by their Priests and Poets who made Gods of Men and Men of Gods attributing Divine Virtues to their Hero's and Humane Vices to their Deities Yea the Philosophers who justly condemn them for this double Impiety yet fall short of the Glory of God gazing on him at a great distance and retaining this Knowledge as a Secret or Mystery in Nature being indeed afraid of the People who were prepossessed with their own Idolatry which was the Religion of the Statâ— and therefore might not be contradicted or disputed And it is observable of all such Nationall Religions that they may be more safely abused then denied The Poets were allowed to corrupt their Divinity with their Fables rather then the Philosophers to reduce it to Truth Socrates himself so far complied with this Policy of State that he prescribed to worship God according to the manner of the Country subjecting the rule of Gods worship to the Laws and Customes of Men which shows the weakness of the highest Philosophy in the practicall part of Religion which is the life and strength thereof Whereas the Apostle directly encounters the Athenian Idolatry and plainly preaches unto the People the Doctrine of the true Deity of Creation Providence Sin Redemption Repentance Resurrection and the last Judgement All false Religions are most Cabalisticall and reserved thereby seeking to gain the reputation of Sacred and are satisfied with a vain Admiration and blind Devotion but true Religion freely and clearly reveals it self to the world not concealing the most difficult points and Mysterious parts thereof though sublime Truths be most offensive to weak Minds Immanis verit as proxima est mendacio that is in their apprehensions who cannot well undestand it yet being sure of it self and like a great Light impossible to be hid it shines forth in its own beams and fears not to appear as it is however men may entertain it The Jews and Christians had commonly a more familiar knowledge of the highest points in Divinity then the greatest Philosophers and though all do not express the power efficacy thereof yet some Holy men have exceedingly transcended the best of Heathenish Devotion But nothing more discovers their weak Knowledge of true Piety then their ignorance of the true nature of Sin which is the contrary or privation thereof They speak of it generally under the notion of Vice as it is a depravation of Nature and common Enemy to Mankind but rise not to the Infinite aggravation thereof which is the transgression of the Roiall Law of an Infinite God and a direct opposition of the Creature to the Creator wherein the very Sinfulness thereof doth consist as David clearly saw and confessed Against thee thee only have I sinned So likewise all their Doctrine of Moral Virtue whereof they so much boast tendeth to their own Praise and Merit the Good of others and the perfection of the Universe rather then the Glory of God which is the only Religious and Supreme End infusing Holiness into all inferior actions by subordinating them to it self True Religion consists in a true Belief and true Love of God There is in all men some kind of Belief of God but being conscious to themselvs they fly from him as their greatest Contrary as it is said of the Divels They believ and tremble This terror and trembling puts Atheists upon a strife and endeavor within themselvs to cast off their Belief which yet they can never do but that at some time or other it will recoil upon them with greater trouble and horror of Mind It makes the Superstitious to fear and worship God as a severe Master in a base and servile manner with the drudgery of Duties especially such as are most rigorous and cruell It makes Hypocrites to bribe their Own Consciences and flatter God with a show of Holiness which is rather a worshipping of Men then God Thus Poets frame a Religion according to their own Fansy and Philosophers according to their imperfect Reason and Statesmen shape it according to Policy and Reason of State and the Religious dress it up in severall forms and fashions according to Tradition and their own Humors and naturally every man propounds to himself such a Religion as will serve his own turn and whereby he may be sure to be saved yea some are so uncharitable to exclude all others which are not exactly of their size But the summ and substance of true Religion is contained in that great Commandement Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Hart with all thy Soul and with all thy Might This Love unites the Soul to God with infinite Joy and Delight in him which is the highest enjoyment of the Chief Good and the perfect Happiness of Man II. Of Faith REason is most properly exercised in things of Nature and Faith in matters of Religion it being the Echo of Divine Authority yet not meerly as an Echo which reporteth the sound without any sense of Hearing nor the Echo of a Parasiticall assentation Ais aio negas nego which is a Flattery furthest from Belief nor the vulgar Implicite Faith depending upon the Authority of men but an Intellectuall assent and a Voluntary consent to that which is reveled by God Our Great Wits set up Reason instead of Faith and the light of Nature against Divine Light which is at once to deprive man of his highest Faculty and God of his greatest Grace As if because a Dog usually hunts by Sent we should deny that he can see by Sight Faith in generall is as naturall to a Man as Reason and he may aswell know by Believing as by Discoursing yea it is a more clear and certain knowledge of the very Objects of Reason then Reason it self by relying on a Divine Authority Through saith faith the Apostle we understand that the Worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear which yet may be comprehended by the strength of naturall Reason for he saith elsewhere That the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his eternall power and Godhead but the same VVord which created the VVorld creates a Belief in a spirituall Understanding Belief is in this life in stead of Intuition shall at last be resolved into it Naturalists admire Socrates and cry him up for an high Instance of the sufficiency of naturall Light to instruct a man in the way of true Virtue and Piety and they willingly admit of those Inspirations of a God or Daemon whereof he speaketh and yet will not allow the like to Christians in the ordinary way of a spiritual Belief Faith and Reason like Antipodes seem contrary but both meet in their Center Truth Right Reason leads us to Faith but leavs us there and resigns us up to it If God were not omnipotent he could not justly not reasonably command us to believ
and this extraordinary expence of spirits ends afterward in a greater weakness Besides in Man there may be another reason more strange then the former which is that the mind by doubting and disputing gives a check to the full free delivery of Bodily Strength whereas in such cases Reason is suspended and the same power doth many times effect that by a nimble impulse which it could never do by a dull contention Prudent Caution is an hindrance in Action yet in that it prevents the occasion it is better then Strength the confidence whereof betrays us to Duels and Dangers The other which is the Strength of Bearing is as necessary in the life of man as the former yea in all bodily action there is some striving and suffering especially if there be a want of natural ability Lameness adds pain to weakness and a crooked back is its own burden A hardy carcase is a strong Brest-work or Fortification to the soul Hardiness in the one being analogous to Patience in the other yea the former facilitates the latter and many times saves it the labor No Bodily Suffering in this life can be extream for when it exceedeth nature yieldeth and giveth up the Ghost and as long as she affordeth strength it is baseness not to bear He who inures his Body to Suffering beforehand hath so much the less to endure afterward so that it comes not upon him all at once But Mans Happines cannot consist in Bodily Strength it being not seated in his Spiritual but in his Corporeal part Reason as hath been shewed may hinder Strength by Caution and declination or otherwise back it with a good Resolution and wisely manage it with Discretion but adds no sensible forâ—e to it Nor doth the mind act its own body as an Angel doth an assumed carcase Yet hath Nature armed man with such a proportion of Strength by which with the advantage of his Wit he is able to tame or subdue any Beast at School-play as we say with Instruments and Engines though not by downright Blows Thus I esteem Archimedes a stronger man then Milo for he by his Engines could perform far more then the other by his Arms and so was Caesar a greater Souldier then either Hercules or Achilles really effecting greater things by a wise conduct of his affairs then are fabled of the others and perhaps the Monopoly of Gun-powder when it was first invented might have effected more then them all and conquered the whole World As for this strength of enduring Man hath naturally less of it then most of Beasts not only as he is more tenderly bred and his Body mollified with warm clothing but in his very constitution being more infirm in his Infancy and more decrepit in his Old Age. VIII Of Beauty STrength is a Tyrant but Beauty a naturall and lawfull Prince born to reign as the Philosopher observeth There is a kind of naturall Magike in it which bewitcheth us we know not how as ingenious Xenophon in the person of Critobulus elegantly expresseth it The very first sight and presence of it attracteth the eies of every beholder like the sudden appearance of a Candle in a dark room It is the most excellent Object of the most excellent Sense the darling of Fansy which tradeth in Images and Idea's within and meeting with such curious pieces abroad entertaineth them with great delight And if it were true that the Soul is the Architect of its own Body as certainly the Body is prepared and fitted for the Soul it were a very good reason why it should so much delight in the beautiful composure of anothers Body which it intended in its own as an Artist is much affected with any excellent Work of the same kind This Venus of Beauty is the Mother of vulgar Love and so also of that which they call Heroicall though the Graces attend her and Virtue the true Beauty of the soul bear her company yet she usually acts the chief part in the Play but alwaies the first the very Picture of Philoclea first enamoured Pyrocles By it saith Siracides Love is kindled as with a flame It is the chief ingredient in Loves Philtrum which so much enchanteth the minds of men ravishing and transporting the soul and putting it into a strange extasy of delight and is indeed the chief of all sensuall pleasures the inmost Bower in Fools Paradise as Ausonius describeth it Myrtrus amentes ubi lucus opacat Amantes where they live together in the secret shade of wanton Vanity and pleasing Madness Surely this most generous and glorious Affection was never intended by God and Nature for so mean an Object nor for any created excellency but for him who is the Beauty of all Beauties to whom Solomon in his Canticles doth rightly apply it and the blessed Spirits in Heaven perfectly exercise and enjoy it in their Beatificall Vision But vain men having set their hearts upon an Earthly Beauty Idolize it with a Divine Love and we may observ them in their courting and dallying still to run out into Deifying Complements and Divine Adoration which plainly shews that the naturall Instinct and Inclination of Love ascends toward a Divinity but being thus debased by Lust is prodigally spent upon an inferior Object Yet this created Beauty is a chief excellency of Nature and a Beam of that Infinite Brightness As the erect Posture of Mans Body so his Face which is the chief part thereof being composed of greater variety of curious Lineaments and fairer Colors is more excellent then any Beasts Generally all kind of Beauty is of great esteem In building or furnishing of an House the Show and Sight cost as much as Conveniency In Apparell Fashion and Comeliness are as dear as Usefulnes Handsomeness in an Horse doth as much advance his price as Goodness In Civill conversation Formosa facies muta commendatio est bespeaking and gaining favor and good will which is no small advantage in humane affairs and certainly the greatest of worldly comforts Absolom gained much upon the People by his Beauty It preferred Alcibiades to the love and care of his Master Socrates It endeareth Children to their own Parents and is many times a sufficient Portion in Marriage It prevails much by its own proper authority but is an excellent setter off to great Fortunes and true Virtues as Varnish to Colors or the refraction of Light upon Metals But the vanity thereof doth sufficiently appear in it self being but a meer Superficies of the Body which is the far meaner part of Man and not so much as skin deep as some allow it for turn the skin outward and it will appear to be the Reverse of all Beauty and a most horrid Spectacle of Bloud and Rawness So that indeed this beautifull Idoll is not much more then the reflection of it from the Glass which is but a meer Spectrum or Shadow Either Beauty is no reall excellency or rather Fansy which is the Judge thereof is such a
infuseth an Infinite Virtue into all his merits and is able to regenerate aswell as redeem doth most perfectly sute with our necessities and fully supply them His own Doctrine Life and Death are the best Arguments of his Divinity yet doth he not want other testimonies The Sacrifices of the Patriarchs and the Jewish Types did prefigure him The Prophets were his Harbingers to bespeak places and seasons for him The Martyrs his Heralds to proclaim him to the World dying in that Belief which the nature of Man so much opposeth and the whole World either hath or shall both persecute and embrace it The third great Mystery is our Union with God and Christ who hath praied that we might be one as he and his Father are one not Essentially nor Personally but Spiritually so as no other Creature is united to God For Man being made last of all the Creatures as the summ and Epitome of the rest Christ by taking upon him the Humane Nature invested himself with the whole World and though he hath purchased all the inferior Creatures for the use of Man and the Elect Angels as ministring Spirits may partake of a Confirmation in their good estate yet the Conjugall Union is contracted between God and Mankind in a more speciall and immediate manner Nor is this a Naturall Union such as was that between Adam and all his Posterity whereby sin is derived to them but Spirituall by a more particular personall application Christ apprehending us by his Spirit and we him by Faith Now as the Union of God and the Soul is that wherein our Happiness consists so this being the highest neerest Union advances Man to a further degree therof then any other Creature whatsoever And this is the highest Evidence of the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ. For God being Infinite and the whole World Finite and so Infinitely below him though after he had perfected the first Creation he rested from his Works yet he rested not in them as in his Son whom he begat from all Eternity in whom he only rests satisfied and declared from Heaven that he is well pleased And though he pronounced them very good that is in their kind yet in respect of himself who only is truly and Infinitely Good they are all as Vain and Null But Jesus Christ thus Espousing the Creation and Endowing it with his Infinity gathers up all in himself so presents both together as an Object Infinite and adaequate to his Father Let us therefore entertain this blessed Savior with the full embraces of our Soul and think no other thing worthy our affections who have such a glorious Object presented unto us When we read the Histories of mighty Kings and the great Captains of the World our Minds are filled with honorable thoughts of them and we applaud them with great delight The very Romances of Heroike Love work strangely upon our Fansies and we are ready with the Tyrant to wish over selvs a part in them whereas here we have the only Son of God the King of Glory the mighty Conqueror of Principalities and Powers yea of Death and Hell and Sin triumphing over all the strength of Evill the chiefest among ten thousand yea fairer then the Children of men The brightness of his Fathers Glory and express Image of his Person who having set his hart on the most wretched and deformed Soul of Man left his Fathers Court laid aside his Roiall Robes taking upon him not the Disguise but the Form of a servant living in the meanest and laying down his life in the basest and most cruell manner for her sake whose Love was less then her Desert and Enmity against him greater then her Misery Espousing her to himself and at once infusing both Love and Beauty putting his own Crown upon her Head and so bringing her home to his Fathers House to live with himself in eternall Bliss This is the high Perogative of Divine Love to love the Unlovely and make them Lovely to purchase the Poor and make them Rich to affect the Unwilling and make them Willing to pity the Miserable and make them Happy O my Lord and my God! thou Beauty of all Beauties and Perfection of all Perfections The God of Love yea Love it self Teach me the Law of Divine Love and enflame me with this Celestiall flame inspire me with thine own Spirit and let me live in thy Life rejoycing in the pure fountain of thy Ioy and resting in the Bosom of thy eternall Rest. VI. Of the Spirit WE enjoy God only in Christ and Christ only by the Spirit As the Spirit of God in the first Creation moved upon the face of the waters and brought forth the perfect Beauâ—â— thereof out of a Chaos of confusion and the same Spirit formed Christ himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin so he bringeth forth Grace out of the Chaos of sin and formeth Christ in us regenerating us unto eternall Life Though the Spirit be a sure witness of its own work where it is yet it is a most easy thing to mistake the spirit of Satan or our own spirit for it where it is not Socinians and men of Reason esteem Faith only to be Fansy and Enthusiasts set up Fansy in stead of Faith as the Poet well expresseth it Aut Deus aut sua cuique Deus sit dira cupido There is a Spirituall Drunkenness and Madness which in some is so strong and prevalent that it ends in a naturall Madness and distemper of the brain which is hurt and tainted with the vehement impression of these Imaginations as much as with the Fansies of Carnall Love or Pride or any other violent affections which commonly distract men Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit saith the Apostle shewing that in Wine and in all the spirits of Creatures there may be excess and inebriatiation only the Spirit of God doth fill and satisfy the Soul with Spirituall Grace which yet some who would seem more Spirituall then others least regard and rather affect extraordinary and miraculous Gifts which have ceased long since having been chiefly exercised in three extraordinary seasons and upon extraordina-occasions by Moses who delivered the Law to the Iews by Elias and Elisha who restored the Law which they had made void and lastly by Christ and his Apostles who preached the Gospel with the last of whom they seem to have expired for soon after when the ceasing of the Heathenish Oracles was objected by the Christians against Iulian the Apostate he retotred upon them the ceasing of their Prophecies Some suppose that these extraordinary Gifts shall be restored unto the Church when she shall be fully recovered out of the Antichristian Eclips but why might we not rather expect to have found them in our first Reformers Luther was a man of an extraordinary Faith and yet wrought no Miracles The Anabaptists at the same time affected them and pretended to them but were found
AN ESSAY OF THE True Happines OF MAN In Two Books BY SAMUEL GOTT of GRA. I. ES. LONDON Printed by Rob. White for Thomas Vnderhill at the Blew-Anchor in Pauls Church-yard near the little North-Door 1650. The First Book I. OF True Happiness 1 II. Of the Degrees of Happines 8 III. Of Perfect Happiness 13 IV. Of the Vanity of all Worldly things 20 V. Of the Goods of the Body 25 VI. Of Health 30 VII Of Strength 35 VIII Of Beauty 40 IX Of the Goods of Fortune 46 X. Of Riches 52 XI Of Pleasures 61 XII Of Honor. 66 XIII Of the Goods of the Mind 71 XIV Of Learning 77 XV. Of Wisedome 83 XVI Of Philosophy 90 XVII Of the Sceptikes and Cynikes 98 XVIII Of the Cyreniakes and Epicureans 108 XIX Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes 115 XX. Of the Platonikes and of Socrates 125 The Second Book I. OF Religion 135 II. Of Faith 142 III. Of the Scriptures 148 IV. Of God 154 V. Of Christ. 163 VI. Of the Spirit 174 VII Of a Christian Life 183 VIII Of Nature 191 IX Of Providence 198 X. Of Prosperity 206 XI Of Adversity 213 XII Of Death 220 XIII Of Sin 229 XIV Of the Restuaration of the Soul 237 XV. Of Graces 248 XVI Of Duties 254 XVII Of Conscience 261 XVIII Of the last Iudgement 270 XIX Of Hell 278 XX. Of Heaven 288 The Preface I Beg no Patronage I need no Apology Truth is the best indeed only true Patroness if in any thing I have offended her let it be as a Null among Ciphers and signify nothing As Popish Writers use to say concerning the Church and Fathers If any thing be writ or said against them let it be unwrit and unsaid Though I should seem to Apologise it shall not be for any thing I have writ but only for writing in an Age wherein Letters are either neglected or distasted We have lately surfetted of Knowledge and now disgorge and nauseate it or if any Books be read they are only such as we disdain to read twice Pamphlets and Stories of Fact or angry Disputes concerning the Times In times of Action whosoever would appear considerable and make any moment in Business must pursue one of the Extremes and desperately run up to the hight of it so in Writing Preaching or the like to speak plausibly of the Times or vehemently to oppose them most advanceth Fame and Followers Yea in all other Times either to Flatter Princes and humor the Vices and Vanities of the Age or Satyrically to lash them hath been the common Art of Writing which I wittingly waive and leave to others Sober and Solid Truth passes on in a streight Line through the Crowd of Errors and Confusions without any great noise or show of it self Besides good Books as they are profitable so they are very chargeable We may not call them our own when we have bought them nor when we have read them To understand them rightly didicisse fideliter will cost almost as much as to indit̄e them and to practice them far more Men think it sufficient to turn over the Leavs but never care to gather the Fruit without which a Book is wholly lost writ and read to no purpose For my own part though I know writing of Books to be a very mean employment and of no great efficacy when such writing as the famous Talbot set on his Sword Pro vincere inimicos meos is by many counted the best Logike and Rhetorike and most authentike yet I am content to make use of it because I have no better antidote against Idleness and the inconveniencies thereof Having often consulted with my self how a man might live most happily both here and hereafter I used to commit my Thoughts to Writing finding by experience that as Meditation is the Glass of the Soul so Writing steels it and strengthens the Reflection representing our scattered Notions in a more entire and exact manner and imprinting them first on our own spirits I have lately collected my loose Papers and digested them into Method and now present them to the publike view that so others if they please may share with me and if I may communicate some considerable benefit to any one Reader I shall account my endeavours very well bestowed However they shall return into my own Brest and be alwaies welcome at Home The first BOOK Of the True HAPPINES Of MAN I. Of True Happiness HAppiness is the Life of Life and the Enjoyment of all our Good things Enjoyment begins in Knowledg Happy men if they Knew it is a common exprobration and in part true of all There is none who hath not something more then Hope left in the bottom of Pandroa's box at least so much as to maintain him in that state of Hoping which every man should improve to his best advantage and make the most of a little On the contrary Sentiat se mori was a torture as like Hell as the wit of man could invent Knowledge is the view of things and Contemplation the review and gazing on them bathing and soaking the Mind throughout with more piercing and fixed apprehensions Thus a Covetous man enjoys his treasures by counting and studying them as he in Horace Nummos contemplor in arca Admiration is more then Contemplation extending the Mind to the very utmost capacity yea in some sort transporting it beyond it self by wondering at that which it cannot comprehend These beget Love which is an Appetite of union Knowledge presents the Object to the Soul but Love resigns the Soul to the Object embracing and mingling with it and so sucks out all the sweetness that is in it This heat of Love begets Joy and Delight as a flame of Light flowing from it and this Rejoycing in the Object is the most perfect Enjoyment thereof True Happiness consists both in the true Taste of the Soul and also in the truth of the Thing it self An ingenious Poem or pleasant Fable made only to take the ear raise quicker affections in the mind of the Reader then the bare nakedness of more profitable Truth There is indeed a truth of Art in witty fictions which is reall matter of delight yet it argues great vanity to be more affected with the Embroidery of an artificial Ly then with the Plain work of better Instructions There are other meer deceptions The outward Senses deceiv the Fansie and which is more strange the Fansie can deceiv the very Senses and operate on them as much as the Thing it self not only as in a Dream but when they are waking and most intent He who sate in the empty Theater and seemed to see most wonderfull Tragedies was in a farther degree of vanity then common Spectators who contemplated an Hercules or Achilles or a great Prince in the person of some mean fellow whom they knew to be most unlike to them but his Fansie was both Spectator and Actor which is a double delusion I do not think as Avicenna
that Fansie can work miracles or as Paracelsus that it can create any thing but though it cannot form a Being it can frame a Fantasm acting it within its own Theater and also delude the Senses by it which is as much as it receiveth from them even of those things which we really see or hear For the Thing it self remains without us where it was and that which comes to the Fansie is only a Show or Apparition thereof Thus Fansie irritateth the Bodily Humors and provoketh the Affections and those Imaginary Objects of Joy or Fear may as really affect the Mind as if they were reall But the worst of all are Intellectuall Errors and false Judgments for these seduce the Mind it self which being rectified would correct the inferior Faculties and betray us to vice and sin As the Heathen worshipped almost all things eminently delectable or formidable Pleasures War Diseases Riches Honor Virtue Princes a Good and Bad Genius Gods Supernall and Infernall and any thing rather then the true Deity so we still commit morall Idolatry with the same things by our fals opinions and adoration of them Contemplation of any vain thing as of a Beauty or the like doth strangely infect the soul tainting and dying it with the Image of the Object But above all vain Admiration ravisheth most I call that a vain Admiration which is not grounded upon Knowledge but meer Ignorance such as would be abated by a right Undestanding As he who sees only what is presented on the Stage is more affected with the Show then they in the Tiring room whose eys are conscious to the dressing personating of the Actors Thus to admire nothing was by the Philosophers whose ambition was to know all things in their causes made a chief part of true Happiness whereas the Admiration of things truly admirable is a farther degree of Happiness when we rationally know by what may be known that there is more excellency in the Object then we do or can know and therefore justly admire it So we admire the Divine Glory which is the highest enjoyment we can have of the Infinity thereof All these are only Juglings and deceptions of the Mind but vain Love bewitcheth and wholly possesseth it and the Delight which it causeth is as fals and vain for there can be no true Happiness in being deceived nor doth the Pleasure extend further or last longer then the Delusion A Dream may satiate Imagination but cannot fill the Belly and when a man wakes he finds himself more hungry and unsatisfied These Enchantments of the Mind dissolv in a moment at the presence of Truth who as she is the Daughter of Time will at last arise like a bright Sun and chase away all those vain shadows In the mean time the more we are ravished with the sense of any fals Happiness and thereby withdrawn from that which is true we are so much the more truly Unhappy II. Of the Degrees of Happiness HAppiness is founded in Knowledge and therefore only Knowing Creatures are capable thereof and according to their severall degrees of Knowledge they are capable of severall degrees of Happiness There are many Worlds in one and severall Shows and Faces of the same things The first and lowest is the gross Body of Heaven and Earth which though to us it appear glorious and beautifull is in it self dark and dull and without apprehension The Iron seems to embrace the Loadstone with great delight and to be rapt with an amorous Extasie so as Thales thought it animall and yet that motion is as void of the least sense of pleasure as the common inclination of Gravity to the Center The next is a World of Sense which is a Theater of Species and Emanations arising from the former being purified and sublimated to the hight of Sense which by a conjunction with them begets a lively and sprightfull delight The least Bee finds more pleasure in making and tasting a little Honey then the Sun all the self moving Planets in their perpetuall Courses benign Influences or the Plants in their most flourishing Vegetations Another World is the Shop of Fansie which is a faculty more spirituall then Sense refining and composing the simple Species thereof into various forms and figures and as it thus works within doors so it also apprehends the Beauty and Composure of exterior objects which is greater matter of delight then to view them at large It hath also a power of Meditating Admiring which is an higher kind of enjoyment then Sense Naturalists suppose Insects and some such Animals to be wholly without Imagination but certainly the more perfect enjoy it in a very notable degree That Discourse whereof they seem to partake is only the work of Fansie and a collation of sensitive notions Yet though Beasts excell Man in his outward Senses he probably excels them all in Imagination it being a faculty in the next degree to Reason and much advanced by it Hence we so far exceed them in all Mechanicall Artifices Nature hath furnished us with Hands as fit Instruments for such Workmen and so with a larger portion of this Ingenious faculty to direct and manage them Certainly Man hath more acquaintance with the Graces and doth not only enjoy much pleasure in the apprehension of Beauty Harmony Elegancy but also in the very prevarications therof we admire strange Deformities and behold them with Mirth and Delight and are much affected with Humors and â—ooleries which are as Satyrs or Monsters of the Mind Therfore Nature hath bestowed on us Laughter to express some extraordinary Affection whereof no other Sensitive Souls are capable This excellency of Fansie though somewhat above the nature of Beasts is yet below Reason and Judgment for many men who have least thereof excell in the other by a certain naturall aptness and felicity Beyond this Sphere of Fansie is the Intellectuall Orb or World of Intelligences which is an Academy of Sciences furnished with higher and more abstracted Notions whereby the Mind discovers the very Idea and Module of Nature and her wise Government by Causes and Effects the Law of Reason and Policy the being of Spirits and Divinity it self Out of this Intellectuall World Beasts are wholly excluded Language is the chief Instrument of a Rationall Life which they want As in Speaking or Books they may hear and see what is Sensible namely the Sound and Letters but understand not what is signified by them so though they hear the same Voice of Nature and view the same Book of the World with us yet they understand not the Intelligible or Philosophicall part thereof which is a Scene of things as far above Sense as that is above Vegetation Adam had a larger share of Paradise then the Brutes though he fed like them on Herbs and Fruits and joyed more in contemplating their Natures and translating them into fit Names then we now do in feasting on their Carcases Man chiefly excells in these
wanton Spirit that it is not alwaies constant to it self for it is not only variously apprehended by severall men as it is said the Aethiopians paint the Devill white but the same persons at severall times variously judge of it The Persians highly esteemed an Hawk-Nose because their Cyrus was so shaped Alexanders Courtiers wried their Necks like him and the Roman Ladies affected the color of Poppaea's Hair The Irish do the like and we alter the cut of our Heads and Beards almost every year and I am perswaded if it were as much in our power we should have as many new fashions and changes of our Bodies as we have of our Garments and Attires But whatsoever the true value of Beauty may be surely the owner enjoyeth it only at the second hand either from the Glass as the Flower thereof or from the favor of others which is the best Fruit it yieldeth IX Of the Goods of Fortune THE Gifts of Fortune are the Good things of the great Body of the World and are of three sorts Riches Objects of Pleasure and Titles of Honor which one rightly terms the Worlds Trinity Ambitiosus Honos Opes Foeda Voluptas Haec tria pro trino Numine Mundus habet These three make up the whole Inventory of Fortune and are all summed up in a Crown or the Roiall State which the Heathen called the fairest Gift that the Gods bestowed on mortall men Besides it hath a peculiar Prerogative which is that Grandeur or Supremacy which we commonly call Majesty whereof no inferior condition is capable Princes are in this sense more then men Political Giants like Briareus having an hundred hands yea thousands and millions of hands with all which they act good or ill Regum ingenia sunt fata temporum We cannot well discourse of the goods of Fortune without this which is the greatest of all and because it is the summary of them eminently including all in it self we will particularly insist on it not as a Civill Institution though of the best kind but as a Personal Felicity which is so great and so much admired by other men that the labour lies most on the other hand to demonstrate the Vanity thereof The World hath always declaimed against usurping Tyrants and Philosophers have as much cried down their happiness They are Kings of a Bastard kind which yet commonly afterward obtain a Legitimation Certainly Tyranny even in lawfull Princes is as great a misery to themselvs as to the people It is the happiness of Christ's Kingdom That his people shall be willing in the day of his power The love of the Subjects makes Soveraignty pleasant without which it is like the Kingdom of Satan a very Hell of Disorder and Discontent All men admire a Crown because they see the lustre but feel not the weight of it this seems lighter because they never wore it and that greater then it is because they cannot wear it we naturally admire that which we cannot attain as well as that which we cannot understand looking upon it as Peculiar and Sacred Therefore it is a very hard thing to give a clear demonstration of the Vanity of this opinion which cannot be confuted by experience The Spanish Page who in a high distemper of Fansy imagined himself a great Emperor and was maintained in that Humor by his Lord had some kind of tast thereof The Scripture expresseth the greatest Glory and Pomp of Princes in no better a Phrase then Much Fansy There are some more reall tasts of Royalty which any private man may have Every Master of a Family is a King within doors The best pedigree of lawfull Monarchy is from it and Princes still affect to be called Fathers of the Country Though Families are subordinate to Kingdoms yet it is true of Kingdoms as well as of them Omne sub regno graviore regnum est the greatest Potentates are not Omnipotent but as much crossed in their wills as others who as they have lesser Abilities so they have lower Designs Thus may private men Degustare Imperium even that Empire which is without them and over others but certainly every man may be Rex Stoicus a King in his own Microcosm which he who knows how to rule well may despise a Crown But the most satisfactory Evidence is that which may be collected from Princes themselvs especially such who have had the experience of a Private life and so can best judge of both Such commonly prove the ablest and the wisest enjoying and improving Roialty to the utmost Sylla the Happy laid aside his Dictatorship because he esteemed a Private life more Happy Augustus was partly of the same mind and deliberated about it but not so confident As Periander said of Tyranny It was a hard thing to keep and dangerous not to keep Our common saying is very true That the best Condition of life is between a Constable and a Justice of Peace if the Constable and the Justice would support such in that middle estate but commonly men in Office take a pride and a delight in oppressing Private men they think Justice but an ordinary and dull thing Injustice is more eminent and extraordinary so that many wise men who would fain live quietly are necessitated to accept of Authority and part with some of their Happiness to secure the rest Yet Dioclesian though he judged it absolutely necessary to continue the Empire voluntarily left it and would never after reassume it though he were highly threatned to it In Iulius Caesar himself who professed it his Chief Good to be Chief Insultare omnium capitibus and had rather be the best man in a Parish as we say then second in the City of Rome yea was not contented with the Thing unless he might also have the Name of a King which partly intimates the Vaniâ—y thereof we shall find Venus and the Muses among his chiefest delights and there is no Prince who hath been eminently addicted to either of them but hath placed them among his greatest pleasures Now the one being the naturall pleasure of the Body and the other of the Mind a common Plebeian may enjoy both as fully as any of them What shall we then say of Fidling and Fooling and the vain Humors of weaker Princes Surely a wise man would judge a King of Beggers as happy as some of those yong Roman Emperors X. Of Riches MOney is the eldest Son and Heir of Fortune Lord Paramount and universall King in every particular Kingdom The Image and Superscription of Caesar on his Coin is more powerfull then Caesar himself Witty men have many conceited disparagements of it calling it The Excrement of Earth Metall turned up Trump and the like but they speak of it in its Naturall capacity whereas they ought to consider it in its Politike as Money and not at Metall so it is rightly defined the Measure of all commutable things In this sense Petronius calls it Iovem in arca and they who
a God for indeed he who denieth God is his own God making himself his utmost end which is to Deify himself Aristippus is the Patron of voluptuous Courtiers and merry Companions though he had fewest successors in the Schole he hath most followers in the World This Geniall kind of Happiness consisteth in easy and delightfull Studies pleasant Discourses amorous Fansies Feastings Maskings Revellings and all kind of Courtship and Joviality All which ravish weaker Minds who when they enter into Princes Courts think them the only Heaven upon Earth and their pomp and pleasure the very Life of the Gods as the Cynike fitly stiled them Miracula Stultorum Mens spirits are no where better discovered then in a Court Vain men having once tasted of the delights thereof can hardly ever after endure to live privately whereas a sober man will love a private life better then ever he did before That which is most to be lamented is the loss of many a Brave and Gallant man through this Humor of Geniality How sad a thing is it to see the companions of an Vlysses charmed by this Circe and transformed into Beasts men like Aristippus of great Wit and Learning or as Petronius Pares negotiis fit for Business and of excellent Abilities to make no other use of them then to trifle away their time more pleasantly and ruine themselvs more wittily as strong Must resolving wholly into Spume and Vapor All Ages are full of such Examples but never did any man fool away a great Spirit and a greater Fortune like Mark Anthony who was so far bewitched with his Cleopatra that in the heat of the Battell of Actium when the Empire of the World his life and all lay at stake he fled from Augustus to pursue her whereas if he had fled from her he might very probably have pursued Augustus The Epicureans far excell the Cyreniakes for though they make Pleasure their Chief Good yet they refine it from the dross and dregs and exalt it from the particular acts and motions thereof to a constant state of universall Delight gratifying the Mind with all pleasing things and defending it from grief and perturbation in the midst of externall pains which opinion if rightly understood holds forth as high an Happiness as this World can afford marshalling the severall sorts of Pleasures according to their severall natures and degrees and making the Pleasure of Virtue to be Chief for the enjoying whereof we should cheerfully endure any inferior pains or miseries Yet they placed not this Happiness in the goodness of Virtue but in the Pleasure thereof But the Chief Good and the Chief Happines differ only in the Notion and not in the Thing For this Pleasure of Virtue cannot be had or enjoied without the Love of Virtue from which it doth arise To do a virtuous action without Love and Delight is no Virtue and to do it with the greatest Delight is the greatest Virtue and thus Epicurus well expresseth himself That Pleasure may be separated from all other things but not from Virtue for all other things must be subordinate to Virtue orherwise there is no true Pleasure in them But as Cicero observeth the Epicurean Opinion was very sublime and Philosophicall had their Practice been answerable unto it Horace plainly confesseth himself Epicuri de grege porcum Those outward Pleasures though admitted only as subservient to Virtue so prevailed against it that leaving the Mistress they fell in love with the Maid and instead of making Virtue the Chief Pleasure made Pleasure the Chief Virtue Thus was this most excellent Opinion which drest up Virtue in her fairest habit and presented her most lovely aspect to the Minds of men vitiated by a corrupt Practice Epicurus is the Institutor of a Private and Sedentary Life prescribing to dwell in a Garden of Pleasure enjoying the purest delights of Nature and entertaining our selvs with most beautifull Contemplations or good Society free from all cares and troubles Pomponius Atticus was a most exact man in this kind of Life and far more happy then all the great Conquerors of his time who troubled the World and themselvs with their vast Designs and great Enterprises This Epicurus thought to be the Happiness of God and did not only separate him from the care of Men but also Men from the care of God esteeming all Religion as Superstition or the impertinent curiosity of a fearfull Mind Yea he seems to separate us from the mutuall care of one another by withdrawing us from all publike affairs which must maintain every private State and therefore we ought to share in the Burden as well as in the Benefit and when it becomes our Duty is also part of our Happiness XIX Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes THE Epicureans favored those Affections which entertain Pleasure and mortified those which induce Pain but the Stoikes considering the great passion and perturbation which both the one and the other cause in the soul renounced them all and retired to the highest and purest region of Man which is his Mind as the Poet doth excellently describe it in his 6. Aeneid Igneus est ollis vigor coelestis origo Seminibus quantum non noxia corpora tardant Terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra Hinc metuunt gaudentque dolent cupiuntque nec auras Respiciunt clausae tenebris carcere caeco Comparing the Soul and Body of Man to Heaven and Earth The Mind which he calls a Heavenly seed is pure and Ethereall enjoying perpetuall peace in all its motions like the Heavenly Orbs. But the Body like the Earth of which it is made is dull and heavy and the Affections as the Aire or middle Region between both by Vapors ascending from the Earthly members fill the Soul with Clouds and Tempests which darken and imprison the Heavenly Light Now the Stoikes would have us live above these Clouds like Angels and Spirits but we can no more live in this World without Affections then without Bodies nor may we affect a Separate state in this Life The Rationall and Sensitive parts of Man are not two distinct Persons as an Horse and his Rider but rather like the Poeticall ficton of the Centaur who was both Horse and Rider in one so that the one being wounded the other feels it and sympathizes with it Thus the Mind rules the Fansy and Affections and they excite or damp the Corporeall spirits and cause fluxes and refluxes of them and so likewise the Body by the Humors thereof irritates the Fansy and Affections and they tempt and sollicite the Mind but as the Inferior part cannot compell the Superior so the Superior may not abdicate or sequester the Inferior Wherefore it may be justly admired how the Stoikes who made it their Chief End to live according to the Nature of the Universe should not allow Man to live according to the Universality of his own Nature in the full latitude and extent thereof It is an high exprobration of
whatsoever he saith but being such it is most irrationall not to believ him for this were to confine the Infinite Creator of all things within the Finite Circle of this World and the Sphere of Nature which is the utmost extent of the Ken of Reason Surely this whole Universe is but a small portion of his power workmanship who is able to create new Worlds and a new Nature of things but this is the most naturall corruption of the Mind of Man to exalt it self against the Glory of God by setting up Naturall Light against Faith as Works against Grace and so confine God within our Compass as Conjurers deal with Spirits Certainly Adam in his primitive state was generally capable of believing any Divine Revelations which were or might be presented unto him That very Commandment concerning the forbidden fruit was a Statute specially enacted and published by God and no part of the Common Law written in his hart and his first sin was Infidelity since which we are all naturally most prone to it and the Saving Grace or Remedy is Faith Adams Faith was a work whereby he was to be justified and the chief part of his obedience and such a Faith was also in Christ the second Adam believing in God concerning those things which as Man he could not foreknow But this Kind differs much from Evangelicall Faith which doth not justifie as a work but as an Instrumentall Mean whereby we apply unto our selvs the Merits of another Yet though there be remaining in Mans Nature Faith aswell as Reason there is no saving Faith left in him but only such a malignant Faith as is in the Divels for as the Naturall man cannot know the things of God by a Practicall Knowledge producing Love and Obedience unless he be first taught of God so neither can he so know Christ nor believ in him unless it be given to him to believ This is Life Eternall that they might know thee the only true God and Iesus Christ him whom thou hast sent God is said to confound the wisdome of the Wise by the Gospel of Faith which declareth unto them that without believing they cannot be saved and yet without a supernaturall Grace they cannot believ Thus being confounded in themselves and not knowing how to escape they break through all and will not allow others that Faith which they have not themselvs though they cannot deny that it is possible for God to do that which is believed nor is it improbable that he should make them believ it for whom he hath prepared it As God is the chief Good and perfect Happiness of the soul so by Faith which is the highest Knowledge we have in this world the Soul enjoyes him and by him the most excellent Gifts and Graces whereof it is capable III. Of the Scriptures THe Scripture of Word of God in Paradise was the Morall Law written in Mans heart and the revelation of extraordinary commands After the fall God immediatly preached to Adam while the Church was confined within Families lie taught them by Visions and Revelations but when he began to found the Nationall Church of the Jews he delivered unto them written Laws and the Examples of former times from the very first Creation and so proceeded by Propheticall revelation to the End of the World and then was the Scripture finished and sealed up by the last of the Apostles as a perfect Institution or Pandect of all things requisite to be known or believed for the salvation of Man The First Evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture is that of all other Books in the world it most clearly and familiarly discovers unto us the God of Nature in a most glorious and worthy manner The Second this that the Morall Law and the summ of all Duties toward God and Man are in it most perfectly declared Though since the fall there may still remain in the Mind of Man some scattered fragments and obscure characters thereof yet they are so much defaced and disordered that they cannot be plainly read nor otherwise restored then by seting forth the second Edition by the same Author according to the first Originall without which we might have spent our whole Lives as the Philosophers did in doubting and disputing while we should be practicing and obeying The Third that it fully describeth the whole History of the world from the first Creation to the Dissolution thereof joining with those Precepts of the Law the Examples and Monuments of all Ages The Last that the Divine Sentence Nosse teipsum of which Iuvenal saith Coelo descendit is not only prescribed herein but also performed by this clear Mirror whereby the Face of the Soul and the Secrets of the Hart are made manifest and therefore we ought to confess that God is in it of a truth These Arguments which are naturall and rationall Demonstrations may be some perswasion to believ these supernaturall Truths with which they are accompanied As a man whom we know to be grave and true in all his other Discourses is the more credited in relating things strange and wonderfull or as Socrates said of the writings of Heraclitus What he understood was very good and so he did believ that to be which he understood not And in the matters of Faith which the Scriptures revele unto us there is no Unreasonableness though they are above Reason nor Inconsistency among themselvs yea the wholy Symmetry and Analogy of Faith is more glorious and beautifull then the very Law of Nature and Reason it self This blessed Harmony and just Proportion is the surest Index of all the parts and the best Interpreter of the most doubtfull points the neglect whereof hath introduced all Errors and Heresies in the Church which are no other then the Monstrous Mutilations Excrescences or Distortions of the particular Members of the Body of Faith not corresponding to the Whole commonly occasioned by wresting the Text or too curious criticising upon it Though that which is pick'd out of it sometimes may be true in it self yet if it be beyond the scope and meaning it is a belying of the Holy Spirit making him speak that which he never intended and this emboldens to do the like another time for the maintaining of such Opinions as are neither true in this Text nor in the Thing This is the dangerous Humor of our Age wherein men hunting after new Notions and sublime Mysteries gather up all these Allegoricall and Sophisticall Expositions which Calvin and other sound Textuaries have with great Judgement rejected and so patch up a new kind of Divinity with these Cento's of Scripture and their own specious Conceptions and strange Fansies As for the Stile of Scripture it is very admirable though by reason of the Idioms of the Times and Languages wherein it was wrote it may now seem to us uncouth and strange yet if we rightly attend it we shall finde in it a wonderfull mixture of Simplicity and Majesty Perspicuity
Vain and Fanatike Though some of them were meer Impostors yet others verily believed that they were divinely inspired The Miracles of Saints and Martyrs since the Apostolicall times seem rather Legends and Fables then credible Stories The confident perswasions of a strong Faith may seem somewhat like a Prophecy though far different from it and of another kind and so the Judgements of some wise men have been taken for Predictions whereas Prophecy is not so much the confirmation of a mans own Spirit in the ordinary way of believing or judging as an extraordinary revelation of Future things immediately and expresly by God perhaps in a rapture or extasy when he who uttereth it least understandeth it Also there may be a power of casting out Divels by Praier and Fasting which is not now to be performed as formerly by any speciall Gift with a word of command certainly effecting it but in the ordinary way of Praier which God is pleased to honor with an equall effect There are also Miracles of Providence as we may so call them whereby God is pleased to deliver his Church out of her greatest streights in an extraordinary manner and by unexpected means as he did formerly by Signs and Wonders and Miracles of Nature Such was the recovery of Germany by the same hand which first betraied the Protestant Cause Maurice Duke of Saxony after all his Successes and Preferment strangely revolting from Charles the fifth to the contrary party the defeating of the Spanish Aramado as Drake termed it with Squibs the discovery of the Gunpowder Treason by a Letter or whatsoever other Indicium there was of it yea the preservation of Christian Religion in all Ages maugre all Persecutions and Heresies and the restoring of it in these latter dayes without a Miracle is none of the least Miracles Certainly the clear revelation of the Mysteries of Faith and the manifestation of the Graces of Gods Spirit in the Harts and Lives of men are evident testimonies that God hath not forsaken his Church the least dram of true Grace being more valuable then all Miraculous Gifts whatsoever and the principall end thereof As for Enthusiasms and Revelations they were of use in former times and very necessary before Scripture was finished being either Scripture or instead of Scripture but since St. Iohns time who wrote the last Book of Scripture in the Isle of Pathmos under Domitian they seem also to have ceased for if this were true they ought to be believed equally with Scripture being the immediate and infallible Word of God as well as it which is now the only rule and measure of Faith sufficient to make the man of God perfect But all those Fansies are not so dangerous as other Spirituall Errors in the Foundation and Essentials of Faith to which such Spirits are very prone striving to ascend above Truth asmuch as others fall short of it Thus by exalting the free Grace and Spirit of God they destroy the Morall Law and with the Penalty take away the Precept or Commanding power though the Law be as obligatory in it self and prevalent over the Conscience of a Good man without it as with it and most perfectly consistent with Grace which enableth us to perform what the Law commandeth Others trample on the very Ordinances and Duties of the Gospel presuming to finde a neerer way to Heaven then God hath appointed There are new fashions and dresses of Religion very pleasing and popular as all Novelties are especially such as seem more sublime and Spirituall But the old Orthodox Truth is the best and still prevaileth at last There is no Doctrine in the world which hath been so curiously scanned and throughly sifted in every Point and Puntilio thereof as Christianity the greatest Scepticisms and most subtile Criticisms and niceties of Wit have been exercised about it and the whole Body thereof like the Body of our Savior hanging upon the Cross vexed and tortured in every joint and yet it continues whole and entire though there may be some prints of the Nails and Spears of Heretikes remaining upon it yet not a bone thereof may be broken which plainly proves it to be Spirituall Divine preserved only by the Author of it Paracelsus threatned that he would deal with the Pope Luther as he had done with Galen and Aristotle and probably if he had undertaken it we should have had some such Mercuriall Theology from him as is now vented in our times The difference seems not much unlike Sound Divines like Galenists administer solid and substantiall Truth whereas our Paracelsian Preachers deal in Quintessences and Spirits and the like Chymistry of Divinity and cloth them with strange words and Mysticall expressions Divinity hath found the same usage in these times with all other Arts and Sciences and the same Humor of this fantastike Age runs through all Men think to advance Learning by fine Conceits and strong Lines as they call them which have enervated the solid part thereof so do these emasculate Religion by their vain Opinions and quaint Expressions There is no greater Bane of true Piety then Error on the right hand and sublime Heresy especially when it grows Popular and is generally received Yet Truth is no less Truth though all the World should be in an Error One Athanasius may stand to his Creed in the midst of an Arrian Empire As a man who sees the Sun shine though all others should say the contrary is no whit less assured of it because he sees it Indeed we can hardly guess at things which are before us how much less can we find out Spirituall and Divine Truth or practice what we know Let us therefore pray to God for his Spirit who first reveled it to the world and who only can lead us into all Truth and into all Grace which is our true Happiness VII Of a Christian Life THe great work of the Spirit of God in our Harts is the new Creature and the effect thereof new Life Christian Life is the Enjoiment of all things for enjoying Christ who is Heir of all things and hath purchased all with his bloud we enjoy all things by a new and better Title and in a more excellent and Spirituall manner as the Fruits of his Redemption and Gifts of his Love It is generally affimed by Divines that true Grace chiefly respects Gods Glory and our own Happiness in a subsequent and inferior manner so that we should be willing to suffer even the pains of Hell it self for the Glory of God which is a fine Notion and an high Expression but if rightly considered we shall find no such distinction in the Thing it self Indeed if we take Happiness for a releaf from Pains or a Paradise of Pleasure or any other thing then the very enjoiment of God and Christ it is a true Sentence but the highest Happiness of the Soul being that very enjoiment the one cannot be separated nor really distinguished from the other He who
truly loves the Person of another without any collaterall respects loves to love it and this Love being most true and pure is also must lovely and delightfull Thus doth Divine Love pay it self and as Virtue so much more Grace is its own Reward This is that blessed Communion and Copartnership of profit and advantage which God affordeth us with himself which is no equalling of our selvs with him but consists in the very subordination of our selvs to him To glorify him is our highest Glory to bless him our truest Blessedness his Will and our Good do most perfectly and intirely concenter To divide these is to cut in sunder the very intrinsecall bond of our Union with him and the contrary apprehension is the greatest deceit and highest prejudice that can be against the service of God for it keeps the Soul at a perpetuall distance and frights it out of the way of Piety whereas the right understanding hereof ingages it most fully and freely with the mutuall embraces of Duty and Benefit As true Philosophy resolvs Honesty into Utility so doth true Divinity resolv Grace into Glory While the Soul remains corrupt and contrary to God it cannot enjoy him nor any Happiness in him but a new Nature begets new Principles and new Enjoiments and it being the highest perfection of our Nature to be conformable to God and united to him is also our highest Happinness for the perfection of every Nature affordeth the greatest and truest Pleasure Now what can we rationally desire more then to be most Happy why then should we not rather desire a right constitution of Soul which produceth true Happiness then the false Happiness of a corrupt Mind Sin is as much against every mans generall and implicite Intention which is to be Happy as it is against Gods express Command which is that we should be Holy Nor doth the Command of God and his absolute Sovereignty over us diminish the freest Liberty of a rectified Soul Perfectum imperium cum perfecta libertate consistit God is Good and doth Good and commands nothing but Good which is but like the Latine Complement Iubeo te valere I bid you farewell By Conversion the Unwilling Will is made a Willing Will and to such the Command of God sounds only thus Do what you will A wicked man saith Quod libet licet but a Godly man inverts it Quod licet libet Thus most connaturally and harmoniously hath the great Creator and Governor of the World subordinated all to himself without the least discord or offence It is sin which hath wrought all confusion and malignity in our Nature and all the mischief in the VVorld As our Being is founded in our dependance on God so is our VVell-being in our subordination to him and it is impossible it should be otherwise The perfection of his Nature is to be perfectly supreme and the perfection of our Nature is to be perfectly subordinate and subject to him whose Service is perfect Freedome Thus we enjoy all things in him as they are eminently in himself and as he giveth us all things richly to enjoy As a VVoman married to a Rich man enjoieth him and all his estate though she useth no more thereof then what is fit for her which is the right enjoyment of all God maketh all things work together for the best to them that love him and so they enjoy the best of all aswell of that which he giveth as of that which he denieth Adam should have enjoied the forbidden fruit by forbearing and not by eating as Sin is a Privation of Good so the only enjoiment thereof is Privative or Relative to Grace which is the Contrary thereof and as it is Duty to omit things which are to be omitted so it a kind of Enjoiment not to use things which are not to be used It is the great Error of Men that they cannot understand this kind of Enjoiment aswell as the other but are taken with every bait of Pleasure and led captive by the Divell at his will finding some sinfull Delight in sinfull Pleasures as a corrupt Stomach longeth for corrupt Food and abhorreth that which is better and more wholesome But unless the Divell could turn the Tables of the VVorld and put God and his party to the loosing side it is most impossible that there should be any true Happiness in any other thing or in any other way then as he hath appointed and prescribed Nor can it be reasonably imagined that God should suffer his friends to loose by him or his Enemies to shark any thing from him who is Lord of all If Intemperance could afford more pleasure then Temperance Heliogabalus should have been more happy then Adam in Paradise yea if there were the least reall delight in Sin there could be no perfect Hell where men shall most perfectly Sin and most perfectly be tormented with their Sins which are the prepared fuell thereof though now they neither glow or burn shall then consume them with unquenchable fire Wicked men like Prodigals live riotously and run in debt for it but the time will come when they must repay both Principall and Interest and so shall gain nothing by all their Voluptuousness Sardanapalus his Accompt was not rightly cast up Haec habui quae edi for he lost more by what he spent then by what he left We will now descend to the Particulars of this Universall Enjoiment of a Christian Life VIII Of Nature THe first part of a Christian Life is the Enjoyment of Nature and of the VVorks of God wherein a Christian far excelleth the wisest Philosopher and moves above him in his own Sphere Vulgar Minds view the face of Nature as a Brute Beast doth a Picture regarding only the Surface and Show rudely and at large The Philosopher as an Artist contemplates the curious VVorkmanship thereof observing with much pleasure and delight the proper Colors and comely Features and Shadows and the whole Composure of the beautifull Image as the Painter answered him who wondered at his gazing on an excellent Piece O said he if you had mine eies you would be affected with it as I am But a Christian looks upon Nature as a Lover doth on the Picture of his Beloved delighting more in the Resemblance then in the Table Thus David rightly enjoyed Nature in his pious Contemplations thereof So he begins his excellent Hymn of the Creation of the VVorld Bless the Lord O my soul O Lord my God thou art very great Thou art clothed with Honor and Majesty Thou coverest thy self with Light as with a Garment c. and he concludes in the same manner I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live I will sing praises unto the Lord while I have a being my meditation of him shall be sweet I will be glad in the Lord. So when he reflects upon the litle VVorld Himself I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvailous are thy works
against God It is called a Law of Sin as being directly opposite to the Law of God for what God saith Thou shalt do Sin saith Thou shalt not do and what he saith Thou shalt not do Sin saith Thou shalt do and so inverts the whole Decalogue and the very Law of Nature robing God of his Creature and setting it up against him and in his throne No created Majesty can endure a Consort much less Divine which is most absolutely and infinitely Supreme It is true Sin can never effect what it intends and therefore wicked men think it is nothing because it cannot hurt and wrong God but a declared intent is Treason even among men much more by the Law of God who is chieifly served or disserved by our Spirits and Wills yea this shows the most perfect malice of Sin that it fights against a Majesty which cannot be wronged and breeds a more haughty disdain and just revenge in him whom it opposeth to be defied by so base and Enemy Men may say they do not intend to hurt God yet they do transgress and offend his Law which is to offend himself though the intention may be to do God good service If therefore there be any such difference in Nature as Good and Evill if there be any Monster or Mischief in the World Sin is really the worst of Evills being most contrary to the Chief Good and in this relation it is infinitely evill though as it is a finite act it cannot be really and properly infinite for then it should be an Enemy equall to God but it comes as neer to infinite as possibly it can and if the Soul were infinite it would Sin infinitely as being eternall it will sin eternally yea it is as it were infinite to us for we cannot measure nor comprehend the utmost extent of the sinfulness thereof no more then we can number the particular acts Let us therefore stand amazed at the sight of this Hydra this killing and never dying Serpent devouring all Good and propagating all Evill Now what enjoiment can there be of such a perfect Evill Certainly next to the Grace of God a Christian reaps the greatest Happiness from it yea Grace it self which delivereth from Sin cannot be enjoied without the enjoiment of Sin from which it delivereth and the more horrid and hellish Sin is the more doth the Love of God appear in delivering us from it and in preserving the little spark of his Grace in the midst of an Ocean of corruption There is no such Antipathy in Nature as between Holiness and Unholiness the contrariety of Vice and Virtue is far short of it Grace is the highest perfection of the Soul and Sin the greatest imperfection As sin is the occasion of our greatest Good and highest Preferment so it is also of Gods greatest Glory and therein we should rejoice There is more Ioy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth then over ninety and nine Iust persons who need no repentance Thus the more we hate it the more we enjoy it and our greatest abhorrency doth most excite this affection of holy Joy and this is the high priviledge of a Christian to enjoy that which is most contrary unto him not only by forbearing it but also by Gods forgiving and recovering out of it to a state of higher Perfection and Happiness XIIII of the Restauration of the Soul THe Restauration of the Soul is the Conversion of it from Sin to God as the Corruption thereof was a defection from God to Sin This is a greater and more glorious work then the first Creation and the utmost Design of God in making the VVorld As in an ingenious Poem which is the Creature of Fancy the chief excellency is the Plot and the excellency of the Plot is the strange difficulty and intricacy of the Epitasis or troublesome state of the Business which is afterward beyond all expectation cleared up and resolved into an happy Catastrophe whereas if it should be carried on in a constant course of Prosperity it would seem very flat and dull without art or wit Thus God having made all things for himself and the manifestation of of his own Glory as the wisest end which he could propound to himself was not satisfied with the first work of Creation though exceeding good and perfect in its kind but assoon as it was finished suffered Sin to enter upon the Stage bringing Death and Hell along with it and so to confound and destroy all This was the Dignus vindice nodus such as all the Wit of Men and Angels could not unty till God himself came down from Heaven and resolved it into this more glorious work of Redemption which is an uncreating of Sin and a creating of Grace God cannot make Factum infectum but by pardoning Sin he makes it Quasi infectum Sin remitted is as though it had never been cōmitted Thus Justice it self justifies the unjust and being overcome it triumphs Justice and Mercy could not meet together in any other way and there is no other Instance in the whole History of the VVorld of any act of God which doth so perfectly exercise all his Attributes manifest all his Glory and consequently fulfill the end of Creation As God justifies the Ungodly so he makes him Godly which is the other part of this great work and no less wonderfull then the former If the entrance of Sin into the VVorld be so stupendious the expulsion thereof is much more The Peripatetikes suppose the Soul of Man to be like a plain Table or as we say a blank Paper on which Good or Evill may be imprinted and so equally indifferent to both But other Heathens have confessed the contrary Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur and all Christianity is against it If their Opinion were true probably some one man among so many millions might have lived pure from Sin perhaps through the whole course of his life or for a year or day or hour or at least might perform some one action perfectly good which none ever did Therefore the Platonikes say the Soul is like a Chariot drawn with two Horses whereof one is fair and generous the other deformed and resty The first is the Rationall part the second the Sensuall some Platonicall Divines call them Flesh and Spirit but it is most evident that not only the inferior faculties but also the superior are corrupted otherwise the inferior could not draw them away they being able of themselvs to put forth their own acts pure and incorrupt the Mind is free and cannot sin but from it self though it may be tempted and urged by others On the contrary sometimes the Mind urges the inferior faculties to sin beyond the common bounds of their nature and the utmost desires of Beasts besides there are many rationall and spirituall Sins wherein the inferior Faculties have no share The Pelagians seem to grant a mixture of both principles of Good and Evill in every Faculty and
endued with all Glorious qualities and perfectly fitted to serv and attend the Soul which now is forced to drudge for the Body and lay in Provision for it as the Wise man saith All labor is for his mouth and yet the Appetite is not satisfied but then the main and only Business shall be Spirituall and therefore the Apostle calls it a Spiritual Body not a Spirit but advanced to the neerest likeness whereof it is capable and made as fit an Instrument for the Spirit as may be Probably it shall be purified and sublimated to the perfection of the Celestiall matter which is the purest part oâ— the whole Body of the world and the Country or Region wherein Man shall live for ever and therefore as now living on the Earth his Body is sutable and connaturall to it so when he shall be taken up to Heaven it shall be refined to the temper thereof and shall need none of Mahomets Loadstones to lift it up but like the Stars in their Orbs move in the highest Heaven of Heavens most freely and naturally Thus the Apostle speaking of the resurrection of the Body seems to argue Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God neither can Corruption inherit Incorruption and again The first Man was of the Earth Earthly the second Man is the Lord from Heaven as we have born the Image of the Earthly so we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly This is the highest perfection whereof the Body is capable and was reserved for Christ the second Adam and his glorified members as the Apostle doth also infer Howbeit that was not first which was Spirituall but that which was Naturall and afterward that which was Spirituall As God is the Light of that place so the Soul is the Ey which shall see him and immediately enjoy him and as the Body so the Soul much more shall then be discharged of all Imperfections as Errors Lusts and the like Reason and Discourse yea Faith it self shall then be resolved into Vision Desire into Joy and Hope into Fruition Not only all Sin shall be excluded out of Heaven but also many inferior Graces which now serv to bring us thither The Soul shall then attain an higher perfection then it hath or can have in this world God saith No man can see him and live that is no living Man can possibly see him though the common Iews did interpâ—â—â—â—therwise as appears by the Story of Manoah yet Moses who saw as much of God as man could do did not therefore dy But he saw only his Backparts or Attributes which are but the demonstrations of his Nature in Heaven we shall behold him face to face and know him as we are known according to the utmost capacity of finite Creatures and thus the Soul shall be wholly filled with the sight of God as the Ey is filled with Light possessing and enjoying it in it self and changed by it into the same Glory Then shall we also love God as we are loved of him yea as he loves himself according to our finite capacity and so accordingly partake of the same Happiness which he enjoieth in himself which is a most wonderfull and inconceivable Blessedness and therefore sensuall and carnall men who are only acquainted with the Creatures wholly neglect it as bein◠〈◊〉 for fools to understand and would be better pleased and more taken with a Poeticall Elysium or Circean Paradise But a true Christian may satisfy himself with this that though he cannot comprehend this future Blessedness fully and particularly yet in generall he believs it to be the highest and purest Happiness whereof he is capable Every Vessell of Mercy as a Vessell shall be made only to hold Mercy and be wholly filled with it Yet shall not all the Saints be equall in Glory but differ therein as in Grace for though all the Spirits of Just men shall be then made perfect yet they shall be proportionably perfected in Glory according to their degrees of Grace by an Arithmeticall not by a Geometricall proportion as in the Parable of the Talents He who gained two Talents was made Ruler over two Cities in his Lords Kingdome and he who gained five Talents was made Ruler over five Cities There is no proportion between 〈◊〉 and Cities yet there is a proportion between Two and Two and beween Five and Five Thus shall we be recompensed according to our works though not for our works and this may be as great and quick an incitation to working as the proud opinion of merit attaining the same effect and ending in the same reward of Blessedness And though there cannot properly be any merit in the Creature but only a performance of Covenants yet the obedience of Angels through that Grace which was first implanted in their Nature and never forfeited is far short of this free Grace of God in Christ which as it is a manifestation of the greater Love of God to Man and the ground of his greater Delight in him so it begets in us proportionably a greater Love toward him and a greater Delight in him wherein the chief Happpiness of the Creature doth consist â—nd thus the Soul of Man â—â—nds the highest perfection of Glory and the very Heaven of Heaven through free Grace enjoying Christ as the fountain of all Happiness and God himself as the Ocean thereof As Heaven in the separation from all worldly things doth most plainly manifest the Vanity thereof so in it self and in its own nature it is the most perfect universall and eternall Blessedness and the preparation for it and expectiation of it the only true Happiness of Man in this Life FINIS Errata PAg. 2. lin 1. Read Pandora's p. 6. l. 23. r. highest Sense p. 29. l. 5. â— Nicolas p. 34. l. 12. r. publica p. 40. l. 12 13. r. ingenuous p. 42 1. 6 r. Myrteus p. 47. l. 9. r. kind of regality p. 53. l. 6. r. as Metall p. 75. l. 4. r. apposite p. 89. l. 6. r. great l. 14 15. r. himself p. 107. l. 16 18. r. Nulla p. 132 l. 2. r. Sibylls p. 147. l. 8. r. Christ whom p. 150. l. 7. r. Nosce p. 152. l. 6. r. the Text. p. 167. l. 6. r. poenis p. 175. l. 17. r. inebriation p. 176. l. 13. r. retorted p. 189. l. 2. r so it is p. 201. l. 23 24. r. by telling p. 209. l. 18 r. in the story p. 224. l. 23. r. consumptos p. 255. l. 20. r. ominous p. 262. l. 16. r. geminas p. 270. l. 14. r. that a Cato p. 278. l. 8. r. Immortality of the Soul