his enemies Psal 84.12 God is to him a Sunne to give him light heate life and plenty of all goods and a shield to gard him and shelter him from all evills ver 13. He gives him grace in this life and glory in the next O Lord of hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee CHAP. XVIII Of Pitty PItty is a Passion composed of love and sorrow moved by the distress of another either true or seeming And that sympathie is somtimes grounded upon false love because we acknowledge our selves obnoxious to the same calamities and feare the like fortune Pitty is opposite to Envy for Envy is a displeasure conceived at another mans good but Pitty is a displeasure conceived at another mans harme The Passion of Pitty must be distinguished from the vertue that beares the same name for they are easily confounded The Pitty of the vulgar which is imputed to good Nature and Christian charity comes chiefely out of two causes The one is an errour in judgement whereby they reckon many things among the great goods which are good but in a very low degree and likewise many things among evills which are not evill Hence it is that those are most pittied that dye and the best men more then any as though death were evill to such men and they that lose their moneyes which are called goods as though they were the onely good things and they that lose their lands which are called an estate as though a mans being and well being were estated in them The other cause of the Passion of Pitty is a sickly tendernesse of mind easy to be moved wherefore women and children are more inclinable to it but the same tendernesse and softness makes them equally inclinable to choller yea to cruelty The people that seeth the bleeding carkasse of a man newly murthered is stricken with great pitty towards him who is past all worldly sorrowes and with great hatred against the murderer wishing that they might get him into their hands to teare him to peeces But when the fellon is put into the hands of Justice condemned and brought to execution then the heat of the peoples Passion is altogether for pitty to him and that pitty begets wrath against the executioner when he doth his office So easily doth the passion of vulgar soules pass from one contrary to another from pitty to cruelty from cruelty to pitty againe and from compassion for one to hatred for another But all these suddaine contrary motions proceed from one cause which is the tendernesse and instability of weake soules whose reason is drowned in passion and their passion is in perpetuall agitation But the Vertue of Pitty which is a limb of charity is a firme resolution to relieve our neighbour that stands in need of our help and it hath more efficiency then tenderness This is the Pitty of generous and religious spirits aspiring to the imitation of God who without feeling any perturbation for the calamities of men relieveth them out of his mercy And whereas the Passion of pitty is for the most part caused by the ignorance of the goodness and badness of things he that is lesse mistaken in them is also lesse inclined to that passion for he calls not that misery which others call so Nec doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti Or if a wiseman pitty one dejected by poverty it will not be his poverty but his dejected spirit that he will pitty And so of him that is weeping for a slander a wiseman will pitty him not because he is slandered but because he weepes for it for that weeping is a reall evill though the cause which is slander be but an imaginary evill He will labour to get such a firme soul that neither the good nor the evill that he seeth in or about his neighbours be able to worke any perturbation within him The world being a great hospitall of misery where we see wellnigh as many miserable persons as we see men if we were obliged to have a yearning compassion for all the miserable we should soone become more miserable then any of them and must bid for ever Adieu to the peace of the soul and contentment of mind It is enough to give power to our neighbours to command our counsell our labour and our purse in their need but to give them power over the firmeness of our soul to shake and enervate it at their pleasure it is too much Let us depend of none if it may be but God and ourselves Let none other have the power be it for good or evill to turne the sterne of our minde at his pleasure It must be acknowledged that Pitty as weake as it is hath more affinity with Vertue then any other Passion and turnes into vertue sooner then any That way weake soules handled with dexterity are brought to meekeness and charity and that way many Pagans have bin brought to the Christian verity We owe the great conversions to the sufferings of Martyrs
not deale with the body his subject as the worst of Tyrants do with their people whom they utterly ruine to keepe them in subjection That voluntary selfe depriving of the innocent conveniences of life is reproaching God as being too blame for making nature plentifull and delightfull and then placing man in the midst of his goods and giving him senses to relish them and reason to use them But the contrary fault is more dangerous and more ordinary to hunt after temporall goods with a rash eagernesse and when one hath them to lose the benefit of them by lavish intemperance or even to turne those goods into evills by getting them by ill meanes and using them to ill ends If Prosperity marre us it is but even with us for we had marred it before The true way to be content every where and purchase prosperity at an easy rate is to desire little and be contented with little Not he that hath most but he that desireth least is the richest The lesse a man desireth the lesse he wanteth and the more resemblance he hath with God who dedesireth nothing and wants nothing It is unjust for us to solicit the world to give us riches while we have meanes at hand to enrich ourselves without troubling the world which is To desire nothing Why should I aske of another that which I can give to myselfe But when all is said desire is naturall and will stretch itselfe upon something Now God alone is able to fill it He that hath fixed his love and desire upon God and is allready possest with him by faith may after that easily put that Philosophy to practise To desire nothing out of himselfe and to aske nothing of the world He may tell Fortune that he needs none of her gifts for having God he hath all But he that wants that possession which onely gives true satisfaction to the soul deceiveth the world and himselfe when he braveth Fortune and bids her to keepe her gifts to herselfe saying that he asketh contentment of none being able to give it to himselfe that he carryeth all his goods along with him that he is rich and free because he is master at home Truly if he that speakes so hath nothing but himselfe he is very weake and needy Yea unlesse he possesse God he cannot possesse himselfe and in that resolution to cut off his worldly desires wanting the satisfying object he is like him that makes a resolution not to come neere the fire though it freeze hard and himselfe be thin clad Whereas he that will cut his desires short being enricht with Gods grace is like him that will not come neere the fire because he is clad with warme furres To such a man rich in God it becomes well to say I will not beg wealth and comfort abroad since I may have it at home Finding tranquillity and sufficiency within my breast why should I make my selfe unquiet and needy by a greedy and worldly desire I will sweetly enjoy the temporall goods because they are Gods gifts and receive them at his good hand with thankfulness I will also indeavour to increase them by industry if I may without fraud to others and vexation of my selfe But I will importune no man to give me as long as I may obtaine of my selfe not to aske I will spare to others the paine to deny me and to my selfe the shame to be denyed having such a short way at hand to satisfie me which is To aske and desire nothing The less I court the world the less power shall I give it over me This Philosophy is easy to him that can say with David Psal 16.6 The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup thou maintainest my lot The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places yea I have a goodly heritage Moderation of desires makes prosperity sweet And that moderation is harder in prosperity for misfortunes rather breed feare then desire but good successes are bellowes that swell cupidity and cupidity making us depend of the future takes from us the enjoyment of the present For we enjoy not what we have when we complaine that we have not enough and reckon not what we have got but what we would get And because in Prosperity men will grow proud and forget what they are The higher that God raiseth our degree the more let us humble ourselves and keepe our mindes within the limits of modesty If advancements smile upon us let us thinke rather to tread surely then to make hast and to sit safe then to rise high As they say of Xanthus that being in drink he laid a wager that he would drink the whole Sea they that are drunk with prosperity are prone to undertake more then they are able to performe The Apostles precept hath need to be prest upon them Rom. 12.3 that no man think of himselfe more highly then he ought to thinke but think soberly When we stand on a high tower our stature is never the higher then when we walke on the ground but our braines is many times the weaker as being dizzy with the height So dignity and high prosperity doth not increase a mans capacity by raising his place but rather makes him wilde and giddy Whereas then prosperity makes men over-confident it ought to make them more cautious fearing least some of the windiness of the place where they stand get into their head Let them study to know themselves and the world that they may trust neither as things beyond the verge of their power and whose subsistence dependeth not of their will Let us looke upon the prosperities of this world as upon faire crystall glasses the clearer the frailer to day they shine to morrow they breake If you never trust them they will never deceive you Honours riches and temporal pleasures are but the outside and the barke of prosperity And it is a saplesse barke where a good conscience and reciprocal love betweene God and the soule is wanting But where that is either it brings outward prosperity or supplieth the want of it Psal 65.4 O God blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee We shall be satisfied with the goodnes of thy house even of thy holy temple CHAP. III. Of the exercise of Vertue in Adversity PRosperity and Adversity are neer neighbours for prosperity makes preparatives for Adversity by blinding mens minds with cupidity swelling them with pride and thrusting them forwards with rashnes whereby they cast themselves headlong into precipices and generally by making sinne to multiplie which drawes punishment from Gods justice Besides the inconstancy of humane things which in a moment turnes from faire to foule weather On the other side Adversity many times mends the harme done by prosperity for it represseth temerity opens the eyes blinded by Passion and brings the sinner to repentance Thereby making preparatives for prosperity which is never relisht till one hath bin schooled by affliction Then evill
subjected and united to His that in the midst of afflictions he finds Gods will good pleasant and perfect and saith Gods will bed one He is all good and all wise And since he is as absolute and irresistible in his power as he is good and wise in his will it would be as foolish a part for me to hope to overcome it as impious to offer to contradict it This is the principal counsel against all Adversity yea the onely for we should need no other if we were come so far as to have no will but Gods will But to that high counsel many inferiour counsels are subservient Such is this When God sends us adversity that we may not thinke it strange to be so used let us compare ourselves with so many others that are in a worse case If we be prisoners in ourowne Country let us remember so many Christians that are captives of the Turkes and Moores Have we suffered some losse in our estates we need not goe farre from home to see whole nations driven out of their antient possessions shut out of their Country and reduced to mendicity Are you lame of a legge Looke upon your neighbour that hath lost both his legges by a cannonshot Thus the evils of others will be lenitives to yours It is a wholesome counsell to be more carefull to keepe a reckoning of the goods that remaine with us then of those we have lost He that hath lost his land must thank God that he hath kept his health He that hath lost health and temporall goods must thank God that none can take from him the eternall goods And whosoever hath lesse then he desireth must acknowledge that he hath more then he deserveth It is the way to keepe ourselves in humility before God and men and in tranquillity at home and turne murmuring into thanksgiving And whereas the remembrance of dead friends and lost goods fill us with sorrow it ought to fill us with joy If the possession of them was pleasant why should the remembrance be sad Why should wee entertaine more sadness because we lost them then joy because we had them it is the ordinary unthankfulnes of the world to reckon all the goods of the time past for nothing At the least affliction a long course of precedent prosperity is lost and forgotten like a cleare streame falling into a sink and losing its pureness in ordure Let us thank God for all the good dayes of our life so may me make present ill dayes good by the remembrance of good dayes past and obtaine of God new matter of thanksgiving We must use the world as a feast using soberly and cheerefully the fare that is before us and when it is taken away We must rise and give thankes We may justly be taxed as greedy ghests unthankfull to the master of the feast that hath so liberally feasted us if we Grudge when he calls to take away instead of Thanking him for his good cheere As he is our magnificent Inviter he is our wise Physitian Sometimes he sets his good plenty before us sometimes he keepes us to short dyet Let us receive both with an equall and thankfull mind All his dealing with us is wisedome and bounty Here let us remember this Maxime which I layd before as a maine ground of our tranquillity that the things which we lose are none of ours else we could not have lost them We were borne naked all that was put about us since is none of ours Yea all that was borne with us is not ours Our health our limbs our body our life may be taken away from us by others We must not then reckon them as ours But our soul which cannot be taken away and the best riches of our mind are truly ours All losses and paines fall onely upon the least part of ourselves which is our body and the senses and passions that are most conjoyned unto it if we may call that a part of man without which a man is whole But the true man which is the soul is out of the worlds reach and with it all the Christian vertues For which reason our Saviour bids us not to feare them that can kill the body and cannot kill the soul To be much cast downe with temporall losses shewes emptiness of spirituall riches to be very impatient of the incommodities of the body shewes that one hath more commerce with the body then with themind else a man might find matter enough of joy in the soul to conterpoyse worldly losses and bodily paines As a body that hath the noble parts sound will easily inure it selfe to beare cold and heat and all the injuries of the aire Likewise he that hath a sound soul and is strong within in faith integrity divine love and right reason wherein the true health of the soul consisteth will easily beare with all Adversities and retiring within himselfe when he is assaulted without he will take care before all things that it may be well with his inside and that nothing there be put out of order by the disorders without That serene state of the soul is the fittest for the vertue of prudence and the exercise of it in Adversity For to get out of the difficulties of life wee must maintaine our judgement free and our conscience sound And if the Adversity be of such a nature that it be past the helpe of prudence such as are sharpe incurable paines yet there is none but may be eased by reason faith and the comforts of Gods love For what Life is short no evil is very great when it hath an end No bodily paine can last longer then our bodies and no Adversity of Gods children either of body or spirit can continue longer then life But the inward assurances of our peace with God and the sweet entertainment of his love to us and ours to him are earnests and beginnings of a felicity without end By them the soule shut up in this prison of flesh looks out with her head forth ready to flye away She riseth againe with Christ in this very world by a lively hope Col. 3.1 She seekes those things that are above where Christ is sitting in the glory of his father She is in heaven already and hath onely the body upon earth To this the afflictions of our body contribute much 2. Cor. 4.17 For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While wee looke not at the things which are seene but at the things which are not seene for the things which are seene are temporal but the things which are not seene are eternal for wee know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved wee have a building of God an house not made with hands ternal in the heavens This is a high point of resolution and joy in afflictions which pagan Philosophie could never reach to beare the afflictions of this life
will be but dissimulation and though it get us peace abroad it will not give us peace within My little children saith St. John let us not love in word neither in tongue but indeed and in truth 1. Ioh. 3.18 Then he addeth that hereby wee know that wee are of the truth and assure our hearts before God A text shewing that charity to our neighbours fills the minde with saith peace and assurance a doctrine justified by the experience of meek and charitable soules The same charity that unites us with Christ as our head unites us also with our neighbours as his members or at least as his creatures that beare his image In the one or the other of these relations we must love all men for Gods sake and render to them all possible duties of humanity To the practice of these duties we are more especially called by the necessity of our neighbours and by their vertue Necessity affords us a perpetual occasion of charity Matth. 26.11 For ye have the poore alwayes with you saith the Lord Jesus Others that are not poore in estate are poore in counsel or health or friends or comfort Let every body give of that he hath to him that hath not and he sheweth charity to the rich if he doe him good expecting no reward Workes of charity doe good both to him that is relieved and to him that relieveth But he that doeth good gets more reliefe by it then he to whom it is done for it is a thing more happy to give then to receive Act. 20.35 saith St Paul after Christ first because of the good treasure which is layd up thereby for the future Pro. 11.25 The liberal soul shall be made fat and he that watereth shall be watered also himselfe Giving charitably is casting a seed bringing an everlasting harvest It is sending up sweete vapours to heaven which are thickened there into a raine of blessings to showre downe upon the head of the charitable person To which we may joine the great and present content accrewing to the soule in the very act of giving for good workes give a ready pay to the doers This made Solomon to say The merciful man doeth good to his owne soul Prov. 11.17 for the workes of mercy give a great joy to the doer And he that gives his bread to the poore is more satisfied with it then he that eates it It is a divine felicity to doe good to many for it is the greatest imitation of God who gives to all and is never weary of doing good Herein onely dignities and riches are good that they enable a willing mind to doe much good As the necessity of our neighbours invites us to charity so doth their Vertue which is the better invitation The first sort of Charity which regards more the need then the worth of the person is humanity and mercy that which regardeth Vertue is friendship or at least a beginning of it Friendship to deserve fully that name must be reciprocall the parties loving one another dearely because they deserve it and because they see the graces of God each in the other Friendship that regards profit and pleasure deserveth not that name since it is neither for the love of God nor for the love of the person that such a Friendship is contracted but out of selfe-love Friendship cemented by Vertue and riveted by likeness in inclinations manners and opininions is the sweetest of all human things For besides counsell and mutuall help and the delight of enterchanging thoughts and discharging cares in the bosome one of another the union of affections and the assurance to be beloved of the beloved person is a content not to be exprest there is something heavenly in that harmony It is a little imitation of the union between the persons of the Trinity which make themselves happy by their mutuall love There is nothing neither in heaven nor in earth that giveth content but friendship Nothing is pleasant without it And if I were asked what is the greatest of all joyes I would say that it is to love and to be loved againe and know it But it must be acknowledged that this perfection and felicity is more in Idea then in reality among men and we must go higher then human Society to find it For whereas it is hard to find a vertuous man in the world it is harder to find two And it is harder yet to make these two meet in opinions in inclinations in interesses in place of habitation and in the like course of life for the want of one of these particulars hinders the knitting of the bond of friendship or makes it shortlived or abates the comfort of it The description which Pagan Philosophy forgeeth of perfect friendship is a fair imagination of an impossible thing They require two friends or three at the most but such as were never found endowed with perfect vertue That for that vertue these persons love one another without any other obligation or collaterall respect That these perfect soules be so plunged and blended one within another that they can not owne themselves singled and asunder That they be but one soul dwelling in severall bodyes That a friend give himselfe so absolutely to his friend that he live no more but for him yea in him and that his goods as himselfe be his friends whose interesses he wholly seekes not his owne I wonder that among Christian Philosophers none hath hitherto observed for any thing I know what it was that bred that Idea of friendship so high and remote from the nature of things in the fancy of Pagan Philosophers which yet placed vertue and felicity in living according to Nature why they have so universally adored that chimera which is found no where among men like the Athenians that had set up an Altar to the unknowne God This is then the origine and ground of that high imagination of those Pagans They had found by searching the nature of man that nothing can make him happy but love And that for a beatificall love a man hath need of an object all good all wise and all perfect so perfectly united with him yea so totally that both passe the one into the other and make a mutuall free and absolute gift of themselves But the poore men did not know that object of transcendent goodness onely worthy to be loved with all the heart and soul and if some of them acknowledged God to be the Soveraine good they beleeved not that he could have such a communication with man that both might enterchange a mutuall gift of their owne selves so that man should dwell in God and God in man Thinking not then that there might be a contract of friendship betweene God and man and seeing that it is friendship that must make man happy they forged that Idea of friendship betweene man man of which the condition of man is not capable requiring for that friendship that which indeed is requisite
he must looke for errour impertinency in al sorts of acquaintance let him put every one upon the discourse of those things that he understands best so shall he doe a kindnes to the company for every one loveth to speak of that wherein he is expert he shall benefit himselfe fetching from every one the best that is in him Let him also fit his minde for all kinds of buzinesses thinking none too great when they are not above his capacity for those affaires that have more dignity have not alwayes more difficulty And on the other side thinking no buzines too low when it is necessary or when it gives him occasion to doe good But in general let him charge himselfe with as few buzinesses as he can I meane those buzinesses that engage a mans minde in the tumult of the world without which he may find buzines enough to keepe him selfe well imployed Want of preferment is better than want of peace Let him avoyd those imployments that give vexation and yet draw envy where a man must continually stand upon his guard imbark himselfe in factions and live in perpetuall emulation and contention The man to whom God keepes the blessing of a quiet life shall bee kept by him from that glittering rack and golden fetters but the man whom he will aflict shall be given over to be tossed betweene the competition of others and his owne ambition David shewes us how great is Gods goodnesse which he hath layd up for them that fear him namely that he wil hide them in the secret of his presence from the pride of man he will keepe them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues Psal 31.19.20 But what there are some spirits that love noise and live by Contradiction and when old factions are worne out hatch new ones sowing quarrels that they may be sticklers and in such sort arbitrating differences as to make them immortall that so they may never want business To such men no worse imprecation can be made then that they may alwayes have the business which they love for as they serve the father of discord they are like to share in his reward But those are worthy of his compassion whose serene religious soules capable and desirous of high contemplation are aspiring towards the God of peace but are distracted with contentious businesses and prest down with worldly imployment though perhaps too high for their condition yet too low for mind which measuring the height of things by their distance from heaven finds the great Offices of the State very low because they are deeper in the earth and further from heaven then other Offices of an obscurer note Who would not pitty a great person that hath scarce time to eate and sleepe that must have a light brought to his bed to make dispatches before day and when he goeth to the Court hath much adoe to get out of his yard through the crowd of suitors and in that clogge of businesses what time hath he to examine the state of his conscience and labour to advance his union with God Where is any gaine able to countervaile that loss But there are more persons undone for want of businesses when they have not the capacity to find themselves worke of some utility especially when the love and feare of God have not taken root in their hearts For there being in the soul three Offices or audits the first for contemplation the second for passion and the third for action when a mans mind is unfit for contemplation wants action he giveth himself wholly unto passion Then a man tickleth himselfe with evill desires and vaine hopes gnawes his heart with envy and spite and torments himselfe with impatience these vices being bred and fed by idlenesse Such men having nothing to do devise evill or uselesse businesses going up and downe all day long like swallowes that flye round not knowing for what walking from one end of the Town to the other to visit one that will not be at home when they aske for him or is put to his shift to be rid of their company Of that kind are most of those that thrust one another in the street as buzy as if they had three Chancery suites to solicit then returne home late weary and sweating having found the invention to tire themselves and do nothing In effect an idle life is more painfull and wearisome then an active and negotious life It makes one sad troublesome and vicious He that doth nothing cannot but do evill as grounds left untilled will bring thistles But he that hath an ordinary employment of some utility to the publique hath no leasure to attend vaine and evill actions nor to be sad By doing good he contenteth his conscience and maintaines the serenity of his mind so that he embrace no more then he can hold They that will doe too much good do it ill and do harme to themselves It is a preposterous diligence when it brings vexation to a mansselfe Rich old men should do wisely to give over busy imployments of the world vvhich require a whole man to give themselves wholly to the office of man as he is a man and a Christian If they be speculative judicious and experienced men they may do more good to the world in their retirement then in the crowd of businesses They that lead an active life ought not to give but lend onely their mind to the businesses of the world A wise man will follow his worldly occasions with diligence and industry but he will not transubstantiate himselfe into them In our busiest imployments let us retire often within to enjoy God and ourselves labouring chiefly to preserve his favour and our peace Without these all labour is superfluous or evill and gaine becomes damage CHAP. VII Of Moderation in Conversation IT is a most necessary provision for any man that will lead a peaceable life in this age and these regions torne with diversity of parties Mens minds being so generally exulcerated that in casuall meetings either they cast a suspicious eye upon their Contreymen because they know them not or abhorre them because they know them Here then there is need of a meek compliant industrious and universall mind retired within himselfe and healed of that epidemicall itch of light-brained men to declare all their opinions and inclinations and quarrell with all that are otherwise disposed It is an old and usefull observation that God hath given us two eares and one mouth to teach us that we ought to heare more then speake To which it may be added that we have no eare-lids to keep our eares from hearing and often must heare against our will but our mouth shuts naturally and we may keep our tongue from speaking unlesse by our intemperance we lose that priviledge of nature God indeed hath not given us a tongue to hold our peace But that we may use it so that our neighbours may receive good by it and
them must be supplyed with serenity of mind and an easinesse inventive to frame to ourselves divertisements and make a pastime even of our misfortune If we may be merry it matters not upon what ground so it be not evill A serene mind that trusteth in God and doth good needs not look abroad for mirth He fetcheth mirth out of his owne stock To get the true taste of the outward contentments of life we wust but taste them not stretch our stomack upon them expecting our onely true contentment from God and within ourselves We must make use of all things and stay upon God alone The sense of Gods love and our reciprocall love to him give to the soul that onely true content but they take not from us the taste of the outward lawfull contentments of life Rather they give us that tast for to him that loves God and rejoyceth in his love all things looke pleasantly The certainty of his principall good keeps him so cheerefull that he takes contentment in in the smallest things as he that hath newly received tidings of great joy is well pleased with a coorse entertainment and delights even in those things that displeased him before CHAP. VII Conclusion Returne to the great principle of the Peace and Contentment of Mind which is to stick to God FRom these smal contentments let us remount to the great and principall and their stay It consisteth in the peace of God and union with him by faith and love There we began there we must end We have considered the world sufficiently to conclude that it consisteth in three poynts Vanity Wickednesse and Misery What is best in it is perishable When we have it in our hands it slips between our fingers and when it stayes with us yet it is none of ours since it is out of ourselves Among all the objects of our senses none is capable to give us a perfect and durable content Being thus unsatisfyed of all things without us if we enter within ourselves what satisfaction do we find in our nature we find errour in our opinions tumult in our passions hardness or terrour in our conscience when God dwells not in it by his grace Pagan Philosophers teach us indeed that within us or no where comfort is to be found But alas poore men they sought nothing within themselves but themselves And what is more weake more inconstant and more calamitous then man Then to this Philosophy one point is wanting which is all and that is to seeke God within us inviting him by humility repentance to choose his abode in our soules and there entertaining him with love and faith This is the only safe harbour for peace and contentment of mind Out of it there is nothing but storme The best worldly state is vanity and perplexity Of this Solomon is an excellent witness who having seene all the evill and tryed all the good of this world pronounceth this verdict Eccles 1.14 I have seene all the workes that are done under the Sunne and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit That great King having long enjoyed an unparallelled prosperity saith in the end that he hated life and hated all his labour Eccles 7.17 18. although his labour was to content himselfe being exalted to the highest Orb of power overflowing with plenty and swimming in delights What reason then have distressed men to hate their life and labour when they weare out their life in want in lawsuites in sicknesse and receiving no other salary of their vertue but envy and ungratefulness Wherefore that wise Prince having throughly considered all that is good and evill in this world and this life ends in this conclusion which he recommends to his Sonne Eccles 12.12 And further by these my Sonne be admonished Of making many bookes there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh Let us heare the conclusion of the whole matter Feare God and keep his commandements for this is the whole duty of man For God shall bring every worke into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evill So doth Solomon express that God is the center both of our duty and of our rest and happinesse and that the only safety and solid content consisteth in sticking fast to him There we finde refuge in our dangers confidence in our feares comfort in our sorrowes counsell in our perplexities light in darkenesse and life in death There we learne to make the right use of prosperity enjoying the gifts of God with cherefulnesse and simplicity not vexing ourselves with cares to keepe them or with covetousness to increase them There we get a gracious illumination to our understanding a rule to our will a bridle to our appetite a sincere joy in our conscience How great how unspeakable is that happinesse when our heart is turned into a Sanctuary where God himselfe is pleased to dwell and speak peace to our soul assuring us that he is reconciled towards us in his Beloved There he leads us into all truth helps up our weakeness instructs our ignorance raiseth us up when we fall and sets us againe in the right way when we are gone astray We are assaulted by many enemies but they that are for us are more then they that are against us since we haue alwayes the Lord at our right hand We are unwise but we have free accesse to the Soveraine wisedome to consult it at all times And many times that high wisedome preventing our consulting mends what we have marred by our folly Which present blessings are small being compared to our glorious hope That incomparable honour and wealth to be received into all the rights of Gods children that incorruptible crowne of life that fulnesse of joy in the enjoyment of Gods presence they are depthes not to be fathomed with mans thought But whereas for materiall things the extent of our sight is long the reach of our armes but short In things spirituall and eternal it is quite otherwise with us for the two armes of the soul which are love and faith reach much higher then the eye sight of reason can penetrate With these armes the godly soul layeth hold upon the celestiall goods which shee cannot see and with a lawfull hastinesse antedates in the present the possession of the glory to come That expectation makes the Christian to disgest any bitternesse and calmely passe by all the incommodities of life For he will say in his adversities This but a step of ill way to an eternall glory All these evils have an end and then begins a felicity without end Without looking so farre the present sense of the love of God to us breeding our reciprocall love to him and that mutuall embrace of God and the soule living yet in the flesh though as short of the perfect union with God as the highest mountaines come short of heaven yet brings to the soul a dignity and contentment beyond all expression It
is that peace of God which passeth all understanding and keeps our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ It is a transfiguration of the devout soul for an earnest of her glorification It is the betrothing of the Spouse with Christ and the contract before the marriage After that all the Empires of the world all the treasures of Kings and all the delights of their Court deserve not to be lookt on or to be named If that divine Embrace could continue it would change a man into the image of God from glory to glory and he should be rapt up in a fiery charet like Eliah To enjoy that holy Embrace and make it continue as long as the soul in the flesh is capable of it We must use holy meditations prayers and good workes These strengthen those two armes of the soul faith and love to embrace God and hold him fast doing us that good office which Aaron and Hur did to Moses for they hold up the hands of the soul and keep them elevated to heaven And seeing that God who dwelleth in the highest heavens dwelleth also in the humblest soules let us indeavour to put on the ornament of a meek quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 It is a great incouragement to study tranquillity of minde that while we labour for our chiefe utility which is to have a meek and quiet spirit we become of great price before God and therefore of great price to ourselves How can it be otherwise since by that ornament of a meeke and quiet spirit we put on the neerest likenesse of God of which the creature can be susceptible For then the God of peace abiding in us makes his cleare image to shine in the smooth mirrout of our tranquill soul as the Sunnes face in a calme water Being thus blest with the peace of God we shall also be strong with his power and among the stormes and wrackes of this world we shall be as safe as the Apostles in the tempest having Christ with them in the ship It is not possible that we should perish as long as we have with us and within us the Saviour of the world and the Prince of life The universall commotions and hideous destructions of our time prepare us to the last and greatest of all 2 Pet. 3.10 when the heavens shall passe away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the workes that are therein shall be burnt up In that great fall of the old building of Nature the godly man shall stand safe quiet and upright among the ruines All will quake all will sinke but his unmoved heart which stands firme trusting in the Lord. Psal 112.7 Mountaines and rocks will be throwne downe in his sight The foundations of the world will crack under him Heaven and Earth hasting to their dissolution will fall to pieces about his eares but the foundation of the faithfull remaines stedfast He cannot be shaken with the world for he was not grounded upon it He will say with Davids confidence Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord alwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth my flesh also shall rest in hope For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy holy One to see corruption Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore A Table of the Books and Chapters of this Treatise THE FIRST BOOK Of Peace with God Chap. 1. Of the Peace of the Soule pag. 1. Chap. 2. Of the Peace of Man with God in his integrity and of the losse of that peace by sinne pag. 6. Chap. 3. Of the Reconciliation of Man with God through Jesus Christ pag. 16. Chap. 4. Generall meanes to preserve that peace with God and first to serve God purely and diligently pag. 25. Chap. 5. Of the love of God pag. 35. Chap. 6. Of Faith pag. 45. Chap. 7. Of Hope pag. 49. Chap. 8. Of the duty of praising God pag. 53. Chap. 9. Of good Conscience pag. 59. Chap. 10. Of the exercise of good works pag. 66. Chap. 11. Of redressing our selves often by repentance pag. 72. SECOND BOOK Of Mans peace with himselfe by rectifying his Opinions Chap. 1. Designe of this Booke and the next pag. 77. Chap. 2. Of right Opinion pag. 80. Chap. 3. Of Riches pag. 87. Chap. 4. Honour Nobility Greatnesse pag. 92. Chap. 5. Glory Renowne Praise pag. 98. Chap. 6. Of the goods of the Body Beauty Strength Health pag. 104. Chap. 7. Of bodily pleasure and ease pag. 110. Chap. 8. Of the evils opposite to the forenamed goods pag. 116. Chap. 9. Of Poverty pag. 121. Chap. 10. Of low condition pag. 130. Chap. 11. Of dishonour pag. 134. Chap. 12. Of the evills of the body unhansomenesse weakenesse sicknesse paine pag. 136. Chap. 13. Of Exile pag. 142. Chap. 14. Of Prison pag. 144. Chap. 15. Husband Wife Childen Kinred Friends Their price their losse pag. 147. Chap. 16. Of Death pag. 155. Chap. 17. Of the Interiours of Man pag. 163. Chap. 18. Of the ornaments acquisite of the understanding pag. 177. Chap. 19. Of the acquisite ornaments of the will pag. 188. Chap. 20. Of the World and Life pag. 195. THIRD BOOK Of the Peace of Man with himselfe by governing his Passions Chap. 1. That the right Government of Passions depends of right Opinion pag. 205. Chap. 2. Entry into the discourse of Passions pag. 211 Chap. 3. Of Love pag. 214. Chap. 4. Of Desire pag. 231. Chap. 5. Of desire of Wealth and Honour pag. 237. Chap. 6. Of desire of Pleasure pag. 243. Chap. 7. Of Sadnesse pag. 248. Chap. 8. Of Joy pag. 257. Chap. 9. Of Pride pag. 265. Chap. 10. Of Obstinacy pag. 273. Chap. 11. Of Wrath pag. 278. Chap. 12. Of Aversion Hatred and Reuenge p. 289 Chap. 13. Of Envy pag. 298. Chap. 14. Of Jealousie pag. 305. Chap. 15. Of Hope pag. 309. Chap. 16. Of Feare pag. 313. Chap. 17. Of Confidence and Despaire pag. 319. Chap. 18. Of Pitty pag. 323. Chap. 19. Of Shamefacednesse pag. 327. FOURTH BOOK Of Vertue and the exercise of in Prosperity and Adversity Chap. 1. Of the Vertuous temper requisite for the peace and contentment of mind pag. 331. Chap. 2. Of Vertue in Prosperity pag. 344. Chap. 3. Of Vertue in Adversity pag. 357. FIFTH BOOK Of Peace in Society Chap. 1. Of Concord with all men and of meeknesse pag. 375. Chap. 2. Of brotherly Charity and of friendship pag. 387. Chap. 3. Of Gratefulnesse pag. 395. Chap. 4. Of Satisfaction of Injuries pag. 399. Chap. 5. Of Simplicity and Dexterity in Society pag. 402. Chap. 6. To have little company and few businesses pag. 412. Chap. 7. Of moderation in conversation pag. 421. SIXTH BOOK Some singular Counsels for the Peace and contentment of minde Chap. 1. To content our selves with our condition pag. 431. Chap. 2. Not to depend of the Future pag. 436. Chap. 3. To retire within our selfe pag. 443. Chap. 4. To avoyd Idlenesse pag. 448. Chap. 5. To avoid curiosity in divine matters pag. 451. Chap. 6. Of the care of the body and other little contentment of life pag. 458. Chap. 7. Conclusion Returne to the great principle of the peace and contentment of mind which is to stick to God pag. 468. FINIS