particularly in some future Meditations MEDITAT X. Of the Inconsistency of the Love of the World and the Love of God IT seems to be the plain Doctrine which the Apostle teaches That the Love of the World and the Love of God are inconsistent God and Mammon cannot cohabit there is no serving of two Masters especially being contrary the one to the other What communion hath light with darkness The reason of the incompatibility and inconsistency seems to be laid in the opposition Contraria mutuo se pallunt The same Fountain cannot send forth sweet waters and bitter Here the reason seems to lie in the limited straitned nature of the Fountain The narrow heart of man cannot contain two such Guests at once If the world be got into the Inn the Chambers of the Soul Christ must be cast into the Stable The same Soul cannot at once send forth the sweet aromatick Breathings of Divine Love and the nasty noisom stench and exhalation of earthly Love How should such a limited Agent perform two such contrary Acts at the same time But what May not a Man love God well and love the world well too No no man loves God well but he that loves him belt He only loves him aright that loves him with all his heart There cannot be two Bests One cannot love God with all his heart and the world with all his heart too But may not one love God best and yet love the world No For if you love the world unduly you do not love God best and if you love God best then your love of the world is not the undue love here forbidden The pure and conjugal Love admits no Rival Thalamus non patitur consortes There is an Essay no doubt to compound the matter and to make a medley and this medley I fear is the Religion of the most It is too evident that they entertain the world chiefly yet in good manners they would allow some room for God some little room upon a Sunday or an Holy-day or perhaps at some other times in some easie and cheap things The Whore in the Comedian was content to entertain two the one indeed she properly lov'd but because the other gave her Presents and good Gifts she was content that he should Haerere in aliqua parte saltem apud eam some little corner of her house she would allow him too It is as certain a sign of a whorish heart to prostitute it self to two as it was of a false Mother to admit of the division of the child The world indeed has no title at all to the heart of Man and therefore modestly desires only a little part an inferior love a subordinate love But together with this seeming Modesty the Witch is very cunning for she knows that that part will go night to bring in the whole and that God will reject the whole Mess if any part of it be defiled But God has a right to all and therefore demands all or none he will not take up with a corner of the heart The love of God fills the Soul where it comes as the light fills the Fir-mament MEDITAT XI Of the Evil of not loving God THE love of the Father is not in him Look about you all you that love the World Nay rather let us all look into our selves let us fear and search lest we be found lovers of the world for here is the dreadfullest Predicate that ever was pronounced the blackest brand that can be lay'd upon a rational being such love not God He had almost as good have said They hate him For indeed saving a little Philosophical Nicety it comes all to one He that is not for us is against us and yet more plainly The friendship of the World is enmity against God Now if we consider that it is the most Natural Necessary Reasonable Easie and Excellent thing in the World to love God and that it is the foundation of all other duties it will the better appear how sad a Character this is The love of the Father is not in him I will but glance upon some of these in this place and reserve the rest to anotner MEDITAT XII The love of God is most Natural IT is most Natural for man to love God However it is true too true that considering man in his state of Apostasie sin is most natural to him yet if we consider man as a rational Being only abstracting him from his depravation vertue particulaâ—ly the love of God is most natural to him and all sin particularly worldly love unnatural and alien to him which the Scripture plainly signifies when it tells us so often of the defilements of sin Now we know that what defiles must needs be alien to that which it defiles To love God was the duty of man before the Gospel was given yea or the Law either necessarily resulting from the relation between the Creature and the Creator It is most agreeable to the dictates of Nature though it be so sadly depraved it has not quite put off its Essence For what are Honour and Reverence and Adoration but Love exalted Love determin'd to a Superior Object And this the Heathens always thought just and equal to give to their Gods It is as natural for the soul to love to cleave to something without its self as for the Ivy to cling to the Oak The Soul naturally understands its own indigency and therefore goes out to one thing or other to find rest though through her Apostasie she is mistaken in her object and fancies rest where it is not Which indeed is rather Blasphemy than Atheism The love of a Superior Object of a Centre is so natural that it cannot be separated from the very constitution of the Soul That Centre must needs be some Superior Being and more excellent than it self And what can that be but God or what besides him can be sayd to be more excellent than the Soul it self God is remotely concern'd in the pursuits even of the Covetous and Ambitious howbeit they mean not so and therefore their in judicious tendencies are no thanks to them nor will ever make them happy To love the Lord our God with all our heart is the great Commandment indeed it is the Law of Nature inlay'd in the very constitution of the Soul belonging to all men in all ages of the world MEDITAT XIII Of the Easiness and Pleasantness of Loving TO love is Easie Cheap and Pleasant It is Easie it equires no Pains it breaks no Bones Whatsoever Curse lies upon all sublunary provisions we may eat the heavenly Manna without sweat Those Devils the Hâ—athenish Gods requir'd painful Services indeed sometimes Herculean Labors But the true God requires our Love he takes it as the most acceptable Sacrifice so acceptable that it shall stand in stead of all other Duties where they cannot be perform'd He that is dumb and cannot pray deaf and cannot hear blind and cannot read so poor that he
one would give me the large heart of an Angel oh that God would fill up all my capacities and make me yet more capacious oh that he would take up all the room in me and oh that he would make for himself more room in my Soul than yet there is to entertain him And certainly this Predominant Love may be discern'd If I know not what I love best I know nothing Why may I not as well know whether I love God or the World best as I know whether I love bread or husks best By what we constantly choose when things come in competition we may know what we love best But may not the palate of the mind be so alter'd or vitiated as well as that of the body that what I choose at one time I may refuse at an other and prefer its contrary or disparate Yes certainly In every single wilful deliberate Act of Covetousnes or Impatience worldly love does predominate pro hic nunc But it will not denominate the man a lover of the world except it be habitual MEDITAT XX. Of Habitual love THe love that is so predominant as to denominate must be Habitual But may not an habitual lover of the World be converted into an habitual lover of God Yes sure This is the conversion that the Gospel speaks of To turn men from Idols to the acknowledgment of the true God is not a saving conversion To turn them from the commission or love of some single sin of the flesh as Drunkenness Whoring Swearing is a partial but not a saving Conversion The great and saving Conversion lies in changing the Temper the Nature and introducing Divine Habits The habit of worldly love may be destroyed and is destroy'd in all sincere Converts The habit of Divine love may be interrupted in its Acts weakened in its Vigor but shall not be quite destroy'd We read of some indeed that they had left their love Rev. 2. 4. But it does not appear that they had quite lost it or if we will say that they had lost it yet it was not it but some degrees of it that they lost not their love but their first love or some degrees of that love which they had at first I know not what should hinder but that every truly regenerate and habitual lover of God may make the same challenge as the Apostle did What shall sepaparate us from the love of God If it be said that the love of God towards his Elect is immutable and indefectible but so is not theirs towards him One may well reply that consequently the love of the Elect is lasting everlasting too If it be true that whom God loves he loves to the end and that he loves none with this peculiar love but those who love him it will fairly follow that their love is endless too MEDITAT XXI Lovers of the World willing to be deceiv'd ANd now methinks I see the secure world stand unconcern'd every one blessing himself Oh I am not this accursed lover of the world I do indeed now and then prefer the world my gain my pleasure my reputation before God and the observation of the dictates of my own Conscience as I perceive all men do but I do not make a constant custom of it I have no habit of it But hark a while though it be but in one single Act that thou preferrest the World before God or in a sin committed now and then yet glory not account it not a light thing It is something sure and indeed enough to humble and amaze all Men upon Earth to be now and then guilty of such folly and filthiness such Blasphemy Unrighteousness and Idolatry as this is to be but once guilty of preferring the Devil before God But examine Oh look inwardly Do not these acts proceed from an habit these sprouts from a root we had need to search narrowly and examine strictly for if we be mistaken here we are mistaken indeed fatally everlastingly mistaken The worldly mind generally denies and palliats its worldliness Men are generally asham'd to be call'd worldly minded men and very loath to believe themselves to be such notwithstanding which it is most certain that there are many such so that somewhere there will be found a deadly damning mistake MEDITAT XXII The Lovers of God most sensible of their Worldliness ON the other hand the heavenly mind the habitual lover of the Father is most sensible of and complains most of his own worldliness Lord How little do I discern this Disease or lay it to Heart in my self How little do I mourn over it in others where it is apparently praedominant notwithstanding it is so deadly If I be not a predominant lover of the Word yet alass in how many single acts have I given preference to it every one of which was horrible disloyalty and treachery Alas How early how earnestly how eagerly have I pursued the World in my Thoughts in a whole train of Thoughts from morning to evening How unseasonably too has it put it self into my Meditations how boldly intruded into my Devotions how sawcily thrust in it self to interrupt my communion with Heaven with an impudence and importunity exceeding an Harlots Fore-head Wo be to me if thinking more if speaking oftner of this World than of God be a certain mark of a predominant lover of the World who then could be saved Yet when I consider that where the treasure is the Heart will be also and again that out of the abundance of the Heart the Mouth speaketh how can I chose but be asham'd and afraid Lord deliver me from looseness of Spirit from earthliness of Mind from meanness and ordinariness of Temper and Conversation Oh wind up my Heart to Heaven let my Converse be there and with thee Imploy my Mind in contriving my Soul in exerting acts of Love fill my Mouth with thy Praises and let Holiness to the Lord be written upon all my Actions and Enjoyments Oh how are the mighty fallen the high sunk down into a most mean and miserable condition How is the Gold become dim How shamefully does the noble Humane Nature embrace a Dung-hill and the Souls that came out of the blessed Creators hands purer than Snow have contracted a Visage blacker than a Cole Good God I believe Oh help my unbelief I love thee Oh pardon my want my weakness of love and shed abroad thy love in and quite over my dry and parched Soul Rather take from me whatever takes any part of my Heart from thee thâ—â— that I should be a partial an imperfect an unsincere lover of God! MEDITAT XXIII Notwithstanding Mens Self-deceivings there are many Lovers of the World ANd because no Man will confess himself to be a Lover of the World are there therefore none such Has the Apostle suppos'd an Impossibility or a Non Entity when he says If any Man love the World c. or are Men therefore not of the World because they say they
our Lives a doing of God's Will and a preparation for his Kingdom But yet I dare not conclude it to be a Symptom of predominant worldly Love when I hear David crying in some case O spare me a little c. For when we urge the predominant Love of God as absolutely necessary we do not mean by predominant that it should be in the strictest sense perfect The Love of the meanest Saint is predominant and the Love of the devoutest is imperfect There are many other mistakes about the predominant Love of the World which are occasionally met with and corrected in the aforegoing Meditations Lord Suffer not my inflamed heart to rest in the lowest evidences of a predominant Love to thee no nor to be at rest till it arrive at the highest Demonstrations Expressions and Exercise thereof Though the consideration of Sincerity and Predominancy may sustain and comfort me yet let nothing short of Perfection content and satisfie me Oh Almighty Love wrap up my amorous Soul in thy Self And Oh cast forth thy Cords of Love and draw the estranged Souls of men unto thy Self Pity the infinite numbers of prodigal Apostates that have forsaken the Bread of their Fathers house and like Swine feed upon empâ—y Husks those many Noble Souls all of them like so many Kings by their Câ—â—ation that â—s it were with their Thumbs cut off 〈◊〉 gathering Crâ—m for their sustenance Restore their maimâ—d Faculties and lift up their Heads out of Prison change their Prison Garments and let them eat Bread before thee 〈◊〉 And Oh grant that all the Lovers of the Father may be judicious and regular in their own Devotions and charitable towards the Devotions and Affections of their Brethren Amen Amen MAN Considered in his POLITICAL CAPACITY PART II. MEDITAT I. Of the False Despisers of Riches IT is too too evident that the many sorts of persons before nam'd are in the judgment of God Lovers of the World even all that prefer the Profits pleasures Honours Persons Business Fashions of the World before God that is before Righteousness Truth Peace Publick Good Holy Order Charity Purity and the Sacred Will of God But because there are really many of these that will not yet acknowledge themselves to be such let us examine a little more closely to find out if possibly who they are that lie under this black character and to whom it doth agree And now I will a little examine Man considered in his Political Capacity for in that he is more discernable than in his Moral And here methinks I hear a Generation of Monastical People whether Papists or Protestants it matters not blessing themselves and saying It is apparent that they of all People in the World are no Lovers of it They are so far from coveting the Riches of the World that they give away all they have and reject the kindness of those that would give them more They embrace Poverty as a great Perfection and Nakâ—dness as an Ornament It was a high Character of them That took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods But what Perfectionists are these that spoil themselves The Disciples of Jesus were mortified men who reckoned two Coats superfluous but these Evangelists are even weary of the Incumbrance of one Nay they seem to out-vie the Son of Man himself of whom it is said That he had not whereon to lay his Head As if he stood in need of some House or Artificial Conveniencies whereas the cold Earth everywhere affords these hardy Soldiers of his a sufficient Bed and the spangled Heavens a Canopy To all which great Pretensions I only suggest these two or three Inquiries 1. It is highly reasonable that these Pretenders to a Contempt of Worldly Riches do inquire into themselves Whether in Deed and in Truth they do what they seem to do Whether there be no Fallacy Hypocrisie or Juggle in this Matter For we have read of those that pretended to part with all to the Church who yet kept back for their own dear selves and by laying their money at the Apostles feet seem'd to trample it under their own who yet for all their seeming Faith and Contempt of the World did not so strip themselves of all but that they kept a Rag for a sore Finger Ananias and Sapphira are Examples 2. It may be proper to inquire Whether some of the Heathens themselves whom you so undervalue as the Refuse of men have not done as much as all this comes to This I take for granted according to the Logick of Divinity it self that it is but a sorry Perfection in a Christian that does not excel all that can be found in a Heathen Mat. 6. 32. If they seek after these and these things it becomes Christians to seek after higher if they do such and such things it behoves Christians to do greater Now I suppose it is an easie thing to find many men as perfectly and voluntarily poor amongst the Heathen Philosophers as amongst Christians amongst the Cynicks as well as the Hermits as much Contempt of the World to any mans thinking in a Tub as in a Cloyster But it will be said These men did not neglect the World out of a pure design therefore 3. It will not be amiss that these Christian Contemners of the World do examine their Principles and Ends for if this voluntary casting away of the World be only a Trick to draw and convert the eyes of the World to themselves and to procure an estimation of mortifi'd men or a piece of Bribery to merit or purchase the Rewards of Heaven or a design to get Riches by a pretended Contempt of them or a Cloak for Idleness that they may eat and drink of the Best without doing any thing for it chusing rather to eat their Bread in the sweat of other mens Brows than of their own If any such things as these I say happen all this Contempt of the World is spoiled and becomes contemptible in the eyes of God nay indeed it proves to be a Device for the more effectual maintaining of the Worldly Life And who knows but that it may so happen or rather who knows not that it does Contempt of the World must be impartial and regular or else it will not pass for Devotion And if a man predominantly love the World in any branch of it he 's justly denominated a Lover of the World however he may seem to despise it in many other branches of it It is a sorry shift to endeavor to be thought to despise the Riches of the World and in the mean time to be enslaved to worldly Ease and Idleness to some men it is the greatest sensual pleasure in the World to do nothing Has not the same God who commanded us not to covet nor love the World also commanded to work and get our Livings Oh but they have spiritual Work to do What Merchant so industrious as they that compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes And did not Paul
further Prosecution of this to some following Meditations concerning motives to the Love of God and consider the last abominable thing which the Love of the World is and that is Perjury The Jews of our Saviours time had very broad Consciences and many fowl things they made a shift to swallow such as Revenge Hatred of Enemies Neglect of poor Parents and the like yet Perjury was such a Morsel as they could never get down though they had made void many of the Commands of God yet for stark shame they left this standing in its full force Thou shalt not forswear thy self but shalt perform to thy Lord thy Vows What Opinion the Heathen had of Perjury appears by the strange punishments that they say the gods inflicted upon Laomedon King of Troy for falsifying the Promissory Oath that he had made to Neptune and Apollo which vengance did not onely light upon him and his Age but reacht unto posterity So that many years after they cry'dout Laomedonteae luimus perjuria Trojae Herod that could digest Murder and Incest hard bits one would think yet boggled at Perjury though the Oath was a rash one and made but to a Girl and that upon no valuable consideration neither yet his stomach as vitated as it was so nauseated Perjury that he would perform it It seems it was accounted by them an abominable Blasphemy to call God to Witness to a lie to make truth it self a lyar but let the promise be made to whom it would how much more abominable must it needs be when that promise is made to God That is at the same time to defraud and blaspheme the Majesty of Heaven And so do all they who solemnly in the presence of God covenant and swear to fight under his Banner against the World and afterwards turn to the World and enter into a Covenant of Friendship with that which they had once declar'd their deadly Enemy Mercury in the Fable stomach'd â—t grievously that Battus should betray him to himself Et me mihi perfide prodie Me mihi prodis Certainly more intollerable affront cannot be put upon the Majesty of Heaven than that men should swear by him to him and then forsake him making themselves at once guilty of Fraud and Blasphemy which all the Lovers of the World do If now there be anything abominable in Idolatry Adultery Blasphemy Sacrilege Ingratitude Perjury the Predominant Love of the World must needs be abominable even to amazement which is really all these and what needs what can be said more to disswade us from it O Merciful God who alone canst effectually deal with the Hearts of Men perswade us thorowly of the undefiling Nature of thy Love that we may make it our great study to keep our selves unspotted of the World MEDITAT XLI General Motives to the Love of God AND now address thy self O my Soul to the last and sweetest part of thy work to Meditate of som powerful Motives to enflame thy self and the rest of the benumnâ—d World with the Love of God Strengthen me O my God this once not that I may be reveng'd upon but that I may perform the greatest kindness to thine Enemies by rescuing them out of their miserable bondage and inlarging their Souls in the most pure and generous love of thee I let down my Net once more not without thy Command Oh that by thy gracious Assistance and Blessing I may enclose a number of Souls and translate those who all their days have swam in Earthly delights and in the brackish Sea of this World into the sweet Rivers of Pleasures that are at thy right hand or rather into the pure Fountain of Peace and Joy and Pleasure which thou art for evermore And here methinks I have the whole World and all the Individuals therein thronging about me each offering its Vote each offering it self an Orator to plead the Cause of God The holy Psalmist in his 148 Psalm calls upon the whole Creation Heaven and the Heaven of Heavens and the Waters that be above the Heavens the Earth and the Deeps and all the Inhabitants of all those Angels and the Hosts of God the Lights of Heaven Vapors and flying Fowls of the Air all Men great and small young and old Beasts and Cattel and Creeping Things and all Vegetables I say he calls upon them to Praise and Celebrate the Lord but methinks I hear all these calling upon me and all Mankind to love the Lord and to delight our selves greatly in our God For certainly there is nothing in the Creation but does plainly declare the Loveliness of God and whatsoever does so does as good as Preach and say Oh love the Lord ye Children of Men. But I see I shall lose my self in this immensity I will therefore confine my self to some few Topicks from whence to fetch Arguments and Motives to the Love of God The nature of our Christian Profession the Nature of our own Souls the Nature of God the Nature of Love the Nature of the Love of God will furnish us with powerful Motives to the Love of God as well as all these with the Nature of the World and of Worldly Love â—urnisht us with disswaâ—â—ves from the Love of the World For there is as much excellency in the Nature of God and of the Love of God to recommend them as there is unsuitableness and unsatisfyingness in the World or abominableness in Worldly Love to disparage them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no hard thing for a devout Mind to fetch mighty 〈◊〉 the Love of God from the same Heads the Argument being a little altered from which the dissâ—â—asives from the Love of the World were fetcht As for Example if we should therefore not love the World because it is unsuitable and insufficient to us and not that which it seems to be then we should therefore love God because of his infinite fulness and because he is the onely substantial and agreeable good If we should therefore not love the World because by loving we give we assimulate we unite we subject our selves to the World if this be the Nature of Love then what can be more excellent and advantagious to us than the Love of God If we should therefore not oâ—e the Word because the love of the World is Abominable Idolatrous Adulterous Blasphemous Sacrilegious Ungratful and Perjurious The Love of God being on the contrary Excellent and Divine Pure Chast Just Ingeniouâ— and Reasonable ought mightily to allure and attract us unto it self And so of the rest But here also I should be tempted to be too large I will therefore limit my self to a few Considerations which I have found most powerful over my own Soul Oh would it might please God to bless them with a mighty Influence that they may come to the Hearts of those into whose hands they may come MEDITAT XLII A Particular Motive to the Love of God FIrst I am wont to consider that God loves us best of any one The Law of
to offer a Kingdom for a Cup of Water It cannot stand instead of so mean a thing as Apparel he that is never so well loaden with thick Clay may for all that be in such Circumstances that he starves with Cold. Neither by answering all things can be meant that it can purchase all things and furnish men with whatever they want If it could how comes Money and the want of the most desirable thing in the World to be so compatible as in our own Language to be made up into one Word called the Rich-Gout It often happens that Health cannot be purchased with Money Aegro Dives habet nâ—mmâ—s sâ—d â—â—â— habet ipsâ—m Liberty is often not recoverable Life not preserâ—aâ—le by Money The poor Apostle might have had his Liberty if he had had Money But the King of Judah had Money enough and yet could not get his Liberty Rich men may fall into the Hands of such men that will not regard Silver nor delight in Gold that they should receive a ransome for them from thence Is â—3 17. And as for Ingenuity Learning Wisdom Grace one may say of them as Wise Solomon who did Simul amare sapâ—re Cant. 2. 9. says concerning Love If a Man would give all the substance of his House for them it would utterly be contemned nay rejected with Scorn thy Money perish with thee Neither is it true That Money answereth all men as others interpret it who thus Paraphrase upon the Words Let there be Money and all Mâ—n have their Hearts desire For there are many in the World that prefer the Favor of God and their own Consciences before Thousands of Gold and Silver Nay and those very men who love Money best and have most of it too are not yet answered they are not satisfy'd by Money I could heartily wish for the sake of those that Damn themselves with the Love of Money and take encouragement so to do from this Text that the Translation of it were amended or the Sense fully explained by the just consideration of the Context according to the learned Tremellius the judicious Cartwright or if any one can do it better Do men love the World because it is pleasant to them they see and tast and handle it I confess the World by being so nigh our Senses does affect and charm them But is not God as nigh to us as any thing in the World The invisible things of him are seen by the things that are made praesentem monstrat quae libet herba deum Well might the Apostle say He is not far from every one of us Act. 17. 27. Which is but a Rhetorical Meiosis for he is very nigh to every one of us so nigh that he is in us and over us and round about us or rather indeed we are in him who is the infinite Goodness and omnipotent Life containing all things in himself God is as nigh to our Reasons as the World is to our Senses and it is as easie and obvious to conclude that some one made the World as it is to see that it is made Do men love the World because they apprehend it necessary to them they cannot live contentedly and pleasantly nor indeed live at all without it This may be presumed to be one of the fairest excuses for the Love of the World For who can choose but love that which is necessary to Life How can any man live without Money as the World goes In extream old Age we shall be forsaken and miserable if we have not Estates therefore we will stick at nothing to get them whilst we are young This necessariness of the World may indeed justifie the moderate industry of Men for the obtaining of a competent Portion of it but it will never justify coveting after abundance nor the predominant Love of the World For Life it self for whose sake we say we Love the World is in it self but a mean thing and not very desirable and in comparison of the favour of God abominable and to be hated But supposing Life never so desirable and consequently the World necessary and consequently the Love of it justifiable yet certainly God is more necessary to us than the World or any thing in it Our Souls are sure more excellent than our Lives and consequently the Grace of God which is the Life and Happiness of Souls more necessary than the World can be to the maintainance of Life It is not necessary to us to Live but it is necessary to be Saved If a Man lose his Life he may find it again but if he lose his Soul it is past Recovery Without the World we cannot Live therefore it is necessary without God we cannot be Saved therefore He is more necessary Nay indeed neither can we Live without hâ—â— it is because he is that we are and if we could suppose that he should withdraw himself from the World it may easily be conceived That the World would hide its Head and steal away into its first nothing MEDITAT XLIX A Concluding Meditation I Can imagine nothing that does really commend the World or any thing herein to our Affections or Entertainment but it is in a higher degree or a more excellent kind to be found in God The superlative Love of God must needs therefore be most just and reasonable And oh would to God it might appear so to all Men to all the Children of God Oh thou Father of Men and Father of Mercies set home those Considerations of the reasonablenesâ— necessity easiness pleasantness seemliness profitableness of this Love of thee upon the Hearts of all Men that as thou lovest them more then they so they may love thee more than themselves or any thing else How long O Lord shall it be observed to the breaking of the Hearts of thy Friends that thou art hated by so great a Part of that Creation that is nothing but the product of thy own Love and Goodness What a fearful horrible Rebellion is this World thrown into when the Children of the Most High rise up against their Father their very Hearts riâ—â— against him against his Service against his People against his Name and Authority Oh sad Apostacy of 〈◊〉 Nature Oh lamentable degeneracy of rational Faculties How are men transformed into Moles hating the Light and making to themselves Places and Paradices in the Base Earth How are Souls converted into Swine feeding upon Husks and wallowing in Filthiness How stupendiously are the rational Palates vitiated who loath the Honey and the Honey-comb to whom Love it self is hateful Oh Lord pity this unnatural viperous Generation that are without natural affection to their Father cast forth thy Cords of Love and reconcile this undutiful rebellious Off-spring to thy Blessed and Lovely Self Hear me O my God in these Requests which on my own behalf and on the behalf of all the undutiful Crew of lapsed Souls I humbly present to thy Merciful Majesty Disparage all the Wealth and Glory
belong to Beasts Love properly belongs to the rational Creature neither can there be any proper Love without understanding and choice And those Species of the rational Creation that are most able to love or able to love most are the most Noble and Divine Love is the Union of the Soul with the Object beloved and makes it as much one with it as it 's possible to be with a thing that is not our self Now how shameful a thing is it that such Noble Affections should match themselves so basely especially when such an excellent Object is in view The Daughter of a mighty Prince chusing a Scullion Boy for her Husband is not so unseemly a sight as the Soul of Man enamor'd of the World neither is the Eagle catching Flyes or the King of Israel hunting a Flea so ridiculous The Prodigal Gentleman turn'd Fellow-Commoner with the Swine or great Nebuchadnezzar herding himself with the Oxen is not so absurd The beautiful Sun indeed in its kind Condescension doth visit the very Dunghils as the glorious God is said to be even in Hell it self but will not lodge his Beams there But alas this Noble Off spring of Heaven the rational Soul how familiarly doth it lodge and lie down with the World and rest in the Embraces of that which is not God! A Debauchery every whit as abominable as a Humane Body lying down before a Beast Our Bodies indeed are a part of the Machine of the World and it is no great wonder if they be delighted in it as the Beasts are But for Souls and Spirits to immerse themselves in to unite themselves to material Objects and mundane Things is as odious and as monstrous to behold as the coupling of living Men to dead Bodies which the Poet describes as a great piece of Cruelty in the Tyrant Mezentius The style of the Prophets makes it an Argument of extreme Desolation when filthy Birds and Beasts do rest in a Land when wild Beasts of the Desart lie there when their Houses are full of doleful Creatures and Owls dwell there and Satyrs dance there and wild Beasts of the Wood cry in their Houses and Dragons in their pleasant Palaces as the Prophet Isaiah elegantly expresseth it Isa 13. 21 22. when the wild Beasts of the Desart meet with the wild Beasts of the Islands and the Satyr cryes to his Fellow the Shrich-Owl rests there the great Owl makes her Nest and lays and hatches and the Vultures be gathered every one with his Mate as the same Prophet expresseth it Isa 34. 14 15. Filthy Affections do certainly argoe a desolate Soul forsaken of God and forlorn and do extremely desile that which was once and ought to be the Temple of God And what shall be the Portion of these Profaners the Apostle Paul tells us 1 Cor. 3. 17. If any man defile the Temple of God him shall God destroy MEDITAT VI. Of the Love of the World YET we must consider what this Love of the World is that is so dangerous And here sure it must be granted even by the devoutest Lovers of the Father Negatively First That it is not every kind glance toward the World that is it If so we may well stand and wonder and ask with the Disciples of old Who then can be saved Although one may apply our Saviours words hither and say If any Man look upon the World to lust after it in his heart he hath committed Adultery with it Although Discontent nay even the very rathering of Things is to be suspected yet certainly it is too severe to determine every single fond glance toward the World to be this damnable love of it There was a famous time wherein the Sons of God beheld the Daughters of Men and I think there will be no time wherein they will be perfectly blind to them whil'st we carry about with us these Bodies it is to be feared that the Beauties and Gayeties of this World will be creeping in at our Senses or Fancies and more or less infesting and infecting our hearts Secondly That a moderate seeking of the World so as to provide Things honest in the sight of God and Man is not it If it were as the Apostle speaks in another Case We must go out of the World For we see there is no living in it without some degree of caring for it No it must needs be an immoderate an excessive Love that is so dangerous and fatal If it be ask'd When that is I answer Whenever it prefers the World or any thing therein before God and that which God is Alas then every single Act of Covetousness wherein the World is preferred before God is Vicious Yes so it is and pernicious and necessarily to be repented of And if it be a Temper it is that damnable Love of the World here spoken of This Love must be predominant and it must be a Temper or else it cannot denominate the Man a damnable Lover of the World Lot committed Incest and I doubt was drunk too but I do not think the love of Wine or Women was predominant in him David committed Adultery but I do not think that he was of an Adulterous Temper But they that are carried by a predominant and habitual Love of the World are the Lovers of the World here spoken of whether they be the Covetous whom God abhorreth or the Proud whom he resisteth or the Voluptuous who are dead to the living Lord MEDITAT VII Men are to try themselves by their Love IF any Man love c. It seems that God doth estimate Men by their Loves not by their Impulses nor their Professions not by their Words no nor by their Actions neither For although it is true That pure Affections will ordinarily produce pure Actions and that as Faith worketh by Love so Love sheweth it self by Works yet Actions materially good do often prom a Principle not Divine and Pure but Carnal and Corrupt Therefore the great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Tryes of the Reins visits and views the hearts of Men and from thence he values them It doth not only appear from this Text but indeed from the whole current of Scripture that the Estimate that God makes of Men is from their hearts Hence it is that we read so often concerning such and such men that they had such and such Faults and Failings in their Conversation or Government yet nevertheless their hearts are perfect with the Lord And other men were thus and thus specious and zealous in their Conversation yet their hearts were not perfect with the Lord And of others that they were very formal and forward Professors but in the mean time their heart went after their Covetousness It were endless to shew the special regard that God has to the hearts and affections of men And ought not we to estimate our selves as God estimates us If any man love c. This sure is the chiefest and one would think the easiest thing in the world to
be known It is without Controversie the chiefest thing and most material for Man to know concerning himself what he loves best If I know that God is the Supreme Good and that it is my greatest Duty and highest Perfection to love him best it must needs follow that it is my greatest Concernment to know that I do so For if I once attain to this understanding I will not be beholden to any Fortune-teller to acquaint me with my future condition in this World nay I will thank no Divine to fore-tell me my condition in another Man has nothing Better than his Affections nothing Nobler than his Heart Love is better than Beneficence Lazarus in being able to Love had a nobler Portion than Dives in being able to Give And shall this Heart this Love be given to the World A Man may converse in the World and be concern'd about it and yet not love it that 's well that may comfort us But a Man may also know God talk of him profess him perform many Duties to him worship him with much Pomp and seeming Sanctimony and yet not love him that may startle us It is easie in all other things for a Man to tell what he loves best Cannot every man tell what Dish of Meat or what Sort of Drink pleases him best or what Neighbor he prefers most And it is not a wonder that Men should not know whether they love God or the World best Is' t not a wonder that Men should be so mad or blind as not to see themselves Lovers of the World Surely the heart of Man is deceitful and that not only to other Men as some would have the meaning of the Text to he but to himself also I never yet knew a Man that would confess himself to be covetous though all the Symptoms of Covetousness were upon him Though the Plague-spots and Sores are upon them yet they will not confess themselves to be infected To undeceive if it may be the Lovers of the World is the design of the Publication of these Meditations Lord be merciful unto its and suffer not our hearts to be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin MEDITAT VIII Of the Extent of Worldly Love IF any man c. Methinks this Phrase supposes that all sorts of Men are subject to this Evil and liable to this Disease And indeed the more I think of it whether the Text suppose it or no the truer it seems to be When I consider great Men I do not see that they are so above the World as to despise it neither are the Poor so below the World as to despair of it as it is in some Cases No all sorts of men are subject to this Plague nothing secures us from it Riches do not it should seem by the Psalmist that the increase of them rather causes Men to set their hearts upon the World If Riches increase set not your heâ—â—ts upon them Poverty does not the poorer the prouder oftentimes and sometimes the covetouser too Holy Orders do not witness the greediness of the Clergy of all Churches Retiring into a Monastery cannot as the many unclean Practices committed there will testifie Holy Profession or an early resolution in Baptism cannot witness the multitudes that fight under the Worlds Banners who then protested to fight against it to their Lives end It is a close Evil or Devil rather and is found in company with Learning with Inspiration and the Spirit of Prophecy as in Balaam in company with Prayers and Sacrifices as in Saul in company with Fortitude as in Jeroboam in company with Zeal and Profession as in Jehu in company with legal Righteousness much Gravity Demureness seeming Self-denial and Maceration as in them who in the Gospel are said to love the praise of Men more than the praise of God It is found in conjunction with Circumcision neither is it washt away by that Ordinance that is called a putting away of the filth of the flesh But if we will come to a strict Examination we must consider Man in his Moral and in his Political Capacity And this God willing I intend to do in its proper place MEDITAT IX Of the Evil of worldly Love IF any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Lord what a terrible thing is this that is predicated of so small a fault He doth not love God! Why what could have been said worse of him If a man do not love God he is as bad as a Devil he is cursed with the chiefest curse If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be anathemamaranatha Who would believe that so fearful a thing should be predicated of so small a matter If he had said If any man blaspheme God maliciously oppose him spitefully commit Murder be rebellious against all Superiors beastly in all Behavior dwelleth in all Pride and Malice or the like then it had been likely enough that he should be esteemed a hater of God But to say If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Who can believe this Is it so great a matter to love the world Yes from the Predicate we may infer how great a matter it is The Spirit of God would not have predicated this of a thing of an ordinary size every body declares against the sins of the Flesh rails at Drunkenness Adultery Murder Injustice Extortion every Body brands Thieves and such like People But the sins of the Spirit go unespy'd and damn mens Souls more effectually See how damning a thing it is to misplace affections Oh how sadly is the world mistaken How weakly do men judge How many will find themselves in Hell shortly who had hoped that they were in the Suburbs of Heaven The common cry is A very good man a very honest man a civil good-natur'd Neighbor but a little with the closest Paulo attentior ad rem A small fault they think But is Idolatry and Adultery a small Fault This love of the world is really they one had as good bow down before a graven Image as love the world It is very observable how the Commands of the Gospel are mostly calculated for the regulating of the affections of Love Care Joy Grief and how it forbids and inveighs against the sins of the Spirit Pride Malice Distruct Envy Covetousness and the like The renovation of the Will and regulation of the Affections is the great work of Regenerating Grace It is paltry Pharisaism to mind paying of Tythes and to neglect the love of God Say not oh say not it is a small thing to love the world but say oh how it defiles how it exposes how it damns what Idolatry and Adultery and Blasphemy is it Arise O my precious Soul fully not thy beautful wings by resting upon so filthy a Dunghil by preying upon so loathsom a Carrion How evil and abominable the love of the world is I shall have occasion to consider more
cannot give so close shut up that he may not receive shall yet be well accepted of the Father if he can love Christ Jesus has a Yoke indeed but it a Yoke of Government not of Punishment it is not galling to the Necks of his Disciples My Yoke is easie He has a burden too but it is light Christi sarcina pennas habet To love is Cheap it costs nothing Love indeed will grudge no cost will stick at no charge if it be requir'd but there is none requir'd to the exercise of Love she best way in the world for a poor man to be happy as we read the poor Woman was whose whole Inventory amounted but to two Mites and indeed a readier way for the Rich than though they should lavish Gold out of the Bag and make Oblations of Rams by thousands and Oyl by Rivers For what cares the self-sufficient God for these things What doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul Deut. 10. 12. To love is pleasant The very acts of Love are pleasent to him that exerts them They had a dismal way of serving their Gods of old time in an extatick frantick manner cum sacro horrore as Baals Priests cutting and slashing themselves or as the Priests of Apollo or Bacehus swelling raging and distracted Lucane I remember somewhere in his Pharsalia describes the Devotion that the Massilians pay'd to certain dreadful deities which they Worshipt in a dark grove so terribly as would make one wish to get as far off from such Deities as possible Nay he tells us that the Priest himself that went to Atone them was afraid of nothing more than lest he should meet one of them lest they should draw night to him in his drawing nigh to them Dominumque timet deprendere luci But love divine love the love of God is serene compos'd and sweet pleasent in its very actings ravishing the Soul that exerts it who takes just so much pains in loving as the Rivers do in running the Wind in blowing or the Sun in shining Good God! How infinitely and astonishingly kind and gracious art thou to the Sons of Men all whose very commands consist with our ease and are calculated for our pleasure Lord what can be more pleasant than to love to love that which is infinitely lovely What can be safer then to trust in Almighty Power What easier sweeter way of living then to cast all our care and lay all our burden upon infinite Wisdom and Goodness What more sweet and cordial than to hope in infinite Mercy and Veracity These Oh these sweet things are the matter of thy Law And Oh thou that hast to mercifully accommodated thy Laws to my pleasure mercifully accommodate my Soul to thy Laws that I may take pleasure in them MEDITAT XIV Of the Excellency and Necessity of the Love of God THe Love of God is Excellent and Honourable it puts a Beauty and Lustre upon the Soul This beautifies dignifies glorifies yea and in a sense deifies the Soul uniting her to God and so making her one with her Maker As Worldly Love dishonours and defiles as he that is joyned to an Harlot is one with an Harlot even a Limb of a Whore and he that is joyned to the World in Spiritual Adultery is a Limb of the World so he that is joyned to Christ is a Member of Christ The Soul acts most nobly exalts it self most bravely when it spends its powers upon the supream good If there be any Apotheosis of Souls this is it The Saints are the most excellent of the Earth and this is the Character of Saints that they love God Love ye the Lord all ye his Saints Of this I shall have occasion to enlarge my Meditations hereafter I will therefore proceed to think a little of the absolute necessity of the Love of God The Love of God is so necessary to the happiness of Souls that no Soul can be happy that hath it not predominant in him The precept makes it necessary which commands it in both Testaments and that over and over again and that as the principal Duty of Man It is a Commandment nay it is a great it is the great Commandment as our Saviours words are translated Matt. 22. 38. Now after all these inculcations can we imagine that God will dispense with this nay with the leave of the Popish Casuists be it spoken he cannot for it is a necessary means of Happiness God himself cannot make a Soul happy that hates him Considering the constitution of the rational Soul it is impossible that any thing should be his happiness below Communion with God Now there can be no Communion no Converse without Love Can a Soul dwell with him for ever and be happy in so doing that does not love him Ye hated me and cast me out says Jephthah Certainly the haters of God do ipsfacto cast themselves out of the presence of God MEDITAT XV. Why called the Love of the Father THe Love of the Father is not in him But why the Love of the Father rather the Love of God This seems to be done on purpose and to be more elegant and emphatical than if he had said the Love of God For it is a great aggravation of this unnatural sin the love of the World Father is an endearing Relation as appears by many Texts but methinks by no one more than that which proceeded from the Mouth of Christ and is now in the Mouth of every Christian Our Father God is fully ouâ— Father yea and Mother too the words both of begetting and bringing forth are ascribed to him of him we are begotten and brought forth Were it not monstrous that a Man should prefer his Horse or his Hounds and the Lives of them before his Father provide for them and let his Father starve More Monstrous it is to prefer the World before God Moreover The Father seems to be put elegantly in opposition to the World As if one should say What love the World more than the Maker of it The Moralist I think it is Cicero some where inveighs against the absurdity of those Men that adore Images and do not rather admire and reverence the skill that made them and the Ingenuity of the Carvers and Painters God is the Father of the World the Father as well as our Father the Father of Light the Marker of all that is pleasant profitable and honourable the Creator of Riches the Fountain of Pleasure and Honour So that to love the World rather than the Father whether he be consider'd as our Father or the Father of the World is lewd and absurd MEDITAT XVI Of Mens Apprehensions concerning the Love of God IF any Man Love the World c. I foresee that after all that I shall meditate upon this Subject the issue will be either that Men will be secure and never mind this thundering expression it
will not starttle nor make any impression upon them or they will a little open their Eyes and inquire into themselves and ask whether they be lovers of God or of the World I foresee the greatest part of Men into whose hands these Meditations shall fall will be secure and unconcern'd as they are under the weightiest Doctrines and loudest Thunders of God It is the Nature of worldly Love to stupifie it drowns in perdition it choaks the Word it makes Men Blind and Bold Senseless and Secure It Stiffles Choaks Deadens takes away all Heart and turns Men into meer lumps of Earth But perhaps there are others some others that will inquire Well be it so yet I suppose that the power of self-Self-love is so great that the inference they will make will be one of these two Either Oh I love God and therefore am not a lover of the World or Oh I am not a lover of the World therefore I love God MEDITAT XVII What it is to Love God BUt possibly there may be some ingenious Inquirer that with Philip will ask and say Shew us the Father and it sufficeth To him Christ answered Have I been so long with you and sayest thou shew us the Father As if he had said the invisible God is seen in me I am the Image of the Father So I say to these God is invisible but the Image of God is visible in the World The Image of God idneed is seen in the whole Creation and the Power Wisdom and goodness of God are to be observed and admired therein But especially it is to be admired in Man Man is more especially the Image of God and if we say we love God whom we have not seen and love not our Brethren whom we have seen we deceive our selves More especially it is to be observed in good Men Therefore is the Love of God so often described by the Love of the Brethren and of the Saints But principally True Goodness is the Nature of God God is Goodness Truth Love Holiness and he that loveth the World more than these is the Idolater and Adulterer here spoken of If any Man habitually in his Judgment or Affections prefer the Pleasures Profits or Honours of the World before Righteousness Goodness Truth and Holiness he is dead accursed I suspect that the Love of Christs Person is mostly a Notion amongst Men To follow his Example to imitate his Graces to copy out his Perfections is to Love him For although we have not heard Gods Voyce nor seen his Shape at any time yet if his Word abide in us we love him John 5. 37 38. He that loveth Christ must keep his Commandments If any man therefore prefer the world before the Commands of Christ before the favour of God or the peace of his own Conscience so far he is a lover of the World The son of the bond-woman and of the free cannot cohabit fleshly wisdom and the grace of God cannot at the same time predominate The love of God is a nature not a rapture or extasie much less a Mechanical thing Acted only upon the Stage of Fancy MEDITAT XVIII Of the false love of God BUt what is the love of the world so pestilent so malignant so poysonous that no love of God will grow by it in the same Soul Yes there may be a great deal of spurious love love of a false kind more properly called flattery than friendship Men may fancy they love God much and may cry God forbid but they should love him above all things Perhaps there may be some true love in a weak degree true I mean in opposition to dissembled Physically true for why may there not be a true love that is not saving But he that loves God aright as the supream good must needs love him with a supream and superlative affection But be it true or no in a Physical sense that love of God is not highest doth not prevail nor predominate that is easily crusht cast out gain-said If the Tares get above the Corn and smother it if the cares of the world choak the word those tares and cares are pardominant The men of Keilah made love to David perhaps they had some real kindness for him but their kindness for Saul was greater so that if he offer'd himself they would cast forth David and his men The love of God and the love of the World are inconsistent And that appears from the nature of the objects which are contrary the one to the other As also from the nature of love If any man love the World must be understood of a prodominant love then the love of the Father is not in him must be understood of a predominant love also God being the chiefest good the love of him must be the highest and strongest or else it is not such as the object requires If a Woman love her Husband well yet if she love him not above any other man she does not love with a right conjugal love which ought to be strongest of all others The proper and acceptable love of God must needs be predominant otherwise it is not fitted to the nature of the supream good Now it is impossible there should be two predominant loves in the same Soul at one and the same time MEDITAT XIX Of Predominant Love BUt it will be askt what goes to make a Predominant love Love yea even the love of God is capable of intention and remission There are those that depart from their first love in a great measure The Spouse was one while sick of love another while so lazy and languid that she would not so much as arise to open to her beloved when he knockt Particularly by how much worldly love prevails by so much Divine love languisheth and is invalidated They are like the houses of Saul and David the rise of the one is the fall of the other and they cannot be both supream in one Israel They are like a pair of Scales in this as the one rises the other falls but they differ in this that they are never equally poys'd A Predominant Love must be most intense in degree habitual and durable The intenseness of the love of God is so describ'd as I never read any thing like it Luk 10. 27. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul with all thy strength and with all thy mind How many All 's are here And yet if we had ten thousand times more powers and principals we ought to love God with them all too It is an emphatical translation of that elegant Text of the Apostle Rom. 5. 5. The love of God is shed abroad in our Hearts which if I might Periphrase upon in Scripture Phrase I would call it a covering of the Soul as the Waters cover the Sea The Soul of a lover of God seems to its self too scant to comprehend the supream good wishes its self wider and larger Oh that
Soul against the whole World And shall we think a little scantling of this World a fit match for Millions of Souls Dost thou not know O my Soul that thou art the Son of God the Brother of Angels nay even of the Angel of the Covenant by Adoption and canst thou pitch and fix upon any Object below God himself It is unreasonable it is unjust it is sinful and shameful Believe it all inordinate love of thy self is an Incestuous and of other things a Sodomitical Conjunction And besides the Relation and Capacity of Souls we may distinctly consider the wants and necessities of Souls which are such that the World and the fulness thereof cannot supply or relieve The Appetites and Thirsts of Souls are great and strong which the Creatures Cistern can never slake and quench There is a kind of infinity in the lustings and cravings of Souls which all the Possessions and Conquests of the World could never yet fully gratifie Curtae nescio quid semper abest rei You may as well imagine that Behemoth that drinketh up Jordan into his mouth should be satisfi'd with one drop of a Bucket or the wrangling of a hungry Infant for the full Breast should be from day to day silent by Gawds and Rattles as that the Thirsts of a Soul which are after Rest and Happiness should be quencht and satisfi'd by Creature fulness No no the whole World is those Husks that will not fill the Belly of the Hungry Prodigal Take it in all its dimensions and a Man may say of it The Bed is too short for a Soul to stretch it self upon and the Covering is too narrow for a Soul to wrap it self in To which I may add That the Heart of Man is also a Sacred Thing a Thing Consecrate to God The Prophanation of Temples was ever bann'd our Saviour was never so transported with Zeal as against the Profaners of the Temple but certainly to entertain the World into our Hearts is greater Prophaneness than to drive a Trade in the Temple to make a Dove House or a Stable of it MEDITAT XXXVI From the Consideration of the Nature of the World THe uncertainty and unsatisfyingness of the World and all worldly things is a popular Theme which every young Scholar can Rhetoricate upon and declaim against before he have made any experiment of it or any Choice of a better Object The Books of Men are as full of Invectives against the World as their Hearts are at the same time of the love of it He 's a very fool indeed that cannot repeat the words of the wise Man and cry all is vanity but he 's a wise Man who heartily believes what he repeats and acts agreeable to his belief The Poetical Fancies do prettily resemble pleasures to Syrenes which sing sweetly and by their pleasant voice and beautiful aspect allure the Passenger to themselves and then hugg him and kill him And who can deny that this is somewhat like to Solomons whorish Woman in the Proverbs They compare Honour to Icarus his Wings mounting him so unreasonable high that they are melted off by the heat and so down comes that aspiring Mortal to a degree lower than that from which he arose and leaves nothing behind him but a ridiculous fame of bold Aspiring Magnis tamen excidit ausis Not unlike which is the description that the Psalmist makes of man that is in Honour and abideth not He stands upon Pinnacles indeed but they are very slippery ones from which he is soon cast down into destruction They resemble Riches to the great Wooden Horse which the silly Trojans entertain'd into the very heart of the City and rejoyc'd in it as a rare Present sent them by the Gods but it prov'd full of deadly Enemies that presently Murdered them in their security And does not the Apostle speak to the same purpose when he tells us That they that will be Rich fall into Temptations and a Snare and many hurtful Lusts which drown Men in Perdition and coveting after them is piercing ones self thorow with many Sorrows I have read of a Bird in some parts of India that has a Note singing in the language of that Countrey Here he is This he is always singing as our Countrey Cuckows Hereby many curious Travellers are invited to the Tree where he sits who spying them come removes further to another and after that to another still calling them by the same Note whereby it has happen'd that many in seeking to find the Bird have lost themselves The Application is easie for the things of this World Invite and Allure and Promise much Content Lo Here it is And lo There it is but no body could ever light of it there for when one comes near them the deceitful Birds take to themselves Wings and flye away for so the wisest of men tells us in plain words Eccles 5. 10. He that loveth Silver shall not be satisfi'd c. and concerning Pleasures the same Wisdome said That its madness and of Mirth what does it Eccles 2. 2. and concerning Honour he thought the same thing for all that comes says he is Vanity This Meditation is capable of much enlargement but it does not need it Therefore I will dismiss it and consider further Whether those things be indeed Riches Pleasures and Honours which are call'd by those names I suppose that these things of the World are not onely empty and unsatisfying and therefore unfit to be the Object of our Love but that they are deceitful in nor being what we call them as well as in not giving what we expect from them Shall these sorry things deserve the name of Riches Honour and Pleasure that are full of Poverty Disgrace and Bitterness Can I be properly said to be Rich when with my Riches I am poor or Honourable when with my Honours I am the more abject and slavish or a man of pleasures when with my pleasures I am the fadder And is it not thus The true measure of riches is not how much the more one has but how much the less he wants for riches were not intended only that we might have more but that nothing should be wanting Now consider that famous rich man in the Gospel for Example whether he was the richer or the poorer for that plentiful Crop he reaped This increase made him sollicitous and sleepless made him more indigent then he was before And was it not poverty then For now the Text tells us he wants bigger Barns consequently a great many Workmen to build him more Servants and Cattel to manage his Husdandry And I pray what can poverty it self do more than make a man want I suppose a poor man in the common sense to be made rich well he wants Men and Arms to defend his riches Servants to manage them a Retinue to wait upon him now he wants a Stately House and that wants Stately Furniture he wants many other things and those things want many
place in the Creation shall I assign to that man that loves the lowest things for by loving he makes himself lower than they and it will puzzle all Philosophy to tell where to place that man that is lower than the lowest Shake off these shameful Fetters O my Soul burst this Yoke thou art call'd to liberty renounce this Ahominable servitude and reckon that if for an Hand-Maid to be Heir to her Mistress is a matter of Pride for a Mistress to eâ—slave her self to her Hand-Maid is matter of shame and reproach The gracious Creator hath plac'd thee in a noble degree and rank of the Creatures the lines are fallen to thee in a good place do not wilfully degrade thy self by forsaking thy station and thrusting thy self down below the lowest to thy eternal disparagement and amazement Lest whilst thou stand'st in a mixture of disdain and pity beholding the mighty Nebuchadnezzar herding himself with the Oxen thou plunge thy self into a more dishonourable condition then this and suffer thy self to be ridden by thy own Beast MEDITAT XXXVIII From the Consideration of the Nature of the Love of the World Idolatrous and Adulterous HAving briefly considered what the World is and what Love is I will now put them together and a little consider what Worldly Love is And indeed I cannot think of any thing abominable but I find it to be that Methinks I hear the Pathetical words of the blessed one fouâ—â—â—â—g in my ears Oh do not that abominable thing that I hate Jer. 44. 4. It seems that all sin is abominable and hated of Gods Soul But if one thing may be said to be more abominable than another I doubt not but Predominant Worldly Love is the most abominable of all things as having in it the nature of all those things which are of all sober Judges accounted most abominable I will confine my self to five or six of the worst that I can think of And here I will begin this black Roll with Idolatry This is confest by all Christians to be an abominable thing insomuch that that very part of the Christian World which we most suspect of it are as studious to excuse it as they are bold to commit it And there is a great deal of reason why all men professing the knowledge of the true God should abominate Idolatry when they hear him in his Word so passionately charging the World against it so terribly threatning the Commission of it and read what lamentable Devastations he made amongst the Jews because of it which the Prophet excuses by a strange expression The Lord could no longer bear because of their Idolatry Jer. 44. 22. But as abominable as it is the Love of the World is in it What the Apostle says of one Branch of it by the same Argument that Covetousness is Idolatry Pride and Sensuality are no better The highest Act of Worship is Love consequently he that loves the praise of Men more than the praise of God that is a lover of Pleasures more than of God is a down right Idolater Gold and Silver need not to be made into Images to be objects of admiration He that loves and delights and trusts in them chiefly has given the Worship peculiar to God to them and made them his God already Idols may be and commonly are set up as properly in the Heart as in Houses Ezek. 14. 3. and Idolatry as well committed by the inclinations of the Will as by the bending of the Knee There cannot be more palpable Idolatry in the world than making that a God to ones self which is none Is not the Sensualist an Idolater in the most proper speech whose Belly is his God as the Apostle phraseth it By the like propriety of speech one may say of the proud Gallant that he makes his Back his God nay an Horse an Hawk or an Hound may be as truly an Idol to a Christian as a Calf is to an Egyptian A second abominable thing that I think of is Adulâ—â—ry Whatever favourable Opinion this Wicked and Wanton Age has entertain'd of this Vice I 'm sure the Holy God accounts it abominable and ordained in his Common-wealth of the Jews that the Adulterors should be stoned to Death Such is the Opinion that God has of Adultery that he most usually by his Prophets compares that incomparable sin of Idolatry to it and calls it going a Whoring after other Gods It must needs be a foul pattern by which that Monster of Idolatry is drawn And is not the love of the World Adultery Is not the heart of Man as much dedicate and due to God as any Mans Wife is peculiar to him Do Men justly complain of great wrong done to them and may not God as justly complain of the alienation of Hearts May not God reasonably be offended that such a vile thing as Mundanes should be his Rival and defile the Heart of Man which he esteems his greatest Jewel It 's plain by the judgement of the great Searcher of Hearts that she that lusts after another Man more than her own Husband is a Whore and has already committed Adultery with him in her Heart It must needs be that the Soul that lusts after and cleaves to any Object more than to God to whom Souls are most nearly related and to whom they are most firmly bound is abominably Unchast and Adulterous in her loves Souls have no way of playing the Whore but by mis-loving and by how much the meaner the Object of their love is so much the groffer and more shameful their Adultery So that the Soul Prostituting it self to the World is not only Adulterous but indeed Sodomitical in this Conjuction For t is all one with lying down before a Beast which is forbidden by the law abhorr'd of Nature and damned by the gentile Theology under the Fable of Pasiphae and her Bull and their Monstrous off spring the Minotaur Vencr is Monument a nefandae MEDITAT XXXIX Of the Blasphemy and Sacriledge of Worldly Love A Third abominable thing that I think of is Blasphemy To speak evil of God injuriously reproachfully of the Deity may justly be accounted horrible amongst the Servants of the true God when it was judged abominable even by the Heathens whose Gods themselves were abominable Paul's Companions had like to have been pull'd in pieces by the Zealous Ephesians for disparaging Diana and the onely way that the Town Clark could take to appease the multitude was to tell them whatsoever people said of her Diana was a very brave Goddess and to deny that Paul's Companions were Blasphemers of her for he knew well enough that if such a horrible thing as Blasphemy were prov'd against them the people would not have stay'd for any Judicial Sentence to be past upon them Now there is a Blasphemy of the Heart as well as of the Tangue So the Fool Blasphemes who says in his heart there is no God and so do all they that either â—scribe to God
Nature suggests yea dictates and requires this that we love those that love us our Saviour takes it for granted that all men do this because the worst of men do it yea the very Beasts do it Saevis inter se conveniâ— Ursis Nay it seems that there is a kind of an agreement in Hell and an Order and Amity amongst the Devils else their Kingdom could not stand If two cannot walk together except they be agreed how much less can Four thousand for so many was a Roman Legion in our Saviours days dwell together in one Man without some mutual kindness The Nature of Love is sociable it can endure any thing but solitude this it can no more endure than the Wind can endure to be and not to blow Now what properer Object of Love can there be than one that loves us or a thing that is our own No one is our own so properly as he that loves us I am more truly possest of a Friend that loves me than of a Child that I carry in mine Arms or Wife that I lay in my bosome that cares not for me Of all the World therefore God is most ours because he loves us best The love that comes from above is strong We commonly observe that the love that comes down from Parents upon their Children is stronger than that which rises up from the Children to their Parents An Arrow falling from an high wounds deeper What deep impressions then in the hearts of Men should the Arrows of Love make that are shot from above the highest Heavens It is truly said That God hates nothing of what he hath made His hatred of the Wicked and of the Devils if we understand it aright is not so much his hatred of them as their hatred of him There is no such thing as hatred in the pure Nature of God his Name is Love and certainly he is nam'd according to his Nature But speaking after the manner of Men he is said to hate Evil-doers onely to denote a contrariety of his Nature to Sin and Wickedness as if one should say Fire hates Water or Light hates Darkness It is a passage of St. Bernard somewhere in his Meditations Diligo te Deus plusquam mea plusquam meos plusquam me That was a pure strain of Devotion and to be imitated by every Soul of Man that understands the nature of his Happiness and Relation wherein he stands to God But if we alter the Grammar of it it is as true Divinity still Deus diliget me plusquam mea plusquam mei plusquam ego God loves us better than all our Friends loves us better than we our selves love our selves Of all our Friends our Relations are suppos'd to love us best and of all Relations our Parents The Love of God towards us therefore is compared to the love that a Father bears to his Son that serves him and a Mother to her Sucking Child But it infinitely excels these for what wretched Mortal can pretend to love with that strength and wisdome as God loves If we who are by Nature evil and impotent Parents can love our Children tenderly how much more doth our Heavenly Father It is our Saviours own Argument and it concludes as strongly concerning loving as concerning giving And if giving good things be an Argument of Love God loves us better than our Parents for he has given us much more then our Parents could for he hath given us noble Souls and his Son to redeem them yea and he gave us those very Parents themselves who give us any good thing He loves us better than we love our selves I am much taken with that expression of the Satyrist speaking of the Gods and their Providence towards Men Charior est ipsis homo quam sibi Gods love towards us is purer and wiser than our own He loves us so well that he will deny us things hurtful to us though we pray for them so well that he will afflict us for our good though it be sore against our wills so well that he will remove us out of this world that we are so fond of into a much better which we poor Souls have little mind of MEDITAT XLIII A further Motive to the Love of God SEcondly I consider that I am beholden to God and it is by him that I am able to love any thing therefore I ought to love him above all things The bare possession of any thing is not the enjoyment of it it is not by having but by loving things that we enjoy them If meer possession were enough the Sparrows had enjoy'd the Altar of God as much as David and the Owls had been as happy in the full Barns of the Gospel rich Mâ—n as he himself Light is sweet but it is to them that see it and so are Meats and Drinks and Perfumes but it is only to them that can taste and smell Nâ—buchadnezzar in his distraction when the heart of a Man was taken from him had no more enjoyment of his Princely treasures than a Jack-Daw or a Mâ—â—pie has of a Thimble or a Bodkin that they have hoarded up Beauty is a pretty thing but if there were no Looking Glasses in the World to represent it the Ladies would not be so proud of it as they are nor dote upon themselves as they do I durst appeal to the greatest Mammonist in the World Whether he would think it worth his care and toyl to covet and serape together great Masses of Money if he were sure he should be depriv'd of the power of taking any pleasure in it Certainly if it be Vanity and an Evil Disease that a man should have Riches Wealth and Honour and no power to eat thereof Eccles 6. 2. It must needs be worse to have these things and not be able so much as to love them or esteem them lovely The Poets tell a pretty tale of Apâ—lle that having promised the Princess Cassandra the Gift of Prophecying for a Nights Lodging with her the afterward refusing but he not able to falâ—â—sie his word he endow'd her with the Spirit of Prophesie indeed but entail'd this mischief upon it that though she Prophesi'd never so truly she could never be believ'd Suppose God should give a man all the conveniences advantages and ornaments imaginable and should annex this onely curse to them that he should not be able in any degree to take any pleasure in any of them I wonder who would account this man happy sure I am he himself would not Is it not God that gives us those Aâ—â—ections and that Power by which we love any thing ought we not to love him above all things by whom it is that we love all things It was a reasonable Expostulation of the Prophet He that hath madâ—th Ear shall no he hear And is it not as reasonable to ask He that haâ—h made the Ear shall not he be heard He that hath created the affection of love in us shall not he
and Sweetness and Beauty and Bravery of the World in our apprehension that we may look upon them as things unsuitable inadequate inferiour to our Noble Natures meer Husks and Trash Dust and Gravel in Comparison of the proper food of Souls Display thy Divine Excellency Sweetnesâ— Fullness Infinite Goodness Suitableness and Allsufficiency to us that we may be throughly convinc'd that thou art altogether lovely and that all other things yea Heaven it self are to be loved for thy sake Let thy good Spirit move upon our Affections and overshadow these Souls so long till it have impregnated them with Divine Love Whether Love be like Water do thou shed it abroad in our Hearts till it overflow all our Faculties as the Waters cover the Sea or whether it be like Fire let the Breath of the Lord Blow it up into a victorious and irresistible Flame Grant good God that this Love of Thee may express it self in the Faith Love and Obedience of thy Blessed Son Jesus in the Entertainment and Prosecution of the Motions of thy Holy Spirit in a sincere Love of all Men in a singular Delight in the Saints in the constant preference of Truth Righteousness the Establishment of Peace and Order the Advancement of the Gospel the Favour of God and our own Consciences before Riches Honours Pleasures Self-pleasing the Favour of Men the Propagations of Parties and all Worldly Interest whatsoever in the preferrence of the Peace and Holiness of our Souls before the gratifications of the Body and the securing of a happy Eternity before the serving of Time Finally I beseeeh Thee O my Gracious Father be daily adding Fewel to this Holy Fire maintain and encrease this pious Ardor Keep us in thy Love waiting for the Mercy of Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life Be daily winding up these Heavy and Lingring Hearts unto Thy Self and carrying on these imperfect Longings till thou hast ripened them into Perfect Lively Fearless Endless Love and Delight in thy Heavenly Kingdom for the sake of the Son of thy Love who hath loved us and given himself for us that we might give our Selves to Thee To him with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Thanks Love and Obedience for evermore Amen FINIS Books Printed for and sold by Samuel Tidmarsh at the Kings-head in Corn-hill THE Triumphs of Gods Revenge against the Crying and Execrable Sin of Murther to which is added Gods Revenge against Adultery A Chronicle of the Kings of England from the time of the Romans Government and continued unto the Fourteenth of his now Majesties Reign by Sir Richard Baker The Court of the Gentiles Compleat by Theophilus Gall. The Use of Passions written in French by I. F. Senault and put into English by Henry Earl of Monmouth A Treatise of Peace and Contentment of Mind by Peter Du Moulin Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty A Treatise of Sacramental Covenanting with Christ shewing the ungodly their Contempt of Christ in their Contempt of the Sacramental Covenant by J. Rawlet An Explication of the Creed the Ten Commandments and the Lords Prayer with the Addition of some Forms of Prayer by John Rawlet Artificial Versifying a New Way to make Latine Verses whereby any one of ordinary Capacity that only knows the A. B. C. and can count 9 though he understands not one Word of Latine or what a Verse means may be painly Taught and in as little time as this is Reading over how to make Thousands of Hexameter and Pentameter Verses which shall be true Latine true Verse and good Sense by John Peter price 6d stitcht Day of Doom or a description of the day of the great and last Judgment with a Discourse about Eternity Christian Directions shewing how to walk with God all the day long A Word â—o Saints and a Word to Sinners The Young Mans Guid through the Wilderness of this World to the Heavenly Canaan shewing him how to carry himself Christian like in the whole course of his Life All three by Thomas Gouge Tables for the use of the Excise Office whereunto is added an Introduction to Decimal Arithmetick and a short Treatise of Practical Gauging also the Excise-mans Aid by John 〈◊〉 Directions with Prayers and Meditations for the worthy receiving the Blessed Sacrament by the famous Charles Drelincourt A Help to English History containing a Succession of all the Kings of England the English Saxons and the Britains the Kings and Lords of Men and Isle of Wight as also of all the Marquesses Earls Bishops thereof with the Description of the places from whence they had their Titles Martial Epigrams Helvicus Colloquia Ovidii Opera Caesars Commentaries Erasmii Collâ—quia Ovidii Metamor cum Not. Farnabii Seneca's Tragedies Virgil. cum Not. Fornab Greek Testament of a full Character
The True Christians Test OR A DISCOVERY Of the LOVE and LOVERS OF THE WORLD In Two Parts I. Of MAN Considered in his Moral Capacity in an Hundred Meditations Derived from 1 John 2. 15. II. Of MAN Considered in his Political Capacity in Forty nine Meditations Derived from 1 John 2. 15. Non dubium est quam illud magis amemus quod anteponimus Salv. In so saying thou reprovest us also By Samuel Shaw Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed by Thomas James for Samuel Tidmarsh at the Kings-head in Corn-hill MDCLXXXII To the Right Honourable THEOPHILUS Earl of Huntingdon Lord Hastings Hungerford Botreaux Molyns and Moyls RIGHT HONOURABLE WHen Men are once firmly perswaded of the certainty of another World and do verily believe the Doctrine of Eternal Life revealed in the Holy Scriptures of God there is all reason in the World methinks to conclude that the first Enquiry should be How they themselves shall become partakers of it For who can be imagin'd to be sincere in his belief of so Glorious and Blissful a State that takes no thoughts how he shall obtain it or not so many thoughts as what he shall eat and drink and put on that sits down contented having given himself that cold answer which was once given to the Mother of Zebedees Children It shall be given to them for whom it is prepared Therefore to justifie the sincerity of their belief most Men do fancy to themselves something or other that will entitle them to this happiness though not so much perhaps because they account it so blessed a thing to obtain as dangerous and shameful to miss of it Amongst the many particulars that men do imagine will give them a claim to Everlasting Life The Love of God is one of the greatest and as much pretended to as any It is so Universal a Plea that I scarce think there is any Man who calls himself a Christian but he will make it Not to love God sounds so ill that it makes the Ears of the most Profligate Christian to Tingle when it is charg'd upon him But notwithstanding all these pretences to the Love of God it is most Evident that a great part of the pretenders are indeed strangers to it inasmuch as they may be convicted of the Love of the World which is inconsistant with it To find out and cast out therefore the Love of the World must needs be the most important Enquiry and Endeavour of Man of every man in the World Your Lordship will easily believe me if I tell you that although Men be never so great and high in the World if the World be great and high in their Hearts the Love of God is not in them Although Men have never so much of this worlds Good if at the same time they be unmerciful and uncharitable the Love of God dwells not in them This is expresly the Apostle James his Doctrine But to speak a little the closer though a man be instructed in all Wisdome and furnisht with all Variety of Arts and Sciences that he can name all things as properly as Adam or discourse of their Natures as learnedly as Solomon if yet the Love of the World be Predominant in him he is but a vain pretender to the Kingdom of Heaven a great stranger to the Life of Angels Though a Man know and believe all the wonderful Doctrines deliver'd in the Holy Book if this Faith do not operate to the purifying of the Heart from the Love of the World he is at present as far from having a true title to the Kingdom of Heaven as they of whom the Apostle gives this Character That they Believe and Tremble In a word though a Man be a Member of the Purest and most Reformed Church be never so Orthodox in his Judgment never so constant and specious in External Acts of Worship never so even and blameless in his Conversation never so exact in Works of Righteousness and abundant in Works of Charity and Mercy if yet in his heart he prefer the World before God he will be interpreted a Lover of the World and consequently an Enemy of the Father I do verily believe my Lord that I do here present you with a Treatise written about the most Important Enquiry in the World They are Morning Meditations stollen from the ordinary Employment of my Life which I do present to the World meerly to advance the Love and Honour of God amongst Men and do Dedicate to your Lordship in a grateful acknowledgment of your kind Respects to me and in Testimony of the Honour that I bear to your Lordships good Design of promoting Piety and establishing Peace in this Nation I beseech your Lordship favourably to accept the Oblation and I heartily pray God that as his Providence hath made you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very Illustrious amongst the English Families so by his Grace you may ever approve your self Tam re quam nomine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oh how Blessed and Honourable a thing will it be found to be sooner or later to be a Sâ—ncere and Ardent Lover of God! To his good Grace and Guidance I heartily recommend your Lordship and rest My Lord Your Honours most humble Servant SAM SHAW The True Christians Test OR A DISCOVERY Of the LOVE and LOVERS OF THE WORLD In Forty nine Meditations Derived From 1 John 2. 15. The Second Part. Of MAN Considered in his Political Capacity By Sam. Shaw Minister of the Gospel LONDON Printed by Tho. James for Samuel Tidmarsh at the Kings-head in Cornhill MDCLXXXII To the Right Honourable THOMAS Earl of Stamford Lord Gray of Grooby MY LORD I Have little more to recommend me to your Lordship than that I am your Countreyman and Neighbour which yet is a Relation that your singular Humility and Affability is not wont to despise though in a person otherwise despicable ethough But your Lordships Love of and great desâ—re to serve the Interest of your Countrey does recommend you abundantly to the World and does tempt me to speak of it in this Dedication My Lord I intend not a Panigyrick of your Lordship which they that are acted by a Worldly Spirit and design Worldly Advantages might think worth their while to contrive May your praise be of God and not of Men And of God I am sure your praise will be if you be a Predominant Lover of him I beseech your Lordship to strip your self of all your Worldly Quality bâ—t an hour or two whilst you peruse the black Characters of a Lover of the World and the just Motives to the Love of God and then whatever exceptions Learned or Witty or Worldly men may make against these Meditations which I believe will be many if you do not judiciously account the Love of God to be the highest Honour and purest Happiness of Man I will be content how loath soever to be accounted not to be what really I am Your Honours Most humble Servant SAM SHAW THE HEADS Of
the Following MEDITATIONS MEDITAT I. INtroductory 1. II. The Method of the ensuing Meditations 3. III. Of the World 6. IV. Of the World taken in a Theological Sense 8. V. Of the Affection of Love 9. VI. Of the Love of the World 11. VII Men are to try themselves by their Loves 13. VIII Of the Extent of Worldly Love 15. IX Of the Evil of Worldly Love 17. X. Of the Inconsistency of the Love of the World and the Love of God 18. XI Of the Evil of not Loving God 20. XII The Love of God most natural 21. XIII Of the Easiness and Pleasantness of Loving 22. XIV Of the Excellency and Necessity of the Love of God 24. XV. Why called the Love of the Father 25. XVI Of Mens Apprehensions concerning the Love of God 26. XVII What it is to love God 27. XVIII Of the false Love of God 28. XIX Of Predominant Love 30. XX. Of Habitual Love 31. XXI Lovers of the World willing to be deceived 32. XXII The Lovers of God most sensible of their Worldliness 33. XXIII Notwithstanding Mens self deceivings there are many Lovers of the World 35. XXIV Who are Lovers of the World in general 37. XXV Of the Lovers of the World more particularly 38. XXVI Of the Inordinate Love of Life 39. XXVII Of unwillingness to die 43. XXVIII Of not longing after a better Life 44. XXIX Of desiring to be dissolv'd 47. XXX Of the Profits of the World 48. XXXI Of Stealing 50. XXXII Of Defrauding 52. XXXIII Of Lying for Worldly Advantage 54. XXXIV Of Oppression Ibid. XXXV Of Bribery 56. XXXVI Of those that offend in the undue degree of seeking Riches 58. XXXVII Of those that offend in the undue season of seeking the World 59. XXXVIII Of Worldly Confidence 61. XXXIX Of Covetousness or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 62. XL. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 65. XLI Of Carefulness 68. XLII Of Discontentedness 70. XLIII Of Immoderate Mourning or Impatience 72. XLIV Of Uncharitableness 74. XLV Of Pleasure in general 76. XLVI Of Worldly Pleasure 78. XLVII Of Fornication and Adultery 80. XLVIII Of Gluttony and Drunkenness 82. XLIX Of Pleasures unlawful in the manner 85. L. Of Pleasures unlawful as to the season 86. LI. Of Fantastical Pleasures 89. LII Of Revenge 91. LIII Of Cursing 95. LIV. Of Idleness 99. LV. Of Easefulness 102. LVI Of fear of Sickness 103. LVII Of fear of the loss of Friends 105. LVIII Of the fear of Poverty and the loss of Goods 107. LIX Of fear of Persecution 109. LX. Of Honour in general and of Pride 111. LXI Of the Honour of God and the way of seeking it 112. LXII Of Self Honouring 113. LXIII Of seeking the Approbation of Men more than of God 114. LXIV Of Pride in Birth 116. LXV Of Pride in Beauty 118. LXVI Of Pride in Apparrel 121. LXVII Of Pride in Children 122. LXVIII Of Pride in Wit and Learning 125. LXIX Of Pride in Riches 126. LXX Of Pride in Strength 129. LXXI Of Pride in Priviledges 130. LXXII Of Pride in Power and great Place 133. LXXIII Of Pride in Vertuous Actions 134. LXXIV Of Pride in Worldly Interest and a Party 136. LXXV Of Self Love 140. LXXVI Of the Love of Relations 143. LXXVII Of the Love of other Men 145. LXXVIII Of Flattery 149. LXXIX Of Worldly Business 151. LXXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of the Love of Worldly Business 154. LXXXI Of the Fashions of the World 157. LXXXII Of Swearing 160. LXXXIII Of Worldly Wisdom in General 164. LXXXIV Of Impure Wisdom 166. LXXXV Of Envy and Envious Wisdom 169. LXXXVI Of Contentiousness and Contentious Wisdom 173. LXXXVII Of Implacableness 176. LXXXVIII Of Unmercifulness 181. LXXXIX Of Unfruitful Wisdom 184. XC Of Partiality 187. XCI Of Hypocrisie in general 189. XCII Of Scripture Hypocrisie and the Hypocritical Wisdom 191. XCIII Of the God of this World 196. XCIV Of Idolatry 200. XCV Of Formal Witchcraft 204. XCVI Of Interpretative Witchcraft 206. XCVII Of the Children of the Devil and partilarly of Self-will 210. XCVIII Of Ingratitude 213. XCIX Of the Devil considered as a Nature 217. C. Cautionary 223. The Second Part. I. OF the false Despisers of Riches 229. II. Of the false Despisers of Pleasure 233. III. Of the Votaries of Pennance 237. IV. Of Quakers 240. V. Of the Quakers Arguments 243. VI. The strength of the Quakers Arguments Considered 247. VII The Quakers Arguments Answer'd 250. VIII Soâ—â— Suggestions to the Quakers 254. IX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or of Publick Benefactors 258. X. Of the Pretenders to Righteousness 260. XI Of Nonconformists 262. XII Of Conformists 267. XIII Of the Educators of Children 270. XIV Of the Disposers of Children to Callings 273. XV. Of Persons Marrying and giving in Marriage 276. XVI Of Patrons 281. XVII Of Chaplains 284. XVIII Of Judges and Magistrates 286. XIX Of Arbitrators Electors and Jurors 289. XX. Of Landlords and Tenants 293. XXI Of Tradesmen 299. XXII Of Inn-Keepers 301. XXIII Of Beggars 305. XXIV Of Wagerers 308. XXV Of Gamesters 310. XXVI Of Debtors 315. XXVII Of Creditors 318. XXVIII Of Usurers 321. XXIX Of Humane Authorities against Usury 330. XXX The Arguments for Usury Considered 335. XXXI Other Reasons for Usury Considered 340. XXXII Authorities for Usury Considered 345. XXXIII What Usurers are Lovers of the World 350. XXXIV Disswasives from the Love of the World from the Consideration of our Profession 355. XXXV Further Disswasives from the Consideration of the Nature of our Souls 358. XXXVI From the Consideration of the Nature of the World 360. XXXVII From the Consideration of the Nature of Love 364. XXXVIII From the Consideration of the Nature of the Love of the World Idolatrous and Adulterous 367. XXXIX Of the Blasphemy and Sacrilege of Worldly Love 370. XL. Of the Ingratitude and Perjury of Worldly Love 373. XLI General Motives to the Love of God 376. XLII A particular Motive to the Love of God 379. XLIII A further Motive 381. XLIV A further Motive 384. XLV A further Motive 386. XLVI A further Motive 388. XLVII A further Motive 391. XLVIII A further Motive 393. XLIX A Concluding Meditation 398. FRiendly Reader The Authors great distance from the Press and our unacquaintedness with his hand hath caused these Errata's which we intreat thee favourably to correct as such which do despoil the sense before you begin to read ERRATA PAGE 13. line 8. read proceed from p. 36. l. 5. r. rapacious p. 41. l. 5. r. Jobusites p. 90. l. 16. r. lovely p. 93. l. 5. r. dona p. 110. l. 13. r. truth p. 126. l. 23. r. confidence p. 132. l. 11. r. unreasonable p. 161. l. 14. r. stick p. 215. l. 25. r. Pupills p. 232. l. 27. r. manifold p. 234. l. penult r. best p 235. l. 26. 〈◊〉 p. 261. l. 18. r. Love p. 267. l. 2. r. Oded l. 9. bloâ—out they are l. 12. r. humorous p. 288. l. 16. r. Seal p. 313. r. master p. 322. l. 30. r. old p.
338. l. 4. r. etymologies l. 25. r. notation p. 339. l. 4. r. Vetarbith p. 346. l. 1. r. it p. 351. l. 2. 〈◊〉 MAN Considered in His MORAL CAPACITY PART I. MEDITAT I. Introductory REturn O my mind Return What dost thou so early in the World Art thou not afraid lest this unseasonable Excursion should be a Symptom of a Lover of the World And think oh think what a dangerous what a deadly thing it is to be a Lover of the World Thou needest no more to convince thee of this but that one plain Text of the devout Apostle St. John If any man love the World the Love of the Father is not in him Are not these words plain to be understood Are they not startling to any one that understands them But if thou wilt think on a little further thou wilt find that the whole Gospel runs in this strain There is no Doctrine deliver'd either more plainly or more frequently than this The Apostle James does so fully consent with his Brother John in this Doctrine as if they spoke with the same mouth Jam. 4. 4. The friendship of the World is enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a Friend of the World is the Enemy of God And this he speaks of either as a Truth generally known or very important as appears by the Interrogatory Form of Speech wherewith he ushers it in Know ye not As if he should either say It is a thing well known or it is a thing well worthy to be known The Apostle Paul though junior to both these yet knew this great Doctrine as well as they and delivers it almost in the same words with them Rom. 8. 7. The oarnal mind is enmity against God He makes the spirit of the world and the Spirit of God directly contrary the one to the other 1 Cor. 2. 12. writing to the Galatians he makes the plain end of Christ's giving himself for us to be that he might deliver us from this present evil world Gal. 1. 4. and chap. 6. 14. He makes this to be the great priviledge that he had by Christ Jesus that by him he was crucified to the World Writing to his Philippians he makes it the short but sure Character of the Enemies of Christ that they mind earthly things Phil. 3. 18 19. And writing to his Son Timothy he gives him the reason why Demas had forsaken him and the Work and Profession of the Gospel viz. Because he was in ove with this World plainly intimating That the Gospel and the World are inconsistent one heart cannot hold them And all these do but in different words speak that which they had heard of or had been taught by their Lord and Master who in the days of his Ministry openly declared That no Man could serve God and Mammon Mat. 6. 24. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon And at another time as I suppose in the self-same words Luke 16. 13. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon If this Doctrine delivered by so many and so worthy hands be true and cannot be spoken against Return O my Soul Return Fuge nata Deo teque immundo eripe mundo Strengthen me O my God unto the hearty and effectual Belief of this Proposition That I may be as afraid of the prevalent love of the World as I would dread to be accounted what is not to be named without horror an Hater of God! MEDITAT II. The Method of the Ensuing Meditations MY great Design shall be to determine the Lovers of the World and to distinguish them from the Lovers of the Father Inasmuch as the Love of God is the Great Commandment and the Great Test of Christians and the Love of the World is so contrary to it and exclusive of it it must needs be worthy of the most serious consideration of the most serious Christians rightly to state and know the condition of their own Souls in this matter But it will not be amiss first to take a general Survey of the words of the Apostle John 1 John 2. 15. and in a preliminary manner to gloss upon the several terms in the Text. After that I will consider the World in a Physical and in a Theological Sense And Man in a Moral and Civil Capacity The World consider'd in a Physical Sense will afford but little Matter pertinent to my Design But the World considered in a Theological Sense will comprehend the Things of the World the Persons of the World the Business of the World the Fashions of the World the Wisdom of the World and the God of the World Under the Things of the World I will comprehend the Profits of the World the Pleasures of the World and the Honours of the World Whil'st I consider of the Lovers of the Profits of the World I must meditate of Injustice Worldly Confidence Covetousness Carefulness Discontentedness Impatience and Uncharitableness When I consider of Injustice I must meditate of those that use undue means for worldly advantage and those that use due means in an undue manner Under the first of these will come to be taxt Stealing Defrauding Lying Oppression Bribery Under the second will be taxt all those that ossend in the Degree and in the Season of seeking the World When I come to meditate of the Lovers of the Pleasures of the Wotld I must consider of Fleshly Pleasures unlawful in their Matter in their Measure in their Manner and in their Season And of Fantastical Pleasures under which I must meditate of Revenge Idleness Easefulness And under this last will come to be consider'd Worldly Fear viz. Fear of Sickness Fear of the Death of Friends Fear of Poverty and of Persecution When I come to consider of the Lovers of the Honours of the World it will be proper to meditate of seeking the Approbation of Men of Pride in Birth Pride in Beauty in Apparel in Children in Wit and Learning in Riches in Strength in Priviledges in Power and Great Place in Vertuous Actions and in a Party After the Things of the World will come to be consider'd the Persons of the World And these are either ones Self ones Relations or other Men. Under the first will be consider'd Self-love and the several kinds of it To the last will be reduc'd the foul sin of Flattery When I come to consider of worldly Business it will be proper to distinguish between a Holy Activity and a Sensual Curiosity When I come to meditate of the Fashions of the World I shall have a fit opportunity to meet with the Sin of Swearing When I come to consider of the worldly Wisdom the Apostle St. James will direct me to meditate of it in this Order viz. of the Impure Wisdom the Envious Wisdom the Contentious Wisdom the Implacable Wisdom the Merciless Wisdom the Unfruitful Wisdom the Partial Wisdom and the Hypocritical Wisdom When I come to consider the God of this World I must consider his Servants his Allies and his Children Under the first
I must meditate of Idolatry Under the second of Witchcraft And under the third more particularly of Self-Willedness and Ingratitude and in general of the Devilish Nature And so I will shut up this First Part which concerns Man consider'd in his Moral Capacity with a Cautionary Meditation lest any one should falsely judge another Man to be a Lover of the World who is not so and endeavor to prevent mis-judging In the Second Part I will first endeavor to undeceive the False Pretenders to the Love of God and here meditate of Monastick Persons of the Votaries of Virginity of the Votaries of Penance and of Quakers of Pretenders to Charity and Righteousness And having diseharg'd that Examination I will proceed to consider Men in their Civil Capacity and meditate of Conformists and Nonconformists of Parents Guardians Tutors of Persons marrying and giving in Marriage of Patrons of Chaplains of Judges and Magistrates Arbitrators Electors Jurors of Landlords and Tenants of Tradesmen of Inn-Keepers of Beggars of Wagerers of Gamesters of Debtors of Creditors particularly of Usurers And so conclude with some Dissuasives from the love of the World and Motives to the love of God MEDITAT III. Of the World THE World is taken either in a Physical Sense or in a Theological In a Physical Sense it signifies that vast Globe that make up Heaven and Earth and Sea and all things contained in them But in a Theological Sense it is put in opposition to God as it is here in this Text of the Apostle John and often elsewhere The World taken in a Physical Sense is lovely and the Strength Beauty Order and Variety thereof are to be Reverently regarded and admired as the workmanship of Infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness It is very proud and prophane or very foolish to despise the World in this Sense and to disregard the Operation of God's Hands To despise the Workmanship reflects a Dishonour upon the Workman and those that see nothing excellent in the World may be justly suspected to see nothing above it The Psalmist says Psal 111. 2. The works of the Lord are sought out of all that have pleasure in them and I â—hink if we Translate it have pleasure in him the Divinity will be as good if the Grammar should not The best Men are the best Philosophers for they make the best Observations upon the admirable Structure and Furniture of the World they see most beauty in it who behold and admire the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness shining forth in it He that converses in the World and beholds the many Demonstrations there given and the Lectures there read and does not from thence learn the Eternal Power and Godhead is a Notorious Dunce He that does understand and know them and does not love and admire them is prophane and proud and so for all his knowledge may be truly said to know nothing Of these prophane Philosophers I shall have occasion to meditate hereafter amongst the Lovers of the World At present I only conclude That Philosophy especially the Philosophy that discovers and comments upon the stately Fabrick the harmonious Order the magnificent Furniture and the admirable Variety of the World the proper Causes and Ends of Things is a very Laudable Study in its own Nature and may be a singular means for the advancement of the Name and Honour of the Blessed Creator It was an extraordinary Expression of a Person of great Quality amongst us when he was but about two and twenty years old That he could be content even then to quit this World and all the Pomps and Hopes thereof though it were for no higher Felicity than to be perfected in the knowledge of Natural Things I cannot tell precisely what degree of value we ought to set upon Philosophical Learning but this we know That no Man in the World and in all the Ages thereof were more famous and admirable than those two Princes of the Jews Moses and Solomon who excell'd in this kind of Learning And the great God himself has given fair encouragement to the study of it by those Philosophy-Lectures that he read out of the Whirlwind to the Eastern Prince which are contained in the 38 39 40 41 Chapters of the Book of Job MEDITAT IV. Of the World taken in a Theological Sense THE World taken in a Theological Sense is put in opposition to God and so it signifies all that which is contrary to the Spiritual Kingdom of Christ and Warreth against it and true Religion all that which doth not comply with the Will of God or withdraws the hearts of Men from him And consequently all that which besides the knowledge and love of God Men covet delight in or lament In this Sense it is said 1 John 5. 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the World And Gal. 6. 14. that the true Believer is crucify'd to the World and the World to him In this Sense The Friendship of the World is said by the Apostle James to be Enmity against God and by the Apostle John to be hatred of him This is sometimes called Mammon and is put in opposition to God sometimes it is call'd our own things in opposition to the things of Jesus Christ. And this appears to be the meaning of it in this Text which I meditate upon by the following Verse which explains the World by the Lust of the Eye the Lust of the Flesh and the Pride of Life which certainly if they be put together are of a large Extent In this Sense we read of Worldly Lusts Tit. 2. 12. of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Things of the World 1 John 4. 5. of the Fornicators of the World 1 Cor. 5. 10. of the Rulers of the darkness of this World Ephes 6. 12. of the Spirit of the World the Wisdom of the World the Nations of the World Luke 12. 30. the Men of the World which have their Portion in this Life Psal 17. 14. the Sorrow of the World 2 Cor. 7. 10. The World in a Theological Sense is in general whatever is not God and so even Life it self may be call'd the World The Apostle James puts the Theological Notion of the World out of dispute in that famous Text wherein he describes the pure Religion to be a keeping of ones self unspotted from the World Jam. 1. ult So then the Apostle St. John means If any Man love any created Being or cleaves to it more than God or prefers it before him he is a Lover of the World and consequently no Lover of the Father MEDITAT V. Of the Noble Affection of Love IF any Man love c. The Noblest Affection that God hath endu'd the Sons of Men yea or the Angels of Heaven with is Love For when that blessed Being was minded to copy out Himself upon the rational Creature He made it apt to love as He Himself is Love God is Love and the power of Loving is his Image However Liking and Lusting and Appetite
inward hearty submission to the Will of God! They are always reckoning these Murmurings and Discontents and Acts of Self-will amongst humane infirmities at worst but such as they desire not to be cured of neither God says Come away the selfish worldly Nature cryes I will not come or yet a while longer And what is Rebellion if this be not It cannot be but that God takes ill all that reluctancy and lothness that is found in us as he did in Lot and especially Lot's Wife Remember her O my Soul when ever thou offerest fondly to look after worldly things in any way of reluctancy against the Will of God! But it will be said Have not good men been unwilling to dye when they have known it to be the Will of God to remove them Was not Hezekiah loth to stir when he had a Message sent him from Heaven Set thine house in order for thou shalt dye To this I reply If good men have been guilty of this Lothness and Non-compliance it is no part of their goodness Good men are never the better for many things that are recorded of them in Scripture yea make the best we can of it certainly it is an imperfection to be loth to dye and if it be no worse I am sure a wise man will not be proud of it nor a good man pleas'd with it The best and most perfect Saints have been usually willing to dye There was no more to do with Aaron but Go up into this Mountain and put off thy Cloaths and dye there and he went up and undrest himself and dyed No more to do with Moses but Go up into this Mountain and see the Land of Canaan and dye and he went up and saw and dyed If I should here stand to take a View of the way of the Saints entertaining Death I should find that all of them entertain'd the Summons of Death contentedly many chearfully and some not so much chearfully as greedily onely Hezekiah desired to live a little longer to see the Kingdom settled and as it should seem to see an Heir of the Crown and it must be made an example to encourage Lingringness and Lothness to dye It 's true he prayed to live but whether he was absolutely unwilling to dye or no or whether he resisted the Will of God I dare not determine and I know no body can prove For even Christ himself prayed That the Cup might pass from him yet with submission of his Will Not my Will but thy Will be done MEDITAT XXVIII Of not longing after a better Life â—dly IF any man be content to spend his Eternity in this world in this imperfect state though it were supposed to be sinless he hath not arrived at that degree of Divine Love as becomes every Christian to aspire unto If the prodigal Soul do truly repent if he do see that there is a Dearth in the whole Creation an insufficiency in the world to entertain him he will resolve to return to his Fathers house And he that could be content for ever to dwell in a strange Land and take up with the Husks that are there declares himself a stranger to the Bread of his Fathers house It may be some one will doubt and ask Whether there be any man so fond of Life as to wish to live Eternally in this Body To which I answer That men plainly see and know that they cannot they must not spend their Eternity here and therefore will not confess they desire any such thing accounting it a shame to be thought to be fond of a thing impossible But yet really many men wish it might be so as having no View Belief or Hope of a better state The extremities of old Age indeed do force men to wish for death who yet have no good mind to dye but if any worldly man could live in health peace and youthful vigor it is not to be doubted but that he would be well content to live here always The Poets make themselves sport with one Tithonus who wish'd for Immortality in this world and it was granted him That he should never dye But he had forgot to put in this That he should not grow old neither so that when he was extremely grown with old Age and good for just nothing he would fain have dyed but could not But if God would add indefectibility of wealth health and strength to Immortality no doubt but that every worldly man would put up Tithonus's Prayer And indeed wishing to live another day and yet another and then another is a kind of wishing to live eternally here He is strangely forgetful of himself and his true interest unkind to his own centre who does not breathe after a state of Perfection to come And he that does so aright will be growing up into it here He that rightly desires Heaven would not willingly stay for all of it till the world to come That which the Poet accounted vicious in the Sons of Men is virtuous and laudable in the Sons of God Filius ante diem c. even in this present Life to lay hold upon Eternal Life What then must men leap out of the Body No but live above the Body grow up into a Godlike nature into a resemblance of Christ Jesus which is Heaven Whil'st we live in this Body we cannot be happy by reason of our Senses Fancies Appetites we must needs therefore desire a better Body if we study our own Felicity Yea suppose the best that we could live without sin yet all this while we are but of a low Form we are capable of more excellent accomplishments It becomes a truly generous mind to aspire after Perfection after a complete rest in its centre after the fullest enjoyment of the Supreme Good And what meanest thou O my Soul to cling so close to this foreign this unsuitable Relation It there any thing more to be enjoy'd here Are there any more children in this barren womb of the world And what meanest thou O my lazy Soul that thou flaggest in thy motions art content with thy attainments that thou art ever and anon baiting upon the creature upon husks and dost not mind thy journey What an Ass was Issachar who saw that the Land was pleasant and bowed down his shoulder to bear and became Servant to Tribute What a Fool art thou to fancy any rest here and couch down so tamely under thy burden They knew not what they said who â—â—â—'d It is good for us to be here Consider what that Here was and that they had more temptation to be there in that Mount than thou hast to be in this vail of tears Sure thou know'st not what thou dost who sittest down contented to be here MEDITAT XXIX Of desiring to be dissolved BUT is it possible that any man should desire to dye Absolutely to desire Dissolution Philosophers will not allow but all Divinity will allow a desire of Perfection to be with Christ and fully to
after his own Image or God who made him poor for even Poverty it self may be called the Gift of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As if he should say Shall he be reproached or wronged whom the Master of the Family has employ'd in the meanest Offices of the Family It is not the Servants Fault that he is so mean if any man reproaches he reproaches not so much him as his Master The Foot cannot help it that it is not the Head Most Men are poor of God's making but if any make themselves poor it is not for any Man to oppress them nor for every Man to reproach them neither For Reproach is a sort of punishment which every Man may not inflict There are several sorts of Oppression in Goods in Money as they that detain the hire of the Labourer in racking of Rents in selling making Men pay the more for their Necessity in Rights in Liberty c. some of which I shall have occasion to meditate of hereafter and therefore will dismiss them at present MEDITAT XXXV Of Bribery THey that take Gifts to pervert Justice or favor any Cause in Judgment are Lovers of the World for they prefer it before Truth and Righteousness I do not think that every Present is a Bribe but I think it is safest for a Minister of Justice not to take Gifts at all lest he should be corrupted There is certainly a wonderful power in Gifts to blind the eyes even of the wise Exod. 23. 8. Every man saith the wise man is a Friend to him that giveth Gifts which argues the great interest that wâ—rrldly profit hath in the heart of man and consequently how hard and noble a thing it is to be purged of worldly Love Giving is indeed Noble Beatius est dare quam accipere Giving to the Poor is a God-like Act but either to give or receive Gifts for the perverting of Justice is abominable Bribery in this respect is generally a greater sin than stealing in that stealing is mostly committed by men that have need and Bribery commonly by them that have none The lesser the Temptation the greater the sin Bribery may be committed in many things besides money the Bottle and the Bag do speak as corrupt Language as the Purse And there are many kinds of indirect Bribery per alium as bad as that which is direct and per se There is a kind of Bribery in Ecclesiasticks that hunt after popular acceptance and Chaplains that preach pleasing things or stifle Doctrines that they know will be unpleasing however edifying to gain Preferment which if the Law would allow the Exposition might perhaps more properly be called Simony than Bribery Yea there is a strange kind of blasphemous Bribery that men use towards God I doubt the greatest part of worship in the world is intentional Bribery Some go about to bribe God with their Prayers and Fastings and Forms of Devotion some with their Alms and Acts of Charity as they of old did with their Oblations and Sacrifices of whom the Satyrist speaks wittily Illorum lachrymae mentitaque munera praestant Ut veniam culpis non abnuat ansere magno Scilicet tenui Papano corruptus Osiris Nay it is to be feared that however precious a Doctrine Faith is there are many that under the Notion of believing do indeed go about to bribe the Justice of God with the Righteousness of Christ as indeed all those do who lay great stress upon the Righteousness of Christ and themselves take no care to be Righteous Although our Apostle hath so plainly told us That he that worketh righteousness is righteous There is also a great deal of Political Bribery in the world when Councellors Senators or other Trustees betray that Sacred thing their Trust for money or moneys worth Perhaps some of this will fall in when I come to consider Man in his Political Capacity if it should not I know it is easie for any man to enlarge upon it in his own Meditations MEDITAT XXXVI Of thâ—se that offend in the undue degree of seeking Riches UNder the Notion of Unjust are comprehended not only those that use undue means but also they that use due means in an undue manner to get worldly Riches and these are equally Lovers of the world These are of two sorts either such as offend in the degree or such as offend in the season of seeking the world They offend in the degree who although they follow Merchandize or Trades in themselves lawful yet pursue them so ardently so eagerly with so much intenseness of mind which is an excess of diligence as idleness is a defect of it that they plainly appear to make the world their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and other things their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the world their God and the things of God a by-business They invert our Savours divine counsel and seek first the world which is the alia spoken of in Mat. 11. or rather aliena to the Soul but as for the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness they are very indifferent They work out their livelihoods with more fear and trembling than their salvation give all diligence to make their callings and the effects of them sure but little or none to make their calling and election sure They pull and hale the World as with Cartropes they rise up early sit up late eat their bread in carefulness waste their strength spend their age in toil and sorrow perhaps shorten their days with immoderate labour and will be found at last to be felo de se For a man may be a Murderer as well by employing his hands too violently for himself as by laying violent hands upon himself They are resolv'd to secure their worldly interest but they will trust God with their souls as if they hoped those would fare well enough in course To trust God with our souls is good but to pretend to do it and in the mean time to neglect them our selves is a prophane kind of Faith Men do not thus trust him with their Bodies or Estates The Faith that rightly trusts does also love and work and work by Love MEDITAT XXXVII Of those that offend in the undue season of seeking the World THey offend in the season of seeking the world who follow their worldly Employments in any season that ought to be devoted to the service of God by his special command Concerning the special season of Prayer we have nothing certain that I know of though it is most proper and seemly to begin every day with God most reasonable that the devout ejaculation of Thanksgiving or Supplication should take place of worldly Cares and Contrivances and should keep house in the soul at night when they are all dismist A Dog is a mans servant which he turns out of doors at night when he takes his children to bed with him the Dog may not enter in in the morning without leave till the door be opened for him whereas
fair opportunity be given for it It is the part of a delicate sensual Soul a Lover of the World to fear the removal of his dearest Friend to prefer their Lives and Companies before the Will of God and its being done I do willingly grant that Friends and Relations are to be loved and delighted in yea I think of all sensual Pleasures this is the most innocent and the least beastly though some Beasts are very fond of their Relations and others are great lovers of Society and good men have been more apt to fall into Fits of this Sensuality than any other that I can think of Any one that reads the Story of Jacob and Joseph and Benjamin of David and Absalom and Adonijah will be apt to think so Nay indeed it were a part of gross Beastliness not to leave off sorrowing for the Asses and cry What shall â— do for my Son Alas lest the proper young man Saul should be lost Yet as Relations are to be loved onely in God so they are readily to be quitted and forsaken for him or at his command His Will ought to be dearer to us than their company Many are so fond of their Children that they cannot abide to look off them They contemplate them by day dream of them by night This love as great as it seems to be is not perfect for it hath fear in it and this fear hath torment I will not here say how evil this Love is but I am sure these People are ill prepared to forsake Children for Christ's sake Abraham was not so fond of his onely Isaac No he shall die if he were a thousand Isaacs if God call for him Nay he shall die by his hands rather than he will gain-say the Will of God Every good Christian is of the same temper of the same predominant disposition to be willing to give up Isaac And no doubt but that if we had the same command the same thing would be our indispensible Duty But alas Qâ—otusquisque est Abrahamus How few Abrahams does this Age afford If we sit loose from Husbands Wives Children â—â— we be in a chearful disposition of resigning them at all times it is an act of Faith as acceptable as Abrahams A Man may offer up his Son though he do not bind him upon the Altar as there are many Martyrs that were never brought to the Stake The 3 young men in Daniel were as properly Martyrs in venturing upon the fiery Furnace as if they had been burnt To mortifie this worldly Fear let us believe and consider That whatever is lovely in Children will still live and may be as well enjoy'd in God as if they were alive Besides it is worth the while to ask Who knows how those Children will prove If we had a Prophet here perhaps he would answer us as he did Eli 1 Sam. 2. 33. The Child of thine that shall not be cut off shall be 〈◊〉 â—onsâ—me thine eyes and to grieve thine heart But I shall wave the further prosecution of this and adjourn it till I come to consider of the worldly love of persons MEDITAT LVIII Of the Fear of Poverty and Loss of Goods POverty is formidable to Men not so much I suppose because it is deadly few fearing to be so poor as to starve as because of the disgrace that attends it Nil habet infoelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit But this is a Cross that we must be ready to take up if we will approve our selves to be Lovers of God Disciples of Christ Moses took it up and his Countreymen the believing Hebrews took it up Of later Times the Noble Marquess Caracciola took it up It is a Tribulation which all that will enter into the Kingdom of God must be content to pass thorough if it lie in their way To use sinful shifts or comply with sinful terms to avoid Poverty denominates a Lover of the World Lord what lying flattering deceiving and disingenuous stifling of Conscience is used to prevent Poverty And is there any thing in it so formidable May not a man be all that which is good and happy and yet poor May he not be wise and poor virtuous and poor poor and blessed Blessed are the poor c. Nay are there not many Immunities in Poverty a â—â—eedom from many temptations temptations to Pride Luxury and Oppression which do attend a rich condition Are there not in it many advantages to Virtue to Humility Contempt of the World dependance upon God 〈◊〉 thirâ—â—ing after Eternal Life But when I 〈◊〉 â—â—verty hinders nothing that Riches can help us in a poor man may be as learned valiant virtuous wise yea and as charitable too as the rich It will be reply'd Oh but he cannot be so well esteemed of The poor is neglected and hated of his Brethren the poor mans wisdom is not regarded I answer No matter for that if it deliver the City regarded or not regarded For what is the regard and valuation of men This very respect to Estimation Acceptance and Honour is one of the worldly Lusts to be mortify'd so far is it from being able to justifie the worldly fear of Poverty Blessed Jesus who willingly becam'st poor to make me and many rich thou hast taken the sting out of Poverty â—ay thou hast sanctify'd thou hast enrich'd it Thou left'st all to come seek me make me willing to leave all to follow thee make me able to follow thee even in leaving all for thee MEDITAT LIX Of Fear of Persecution TO be shie and delicate in venturing upon Persecution Restraint Wrongs for Truth and the Gospels sake and to prefer deliverance from these before the Will of God before a sanctify'd use of them and exercise of grace under them denominates a Lover of the World Whosoever represents Persecution taking in the loss of Estate Goods good Name favor of the World Liberty of Life to himself so formidable as that for fear of it he will deliberately forsake God deny his Truth profess Error or Falshood go contrary to and continue in a contradiction to the known Word of God and the Sentiments of his Conscience is a Lover of the World Persecution is a Cross that every faithful Disciple of Christ must be ready to take up when ever his Master calls him to it Holy Paul was ready to take it up in the whole weight of it Not only to be bound at Jerusalem but to dye for the Name of the Lord Jesus The believing Hebrews took it up They might have escap'd Persecution by denying Christ but they were not so nesh although they were but young Christians They would not accept of deliverance Heb. 11. 35. And the same is the predominant temper of all the genuine Disciples of Christ Whosoever will not forsake House and Lands for my sake is not worthy of me Who would value such a Friend that will not so much as put his Nose into a Storm to help
thâ— would'st mightily prevail in the hearts of all men thâ— whether they sit in Moses ' s Chair they may be of Moses ' s temper wishing that all the Lord's People wee Prophets Or whether they be Apostolical men they may resemble the great Apostle of the Gentiles who rejoiced and was resolved to rejoice that Christ was preached though the Preachers designed thereby to derogate from his fame and to eclipse it Or whether they be private Christians they may follow Christ who would not forbid them that shew'd Compassion to men and oppos'd the Common Enemy although they follow'd not him Oh how sweetly do these great and holy Persons conspire together with one another in the same pure and publick spirit And oh would to God we all may conspire with them MEDITAT LXXV Of Self-love AFter the Things of the World come to be considered the Persons thereof If any man prefer any person in the World before God the Love of God is not in him The World loveth its own Persons as well as Things The Persons may be divided into Ones Self Ones Reâ—tiâ—ns and other Men. First Of Self-love Self-love is directly contrary to the Love of God and where it is predominant does exclude it I have partly prevented my self in many things that might be reduced to this Head Self is the great Centre of all worldly men insomuch that Sin seems to be nothing else but the sinking down of the Soul from God into Self It is an instance of predominant Self-love to stand viewing and admiring our own particular Being as something distinct from the unbounded Essence of God and independent upon him or to seek its gratification without any reference to the Supreme Being endeavouring ultimately to accommodate it with something that shall no way redound to him To dote upon our own Perfections as if they were the distinct Excellencies of our own Beings and not Communications from God To allow that in our selves which we condemn in others of the same circumstances with our selves To love our Lives in opposition to in competition with in a way of separation from God I have already considered there is yet somewhat higher A man may be guilty of an unchaste love of his own Soul as the Stoicks with their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Self sufficiency proudly magnifying the excellency of their own Souls and their own sufficiency at least in a way of independance upon God if not of opposition to him What mean else those great Brags Sapiens contendet cum ipso Jove de foelicitate A wise man may contend with God himself for Happiness and the strange Eneomiums that they give to their wise man Compar deorum deorum conviva and the like The Stoicks sought the salvation of their own Souls in a corrupt manner Let no one boggle at the phrase of seeking the salvation of their own Souls For the salvation of the Soul is nothing but the happiness and perfection of it This they sought out of God and we if we will excel them must seek it in him They sought it as the perfection of their own Beings as something distinct from God we must seek it as a participation and enjoyment of him Will it seem strange to any to hear it said That men may be selfish in seeking their own Salvation How were the Stoicks Why may not a man be selfish in the undue love of one part of him as well as of another To account Salvation nothing else but preservation from misery and to seek such a Salvation is as compatible to the carnal as to the spiritual man To account Heaven a state of Ease Peace Honour Everlasting Safety and a Paradise of Pleasure and to desire it as such why is not this consistent with a carnal heart But further To account Salvation something positive the perfection and highest accomplishment of our Souls and to seek it as the accomplishment of our own particular Beings as something distinct from God and to set up our selves as Anti-deities what is this better than Stoicism If we take Salvation in the true Gospel-sense for the perfecting of the Soul in God then indeed we cannot seek the Salvation of our Souls more than the Glory of God But in this false Notion of it which I was just now speaking of we may the Stoicks did and many do Take it in a true Gospel-sense and it is impossible to disjoin the Glory of God and our own Salvation The stronger the love of God is the purer is the love of our own Souls The Salvation of the Soul comprehends its being perfected in Humility Self-nothingness as well as other Graces As the glorified Spirits cast down their Crowns before God ascribe all worthiness to him they seek not themselves nay they feel not themselves at all distinct from him It is perfect Nonsense in Religion to desire Heaven as a Self-accommodation Oh thou Almighty Goodness Omnipresent Life Perfect Beauty deliver me from fancying a Self sufficiency doting upon Self-excellencies and settling upon a Self-centre I am straitned at home the more I seek to wring a happiness out of my self the more I pinch and pain my self I see something beyond my self something better than I am something that I had rather be than what I am my Soul stretcheth it self upon thee Oh widen it enlarge it that it may stretch it self more upon thee Oh blessed God the Supreme and sweetest Good wrap up my mind in thy self increase my longings till they be perfected into Loves and those Loves into pure and endless Delights MEDITAT LXXVI Of the Love of Relations TO love any Relations more than God or to prefer them before him is to be a predominant Lover of the World To be pleas'd with Faults or so much as to dispense with them because they are found in our Children or any other Relations is to prefer them before Truth and Justice and consequently the World before God The Priest Eli is said to have prefer'd his Children before God because he did not severely enough correct or punish or restrain them Christ Jesus undervalued all carnal Relations in comparison of the Father his Will and the doing of it Wist ye not that I must be about my Fathers business He undervalued all things in comparison of his Fathers Image Whosoever doth the Will of my Father the same is my Brother and Sister and Mother And he requires us to do so Whosoever will be my Disciple let him forsake Father and Mother The Apostle Paul valued no man according to the flesh by any outward thing Riches or Poverty Relation or not Relations 2 Cor. 5. 16. When the interest of God stood in competition Levi did not know Father or Brother Deut. 33. 9. And if my Brother or Child do not walk according to the Law his Relation shall be no Relation his Circumcision accounted as Uncircumcision To prefer the Relation of Children to us before their Relation to God to love our own image
more than the Image of God in them is to make Self the Standard of our Love and the Creature to truckle to the Creator To speak properly that Kindness and Benignity in Parents that Dutifulness and Obedience in Children that Faithfulness and Sweetness in Husbands and Wives that Tenderness and Helpfulness in Brothers or Sisters or any Friends by which chiefly they are lovely is of God is God and so to be lov'd and relish'd And to love them under a distinct limited consideration as ours or as a kin to us is not so pure and spiritual as it ought to be The truth is there is nothing ours For God is the Proprietor we are only the Possessors and why should we be so fond of that which is anothers It looks like a piece of melancholy as if a man should go into a Jewellers shop and there fondly hug a Jewel which is only shew'd him or put into his hands to judge of the worth of it How do poor Worldlings act over the part of mad men when they seem to themselves very wise The part of that Melancholist that I have read of who would stand upon the shore and make much mirth at the coming in of every Ship saying It was laden with his own Goods And as for Relation what is it but a Notion It is something I know not what extrinsick to us And why should I be fond of every man that is call'd by my Name Or why should any man be proud that he is call'd Charles and is Name-sake to a great King And what is Relation to us What are we that it should be so lovely a thing to be like us To be like to God to be a Kin to him indeed is something the nearer to him the Nobler and the Happier I must needs have a foolish and false and proud conceit of my self sure that am â—ond of a Child because he resembles me Lord Thou art nearer of Kin to me than all the World The material World is nothing at all of Kin to my Soul not so much as my Cloaths are to my Body But in thee I subsist Thou hast done that for me that Father and Mother could never do Let all Relation be swallow'd up in thee that I may be in a spiritual sense another Melchisedeck MEDITAT LXXVII Of the Love of other Men. TO love and esteem man any man more than God denominates a Lover of the World To love man qua man and consequently every man is a Christian Duty and an high Perfection it is as if it were to be transformed into the Nature of that blessed Being whose Name is Love God is recommended to us by this God is Love Christ commends him to our imitation in this especially Mat. 5. 44 45. Christ Jesus is commended to us by this Oh the wonderful Love that he shew'd to Mankind in laying down his Life for them yea his whole Life before he laid it down was Love it was teaching healing feeding men serving the Necessities of Souls and Bodies The best of Men are commended for this Moses the meekest of Men David sympathizing with his very Enemies in their Afflictions Jeremiah mourning over the Sins of Israel and the Calamities even of Moab Paul most passionately desirous of the salvation of the persecuting Jews The best of Heathens commended for it Socrates profest That he knew nothing but to love he styled himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Servant of Love It is the Speech of a Jesuite Neminem odit qui Deum amat He that loves God hates no man By this Epithete things are commended The best wisdom is that which is gentle and loving and the best Valor is kind and apt to forgive But it will be asked Is every man lovely Yes there is something lovely in every man something of God that Love will delight in No man is so bad but there may be found something of good Nature good Manners good Offices at some time or other all this is an Emanation from God If none of this were yet the Relation wherein man stands to God as a reasonable Creature makes him lovely We love our sown Corn in Hope and many other things Let us love the worst of men in hopes that they may be good Lord shed abroad this Large Liberal Generous Grace into my heart Enlarge my heart that it may comprehend all mankind This is better than with Barzillai to entertain a King and his Army or with Ahasuerus to keep open house for a Kingdom Thus shall I though I have nothing to give be as Charitable as the Rich and more munificent than the Princes of the Earth I charge thee O my Soul this day in the presence of the God whose Name is Love that thou hate no child of man and that thou mayst be sure not to do it that thou dost not so much as secretly despise the meanest or suspend good offices towards the worst or rejoice in the sins or sufferings of the most injurious of men But alas what pity is it that this divine affection should be depraved that Love it self should become filthy and unchaste Separate man and his perfections from God and then love him or them distinctly and this love becomes adulterous For although all men are to be loved in God and for his sake yet no man is to be loved any otherwise than so They prefer Man before God who stand admiring the Excellencies and Perfections of any man as the accomplishments of this or that particular Being and not as Beams from the Father of Lights It is the part of unrefin'd minds to admire diversity of gifts and overlook the same Spirit How nobly does the refined Soul live and act who viewing the Perfections of all men in God the Fountain enjoys them all as fully and deliciously as if they were his own They also who have mens persons in admiration being partial in their estimation or commendation of 〈◊〉 reason of their greatness or of some advanâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 got by them This the Apostle taxeth as a 〈◊〉 thing There is indeed a kind of civil honour and respect 〈◊〉 â—o men by vertue of their Office Authority and â—igher Station in the World and a peculiar grateful â—â—spect to be shew'd to Benefactors But to have the Eyes blinded the Judgment briâ—ed the Noble affection of Love made mercenary by any secular greatness either to love men the more or to think that God does so because of their temporal Prosperity and Grandeur is to call the proud happy and to bless the covetous whom God abhors it is to prostitute that Virgin affection that should be preserved chast We ought to think and estimate according to God to love as he loves and to hate the deeds of the Nicholaitans which he also hateth otherwise we prefer the World before God To delight in the company and either profane or jejune communication of worldly or wicked men more than in the society of the godly is a worldly love
In our hearts to love or esteem any vile person be he of what Civil Capacity he will before them that fear the Lord be their Civil Capacity never so mean is as good an Argument of an unsanctifi'd mind as the contrary is of a Citizen of Zion Psal 15. 4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned In this Courtly Age it would be lookt upon as an unmannerly behaviour in the Prophet who would not vouchsafe to look towards the King of Israel 2 Kings 3. 14. But certainly it is worse than unmannerly to have the greatest respect and kindness for them that are not at all of Israel MEDITAT LXXVIII Of Flattery THis brings me to think of the foul vice of Flattery which although it be not always an Estimation of men for men often flatter those whom in their hearts they disesteem and despise yet it would be thought so and is as worldly as the other An humble behaviour indeed is ornamental soft answers are good and useful To approve or commend a good man or a good action is so far from being simply evil that sometimes it is duty and may serve good ends But it requires a great deal of wisdom For First It easily mingles it self with something evil and is corrupted by Covetousness Slavish fear or Self-love Men may most set off themselves and study to endear themselves most when they commend other men Secondly It is easily perverted to ill ends and may as soon make me prouder as better Commendation therefore must be given Justly Seasonably Proportionably and should be mixt with the remembrance of God as Paul's was to Philemon ver 4 5. Flattery is sometimes gross in words commending evil and calling it by good names assenting to every thing at a venture or denying without reason Magnifying some little thing beyond its desert and extenuating some foul fault into a meer peccadillo or unavoidable infirmity Sometimes it is more fine and subtile in actions in a crouching truckling over-obsequious behaviour I need say no more of Flattery than that it is First an argument of a mean and slavish mind The truly generous mind that adores truth knows not how to give flattering Titles Secondly that it is of most mischievous consequence and very pernicious in its effects because it inâ—â—â—â—â— Princes Courts and Great Mens Houses Flatterers by blinding the Judgment of Princes do at once put out the eyes of a Nation For they lead â—hose out of the way who when they are misled cause the rest of the world to err We know how fatal it prov'd to Ahâ—â—â— when his Chaplains the Prophets and the Courâ—â—◠〈◊〉 together to deceive him Go up and prâ—sâ—â—◠〈◊〉 the Prophets Let thy word be as one of 〈◊〉 says the Courtier And with what indignation God does 〈◊〉 the daubing of these Prophets and their putting 〈◊〉 under mens heads and arms the Prophet Ezekiel does acquaint us Lord what is man or his power who can onely kill the body that I should fear and flatter him in any thing that is hateful to thee What Profit or Preferment can I expect from man that shall Countervail thy dishonour or the prejudice done to truth and holiness by sordid Flattery or sinful Complyance Oh that the interest of God and Religion be exalted in my soul far above all these petty carnal Considerations And oh that the Messengers of God would seriously examine whether they be not the servants of men of the worst part of men even their lusts by imprisoning the Truth lest it should fly in some honourable or worshipful face whether they do not tremble to speak of temperance before incestuous Felix or whether they can take such fair leave of their Patrons as Paul took of his Ephesians I have kept back nothing that was profitable to you MEDITAT LXXIX Of Worldly Business UNder this Phrase The World is comprehended also the Work Employment and Business of the World To prefer the Business of this World before God denominates a predominant Lover of the World God has indow'd Man with active Principles designing him for Business To be active is to be like God who is life it self He is not an idle Spectator enjoying himself and minding nothing else neither doing good nor evil as some prophane men in the Prophet imagin'd him but he is good and doth good An idle and unactive life is unmanly and infamous No station does exempt men from Business Gentlemen and Ladies have their Callings There is Business accommodated to all sorts of men Having already of Idleness I will say no more of it here but this A good man must needs love Business as it is a Vehicle of Grace For how can a man exercise Righteousness Mercy or Charity without Business The necessities of humane life are so many either our own own or other mens that it is impossible any man should be idle but who is of an idle sensual temper To prevent mistakes I will first consider what is not to prefer the business of the World before God To be diligent and industrous in our Callings with a good design is not it To be more in worldly Business than in heavenly is not it God himself has allow'd six dayes to one To employ our hands in working more than in lifting up to Heaven is not worldly If we speak properly To observe due measures and propound right ends in worldly Business is Conformity to the Will of God and heavenly God acted like himself in the Creation of the world as well as in the Redemption of it and so do godly men in employing themselves about worldly Objects as well as spiritual The Angels are as well in Heaven when they are employ'd upon Earth in preserving the goings of the Saints as in their most immediate Contemplations To give the Precedency to worldly Business as to Management and Action is not simply and always it A lesser Business and more ignoble may be prohic 〈◊〉 more necessary than a greater and preferrible to it The Necessities of the Body may take place of the Conveniences of the Soul To do every thing in its proper season is a point of high Wisdom and indeed Religion Let us always remember that Religion is in the due management of worldly Business as well as otherwise To do Works of Necessity or Charity on the Lord's day is not it To have a reverend esteem for that day is good and necessary Religion flourishes in a Kingdom or a Soul as that is observed But yet there may be a Superstition in it which our Saviour by his Example and Doctrine has endeavor'd to heal The Sabbath was made for man and must give place to him But let all take heed they do not create Necessities or pretend them as I doubt too many of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Physical and Chyrurgical Tribe do To put ones self upon Business to offer ones service for the good of a Neighbor to meddle in other mens matters uncall'd by
way of assistance or advice to prevent Sin or Mischief as Lot to reconcile Differences as Moses is not it I do not think that either Lot in his Nay my Brethren do not so wickedly nor Moses in his Wherefore smitest thou thy Fellow were Pragmatical as it seems they were then interpreted There is such a Fault as Pragmaticalness but a Generous Activity and Publick-Spiritedness which proceeds from an Universal Love is unjustly branded Yea I will say it is base Cowardice in some men of Abilities to hide themselves from Business and from the Necessities of Mankind that is from their own flesh under this pretence That they will not be Busie-bodies It is better to offer ones self ten times where there is no Need than to deny Assistance once where there is Blessed are the Peace-makers said the great Peace-maker And I cannot but account it a base humor to reproach Active men for Busie-bodies It 's true Christ Jesus would not meddle with things not belonging to him but as to the things belonging to him he sought opportunities for Business He went up and down doing good MEDITAT LXXX 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or of the Love of Worldly Business BUT there is a love of worldly Business which is intemperate and a symptom of a worldly mind And although one should say That they that are guilty of it are the best sort of Sensualists because Business and Action is a better thing less gross more agreeable to the active Nature of the Soul than the dull love of Riches yet this is very small comfort Some dote too much upon their own worldly Business which yet is materially lawful It is an easie thing to over-do to be over-diligent over-industrious over-painful Do not they dote upon Business who are employ'd about it by Day dream of it by Night pursue it with a hurry inseparable from Fear Perplexity and Discontent that will be ready to fall out with God or man if they put any stop to them in their Business Suppose Business to be lawful yet it must also be necessary or highly convenient to justifie mens zeal about it What Necessity is there or Convenience either that Rich men should be still Richer or that one man should have all the Trade of a Town To clog ones self with worldly Business in order to Self enriching and growing up into unnecessary Grandeur or unwieldy Bulk in the World argues a worldly Spirit To busie ones self in order to the molesting and troubling of other men to be Encouragers of Law Troublers of Israel argues a worldly Mind To busie ones self so in worldly matters as to exclude or retrench heavenly Business not to subordinate the former to the latter to love Business for Business-sake without respect to any good to be done thereby argues an intemperate Lover of worldly Business Some concern themselves too much in other mens Business To meddle in things that we know not or in things no way belonging to us is foolish but to meddle in the matters of other men to do them mischief is wicked The Sycophantick Delators so much inveigh'd against by the old Comedians peep'd and pry'd into every Conversation to pick Quarrels and find Faults and yet the Varlets accounted this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he in Aristophenes brags Such a kind of Fellow was Zibah the Servant of Saul Such an one the King of Israel suspected the King of Syria Naaman's Master to be 2 Kings 5. 7. David often complains of this sort of men Doeg the Pick-thank the Emblem of a Sycophantick Courtier and other of Saul's Courtiers that digg'd Pits for him laid Snares for him that said When will he slip iâ— fall that we may surprize him To love to know the Faults of men is not a good temper yea it is painful to a godly mind To look into the Faults of men to bring them to punishment may be a good work it may be done sincerely for the execution of some good Law that is of moment it may possibly be in mercy to the Offender and out of pure kindness as if one should say I love him therefore I will get him punisht But men are not generally of so pure and publick a Spirit They are so revengeful so covetous that makes the Office of Informers hardly thought of and it is accounted a fault to be inquisitive into the faults of other men It is hard to find an Informer out of pure zeal or love to truth but Mercenaries and pick-thanks enough Flatterers are generally busy-bodies For how shall they ingratiate themselves with their great mastâ—â—â— but with the faults of other men But to lay snares for the righteous to watch for their halting to seek occasions against a man in the matter of his God though a Law would favour is wicked and much resembles that great busy-body that goes up and down continually seeking to devour Daniels accusers had a Law to justify them yet I doubt not but they were wicked Informers for all that Curiosity or an intemperate desire to be acquainted with other mens secrets nothing belonging to us argues vanity of mind and a spirit not well conversant at home and may be reduc'd to the disease of â—tching ears There are secrets of Nature of Religion of ones own Soul to be enquir'd into and it â—s is as laudable to enquire into them We need not lust after the secrets of other men Besides it is uneasy to be trusted with them It makes a man a slave if he do not reveal them and a knave if he do Lord Thou art life it self and a pure Act thou art good and dost good continually thou hast endow'd me with an activenature thou hast furnisht me with business enough of mine own and other mens for this world and for the future suffer me not to hide my â—and in my bosom and to look on as an idle specta tor unconcern'd but maugre all temptations from the Flesh the Devil and the World imitate thy active and benificent Nature But O Eternal Wisdom teach me to order my Actions with discretion to lay out my self in Actions pure proper profitable Grant that I may not be impure and unprofitable like a stagnant Pool nor yet troublesome nor offensive like an overflowing Torrent ever flowing but without inundation ever running but so as ever within my own Banks not hiding my Light under a Bushel yet shining within my own sphere MEDITAT LXXXI Of the Fashions of the World THere are some things in the World that are not properly call'd Business which yet to prefer before God denominates a man worldly and these are the Fashions of the World I cannot properly call it Pride Covetousness or Voluptuousness to conform to these and yet it is carnal There are indeed civil and innocent Fashions of the World to which to conform is no Fault nay considering Man as a Member of Society seems expedient Matters of Apparel so far as ones Quality Estate Health and other
or merely for the Sensual pleasure of overcoming all this is carnal It is contentious wisdom when men are cunning and active to beget and promote differences in the World It is strange but true that some men love divisions in the World for divisions sake after the example of the Devil though many do it out of pride or covetousness The Serpent was cunning to sow discord between God and Man and they are of a Serpentine breed that are ingenious and studious to make dissention There are several instances of this contentious wisdom The choosing of a fit season is one instance as the inimicus homo that came by night Mat. 13. 25. While men slept the Enemy came and sowedtares The observing of the temper of men and falling in whith them when they are angry or discontent as the Counsellors of Ahashuerus did when they perceived him to have taken an offence against the Queen Or observing the condition of men as being opprest to put them upon Sedition or Tumult after the example of Jeroboam Or aggravating Injuries and Faults What put up this Affront this Wrong this Injury this Loss Mort te satius est They that hang Peace and Union upon unnecessary and impracticable terms are contentious though they make never so many Pretensions to hide the matter To prefer Contention before Peace Division before Union though by that division we might serve a worldly Interest of our own is worldly It is to trouble the Waters that we may fish in them I mean get money or strengthen our Parties How dear ought Peace and Union to be to all good Men Are not Dissentions devilish The Devil himself has his Name Sathan from being an Adversary Are they not beastly For the Beasts meerly for Appetite sake fall out with and worry one another Be sure contentious Men are the worst and the most lustful sort of Men Whence come wars and fightings from amongst you but from your lusts c. Jam. 4. 1. Wilt thou O my Soul imitate Devils or Beasts or the worst of Men God forbid O blessed God infinite Wisdom How peaceable are all thy wise Counsels to reconcile men to thy self and to one another Thy Laws serve to this end Thou hast created a beautiful harmony in the whole World yeâ— the very contending parts thereof make for the union oâ— the whole Thou hast joined Peace on earth with glory to thy self in the Highest Thou hast promised the greatest blessings to Peace-makers Oh inspire me and all men with that Divine Spirit of Love that peaceable Wisdom which comes from above and conducts the Souls of men thither from whence it and they proceeded even to blessed Self MEDITAT LXXXVII Of Implacableness and implacable Wisdom AN implacable spirit is a Worldly spirit The onely holy Implacableness is never to be reconciled to sin to hate it with a perfect hatred The Nature of God can never be reconcil'd to Sin till Light and Darkness be reconcil'd But God is easily reconcil'd to the penitent Sinner and so ought we Good men are very placable as appears in the Examples of Joseph towards his Brethren of David towards Abigail and Shimei and many more For they remember what is charg'd upon them If thy Brother sin against thee seven times a day and so oft repent thou shalt forgive him I suppose also they think and argue with themselves What are the Injuries done to me in comparison of the Offences that I commit against God And have not I much more reason to forgive than to expect Forgiveness It is not Implacableness to suspend trust and confidence towards a person that has Notoriously deceiv'd though he profess Repentance till we have had good experience of his faithfulness but when we have good proof we ought to restore him into the same place in our hearts that ever he had It is implacableness when men will not forgive and forget that is not to remember as to retaliate or upbraid or so much as to bear a grudge Especially if satisfaction be offer'd or repentance profest yea though neither be yet we ought to be easy to forgive and of a readiness to be reconcil'd when ever terms are offered Yea though no terms of reconciliation be offer'd no satisfaction made no repentance profest we ought on our part to lay down all enmity to be free from all hatred towards our brother Hatred says the excellent Dr. Moor lies cross in the heart of a good man If thy brother repent forgive him True but that does not imply that if he do not repent we should not forgive him We ought after the Example of God to seek reconciliation and propound terms of reconciliation though we be the party offended and to seek to bring an offending brother to repentance not so much in order to our forgiving him as because it is a saving a Soul from Hell because it is for his good to repent For vengeance is not ours the Sun should not go down upon our wrath Anger may pass through the mind of a wise man but it resteth and lodgeth onely in the bosom of fools Some are so implacable that no tract of time shall wear out their resentments no submission can allay no gifts remove no intercession asswage them but they demise their hatred unto heirs and executors and entail the quarrel upon posterity If these men could alledge an Ordinance of God for this such an one as Israel had to authorize them to an endless war against Amalek it would excuse them well but till then it must pass for a work of the flesh and an imitation of the grand hater of mankind The Implacable Wisdom is cunning to conceal its resentments that they shall not be discern'd that in due time it may execute revenge so as not to be avoided It instructs men in many wily methods to contrive ways of revenge to make and take fit opportunities Absalom made as if he took no notice of the injury done his Sister for the space of two full years After that he invites his Brother Amnon to a Feast to make him drunk that he might then quarrel with him and kill him He conceals his anger from his Brother He 〈◊〉 neither good nor bad to Amnon a Hebrew Phrase sâ—gnifying to take no notice of a thing nay I suppose he conceal'd it from his Sister too praying her not to regard it because he was her Brother He makes shew of extraordinary love he invites him especially to the Sheep-shearing All this while his heart gathers mischief to it self and treasures up wrath against the day of the execution of it Blessed God the most graciously-natur'd Being who hast forgiven me an hundred Talents let it not seem grievous in my eyes to remit a fâ—w Pence to my offending Brother Let thy forgiving be my Example to encourage me to forgive and let my apâ—ness to forgive be my Argument to prove that I am forgiven MEDITAT LXXXVIII Of Unmercifulness and Merciless Wisdom THe Wisdom
And indeed nothing is more usual than to endeavour to drown the cry of the sins of the present times by talking loudly of the crying sins of the former Oh cry'd the Jews Our fathers what wicked men were they to kill the Prophets when themselves persecuted and hated the great Prophet of the Church An other great instance of hypocrisy is when men assume to themselves an ostentate Religion and do not heartily embrace nor love it The Worldly Wisdom has invented a great many artifices in this matter Sometimes the Hipocritical Wisdom will instruct men to commend Vertue and Vertuous persons to seem vertuous Yea it will Preach up many good works and press them most confidently I had almost said impudently with many arguments and motives that they will not meddle with the practice of bind severe duties upon their hearers which themselves will not touch with one of their fingers Who has not with astonishment and loathing heard the loose and careless exhort to Devotion and dilligent Godliness the Covetous to Liberality them require others to pray continually and the prophane to charge the rest that they swear not at all This wisdom will instruct men to pray especially if it be in a publick place where they may do it clare ut audiat hospes for many good gifts and graces which they have no mind to receive to be enabled to do many good things which yet they never so much as once go about and to be adorn'd with that holiness which they deride and hate in them that are adorned with it Sometimes the hypocritical wisdom instructs men to take a good and constant care of their outward behavior and conversation that it be dâ—mure and sober and honest and as to any scandalous thing unexceptionable All this is good and yet is nothing but an artifice of the hypocritical wisdom if the heart in the mean time be full of Pride and Covetousness Malice and Revengefulness Impurity and Impatience if the will be selfish and reluctant against the Will of God This was the devilish wisdom of the Hypocrites of old whom the wisdom of Heaven detected and told them That notwithstanding their Sheeps cloathing they were imvardly ravening Wolves notwithstanding their outward cleanliness and many washings they were inwardly full of Excess and Repine notwithstanding their external whitings and garnishings they were inwardly corrupt and rotten Another Artifice to seem Religious is to be scrupulous of little Faults and zealous for lighter Duties not but that tenderness of Conscience and zeal for all the Commands of God are excellent Accomplishments But they are nothing but an Artifice of the hypocritical wisdom when at the same time great and Camel-like sins are swallow'd down and the weighty matters of the Law are neglected Oh take heed of coming into the Judgment Hall for fear of being defiled but venture to condemn and hang the innocent if you envy him Be as punctual as may be in paying the Tythes to the Levite so exact as to be a Cutter of Cummin but it is no great matter for Faith and the Love of God All the Art is here to find out what is really little or light for according to mens prejudices a little variation in a matter of Ceremony or Order must needs be interpreted a Sin as mortal as Blasphemy and on the other hand a seemly handsome ceremonious observation have great weight laid upon it as the Love of God and our Neighbor Oh that God would give us to see the necessities of our own Souls the nature of true substantial Holiness that transfâ—rms us into the Image of God to eye the example of Christ who was not wont to lay stress upon little things And oh Lord that we may all see how odious Hypocrisie is to Truth and that if the shew of Holiness be desirable it self must needs be much more beautiful MEDITAT XCIII Of the God of this World AMongst other worldly things I read of the God of this World and the Prince of this World whom to adore and obey is certainly a Symptom of a worldly mind The Eternal Jehovah is the rightful and onely proper God and Prince of the World But yet by an improper speech the Devil is also called The God of this World 2 Cor. 4. 4. He is thus called either by a Metonymie of the Adjunct or by a Metaphor By a Metonymie a thing is said to be that which it is onely in opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus the Devil is the God of this World in his own opinion for he venditates himself as such Matth. 4. 8 9. All these things will I give thee And Luke 4. 6 7. All this power will I give thee and the glory of them for that is delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will I give it And in the opinion of men who take and worship him for God as the Dog is said to be the God of Egypt because it is worshiped by them instead of God and the â—â—lly is said to be the God of Epicures Phil. 3. 19. Or else by a Metaphor The Name of God is Metaphorically apply'd to the Devil For as the true God administers his Kingdom of Grace in Believers and is devoutly worship'd by them so the Devil worketh his malignant works in the hearts of wicked men and is obey'd by the Children of disobedience Ephes 2. 2. that is God to every man which he doth most esteem and advance in his heart And so although there is really a difference between God and Mammon yet be Metaphorically said That Mammon is the God of covetous men When I consider how often in Scripture things are said to be that which they only seem to be or are taken to be either by a mans self or others I cannot but wonder at the unreasonable Clamor that some People make not sticking to Rail at us for Lying and Equivocating when we thus speak If the Spirit of God had not authoriz'd and consecrated this Expression of the Devils being the God of this World how may we imagine that the Pretenders to Simplicity and Propriety of Speech would have hooâ—ed it out of the World for Blasphemy And methinks the necessity of Humane Learning and particularly of Rhetorick may fairly be commended and established from this Consideration There are so many passages of this nature in Scripture that I cannot but record some few of them to stop the mouths of irrhetorical Censures The Diabolical Spectrum is expresly call'd Samuel which was only so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sam. 28. 12. Hananiah is called a Prophet Jer. 28. because he was accounted for such And so is Epimenides called by the Apostle Tit. 1. 12. the Prophet of the Cretians for as Laertius tells us he was so accounted of by them and after his death they sacrificed to him Joseph is called the Father of Jesus Luke 2. 48. only because he was so reputed as the Text afterwards
remoteness from him as we are should sin in him Though neither of which seem incredible yet both of them seem inexplicable If we lay the fault at the door of each pre-existent Soul it seems indeed to be just but still it is as strange as it was before For so every single Soul is an Adam for purity and soundness of Constitution and how shall we do to account for the Apostasie of so many Adams if we be puzled at the Fall of one But alas The mysterious Intricacy of this is not so great but that the manifest evidence of the matter of Fact is as great It is enough Ah Lord it is more than enough to know and see which indeed we cannot hide our eyes from that this noble Vine is turned into a degenerate Plant That the Native Friends and Favorites of God are become Lovers yea Servants yea Worshippers of the World And the greatness of their Number is too too evident in these Meditations which yet I am sensible have not described all Some possibly will think these too many I cannot help it but the Discovery is in order to their Recovery Others possibly in another Extreme will think these too few and will extend the predominant Love of the World further than I do or dare Some are so fierce that every Body must needs be carnal and corrupt and of a worldly mind who is not exactly of their mind but of some Way Persuasion or Opinion different from them These cry Get thee behind me Satan And why Satan Why because thou savourest not our Things our Doctrine our Discipline our Worship our Way Theycry to every one that does not please them Thou Child of the Devil And why Child of the Devil I pray Not because they pervert the right ways of the Lord but because they oppose their Ways and weaken their Party True indeed Heresie and Schism are works of the Flesh and symptoms of a worldly mind But they are very cunning close Things which are very hard to be discern'd and of so lubricous a consideration that it is very difficult to hit of them right So difficult that even the inspired Messengers of Heaven have been mistaken for Emissaries of Hell and the very Pillars of the Church cast out of the Church for Heresie I believe Perversness is a very Devilish Temper But it is very unreasonable without any more ado to judge every man perverse that does not perhaps he cannot in all things think as I do or whom my Arguments cannot convince Some are so conceited of their own extraordinary Purity that they look down with a disdainful pity upon all the rest of miserable Mortality as if they were all irrecoverably lost and themselves with Job's Messenger left alone to tell it A person of the Apostle John's Infallibility indeed may say We know that we are of God and the whole world lies in wickedness But for a Company of Pharisees impregnated with Self-conceit to conclude that all the world were born in sin but themselves and that all the vulgar sort of Mortals are ignorant and accursed This I say the Candor of Heaven it self could not endure Luke 16. 15. Ye are they that justifie your selves c. The Pseudocatharists in the Prophet Isa 65. 5. cry to their Neighbors Stand off come not near me for I am holier than thou Sanctificabo te I shall sanctifie thee that is defile thee as that word is often used As if he should say If thou touch me who am so holy thou shalt be defiled and guilty before God as those common persons were accounted who touch'd the Altar the blood of the Sacrifice or any holy thing which they ought not to touch Some are so severe as to determine flatly against the Salvation of all Rich men because Christ has declared it very difficult and to think not any of them are called because the Apostle says Not many And the Grandees for wit and wealth are meet with them crying These poor people are foolish Jer. 5. 4. they know not the way of the Lord nor the judgment of their God they know not the Law and are cursed Others pass hard Censures upon all Heathen Men yea and upon Christian Unbaptized Infants too whether true or false I know not but I could wish they were false and the Learning of some more charitable Divines has endeavor'd to prove them not true There are others besides all these who though perhaps out of no bad Principle are ready to judge many things to be Symptoms of a predominant Love of the World which are not It is true the Love of the World is so dangerous and pernicious that it ought to be the constant care of every awakened Soul to flie from it and one would almost pardon the scrupulosity and fear of those that run away from it though they should be suppos'd to run too far And the Love of God is so pure and divine a thing so great a perfection that the exercise of it admits of no Excess if the whole Soul were turn'd into a pure flame of Love it would not be a Sacrifice too costly or precious to be offer'd up to that ever blessed Being the Supreme Good neither would there be any room for the envy of Hell it self to put in a quorsum perditio haec But though it admits of no Excess yet I conceive it admits of Mistakes and though Men cannot outdo in it yet they may do amiss about it As I conceive they do how pardonable soever their mistake is who condemn them for Lovers of the World who do any works of Necessity Charity or common Civility upon the Lords day who think oftner of the world than they do of God or who in their practice sometimes prefer a worldly business that is important before a Sermon or a Prayer Devotion it self how excellent a thing it is may be irregular and there needs judgment as well as affections to denominate a Man a right Christian without which even the highest perfections of Love and Zeal do degenerate into something worse than the Notation of the words do import And although I do reckon that it is highly laudable and reasonable to live in continual weariness of this world and life and holy longings after the presence of God endeavouring to attain to the Resurrection of the dead yet I do not believe but there are many languishings and fainting Fits that befal the most devout Lovers of the Father here in the Body Neither dare â— condemn every man for a predominant Lover of the World who in some Passion some Temptation or other has almost lost his sight and taste of God and casts a fond eye upon this Life and World as wretched as it is It is best to wish with Paul to be dissolv'd It is next best to groan with Paul O wretched man that I am c. It is pious to keep up a predominant estimation of Heaven and to make the main business of
abound in this Work of the Lord as much as any that pretend to an imitation of him yet he made his own hands administer to his Necessities rather than be chargeable to the Churches though I suppose the Churches then were as free and as kind-hearted as they are now In short As a man may give away all his Goods to feed the Poor and yet have no Charity so we may cast away the World and yet not rightly contemn it and to a wise Observer shew himself to be more a Fool or a Fanatick than a Saint Good God Since the World is so manifest grant that I may be mortify'd to one Branch of it as well as another that I may not maintain the Worldly Life in one sense whilest I seem to destroy it in another that I may not cleave to the Golden Calves nor haunt the High Places whilest I seem to renounce Ashtaroth â—est in breaking one Commandment I be found guilty of all MEDITAT II. Of the False Despisers of Pleasures and of the Votaries of Virginity IF any one love the Pleasures of the World the Love of the Father is not in him Fleshly Pleasures are the Bane of the Soul they are deadly Enemies to it they do in an especial manner war against in says the Apostle yea and they kill it too For he or she that lives in them is dead whil'st they live He that Travels or Negotiates in a strange Countrey had need to take heed of Enemies especially the Natives of the place And so had this Pilgrim Soul that sojourns here in the Flesh need to beware of the Pleasures of the Flesh which are as it were the Indigence or Natives for they do most endanger and ensnare The Poet could tell us that the wise Wanderer stopt his ears against the inchanting Syrens And the holy Text tells us how ill the Pilgrim Sons of Jacob fared for not abstaining from the Wine and Women of Moab these did them more hurt than all the opposition they had met within all their March What if we reckon with our selves that we are so many Vlysses's wandring homeward in many Uncertainties like so many Israelites trying our Fortune to find the Canaan out of which sometimes we came so many younger Brethren that have taken our Journey into a far Countrey where now we are Should we not with ardent contention of Soul pant and breathe after our Home our own Countrey our Father's House and consequently beware of the inchanting Syrens and Circes the Cozbi's the Harlots I mean all the Fleshly Pleasures that obstruct our return and war against our Souls Agreed cry the Votaries of Virginity and Penance we are the onely Despisers of the World we have stopt our Ears and all our Senses against the Inchantments of it In comparison of us Samsâ—n was as weak as the new Cords that himself broke off his Arms and Solomon himself void of understanding We have made our selves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heavens sake We will pluck out our Right Eye if it look upon a Maid and cut off our Right Hand if it chance to suffer a Kiss of a Female We keep under our Bodies and chasten our Rebellious Flesh till we make it crouch as obsequiously as any Spaniel We persecute our own Flesh as severely as we would do an Heretick And though the Apostle will not allow us to hate it yet we we cannot but be asham'd of it We are true Followers of that holy Doctor of the Gentiles whose many Journeyings we match if not over-do in our long and frequent Pilgrimages and his Self-Castigations by our Penances These are high Pretensions indeed But its worth the while for the Pretenders to inquire Whether they be just and whether they be conclusive of a Contempt of the World For certainly all Single Life does not deserve the Honourable Name of Virginity One may allude to the Prophâ—â—'s Riddle and apply it here with a little pardonable Abâ—onancy The Children of the Barren are more than of her that bore The Scripture describes Marriage by the Coalition of two into one They two shall be one Flesh If this Metonymical Marriage must pass for currant I doubt the Votaries of Virginity will be diminish'd by this Test as much as the Soldiers of Gideon's Army who at the first Tryal shrunk from Thirty two Thousand to Ten Thousand But further Christ the first Discerner of Purity â—â—lls us That there may be many No-Virgins whose Bodies are yet untouch'd as if it were not so much the Conjunction of two Bodies as of two Minds that made a Marriage or worse It 's not enough not to have known a Man Virginity is a tender thing and may be spoil'd even by some kind of seeing a Man He that looks upon a Woman to lust after her defiles himself and She that looks upon a Man violates her Virginity And now I wish our Virgins both Males and Females be not shrunk again as much as the fore-named Captains Soldiers at the second Tryal who fell from Ten Thousand to Three Hundred Yea and it is further to be wisht that of this little Number that is left of those that have not known nor seen any one of the other Sex the rest have not at some time or other heard of them read of them or thought of them otherwise than becomes them and so be not like the Three Hundred Soldiers even now nam'd that carry'd Lamps within their Vessels I mean that burn though they marry not And now methinks I could find in my heart to grant that if the Claim to this pure perfect unspotted unsullied Virginity be just it is conclusive because I am very confident it 's not just But yet it will not be amiss to inquire Whether this unspotted Chastity be accompany'd with the profound Self-Examination and entire Self-Resignation and especially with that Divine Charity that it ought The true Virgin is the Soul that chastely adheres to God the blessed Being whose Name is Love And she is an Adulterous Soul that cherishes Wicked Hatred as well as she that allows Wanton Love What if I do not burn in unlawful Love if I burn in Hatred and be inflam'd with Revenge I have defiled my Soul and lost my Purity in the sight of God The High Priests would not defile themselves by the Judgment Hall but with Envy and Murder they would Or what if this pure Virgin flie from all Mortal Embraces yea and loath the sight and thoughts of any man if she settle into a Self-admiration fondly doting upon her own Beauty or Virginity or Wantonly dallying with her own Fortitude or Perfections she has play'd the Whore from God who alone ought to be Supreme in the Soul and is become unchaste in her Amours It may be very pertinent to examine Whether a great part of the Virginity that is found in the World be not meerly Constitutional it 's no thanks to them not to Burn who are not Combustible Another great part Political
other things still so that the poverty is mightily increased by the mans being inrich't And is it not thus with Honours too Was not Haman base and vile with all honour who was subject to Mordecai a Captive a Slave If it be said it was by accident I answer that all honour lies perfectly at the mercy of the People they kill or save by the turning of a Thumb as they did in the Arena of old It is ill provided for proud men whose Greatness depends upon a small matter which is in the power of the meanest man to deny And to be a servant to so many men and those of the meanest too methinks is a great reproach And as for pleasure I doubt not but that honest self-denying Urias had more satisfaction of mind in not going home to his Wife than David had in fetching her home to him his denying of pleasure was pleasant whereas the others pleasure was painful and shameful And wilt thou O my Soul be impos'd upon wilt thou be so childish as to pursue a painted and gadding Butterfly which either thou canst not catch or it will weary thee to catch it or it will at last ashame thee of the pains and weariness that thou hast been at in catching it when thou seest it will not answer thy expectations Nay worse wilt thou follow a falsity a delusion a shadow instead of a substance a name instead of a thing Wilt thou travel all the day in pursuit of a Notion and at last it will prove nothing but a Fallacy Is it such an admirable atchievement after all thy pains and ploddings and periclitations of health and case and soul and all to be falsly called rich or honourable Nay nay for stark shame lose not the substance for the shadow and yet not get that neither Reckon rather that true riches stand in not wanting any thing then in having much and not wanting depends upon not desiring lessen thy desires and thou art truly and compendiously become rich If thou desirest many worldly things to make thee happy thou both missest of thy happiness which these things can never afford and loosest a great part of thy self too in the enquiry for look how many desires do distract thee so many bits and parcels of thy self are wanting every Concupisence runs away with a piece of thee To think to be made happy by the addition of more worldly things is just as if one should go about to make up an entire Garment all of Patches MEDITAT XXXVII From the Consideration of the Nature of Love WHen I begin to think of the Nature of Love I see a wide Field open wherein I might either tire my self or lose my self I will therefore confine my Mind to the Meditation of the Nature of Love as it is Giving Transforming Uniting and Subjecting These are Four famous Properties of it to give away the mind to the Object to assimulate it to it to unite it and to subject it thereunto From every one of which will arise a strong Disswasive from the Love of the World He that loves gives And what does he give He gives his heart he gives himself The Text seems to justify this Notion That predominant loving is a giving away of the Heart to any Object My Son give me thy heart He that predominantly loves God gives him his heart And it is true on the other hand that the Covetous Man is given to the World and the Sensualist is given to Pleasures Anima est ubi amat non ubi animat The Soul that loves sojourns abroad all the while and is anothers not its own He that loves God gives himself to God and dwelleth in him which giving away of our selves is most advantageous For in lieu of this poor gift our selves we receive God who is infinitely better than Ten thousand Selves But he that by Love gives himself to the World parts with the best he has even himself for nothing He gives himself to that which can give him nothing back again cannot so much as love him In which respect I doubt not to affirm that the Covetous Man is the greatest Prodigal in the World he parts with that which is most precious for no price at all For to allude to our Saviour he hath nothing in Exchange for his Soul Again Let us a little consider the Assimulating Nature of Love As he that looks into a Glass even by looking into it makes a face therein so he that loves even by loving contracts a similitude No Man loves God but he forthwith necessarily becomes God-like How precious and honourable must this love be then that makes this blessed Transformation And how vile and dishonourable is that worldly love that transforms Man into Money nay into Muck The Poets tell of a covetous King that turn'd all he toucht into Gold but lo here a stranger sight the Covetous Worldling turning even himself into Gold by loving it Wouldst thou be content O Man that God should turn thee into Gold or Silver into House or Land Why then wilt thou make this voluntary Transformation of thy self And yet so it is thou becomest the thing that thou lovest even as a lump of Brass Cast and Carv'd into the shape of a Man is said to be a man but cut the Effigies of a Beast upon it and it will be call'd a Lion or a Dog Yea more than so the nature of Love is not only Assimulating but Uniting The Soul of Man is no otherwise united to any Object but by Love this makes him as much one with God as he is capable if God be his best belov'd Object and it makes him one with the World if that be his darling even one with a Whore if he be by love joyn'd unto her The Particles of some Worms cut off seek to be united to the Head sure I am that man who is call'd a Worm and no Man being by his Apostacy cut off from God ought ever to be enquiring after his Original and seeking to be re-united to the blessed Object from which at first he is so unhappily divorc'd In a word the nature of all created love is to subject the Heart to the Belov'd Object Qui aliquo fruitur ei necesse est ut per amorem subdatur He that loves God above all confesses that he needs him above all and seeks to be made happy in conjunction with something more excellent than himself is which is but reasonable and indeed honourable And so he that loves the World Predominantly proclaims his need of and dependance upon the World in the enjoyment of which he expects himself to be happy which is unreasonable and shameful The covetous Rich Man does not so properly possess the World as indeed is possest by it the World has the command of his Heart therefore it is his Master and he is the worst of Slaves as giving himself into a voluntary bondage and that to the vilest and meanest of Masters What
what he is not as Ignorance or Injustice or deny to him what he is as Omniscience and Omnipotence or else ascribe that to the Creature which onely and of right belongs to him Thus every Idolater who gives Divine Worship to a Creature is a manifest Blasphemer of God and so are all Predominant Lovers of the World who by the Predominant pursuit of the World do declare they expect happiness from the Creature which is onely to be found in God and in the enjoyment of him It may seem harsh when 't is spoken in plain words that every covetous proud and sensual Soul is a Blaâ—â—â—emer but there is nothing truer nor scarce plainer I do not speak of any single Act of Blasphemy that these Worldlings are guilty of but indeed they live in a constant and continued strain of Blasphemy Is it not evident that all these Men seek Happiness Rest Satisfaction in the great abundance of Worldly Things It is obvious to every one that they do insatiably pursue them there can be no cause of this assign'd but that they fancy and promise to themselves some satisfaction and happiness in the enjoyment of them And is not this plainly to ascribe to the Creature that felicitating and filling Vertue which individually belongs to the Creator Is it not to give the Glory and Essence and Incommunicable Attributes of God to another Does not he disparage a Fountain of Living Waters who repairs to a broken Cistern to quench his Thirst Does not he disparage the nature of Bread who passes it by and seeks to fill his Belly with Husks That which is a disparagement to these if it be committed against God is Blasphemy He is the only Root and Center of Souls and to take up in any thing below him as an ultimate rest and satisfaction does highly dishonour him and plainly Blaspheme him How justly may it be answer'd to this Worldly Crew at the last day when finding their miserable disappointment they shall seek to enter into everlasting Rest I know you not you have receiv'd your Consolation you have had your Reward in your life time you received your good things Get ye to your Gods therefore of Gold of Silver and such other Worldly Deities to which all a long you Blasphemously ascrib'd a filling and satisfying Vertue The poor woman in the Gospel that had spent all her Living upon Physicians and could get no Cure was indeed after admitted to a touch of the Hem of the Garment of Jesus and healed But they that spend all their Heart upon the World seeking for rest in the things that cannot afford it shall not find it when they come to seek it where it is No no it s just that they that blasphemously make this World their God should be dispos'd of with the God of this World The Fourth abominable thing that I think of is Sacrilâ—dge or a Robbing of God How abominable a thing this is one may easily discern by those Pathetical words of God himself Mal. 3. 8. Where he asks as it were with wonderment Will a Man rob God It can scarce be thought that there should be any such bold Villany in the Nature of things The Heathens accounted it a fearful thing to rob their god who indeed possest nothing Every body know how Prometheus was fastned to Mount Caucasus and had a Vulture perpetually assign'd to feed upon his Liver for defrauding Jupiter at a Feast putting him off with Bones cover'd with Fat when he got the best Morsels to his own Trencher and stealing Fire from Heaven Which Sacriledge Jupiter did so much stomach as Lucian somewhere tells the story that he thought instead of being bound to Mount Caucasus he deserv'd the whole Mountain to be thrown upon him and instead of one Vulture he deserv'd sixteen to torment him Are they esteem'd to rob God who with-held Tithes and Offerings from him and shall not they be much rather so esteem'd who deny him their Hearts Our hearts are due to God he requires them My Son give me thy heart this is his great Commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart The heart of man is most sacred the very Temple the living Temple of the living God and if it be accounted abominable Sacriledge to steal holy Vessels out of the Temple what shall we call it when we steal the Temple it self So do all they that with-hold their Hearts from God and bestow them upon the World MEDITAT XL. Of the Ingratitude and Perjury of Worldly Love THe next abominable thing that I can think of is Ingratitude A thing so abominable that the very Heathen by the light of Nature every where ery out upon it with the sharpest invectives imaginable I need name none of them having once quoted that famous Aphorism of theirs Qui Ingratum dixerit omnia dixit Call a man ungrateful and you call him all that naught is But yet there are degrees here and some kind of Ingratiâ—â—de is more abominable than other Of all the kinds ingratitudes towards God is the worst and or all Ingratitude towards God the giving away of the Heart is the worst and to give it to such â— vile thing a hurtful thing and his Enemy too makes it still worse God has given us all the good we have yea even that good that is given us by our Parents Tutors Patrons Benefactors he is the Dâ—â—r of it And for all this he looks for nothing from us but that we should love him And is it noâ— Monstrous Injustice and Ingratitude to deny him that He gave us these very heartâ— and shall we go and give them to his and our own profest Enemy Talk no more of the abomiâ—â—â—â—â—ness of the graceless Lads that kill'd their Masters with their Pen-knives of Absâ—lom taking up Arms against his Father of Rebellious Subjects pursuing their King to death by those very Swords 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 put into their hands of the Churl that denied a Meals Meat to him that had kept all his Flock in the Wilderness one covetous Man out does them all and every Predominant Lover of the World 〈◊〉 denys his heart to the God that gave it him is 〈◊〉 abominable than all they It was a very cutâ—â—ng Reflection that our Saviour made upon the ungrateful people amongst whom he converst I have done many good works amâ—ng you for which of these is it that ye stone me And what shall he be able to answer to whom the Father of Mercies shall put this Question I have made thee what thou art I have given thee what thou hast for which of these Mercies is it that thou hatest me If it be answer'd Nay Lord wherein did I hate thee It will soon be reply'd to the Eternal silencing of the ungrateful Wretch in as much as thou didst not love me thou hated'st me thou didst not love me for if any man love the World the love of the Father is not in him But I will adjourn the
be lov'd I had rather never to have been than not to have been a loving Creature Having is nothing without enjoying and there is no enjoying without loving If a man have never so beautiful sweet chast vertuous a Wife if he cannot love her it destroys all the pleasure of Relation Etiam Medio de fonte leporum surgit amari aliquid Now certainly if I be beholden to God onely for all the pleâ—sure that I take in my Wife and Children who hath given me power to love them it is highly reasonable that I should love him above them Tell me â—hou man of pleasures Is there any pleasure in Meats Sports in Wine or Woman That very pleasure that thou takest in them ought in reason to call thee off from the intemperate and unchast use of them because it is inconsistant with the Love of God who gives thee the power of sensating even thy impure pleasures The very Gusto's of the Table and the Dalliance of the Bed do Preach the Predominant Love of God And tell me thou Mammonist dost thou love to look upon thy Gold and Silver dost thou take pleasure in beholding them with thine eyes Is it not highly reasonable thou shouldst love God who hath enabled thee to love Gold The power of loving is from God therefore he ought to be the principal Object of our Love MEDITAT XLIV A further Motive to the Love of God THirdly I consider with my self and do propound it to the consideration of any Man that is in his right Wits and his Senses exercised to discern any thing that whatever is lovely in the Creature is from God Our Saviour somewhere saith to Philip desiring a sight of the Father Have I been so long with you and sayest thou shew us the Father q. d. What an impertinent request is it for a man that has so long Converst with the Son the express Image of the Father to desire to see the Father I may with some reason wonder and say the same concerning every lovely Object in the whole Creation Have we seen so many beautiful Objects and tasted to many pleasant things and can we not in all those see the Beauty and taste the Sweetness of the Creator Why that whereby any thing is lovely is of God Deus est quodcunque vides and so we cannot miss of tasting the Divinity in every pleasant Morsel of smelling it in every flower of beholding it in every sweet Face and Feature Created good being nothing else but a Reflection of the Uncreated Goodness The Wit and Ingenuity for which thou lovest thy self the Beauty and Symmetry for which thou lovest thy Wife or any other Woman the Deliciousness for which thou lovest Meat or Drink or Musick the Health and Honour for which thou so much dotest upon the World is but a drop issuing out of that Immense Ocean of Wisdome Beauty Sweetness and Perfection which God is To speak properly The Excellencies which we see in the several Creatures are not the Perfections of this or that particular Being but the perfections of God for they are nothing but what he made them and it is by stamping his own Beauty and Goodness upon them that they are any of them in any kind good and beautiful and indeed not only the Perfections and Ornaments of every particular Being are of God but the very thing it self Because he is therefore we are for in him we live and have our being In spight of all Grammar I cannot but sometimes ask my self this strange question Where was I before I was A little Philosophy will resolve it whatever there was of me as I was future and to exist was in God Ibi nobilissimum mei exemplar All things are in God I amongst the rest Age anima repete illud unde prodiisti unde fuisti There is a great deal of Reason why I should love God more than my self who is the Original and Womb of my being of whom it is not only that I am thus accomplisht but that I am at all And if more than my self then certainly more than all other things whose Being and Excellencies are derivative as well as my own The Apostle John Argues strongly 1 John 5. 1. Every one that loveth him that begat loveth him that is begotten of him Methinks I may invert the order of the words and argue with no less clearness for the same Spirit of God justifies this Argumentation also If any one love that which is begotten he ought to love him that begat If any one love any lovely Creature be ought much more to admire the Creator If a man delight in the Picture of his Friend and love to contemplate it in his Chamber how much more will he hug his Friend the Original and Prototype when he hath him in his Arms Arise O my Soul dwell not upon the lowest Round of the Ladder but sâ—ring up by the several Creatures as by so many steâ—◠〈◊〉 till thou arrive at the very Original of Beauty and Being MEDITAT XLV Further Motives to the Love of God ANd now pursue this Meditation a little and add hereunto That if all the Loveliness of the several Creatures be by way of communication from God he himself must needs be infinitely mere Lovely That blessed Supream Being from whom these Excellencies are deriv'd must needs himself be more Excellent The sweetness of the Stream must needs fall short of the sweetness of the Fountain as it is true Nihil dat quod non haber so it is also Nihil dat omne quod habet All Created Perfections do flow forth from God as from an infinite Fountain by way of Redundancy how inconceivably infinite must the Fountain fulness 〈◊〉 be God hath given power to Kings to kill the Body who would not fear them He has given them Authority that they can 〈◊〉 to this man come and to another do this and who would not obey them How much rather then ought we to fear him that can cast both Soul and Body into Hell how much rather ought we to be obedient to the Supream Authority of Heaven be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live In like manner may any devout mind Reason God hath endowed the Souls of Men with Wisdom Ingenuity Good Nature gracious disposition Who can chuse but love such lovely Objects as these nay rather who will not love the Infinite Wisdom Beâ—igâ—ity and Holiness from which these are but little Emmanations and to which they do not bear so much proportion as the small dust of the Baliance does to the vast body of the Earth Why stand ye admiring us or the Miracle said the Two Disciples Admire the Divine Jesus by whose power these mighty Miracles are wrought And why stand ye gazing upon me may all Created Beauty say Pass on to the great Exemplar contemplate admire and love the ravishing unspotted Beauty in comparison of whom I am meer vileness and deformity And why stand ye gazing upon me
may all created Strength say may the Behemoth and the Leviathan say Pass on from the chief of the ways of God to God himself contemplate the Allmighty Adore and Reverence the Absolute Indefeatable Uncontroulable Unchangeable Eternal Being compar'd with whom our strength is as straw and all our might but as rotten wood And why stand ye sucking at me may all Created Sweetness say may the Honey and the Honey Comb say Go from the Cistern to the Fountain to the uncreated Sweetness entertain your selves and fill your Souls with the Heavenly Manna in comparison of which Fountain all the Rivers of Created Pleasures are as the Waters of Marah in comparison of which Manna all created entertainments are rather Husks than Bread fitter for Swine than Souls And why dote ye on me may all Worldly Glory say may Solomon in all his Glory say if you will aspire let nothing terminate your Covetousness Ambition below the Supream Goodness and the Inaccessible Glory the Glory of the Highest who hath stampt some little of himself upon me whereby I become desirable or glorious but in comparison of whose brightness I am a dark shadow and a total Eclipse MEDITAT XLVI A further Motive to the Love of God FIfthly Consider that to love God is to gain God It may justly make one wonder to see Men take such pains to gain the World and yet so indifferently affected to the enjoyment of God himself Rising up early and lying down late and eating the bread of sorrows describes but a little of that pains and solicitousness which men use for gaining the World in comparison of that compassing of Sea and Land running of strange hazards adventuring Health and Life Soul and all in pursuit of Wealth and Honour which we may every where discern amongst the greedy Merchants and Ambitious Courtiers and Warriers of the World And after all this it proves that they seek but a very mean thing that they gain but a little of that which they seek and that they are not satisfied with that which they gain Is it worth an Age of pains to gain the Creature yea a small handful of it yea and such an handful too as is gone as soon as it is well gain'd and can any Man that is Master of his Reason choose but think it much more worthy of all possible endeavors to gain the Creator and make the Supream good his own Our Saviour seems to make a supposition of a thing not to be suppos'd when he speaks of a single Man gaining the whole World like unto which there are many Hyperbolical suppositions made in the Holy Scripture But the gaining of God is no Hyperbolical Supposal but a Real Proposal It is sincerely propounded to the Sons of Men and if they fail of it it is their own fault and folly It hath pleased God so to constitute the Rational Soul that nothing besides himself can be the happiness of it It is impossible in the very nature of the thing that any thing below infinite Truth and Goodness should satisfie the Understanding and Will of man or that the same should be any otherwise perfected but in the possession of this Blessed Object It must needs follow then that he is willing to be enjoy'd else he had been cruel to the Souls of Men in giving them faculties which should never be perfected and Appetites that should alwaies be craving and never satisfi'd It must needs be that the Supream Good is most Communicative of himself and that he who every where commands us to give to them that ask us and not to turn away from them that would borrow of us must himself be infinitely willing to be found of them that seek him This being certain it will as certainly follow that the loving of God is the enjoyment of him Dilige frueris It is Love that Assimulates and Unites and makes this blessed Object our own Solomon tells us That he that loveth Silver shall not be satisfi'd with Silver yea it is true also that he that loveth Silver oftentimes does not so much as possess Silver poor men may be covetous as well as rich and there are many in the World no doubt whose hearts do mightily hanker after the World that yet miss of it who pursue this shadow and it flies from them But no man ever set his heart upon God and was disappointed of the enjoyment of him Though many love Riches that never come to be Rich and beautiful Mistrisses that are never admited into their Embraces yea and the Admirers of their own Beauty are miserably disappointed Norcissâ—s like they cannot so much as come to a kiss of that sweet mouth that they so fondly contemplate in the Glass having no advantage of their own fair Faces save the beholding of them with their Eyes yet it is far otherwise with the Lovers of God This most Beautiful and Blessed Object is not shye of himself he envys no good thing no not himself to his Lovers and Friends As the Benign Sun envies not denies not his precious Light no not to the meanest Inhabitant of the Earth that will but look at him see him and you enjoy him so neither does the Father of Light deny himself to any that do but heartâ—â—y desire him love him and you enjoy him For what other way can there be suppos'd to be of enjoying God Every man is alike nigh to God yea and the Devils as nigh as Men Set aside the loving of God and the meanest Man in the World is as much a Kâ—â— to him as the mightiest and the Apostate Spirits as near to him as his Menial Servants the Courtiers of Heaven If we could suppose an unloving Soul to be admitted into Heaven and to be as nigh the Throne of God as the Angels are this very Paradice would be a Purgatory to him and the Bosome of Abraham a Bed of Thorns Oh how Blessed and yet how easie a thing is it to enjoy God Love him and he is your own If Kingdoms could be got with loving what man would not be a Prince If great Fortunes could be obtain'd by being desired who would not be sure of a Rich Match If the meer setting ones Heart upon Silver and Gold would make them to increase the Prophesy would certainly fail of having the Poor always with us God is more easily got than Gold Believe in Jesus and you have him Love God and you are possest of him Droop not thou meanest obscurest poorest of the Children of men come lift up thy head and take Courage I shew thee a way a certain way an easy way how thou mayst be as excellent as rich as honourable as any of the Princes of the Earth as the Angels of Heaven Love the Father for if any man Love the Father and the Son they will come unto him and make their abode with him Good God what Honour and Happiness is this that thou bestowest on thy Saints MEDITAT XLVII A Further Motive
in its stead It is very foolish too For if we bind up our hearts in worldly thing and they happen to flie away they carry away our hearts too and leave us dead and besotted It worketh death sometimes in the plainest sense men go down into the Grave by mourning but in a spiritual sense certainly It is fatal and damnable if predominant It must be confest that many good People have had Fits Passions of this but this will not justifie it was unseemly in them let us beware that that be not predominant and habitual in us which in them was only a violence a sudden Fit or Passion which they subdu'd presently and ever repented of This Impatience of Evils is very unreasonable Shall we receive good at the hands of God and not evil Who am I poor proud sinful Wretch that I should fansie my self to be such a Darling of Heaven that it should not so much as suffer the cold Air to breathe upon me Shall I be glad to receive the good which I have not deserved and be angry to bear the evil that I have It is unreasonable upon God's account too The degree and duration of all sickness is weighed out exactly by an infinitely wise mind The Cup that is given us to drink is mingled and presented by our heavenly Father Moreover this wise God is infinitely kind too He doth not willingly afflict nor delight to grieve the children of men Lam. 3. 33. He would not afflict them but for some good that he hath in view When we pray That the Will of God may be done it seems we mean his will of kindness onely Lord we are willing that thou shouldst bless us and do us as much good as may be but nothing of thy afflicting Will oh No Or if that must be done let it be done upon others not upon us Oh rarely distinguisht as if we should say Our Father we desire that thy Will may be done and executed universally but yet with this limitation and restriction that it do not cross our wills at any time Or will we understand our Prayers so as that all men should be ready to do the Will of God but not that God should do his own Will Rare Divinity Oh but my impatience and immoderate mourning over losses of Estate Relations Health doth not proceed from any over-valuation of them but from the sense of God's displeasure he afflicts me for my sin this Providence is a judgment a punishment and may I not ought I not to lay it to heart Answ You believe so and therefore you infer that it is reasonable to be impatient You do well I warrant to be angry and intemperate And I pray why should we not be content that God should punish us for our faults Ought we not to submit to the Discipline of our heavenly Father as well as to the Parents of our flesh It is hard to say when God punishes his Children for their faults but be sure however that it is for their amendment And to be impatient that we are corrected for our faults is an ill kind of Repentance it adds faults to faults Good God mold my will into thy holy Will Thou art fatherly and friendly in thy Corrections rather smite me than not recover me rather make up my way with thorns than sâ—ffer me to wander from thee make me willing to give my back to the Smiter than to perish for want of chastisement Let my afflictions bring forth the pleasant fruits of Righteousness not the sowre and harsh fruits of Impatience MEDITAT XLIV Of Uncharitableness THere are many sorts of Uncharitableness but because I am considering of the riches of the world I will confine my self to that of not giving alms Not to give at all and to have bowels perfectly shut up against the indigent is the grossest uncharitableness So gross that I thing few are guilty of it and none will confess it To give something but grudgingly and with an ill will is uncharitableness not to take pleasure in this exercise spoyls it Men may be many ways forc'd to give and yet no thanks to them it does not proceed from a charitable mind To give sparingly is uncharitableness Not that true charity consists in the quantity but in the principle The Gospel-widow gave much in giving her mite But not to give proportionably to what God hath given us and the necessities of our families will permit is uncharitableness Nay I suppose that the nature of true charity requires that a man do sometimes defalk from himself and straiten his own family in some degree to relieve the necessities of others If any one would know the just proportions of charity I confess I do not find them precisely stated in the Word of God neither do I take it to be an argument of a charitable mind to be curious in this enquiry I suspect them that are as I do those who labour much to know the lowest degree of saving grace To these that ask How much more must we give I will not answer as our Saviour did in somewhat a like case If you will be perfect Go sell all and give to the poor but I will desire them seriously to consider of the proportion which God expresly requir'd the Israelites to give to the Levites and to the poor and of that tenth part which it is reported that Dr. Hammond and many other charitable persons have thought themselves bound to devote to charitable uses and then onely add with our Saviour Go thou and do likewise But it is against the nature of charity to be stinted I think therefore if we liv'd by this short rule at present it might do well to give what we can spare and to spare what is more than enough When I and my Family have fed well on a dish of meat I do not grudg to give the rest to the poor And so I argue when I have enough for my self and mine the rest belongs to the poor And would to God men would know when they have enough of riches as they do when they have eat and drunk sufficiently To give that which is another mans is not Charity or at least it is an ill govern'd Charity that is not in Conjunction with Justice O thou that takest pleasure in the communications of thy self that gloryest in the raying forth of thy own Perfections who rejoycest in thy works of Bounty and Merey Conform me also to this divine disposition that I may rejoyce to do good account it a better and blesseder thing to give than to receive be better pleas'd to find an object upon whom to bestow a treasure than to find one And let this rejoycing be pure not springing from the hopes of a reward lest my very charity at last should be found to be covetousness nor from applause in this world lest it should be pride but from a principle of God-like Love Christ-like Compassion and rational belief that in is better to give
to them that need than to keep what one needs not And O my Soul what profits what signifies the meer possession of gold more than of stones The use then is all And what better use can there be of any thing than to make it serve a publick good quo communius eo melius MEDITAT XLV Of Pleasure in general THe general notion of Pleasure is a Gratification of any Faculty or a Satisfaction resulting from the union of the Faculty with the Object From whence it follows that there must needs be the greatest pleasure in the enjoyment of God especially when all the Faculties shall be advanced and inlarg'd It is not harsh to say nor methinks hard to conceive that Mans chiefest happiness consists in pleasure for the happiness wherein Man takes no pleasure is not happiness Heaven it self cannot make a mind happy that cannot delight in it It is lawful to take pleasure in the things which we possess Solomon seems to make it an argument of a worldly mind not to do so sure I am a man may do so and yet not be sensuallly Voluptuous It is strange that covetous Men who love the World most should yet find the least pleasure in it they can take no pleasure in what they have for grasping after what they have not Covetousness seems to be more unnatural than Voluptuousness Innocent Nature aims at the Gratification of it self even in the Creatures that have not sinned To enjoy present good things and not to lay up in Barns is the commendation of Birds the moral vertue of Sparrows Yea Pleasure seems not only to be lawful but necessary Life would not be Life without it If there were not a thing call'd Enjoyment as well as Possession the silly Bird that makes her Nest where she pleases would be as rich as the greatest Landlord It is impossible but that nature should take pleasure in the supply of her wants in the gratification of her appetites Pleasure is as natural to sensitive Creatures as Appetite and Appetite as Being But however natural the Pleasures of Sense are there is a mighty difference between the pleasures of Minds and Spirits The pleasures of the Flesh last no longer than whilst the necessities of nature are in supplying enjoy them and you lose them The pleasures of the Spirit are fine and strong and like it self lasting everlasting Pleasures for evermore MEDITAT XLVI Of Worldly Pleasure THere have been of old and it is prophesy'd that there shall be hereafter Men that love Pleasures more than God Whoever these Sensualists are the love of God is not in them For the predominant love of Sensual Pleasures is inconsistent with the saving Love of God If the Belly be our God our end will be destruction God shall destroy both it and us If we serve our own Bellies we serve not the Lord Jesus Christ whom if any man serve not love not he is anathema-maranatha The predominant love of pleasures is deadly if ye live after the flesh ye shall dye Yea it is death it self What the Apostle says of every Widow that liveth in pleasure true of every Woman yea and Man too They are dead whil'st they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. This was the Father's opinion of his voluptuous prodigal Son during his riotous course of life he was dead Luke 15. 24. To take more pleasure in the gratification of the bodily senses than of the Soul What is this but to advance the Beast above the Man To give up ones self to the pleasures of the flesh more than of the mind to prefer them before the enjoyment of God before the exercise of Virtue is to be lover of pleasures more than of God and consequently to be the Lover of the World here spoken of I know it is hard to convince a man that he is habitually intemperate in his Pleasures But certainly when men do industrionsly from time to time pursue their pleasures and that in things unlawful these must needs be the pleasures of sin and this is manifest sensuality Yea though it be not in things directly forbidden if the pursuit be with more zeal and industry and more expence of time than the interest and concernments of the Soul it must needs be accounted Sensuality and a living after the flesh When every particular man has purg'd himself as the worst of men will do and deny'd the charge of being Sensualists yet it remains a certain truth that there are many lovers of pleasure more than of God such as live in pleasures upon earth as the Apostle phraseth it Jam. 5. 5. not lap and away as a Dog at Nilus but they wallow in them they swim in them they immerse themselves in them they delight in them as in their proper Element Such as love pleasures as Solomon speaks Prov. 21. 17. Such as are given to pleasures as the Prophet describes them Isa 47. 8. Such as serve divers pleasures as the Apostle speaks Titus 3. 3. Such as fare deliciously every day as it is story'd of the Gospel-glutton Such as like Beasts nourish their hearts as in a day of slaughter These sure are predominant Lovers of pleasure And are there not many such now as well as there were in the days of those Prophets and Apostles Let us not mistake a man may sin in his pleasures who does not take pleasure in sin Carnal pleasures I reckon to be either sensual or fantastical Thus I will distinguish them for method sake Although those of the Fancy may for ought I know be properly enough called sensual I think Divines reckon them so and Fancy it self may well be call'd a bodily sense being found in Beasts as well as men Now these sensual pleasures become unlawful either by their Matter Measure Manner or Season And in this order I will address my Meditations to them and afterwards consider of the pleasures of Fancy MEDITAT XLVII Of Fornication and Adultery AMongst the sensual Pleasures that are unlawful in the very matter Fornication and Adultery offer themselves especially to be consider'd To prefer these pleasures of the flesh and gratifications of the Bestial Appetite before Purity is a predominant love of the World Whil'st we carry about with us such Bodies as these we shall have an appetite to Conjunction as well as to Eating or Drinking which to think perfectly and properly to mortifie for I do not call Restraint Mortification seems to be somewhat like the Fanatical humor Of living without Meat The Lust of Hunger is best mortifi'd by being duly gratifi'd and perhaps the best if not onely way of subduing this Appetite is to accommodate it in the ways and seasons allow'd by the God of Nature and shall no more be interpreted a making provision for the flesh to fulfil it in the lusts thereof than Brewing or Baking the most innocent kind of Cookery Who can blame the Philosopher that would eat though for no delight he took in the meat yet to be rid of the importunity