countenance of Gods justice Their owne crimes take them by the throate and they seeme ready to say as Ahab to Eliah 1 Kings 21. hast thou found me mine enemy And God saith to their heart with anger I have found thee because thou hast sold thy selfe to worke evill in the sight of the Lord. There is no conscience so sunk in a deepe sleepe of sinne and worldlines but will now and then awake and cry out in a sudden fright So did Felix though a Pagan an extortionner and a man every way infamous for as St Paul reasoned of temperance and righteousnes and judgment to come Felix trembled and answered Goe thy way for this time Act. 24. Whosoever hath read bookes and men may have observed what unquietnes crimes will bring to the criminal That tyrants continually imagine a naked sword hanging over their head That the wicked flee when no man pursueth That murtherers and perfidious men have a broken sleepe and their mirth is interrupted with parentheses of frownes and grimme lookes That when they excuse themselves of a foule fact of which their conscience accuseth them their conscience many times gives the lye to their words and they are contradicted by the inconstancy of their lookes and the stammering of their tongue And conscience will double these terrours when their end draweth nigh Many know who he was that started up often in his mortal drouzines on his death bed commanding that his men should give over slaying But suppose that the wicked that have the world at will had as much rest within as without yet â—â—dons saying to Craesus ought to be observed Never to pronounce any man happy before his death But the Christian ought to give to that sentence a longer terme if he hath bin with David in the Sanctuary of God and there hath understood the end of the wickd and found that God hath set them in slippery places to cast them into destruction CHAP. III. Of the reconciliation of man with God through Jesus Christ Such being the enmity betweene God and sinfull man which is followed with the discord of man with nature with his kind with himself How welcome how precious to him must the blessed newes be of Gods reconciliation with him Esa 5.27 How beautifull upon the mountaines are the feet of him that bringeth good tydings that publisheth peace that bringeth good tydings of good that publisheth salvation that saith unto Sion Thy God reigneth the chief ambassadour that anounceth that peace with God is he that made it It is the eternal sonne of God who by an infinite mercy towards man guilty and miserable was pleased to allye himself with him by a personal union of the divine nature with the humane He hath taken our nature and imparted his unto us He hath made himselfe Man to take upon himself the debt of man For seeing that man was indebted to Gods iustice it was requisite that a man should give satisfaction Which because mans nature was not able to find Christ joyning to the Nature and Obligation of man the Nature and Vertue of God and both in one Person hath fully satisfied the justice of his father which required a perfect obedience and death for punishment of disobedience He hath then presented to God a most accomplisht obedience of which the most eminent act was to have readily undergone a shameful bitter death at his Fathers command for the sins of mankinde of which he was the pledge and the representative An obedience of infinite merit more powerfull to obtaine pardon yea and reward at Gods hands then all the disobedience of the world to incense his just wrath to punishment 1. Pet. 2.24 His owne selfe bare our sins in his owne body on the tree Isa 53.5 The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes wee are healed For it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the bloud of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himselfe Col. 1.19 All that have recourse to that infinite love of God and that ransome of inestimable value the merit of his sonne embracing it with a true faith which cannot act nor subsist without a true repentance find their peace made with God their iniquity is pardoned they have received of the Lords hands double for all their sinnes Isa 40.2 It is a double satisfaction both because it is twice greater then all the sins of the world and because it worketh a double effect the one to get pardon for sins the other to obtain a reward for imputed righteousness And that satisfaction represented to God in our faithful prayers makes them acceptable and of sweet favour as the incense put upon the sacrifices It is much to be lamented that these tydings of grace and glory are but coldly entertained by carnal eares as now growne stale and vulgar And that there is more joy for prevailing in a Law-suite and for a Peace that opens the markets and the freedome of commerce after a civil broyle then for our peace with God through Christ in whom wee have free accesse unto the throne of grace that wee may obtaine mercy and finde grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.16 But he that in the fright of his conscience hath seen hell open gaping for him and hath once lost his thoughts in that bottomelesse gulfe of misery and horrour to have his creatour his enemy if upon that he embrace by faith that great and heavenly message not onely that his sinnes are forgiven him by the merit of Christ but that by the same merit of an enemy and a child of wrath he is become the sonne of God and heire of his Kingdome his heart will melt with joy love and admiration and the sadder his sense was of his deplorable condition the greater will his thankfulnesse be for his gracious restoration O the depth of the riches both of the wisedome and the goodnesse of God who hath found a way to set forth together his justice and his mercy and to pardon sinne by punishing it O the infinite love of the Father who so loved the world that he gave his onely Sonne for them O the infinite love of that onely Sonne that so loved his enemyes that he delivered himselfe to a most bitter death to give them life and immortality yea and his own kingdome O the infinite love of the holy Ghost who so loved the world as to announce unto them this excellent piece of newes by his word and seale the promises of God in their hearts by faith in Jesus Christ that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have life eternal Behold then the onely foundation of the peace of the soule and contentment of mind It is that peace made for us with God by his onely sonne who hath taken our sinnes upon himselfe and in consequence the punishment giving us in exchange his righteousnesse and consequently the reward of it since
lovely persons you shall not admit them to competition with God for the possession of your heart Love aspireth to perfection He then must be beloved above all things who makes them perfect that love him It is more then Ladies can do though never so perfect But by loving God who is the soveraine perfection we become like him in our measure and are changed into the same image And since delight is the baite of love we must love him above all things that satisfyeth us with true delight Psal 16.12 God in whose presence is fulnesse of joy at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore Carnall love makes the heart sick It is sullen fantasticall and tumultuous It conceives great hopes of content and comes short of them It gives for one pleasure a thousand sorrowes But the love of God is a continuall enjoyment a constant peace a solid joy and if sometimes one suffer for him he repayes for one sorrow a thousand pleasures Many lovers of beauties are not beloved of them But who so loveth God must be sure that God loves him Yea that God loved him before he loved God the love which he beares to God is an effect of the love which God beares to him And is it not a great encouragement to love when one is sure to be accepted and beloved againe That subject which onely deserves to be loved with all our heart is easy to be wonne to a mutual love Other objects of our love being infinitely under that prime subject are farre more difficult to winne Our love of God is not crost with absence as the carnall For him we fetch no unheard sighes and shead no unseen teares God is alwayes neare them that sigh for him and puts up their teares in his bottle Psal 56. The Lord is nigh to all that call upon him He travelleth with them abroad He keepes house with them yea in them He sweetens their griefes he answereth not only then words but their very thoughts Many times we love them that can do us no good though they love us many times also we are impoverished by the love wee beare them But our love to God makes us rich for it gets already possession of God who is the Author of all good gifts Psal 36.10 With him is the fountaine of life and in his light we see light To love him is to raise ourselves to soveraine honour and felicity Briefly if one will have favours gratious countenance sweet individuall company possession enjoyment fullnesse of joy for ever let him turne the point of his love heavenwards Divine love will make him good and happy in the highest degree These benefits are not to be expected of carnal love A sicknesse which is the same in the appetite as a fever is in the blood sometimes in a cold somtimes in a hot fit It is a perpetuall ebbe flow of feare and hope and it cannot but be continually shaking and wavering since it pinnes the felicity of a man upon another who hath not felicity enflaming his heart to a subject weaker many times and more necessitous then himselfe And if these inconveniences be found in the honestest love of the sexe how much more in the unlawfull and unchast love Of this sicknesse the most usuall but not the best remedy is to drive out one Mistresse with another but the way to get liberty is not to change service In stead of getting out of the storme into a harbour they are tossed from one rock to another He then that will expell one love by another love must betake himselfe to a love that may change his servitude into liberty which the love of God will afford and none else So the grand remedy of carnall love is to exercise ourselves in the love of God and gladly to consider what a sacrilegious part it is to erect a little idol of our sensuall appetite in our heart which is Gods Sanctuary and what a hainous rebellion it is to chuse another Master then God Thence without an extraordinary mercy of God one of these two evills will follow Either God jealous that we love another more then him to whom all our love is due crosseth our designes and makes us misse that which we sought after with so much eagernesse Or in a greater indignation he gives us that which we preferre before him and whence we expect our highest happinesse which afterwards turnes into bitternesse and ruine You shal see many impetuous corrivals suitors of an evill woman as fishes justling one another striving for a mortall bayte The strongest and most unfortunate driveth he other away and by taking is taken and destroyed Solomon who had but too much experience in this matter gives this account of it Eccles 5.26 I find more bitter then death the Woman whose heart is snares and nets and her hands as bands Who so pleaseth God shall escape from her but the sinner shall be taken by her Women might say little less of men There is no cheat no witchcraft comparable to that of carnall love neither is there any thing that workes sadder effects Of which the most ordinary is the loss of the tranquillity of the soul A losse not to be recompensed by all the love-pleasures that lust can suggest to the imagination No Passion sinnes more against that rule truly Christian and Philosophical to dwell at home and not to seek our content out of ourselves which is the same thing as to seeke it in God for in God is our true being and God is found within us if we have the grace to seeke him there as we ought But carnall love makes a man to seeke all contentment out of God and out of himselfe so that he is never at home alwayes abroad and alwayes under the power of others Neither doeth any other Passion so enormously transgresse in the two extreames both to over-value and undervalue the price of things For a lover will raise the price of the beloved object above Nature and possibility and together cast away his estate his honour his conscience and hazard his life as things of no account to get that idolized object It were a wonder if young people being all naturally enclined to that burning fever did not get it after so much paines taken to bring them to it For how many bookes are written for that very end How many amorous fables which to write and to reade is the busines of them that have none There young men are taught that vertue consisteth in being passionate beyond all extremity and that great feats of armes and high fortunes and atchievments are onely for lovers There maides learne to be desperately in love disembling proud and bloody and to beleeve that all is due to their supremacy seing in those bookes the world torne with warres by the jealousy of some Princes lovers and rivals and many thousands of mens lives sacrificed to the faire eyes of a Lady There also they learne to be crafty Mistresses
wee beare to God is the love that he beares to us wee must before all things study to conceive as well as wee may of the great love of God to us-ward Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that wee should be called the sonnes of God 1 John 3.1 This is the principall point of his love where all other testimonies of his love doe beginne and where they end Without this none can say that he is beloved of God For to be the work of Gods hands and maintained by his providence is common to all creatures and to be made after Gods image and by his liberality to enjoy the plenty and service of nature is common to all men good and evill But because creatures without reason and men without goodnesse beare no love to God it cannot properly be said that God loveth them though he be their maker and preserver Love being the bond of perfectnesse Col. 3. Gods love would not be the bond of perfectnesse if he loved those things that never return him love For that love may be a bond the two ends must meet knit together now these two ends knit when a creature beloved of God beares a reciprocal love to him For thereby not onely the man that feareth God joyneth with him but the whole nature also and all the creatures are re-joyned with their principle and Origine And whereas some creatures cannot others will not love God the true child of God because he gets some utility out of them all yea of those that are Gods enemies loveth him and gives him thanks for and in the name of all and so by this meanes love proveth a true bond of perfectnesse which proceeding from God and knitting with God againe embraceth and holds fast together the whole creation and brings it back to its Creator A consideration which cannot but bring a singular content and a great peace to the soule Being perswaded of the love of God to us whereby we are called the sonnes of God we looke upon all creatures as the goods of our fathers house prepared for us And though others which are none of Gods children enjoy them also yet they are for us since the wicked are for the good either to exercise their vertue by tryals or even to serve and sustaine them For as the angry waves roaring and foaming about the ship where Christ was with his disciples yet were bearing the ship likewise the enemyes of God and his Church while they are beating and storming against it beare it up in spite of their hearts The agitations of the great sea of the world make Gods children more sensible of the great love which the Father hath bestowed upon them to have given them his beloved sonne to be in the ship with them to keep them safe in the storm and the dangers that overwhelme others are helps for good unto them that love God All the deliverances that God sends them all the blessings that God powreth upon them they take them as productions of the fatherly love of God who hath adopted them in his Sonne They taste that love in the enjoyment of present goods they breath that love in the enjoyment of future eternall goods they rest upon that love when they sleepe they leane upon that love when they walk they find that love in all the occurrences of their life with what face soever the various accidents of the world looke upon them they see through them the evident love of God being certaine that nothing happens to them but is directed by the good hand of their loving Father These pleasant rivers of the love of God conduct our meditation up the streame to the great Source that love which passeth knowledge that mysterious deepe love which the Angels desire to looke into whereby of his enemyes that wee were he hath made us his children giving for us even to death his owne precious Sonne entitling us by him to his eternal glory and giving us the earnest of it by his good Spirit crying in our hearts Abba Father O incomprehensible love which hath undergone overcome death to give us life and that he might have from us an immortal love That immortal love ought to be the effect of this meditation So that having conceived to our power how much God loves us wee may also to our power apply our heart to love him acknowledging that all our heart all our soule and all our understanding is yet too little to returne him love for his love It it true that this is a debt from which we can never be acquitted and wee owe it even after wee have payd it But as this debt must be payd continually the continual payment yeelds a continual satisfaction to him that payeth it oweth it still For whereas pecuniary debts make the heart sad this debt of love makes it glad when our duty meetes with our inclination and when wee most desire to dok that which wee are most obliged to doe Besides this debt is of that nature that when wee pay it wee make together an acquisition for although the love began by God he takes it upon him to repay us the love that we pay him Ps 91.14 Because he hath set his love upon me saith the Lord therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high because he hath knowne my name Pro. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seeke me early shall finde me But love is due to God not onely for the love that he hath done us and for the good that wee hope from him but for the good that is in him and because he that is the soveraigne beauty and goodnes must be beloved in the chiefest highest manner All that is beautifull and good in Nature the glory of the celestial bodies the fertility of the earth the shady greene of trees the fragrancy of flowers the variety and utility of animals the rational inventive vivacity of intellectual natures the admirable order of the Universe both in disposition and conduct All these are so many productions of the great bottomlesse depth of beauty bounty power and excellency and who so wisely considereth them presently conceiveth that the Authour is possest of an infinite perfection onely worthy to be beloved for his owne sake and that all the good and beautifull things that he hath done must be beloved onely in relation to him and for his sake To which if you adde two other points of which Nature cannot sufficiently informe us and wherein the Word of God supplies the deficiency of Natures teaching which are the justice and the mercy of God towards sinners O who would not love that infinite love and excellency though he had no interest of his owne in it But how can we barely consider Gods excellency in it selfe with an abstraction of our interest Certainly the consideration of our concernment will go along though unsent for with the contemplation of Gods supreme
vertue and goodnesse And it is impossible to consider God as the onely worthy object of love without conceiving even with the same thought that our soveraigne good consisteth in loving him reputing what a height of honour and content it is when that great Creator who is all bounty all beauty and all perfection is pleased to contract amity with the creature For in this consisteth the great and only excellency of man that God hath given him a nature capable to entertain freindship with his Maker A capacity which being obscured by sin is restored to him by grace And God who as the only absolute Soveraigne is above all Laws condescended so farre to us as to binde himselfe to the Laws of friendship with man which Laws on his part are most inviolably kept the whole defect in that mutual love is from man As then friends disjoyned in place are joyned by love so are God in heaven and man upon earth God indeed is every where yet God and man are more remote in degree of nature then any two can be in place But they are joyned in a way farre more excellent real for the thoughts of two mortal persons make no mutual impression when they are without the line and reach of communication whereas God is never remote from the faithful soul and they may commune together at any time God makes his love sensible to the faithfull soul and saith to it by the presence of his spirit Soul I am thy salvation and the soul saith to him Lord thou art my God I am thine save me teach me to do thy will God communeth with the soul by his word and spirit and the soul communeth also with God by her word and spirit that is by prayer and holy aspirations It is also a law of friendship that friends bear the one with the other and that the strong support the weake Wherefore God all perfect having knit a friendship with the creature subject as yet to much imperfection supporteth her defects with his love and covereth her sins by his righteousnesse Man also for his part must patiently bear what chastenings God layeth upon him taking all kindly at his hands for as he must be assured of his love he must also be certainly perswaded of his wisdom and beleeve that Gods dealing with him is all love and wisdome It is a law of perfect freindship that friends declare their secrets one to another So God deals with his freinds and Jesus Christ useth this for a reason why he calls his Disciples his friends John 15.15 Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knows not what the Lord doeth but I have called you friends for all things that I have learned of my Father I have made known unto you And Daniel saith that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him not the secret of his Councel but that of his Good will towards them in that which concernes their duty and their salvation which is the sence of the following words and he will shew them his Covenant We then to shew our selves true friends to him that honoureth us with that title must also disclose unto him the secrets of our hearts It is true they are open to his all-seeing eyes and if we would hide our secrets from him we could not But God takes a delight that we give him an account of our selves not that He may be better informed but that we may be better and happier for they that disguise themselves before him are incapable of his grace and dissembling is a violation of the lawes of friendship It is the comfort of the godly that while they confesse their sinnes to God as unto their clear-sighted Judge they discharge together a duty of friendship declaring to their supreme friend their private infirmities and secret diseases to call upon his help What benefit we may expect by that free dealing with God we learn out of Davids experience who speakes thus to God Psalm 32.5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him Into the bosome of that friend we must powre our secret sighes to him we must lay open our most intimate desires and feares that we may say to him with David Psalm 38.9 Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Which as it is true in regard of Gods all-seeing knowledge let it be true also in regard of our sincere unbosoming of the secrets of our souls before God Now that the secrets of our soules and the meditations of our hearts may ever be acceptable in his sight and because the heart of man is so close and full of windings of hypocrisy that man himself cannot finde the bottom of his own inside let us call upon God to assist us in that search by his good spirit saying Psalm 139.23 Search me O Lord and know my heart try me and know my thoughts And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Before we have sincerely laid open before God all that is within us we have no reason to expect the blessing of serene and innocent peace in our soul For God who is jealous of his glory takes it as a high contempt when his creature will offer to avoid the all-seeing eyes of the Creator besides he is jealous of our love taking it as a derogation to the love due to him when we go about to conceale our thoughts our affections and our projects from him Wherefore the sence that the conscience hath of this jealousy of God holds her in continual anxiety Whereas he that is true to a resolution to call God to witnesse of his most secret actions and intentions as he is whether we will or no gets two benefits that way The one that finding himself obliged to impart all that he hath in his heart to God his eternal friend he will take heed of doing yea and thinking any thing that is displeasing unto him and by his uprightnesse will prevent the shame of opening many impurities before that holiest of Holies The other that by this free and open dealing with God he shall get a great tranquillity in his conscience For if in humane friendships we presume that by disclosing the secrets of our hearts to a generous friend we oblige him to love and fidelity and after that action of freedom we find our heart much eased how great must our ease and contentment be when we have poured all our heart into Gods bosom that perfect friend who is truth and sincerity it self It is a wise part to conceale nothing from God The only way to possesse our soul with
OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT OF MINDE By PETER DV MOVLIN THE SONNE D. D. LONDON Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be sold at his shop at the Prince's Armes in St. Paul's Church-yard 1657. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE RICHARD EARLE OF CORKE Vicount of Kinalmeaky and Dungarvan Baron of Yoghall and Bandon Peere of Ireland My Lord THese Contemplations belong to your Lordship by double right as fruits growne and ripened at the rayes of your favour and as characters of those vertues whereby you have wrestled out the difficulties of an age of Iron and Fire The roughnesse of those stormes makes your present tranquillity look smoother your Lordship takes the right course to have tranquillity at home in any weather consecrating your heart to be a Sanctuary of the God of peace where you entertaine him by faith love and good works not serving the world but making the world to serve you keeping a constant march through the various occurrences of both fortunes with a meeke resolute equanimity and a prudent sincerity To keep your minde in that golden frame if these endeavours of mine may be instrumental they shall but refund what they have received for to that tranquillity which I enjoy under your noble shelter I owe these meditations of tranquillity May they prove of the nature of those seeds which improve the soyle where they grow And may your good soul reape some fruit of these productions of your favour and my thankfulnesse I rest At your Mannour of Lismore July 30. 1655. MY LORD Your Honours most humble and dutifull servant PETER Du MOULIN PREFACE BEing cast by the publique storme upon a remote shore whence I behold the agitations of the world with a calmer judgement because former troubles have left me little occasion to be much concerned in the latter I find my selfe invited by this uncertaine interval of unexpected rest to meditate how I may find the rest of the soule and contentment of mind in all conditions And seeking it for my selfe I may be so happy as to procure it to others For that contemplation I made use of foure bookes this halfe-wilde countrey affording but few more The chiefe is the holy Scripture the meditation whereof brings that peace which passeth all understanding The next is the booke of Nature Then the booke of Gods providence in the conduct of the world both teaching me to say with David Psalm 92.5 Thou Lord hast made me glad through thy workes The fourth book is that which every one carrieth along with himselfe the spirit of man A booke where there is much to be put out and much put out which must be renewed before wee can reade in it any subject of peace and content for without the corrections of grace this natural booke is like that of Ezekiel Ezeck 2.10 written within and without with lamentations and mourning and woe It is the worke of wisedome and my endeavour in this treatise so to correct this fourth booke upon the three others that wee may study it with delight and find peace and contentment within us which may spare us the labour to seeke it abroad That wisedome which must worke in us that excellent effect is divine wisedome She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her Prov. 3.18 happy is every one that retaines her And humane wisedome instructed by the divine seconds her and does her good service in that greate worke This philosophie swims against the streame of a great torrent So I call the numerous abettours of that eminent moral Philosopher Doctor Charron my countreyman who with great care separates divine wisedome from the humane and attributes to the humane alone that which onely belongs to the divine Preface to the three bookes of wisedome to make a man walke alwayes upright stedfast and content in himselfe I have more serene intentions in this booke which beares on the front the Peace and contentment of mind then to carpe at the learned and the dead And it grieveth me much to dissent from that brave man whom I truly admire acknowledging his booke of Wisedome to be of rare excellency and of singular use to such as know how to use it aright But it grieves me more that he hath persvaded so many seeming wisemen pretenders to the magistracy of wit Ibid. that integrity is not a dependance of Religion and that the vertue and integrity of Divines is altogether frowning chagreene austere servile sad timorous and vulgar One would think that he is drawing the picture of some old barefooted shee votary But Philosophical wisedome that is as he expounds it the human and civil he makes it free cheerefull lofty noble generous and rare It is likely that Charron describing Theological wisedome weeping austere base and poore spirited had before his eyes those rules of monastical discipline which he made once a shew to affect though very ill agreeing with his free masculine and lofty spirit as setting forth piety and wisedone in a servile and melancholy dresse Had he lived till now his solid rational wit had liked no better of the delicate and poetical piety that came since upon the stage of France some of it publisht in English to little purpose Where in stead of reason and authority to satisfie the judgement and comfort the conscience you shall find posies of light courtly conceits as if they presented the devotion of the people with beades of rosebuds shedding in their hands that turne them These two different wayes of piety are unsavoury to philosophical minds that would be payed with reason and good sense which if they find not in religion they will forsake it and seeke for wisedome in Philosophy I owe that duty to Theological wisedome to make it appeare to my power that she is the true Philosophy and that to her that magnificent character is proper and special Ibid. to make a mans spirit firme upright free cheerefull universal content every where which priviledges Charron reserveth to civil wisedome It is a high injury offered to piety to take vertve and moral Philosophy from her jurisdiction and transport to humane wisedome that which is proper to the divine Ibid. even the skill of living and dying well which is all Let us endeavour to shew by our example that Divinity doth not handle wisedome austerely and drily as he doth reprove her but sweetly and pleasantly Ibid. which hee saith to be proper to humane wisedome And that wee may restore that to Religion which Charron takes from her let us thinke it no shame to take place among those whom hee condemneth They take saith he Religion to bee a generality of all good Lib. 2. cap. 5. that all vertues are comprehended in it and are subordinate to it Wherefore they acknowledge no vertue or righteousnesse but such as moveth by motives of Religion I professe my selfe one of them that thinke so preferring to Charrons authority that of Saint Paul
who makes Religion a generality of all good in this pregnant text Phil. 4.8 Finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest vvhatsoever things are just vvhatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise think on these things I hope with Gods helpe to justifie that unto true piety it properly belongs to set a man at peace with God with himselfe and with his neighbours to set a right order in his soul by rectifying his opinions and governing his passions to make him moderate in prosperity and patient in adversity wise tranquill generous and cheerefull as long as he liveth and glorious after his death In these few words I have set downe the argument and order of this Booke If all these are within the precincts of piety very little will remaine for humane wisedome separate from religious to make a man vertuous and happy Charron very wittily alledgeth that many Philosophers have been good and vertuous and yet irreligious To which the answer is that it is an indulgence when they are called good and vertuous without the knowledge and love of the divine and saving truth and that such of them as have been neerest to that title had reverend opinions of the God-head and despised the silly superstitions of that age Also that their want of religion hath made their pretended vertue maimed and monstrous as in the case of killing ones selfe which Charron after Montagne esteeme two much and dares not condemne it without a preface of reverence and admiration This he hath got by separating Vertue from Religion proving by his example that Nature without grace cannot but stumble in the darke and that to guide ones selfe it is not enough to have good eyes but there is neede of the light from above Whereas we should make a faithfull restitution to Religion of all that is vertuous in Pagan Phylosophy as descended from the Father of lights and belonging to the patrimony of the Church this man does the clean contrary robbing Religion of those things which are most essentiall to her to bestow them upon humane wisedome solliciting vertue to shake off her subjection to Religion her mother and Soveraine and to make her selfe absolute and independent Himselfe forgets to whom he oweth that wisedome of which he writes In the Schoole of Religion he had got his best learning to Religion also hee should have done his homage for it Can all the Bookes of humane wisedome afford such a sublime Philosophy aâ— that of the Lord Jesus when hee teacheth us to be prudent as serpents and harmelesse as doves Not to feare them that kill the body and cannot kill the Soul Not to care for the morrow because God cares for it and because to every day is sufficient the affliction thereof Not to lay up treasures in earth where the moth and the rust spoyle all but in Heaven where they spoyle nothing And when he brings us to the schoole of Nature sometimes to weane us from covetous cares by the examples of Lillies of the field which God cloatheth and of the birds of the aire which he feedeth sometimes to perswade us to doe good to our enemies because God makes his Sun to rise upon good and evill and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust How many lessons and examples doe wee finde in Scripture of heroicall magnanimity Such is the Philosophy of St. Paul who professed that when hee was weake then he was strong and that he fainted not because that while the outward man decayed the inward was renewed day by day Such is the Philosophy of the Hebrewes who bore with joy the spoyling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had a better and an induring substance Such also is the Phylosophy of David who was confident never to be removed because God was at his right hand and taking him for the portion of his inheritance he looked through death and the grave to the glorious presence of Gods face and the pleasures as his right hand for evermore This is Theologicall wisedome Is it all frowning chagreene austere servile sad timorous and vulgar Is it not all free chearefull lofty noble generous and rare Let us acknowledge that it is the onely wisedome that makes man free and content If the Sonne of God set us free we shall be free indeed Out of him there is nothing but slavery and anguish Satan the great enemy of God and men could not have devised a more effectuall course to disgrace godlinesse and cast men headlong into perdition then to separate wisedome from religion and portray religious wisedome weeping trembling with a frighted looke and hooded with superflition They that take so much paines to prove that religion and wisedome are things altogether different have a great mind to say if they durst that they are altogether contrary And if any be perswaded by Charron that to be wise and vertuous one needs not be religious he will come of himselfe to beleeve that he that would be religious cannot bee wise and vertuous Certainely who so conceiveth once religious wisedome in that sad servile and timorous Idea which Charron assignes to her must needs think that wisedome and vertue lose their name and goe from their nature when they will be religious There is then nothing more necessary in this age in which Atheisme is dogmatizing and speaking bigge then to demonstrate that the beginning and accomplishment of wisedome is the feare of God And in stead of that prodigious method to withdraw men from religion that is from God to make them wise and content that truth must be prest unto the heart that a man cannot be wise and content but by joyning himselfe with God by a religious beliefe love and obedience That we fall not into a contrary extreme wee must take heede of robbing humane wisedome of her office and praise And we must acknowledge that she needs to be imployed about many things in which piety is not an actour but an overseer But piety must never bee severed from her for where shee gives no rules yet shee sets limits Piety must bee mistresse every where humane wisedome the servant Now it is the servants duty to do many things which the mistresse wil not put her hand to standing more upon her dignity then to descend to inferiour offices In which although piety hath no hand yet she hath an eye to them and lets nothing scape her knowledge On the other side humane wisedome confines not herselfe to inferiour offices but assisteth Piety in the highest She doth her good service when she keepes in her owne ranck But she goeth out of it when she presumes to governe her Mistresse subjecting faith to reason and conscience to worldly interesses In this Treatise I consider piety and wisedome as the meanes to obtaine the peace of the soule and contentment of minde Not to vote for the
kingdome of God within the soule Blessed and holy is he that hath it and to him is next in happinesse and holinesse he that sincerely endeavoreth to get it and to that end yeelds to God the raines of his affections brings his will under Gods will and humbly invites him to fixe his dwelling beare rule within his breast It is the end that I aim at in this worke And I beseech the God of peace so to blesse and honour it as to make it an instrument to work His peace in the souls of his servants beginning at my soule To that work every Christian ought to put his hand as he loveth God and himselfe To which wee are the more induced and in a manner compelled by the contrariety of the Time While the storme of warre or intestine dissensions is raging in all parts of the world not leaving one safe corner for peace the wise Christian must take sanctuary in that inward peace that peace of God which though it passe all understanding yet will dwell in the understanding and the affections of those that faithfully seek it and keep both hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ Get once God within you you have a shelter at home against all injuryes abroad as he that in a tempestuous raine flyes into a Church and in Gods house finds peace and safety whilst the whole aire abroad is enflamed with lightnings and roaring with thunder and the land floods are hurling down houses drowning sheep and shepheards and destroying the long hopes of the Husbandmans labour For the faithfull soul is Gods Temple which he graceth by his presence and blesseth with his peace not suffering it to be removed though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea This peace at home in which our duty and our happinesse are concentred is an inviting subject for a diligent contemplation Let us examine wherein consisteth the true peace of the soul and contentment of mind and how wee must keepe peace with God with our selves with our neighbours in adversity in prosperity and in all the occurrences of life CHAP. II. Of the Peace of Man in his integrity and the losse of that peace by sinne THe fundamentall rule of great reformations is to bring things to their beginning By that rule that wee may know the true peace of God and how wee may get it wee must cast back our sight upon the beginning how God gave it to man and how he lost it soone after And here wee must use that which the Spirit sayd unto the Churches Rev. 2.5 Remember whence thou art fallen and repent Man newly created after Gods likenes was in perfect peace with him for God making an image of himselfe would not have made it dissenting from him and peace is a prime lineament of Gods Image That first human soule recently breathed out of Gods mouth followed with delight the fresh and pure traces of his divine production and man finding in himselfe the likness of his Creator tooke a great joy and glory to compare that copy with the original That moving image of God did imitate his actions as doth the image of our body in a glasse And whereas in the worke of regeneration St Paul saith that the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and that he is created after God in righteousnes and true holines it followes that the first man was created such since wee learne that such must be the renewing of man to be created againe after the image of God These lively expresses of the image of God knowledge righteousnes and holines could not be in that first man without an entire peace and consonance with his Creator And having peace with God he had it also with himselfe His desires were not at variance with his fears nor his knowledge with his actions His thoughts belyed not his words His cupidity did not draw against his conscience his conscience layd no accusation against him From that good intelligence with God and with himselfe he could not but reape a great content in his mind that content also being a lineament of the image of God to whom as holines so happines is natural and essential For that contentment of mind he got no smal contribution from the beauty and plenty of Nature smiling upon him and the willing submission of all animals flocking about him as loving subjects meeting to wellcome their new Soveraign For his peace with God kept all creatures in peace and obedience under him Abroad the clemency of the aire and the pleasantnes of a garden of Gods planting delighted him And at home his familiarity and free accesse to his Maker filled him with joy and confidence And his original righteousnes if he could have kept it would have perpetuated that blessed peace unto him for peace is the most proper effect of righteousnesse as it is exprest by Isatah The work of righteousnesse shal be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietness assurance for ever Isa 32.17 Truly God forbidding him to eat of that excepted fruit upon paine of death did intimate that as long as he kept in obedience death could take no hold of him nor any of the appurtenances of death for such are all the infirmities of the body all the griefes of the mind and all the crosses of this life Ezekiel in the eighteenth Chapter is copious upon this demonstration that life is inseperable from righteousness and mortality from sinne This last was justified by wofull experience for man going from his righteousnesse forfeited his life and his peace And presently a dark cloud of confusion and misery troubled his golden serenity The voyce of God which was the joy of man suddenly became his terrour Gods presence which was his life became so formidable to him that it went for a currant truth Judg. 13.22 Wee shall surely dye because wee have seene God Man being fallen off from God most part of the creatures fell off from him and that rebellion continued ever since Those that have sense and motion openly deny to yeeld subjection unto him flee away from him when he will come neere them or flye upon him with open hostility And to get service from them he must tame them young before they be able to resist him Other Creatures destitute of sense yet seeme sensible enough to let him know that they yeeld to him a forced service Neither can the earth be wonne to doe any good for him but by great labour and long expectation Diseases enter into his body with the meate that he eateth and the aire that he breatheth Stormes beat upon him Summers scorch him Winters chill him Foxes have holes and birds of the aire have nests their garments are natural warme in winter light in summer To man onely Nature gives not where to lay his head nor so much as a skinne capable to abide his
our hearts from the world and make his heavenly comforts more welcome to us Truly the faithfull soule that knoweth how to make the right use of good and evil shall find experimentally the truth of St. Pauls sentence that all things are for our sakes 2 Cor. 4.25 Also this peace with God brings us peace with our neighbours For he that hath a comfortable seeling in his conscience that God is reconciled with him will easily be reconciled with his brethren holding it a point of equity generosity and gratefulnes after that his Master hath forgiven him ten thousand talents to forgive his fellow servant an hundred pence If all men had the peace of God in their hearts there would be no discord in the world But because most men want that good peace and they that have it have it but imperfectly therefore peace between men can hardly be well cemented When you see men professing piety and sound doctrine tearing and devouring one another with warres or lawfuites you may be sure that the peace of God rules not in their hearts surely not in the hearts of the authors and fomentors of discord though they should pretend the zeale of Gods glory who hath no need of mens turbulent passions to advance his kingdome which is all peace In heaven where the peace of God abideth in its fulness and filleth the hearts of every one of his Saints there is also of necessity a perfect peace between them for they must needs have all one love since they have all but one interest which is the glory of him that loveth them and for ever glorifieth them with himselfe CHAP. IV. Generall meanes to preserve that peace with God and first to serve God purely and diligently HAving spoken of the true and onely foundation of the peace of the soule and contentment of mind which is the confidence that God is appeased to us through Jesus Christ Let us now use the meanes to preserve that peace and stand firme upon that solid ground beginning by the more general The first is to serve God with purity and diligence for which this consideration is essential that our reconciliation with God was made by way of purchase and that when wee were lost and estranged from God he was pleased to redeeme us by his Sonne Wherefore as they that bought servants expected service from them God also hath bought us to be served by us That end of our redemptiō is thus set down by St. Paul Tit. 2.14 Christ gave himself for us that he might redeeme us from all iniquity and purifie unto himselfe a peculiar people zealous of good workes It was the custome over all the world in S. Pauls time to buy sell servants As then servants could not expect the favour of them that had bought them unlesse they did them good service we that are purchased by God with such a great price must not expect to enjoy his peace and gracious countenance if wee doe not serve him according to his will Wherein our utility meetes with our duty for of the service which wee yeeld unto God the whole benefit results unto us Before all things wee must looke well that our service to God be pure and such as he requireth for without that purity all our diligence to his service would be not onely unless but hurtfull One cannot goe to God turning his back to him The more we labour to serve him otherwise then he hath commanded the more wee offend him The pure way of Gods service is set down in his written word wherein although many places are too high for the understanding of the most wise and learned yet the things necessary for the duty and salvation of man are so clearely exprest that this commendation is justified by experience which David giveth unto Gods word The entrance of thy Words giveth light it giveth understanding unto the simple Thy word is a lamp unto my feete and a light unto my path It is one of the chief duties of Gods service to reade and carefully meditate that good Word lend a devout attention to them that announce it For by it God speaks to us as a father to his children and none but unnatural children refuse to hearken to the voyce of their Father This duty brings its recompence for the holy word of God is the glad tydings of the peace of God with men and the onely doctrine that frames that peace within us For which reason the Prophet would heare it Ps 85.5 I will heare what God the Lord will speake for he will speake peace unto his people and to his Saints To that holy word as to a sanctuary troubled consciences must have recourse to get the peace of God Yet the faithfull soule ought to be more studious to learne in it how to please God then how to get comfort Those Christians are yet upon the lower degrees of their regeneration that practise the duties of Gods service only to work their salvation Wee must read and hear Gods word for a higher end even to conforme our wills to the rule of his declared will and wee must think more of his glory then our felicity If faith in his promises make us say joyfully with David Ps 32 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered the zeale of his glory must make us say with more joy and affection as the same David Ps 119.1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walke in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keepe his testimonies and seek him with the whole heart v. 5. O that my waies were directed to keepe thy sttatutes v. 7. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments And all along that great Psalme he uttereth the unspeakable joy that he took in meditating and doing Gods commandements one may see that he cannot say enough to expresse how heartily he was affected to it If wee love the holy word of God for its own sake and converse often with it with reverence and affection because it is the word of our heavenly father and the declaration of his nature and will wee shall finde our peace in it though wee seeke it not and get a satisfaction not to be parallelled by any joy for the things of this world To this duty of hearing God speaking to us in his word the next is to speak to him by prayer whether it be to implore his grace or to thank him for his benefits or to praise him for his infinite perfection By these two duties of hearing God and speaking to him we begin in this world that good intelligence and holy communication with God in which the heavenly peace and soveraine felicity of man consisteth By prayer wee seeke and meete that peace of God which is announced to us in his word and whoso seekes it well will be sure to meete it for to this seeking is the promise made Math. 7.8 Every man
that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened When this direfull remembrance sinkes into a conscience how man was put out of Paradice and Cherubims were placed at the gate with aflaming sword to keepe him out that he may not finde the way to the tree of life it is enough to sinke one downe with feare and anguish and make him cry out standing upon the brink of despaire Must I be driven away from God for ever and what way is left for me to returne to the tree of life without which I cannot shunne eternal perdition Upon that perplexity Prayer comes and offers her helpe saying I will bring thee thither and will goe with thee without any let of the flaming sword for I know a way to the tree of life where the terrour of the law doth not keep the passage the sonne of God who is the way the truth and the life hath made me way unto the throne of grace to which I goe with full assurance to obtaine mercy and finde grace to helpe in time of need This freedome of prayer to approach unto God was in some sort represented by the sacrifices That they were figures of prayers wee learne it out of the Psalme 141 where David beseecheth God that his prayer may be set forth as incense and the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice Ps 141.2 As then the smoake of the sacrifices did mount up toward heaven which is a way which cannot be stopt likewise faithfull prayers have at all times a free passage to heaven and although Satan be called the Prince of the aire he cannot disturbe them in the way But that they may reach to heaven the incense of the merit of Christ must be layd over the sacrifice of prayer To that holy duty wee are encouraged by Gods commandement and promise Both are in this text Ps 50.12 Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shall glorifie me And so in this Come unto me saith Gods eternal Sonne all you that labour and are heavy laden and I will ease you Math. 11.28 None that prayeth to the father through the merit of the Sonne returnes empty For either he giveth us what we do aske or what wee ought to aske and that which is fit for us He that keepeth that holy correspondence with God is never dejected with sorrow or perplexed with feare for he finds in that divine communication a plaister to all his sores and an inexhaustible well of life and joy David had found it so when he sayd Ps 16 I have set the Lord allwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shal rest in hope By prayer wee ground our soules in faith raise them with hope inflame them with charity possesse them with patience during our life and yeeld them to God with joy in our last breath To reape these benefits by prayer wee must understand well the right use of prayer which is double It serveth to aske of God our necessities both of body and soule for since in him wee live and moove and have our being wee must continually seeke to him by prayer of whom wee continually depend But the noblest and most proper use of prayer is to glorifie God and converse with him because wee love him and because he is most perfect and most worthy to be beloved coming to that holy duty not as a taske but an honour the greatest honour and delight that a creature can be capable of in this world stealing away from affaires and companies to enjoy that pleasant and honorable conversation as lovers will steale away from all employments to entertaine their best beloved For what is sweet in the world in comparison of this sweetnes what is honorable compared to this honour to have familiarity with God and be admitted to his presence at any time to be received of him as his children and when wee lift up our affections to heaven the habitation of his glory to finde that himselfe is come to meete us in our heart and hath made it another heaven by his gracious presence In that meditation a faithfull man will call Gods benefits to minde and to conceive their excellency to his power he will from the consideration of Gods grace reflect upon that of his owne naturall condition sometimes criminal miserable and Gods enemy but now through Gods preventing love and unspeakable mercy changed into the quality of child of God and heire of his kingdome He hath bin provoked to pity us by the depth of our misery wherefore in all reason wee must be provoked to thankfulness by the height of his mercy And this is the chiefe employment of prayer an employment which paying our duty brings our felicity and though wee have payd but what wee owe and scarce that giveth us a present payment for the duty which wee have payd O what a heavenly delight it is to lose ones selfe in the thought of Gods mercyes which are beyond all reckoning and above all imagining and to say to him after David Ps 40.5 Many O Lord my God are thy wonderfull workes and thy thoughts which are to us ward they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee v. 8 If I would declare and speak of them they are more then can be numbred I delight to doe thy will O my God yea thy law is with in my heart Ps 86.11 Teach me thy way O Lord I will walke in thy truth unite my heart to feare thy name I will praise thee O Lord my God withall my heart and will glorifie thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell Such a conversation with God to rejoyce in his love praise him for his graces and crave the leading of his spirit to walke before him unto all pleasing is an imitation of the perpetual imployment of Angels and glorified Saints It is a beginning of the Kingdome of heaven in this life In it consisteth the true peace of the soule and the solid contentment of minde CHAP. V. Of the love of God BEing entred into the meditation of the love of God let us stay upon it It is good for us to be here let us make here three tabernacles And more reason have wee so to speak in this occasion then St. Peter when he saw Christ transfigured in the Mount For by planting his abode there he could not have made Christ to doe the like nor given a settled continuance to that short bright lightning of glory But by our meditation upon the love of God wee make him to stay with us and our soul is transfigured with him being filled with his grace and his peace and already enlivened with a beame of his glory Now because the ground the spring and the cause of the love that
become good or evill to us according to the disposition of our minds And of things within us there are but two in themselves evill Sinne and Paine Stoicians will not acknowledge paine to be evill because it sticks to the body onely which say they is mans lodging not man himselfe But what-man feels all the incommodities of that lodging The soul is tyed by personal Union with the senses and really suffers what they suffer So to maintaine that paine is not evil when one feels it commanding the outward countenance to unmoovednesse in the midst of the sharpe torments of the stone and the gout laughing when one hath more minde to cry is increasing paine with the addition of constraint and heaping folly upon misery But paine becomes a blessing to the wise and godly which learne by it to weane their hearts from the love of the world and themselves and to seeke in God that comfort which they finde not in this world and this life for all things helpe together for good unto them that love God Herein the senses may do good service to reason piety to find content in many things where others find the contrary Some will declame gainst the senses as ill Judges of the goodnesse and badnesse of things To whom we must say that the senses are never Judges but informers and that the ill information that our understanding receiveth of the quality of the objects ought not to be imputed to the senses for they plainly report what they perceive but to the prepossest Imagination which upon their simple information frameth false Ideas set off with colours of her owne which she presents to the Judgement and makes him Judge amisse through misinformation If we will then get good service from the senses for the right informing of our judgment we must obtaine of ourselves these two points The one not to receive their testimony but about their proper objects which are the outward qualities wherewith the senses are affected The other not to preoccupate them with Imagination Opinion and Passion So when they are confined to their owne province and become impartial witnesses it will be easy to perswade our reason rather to beleev our owne sense then the Opinion of another Thus when we desire to know whether we be unhappy because we are deprived of riches kept back from honours without reputation or ill reputed in the world we must not referre ourselves about that to the Opinion and talk of the world but to our owne sense Let us sincerely examine our senses what harme wee receive by it Are we more hungry or cold by these misfortunes Doth the Sunne shine lesse bright upon us Is our bed harder Is our meat lesse feeding If our senses thus examined have nothing to complaine of and yet we complaine that wee are come short of some hopes that others step before us that the world regards us not or speakes ill of us Let us ingenuously acknowledge upon the testimony of our senses that we are well if we can beleeve it and that it is not out of Sense but Opinion that we are afflicted This is the difference betweene fooles and wise men Fools consult Opinion and Custome Wisemen consult reason piety and nature Fooles regard what others think Wisemen consider what themselves finde and feele Fooles gape after things absent Wisemen possesse the present and themselves O how many men complaine that have no hurt but in their imagination which is indeed a great hurt and incurable many times When you see a man rich and healthful tearing his heart for some inconsiderable losse or for the rash words of an ill tongue desire him to aske his senses where the paine is And if he feele no paine by it why doth he put himselfe to paine Why is he ill when he may be well He is well if he can but heale his imagination Is it not a disgrace to a reasonable creature that whereas reason ought to rectify the sences the senses should need to rectify reason and that men who love themselves so much must be exhorted to do no harme to themselves when they feele no harme A rational godly man will examine what he feeles and will do no harme to himselfe when God doth him good And when his senses have reason to complaine he will quietly hearken to them and rather beleeve their report about the measure of the evill then the cryes of the by-standers that commiserate him He will not be easily perswaded that he is sicker then he is indeed and will not increase his paine with his imagination And whereas others make themselves sick out of imagination when they are well he will use his imagination to make himselfe well when he is ill Not that I would advise a man to blind himselfe for feare of seeing and dull his sense for feare of feeling evills For the better we know the nature of things the better we know how to deale with them that we may avoid or beare the evill that is in them But because imagination hath a real force to increase or diminish many evils it is the part of a wiseman alwayes to imploy the strength of his imagination to his advantage never to his hurt The evills where the indulgence of Opinion must be used to make them lighter are the evills of the body and fortune But as for the evils of the mind which are the vices of the understanding and the will there the flattery of Opinion is most dangerous for the principal sicknesse of the mind is that one thinkes not himselfe to be sick I have advised reason to take counsel of the senses when the imagination aggravateth the evil or makes it and yet the senses are free of paine But when the senses are offended in earnest then they must take counsel of reason and more yet of piety to finde some ease Let us meditate upon the nature of those evils of fortune and body so much feared in the world He that gives a right Judgement of the evill hath halfe found the remedy CHAP. IX Of Poverty THere be many degrees of civill poverty according to the diversity of conditions and businesses To a Soveraigne prince it is Poverty to have lesse then a hundred thousand pounds a yeare but to a husbandman it is riches to have twenty pounds a yeare rent free In all conditions those are truly poore that have not wherewith to maintaine that course of life which they have set up and all men that cannot satiate their cupidity Thus very few rich men will be found in the world since there are but few that aspire not to greater things then they can compasse and desire no more then they have All that finde want are poore whether their want be of things necessary or superfluous and among many degrees of poore men there is but one Poverty Yet those are the poorest that finde want of superfluous things because that kinde of poverty is made worse by the increase
do him harme or hindred to do him good or deprived of the good he might do to the publique that worthy man must not altogether neglect to rectifye the misconceits taken against him which he may with lesse difficulty atchieve by a serene and constant course of integrity then by finding and proving confuting and keeping a great bustle to bring contrary witnesses face to face Innocency and the confidence that attends it must needs stand so high above the babling of the vulgar as to be no more moved with it then the Starres with the wind â—â—owing in the lower Region The dishonour that hath some ground in the truth must be wiped off not by excuses but by amendment Is one blamed for being vicious He must be so no more And that out of hatred of vice not of dishonour which being but a shadow of it will vanish at the rayes of Vertue CHAP. XII Of the evills of the body Unhandsomnesse Weaknesse Sicknesse and Paine OUr judgement being satisfyed that the good of the body beauty strength health and pleasure are none of the great goods we ought also to bee perswaded that their contraries are none of the great evills And if our very bodies must not be accounted ours because we cannot dispose of them at our pleasure and because by the undermining of age they sinke and slip away continually from themselves the commodities and incommodities of these fraile tenements at will where our soules are harboured for a few daies as ought not to disquiet us matters of any importance To beginne at Unhandsomnesse if a woman be unhandsome for that sexe is especially sensible of that disgrace let her stay but a while age will bring all the beauties to her row within few yeares and death after That last day draweth neere which will make faire and foule alike strong and weake sick and sound them that are tormented with dolour and them that torment themselves with voluptuousnesse and curiosity Whosoever is much grieved with those incommodities never apprehended aright the frailty of the opposite commodities We must not be vexed for the want of things which by their nature decay and perish very houre There are few incommodities but have a mixture of commodities which a wise lover of his owne tranquillity will pick and convert to his advantage The unhandsome woman shall not be admired but in recompence she shall not be tempted nor importuned as a prey by lust and insolence She hath with her a perpetual exhorter to humility piety and all vertue and to recompence the want of beauty with goodnesse Seldome is unhandsomnesse reproached to women but to them that aggravate with malice envy their disgraces of nature Beauty cannot be acquired but goodnesse may Yet among them that want beauty some are so wise and so good that they become handsome They are commonly more happy in marriage then great beauties for they give lesse jealousy to their husbands and study more to content them Persons of weak constitution are lesse obnoxious to acute sicknesses which many times will kil strong bodyes in three or foure dayes They are lesse tainted with that stupid pride which commonly attends great strength of body Finding themselves inferiour to others in excercises of strength they apply themselves to exercises of wit to which commonly they are more apt As weezels have more mettle and nimblenesse then Oxen there is often more industry and quicknesse of wit in little weak men then in men of of large and brawny limbs for the predominancy of blood and phlegme which makes the body large is the duller temper for wit whereas choler and melancholy which by their contractive quality limit the stretching of growth to a lesser extent serve also the one to sharpen the wit the other to give solidity to the judgement Weakenesse reads to a man a continual Lecture of prudence and compliance for being not able to carry on his designes with a high hand dexterity onely will serve his turne Also that want of strength teacheth him to make God his strength sticking fast to him by faith and a good conscience That way the weakest become too strong for all the world When I am weake then I aâ— strong saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 12.10 Of this Gods children have a blessed experience in sicknesse whereby God makes their body weake to make their faith strong and their soules by the dolours and lingring decay of their bodies susceptible of many salutary lessons for which health and ease have no eares Sicknesse and paine are evill in their nature but they are good by accident when God is pleased to turne evills into remedies to bring a man to repentance and make him looke up to the hand that striketh They are punishments to sin and wayes to death but to the faithful soul they become instruments of grace and conveighances to glory Many of them that beleeved in the Lord Jesus while he conversed among men were brought to it by bodily sicknesses And he when he healed a sick person often would say Thy sins are forgiven thee To give an impartial judgement of their quality and measure one must rather beleeve what he feeles then the cryes and compassion of them that love him and have interest in his preservation They say that a man is very sick when he feeles not his sicknesse Yet he hath so much good time till he feele it If the paine be sharp it is short If it be little it is tolerable If the evill be curable be patient good Cure will heale it If the evill be incurable be patient death will heale it No evill is superlative when one is certaine to come out of it By life or by death there must be an end of thy sicknesse All the remedies that Pagan Philosophy giveth in extremities come to this that patience is a remedy to evills that have none But here Christian Philosophy openeth the treasure of divine comforts which to make the faithfull man patient in tribulation make him joyfull in hope shew him the crown ready for him at the end of the combat In the combat he is strengthened by faith and the comforter whom Christ promist to his disciples powerfully assisteth him in his last agony Or if his triall be prolonged he tels him as Paul buffeted by a messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12.9 my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse By that grace sicknesse beates downe pride quencheth lust weaneth the heart from the love of the world makes the soule hungry and thirsty after righteousnesse Theodoricus Archbishop of Collen with great wisdome exhorted the Emperour Sigismond to have the will in health to live holily as he said when he was tormented with the gravel and gowte Sicknesses give to a godly man a sense of his frailty when wee feel these houes of mud our bodies drooping towards the ground their originall then doe we sigh for that building of God that house not made with hands
there were no Passion there would be no vertue If then the Passion be sick it must be healed not slaine and much lesse must it be slaine when it is in health lest it fall sick It may be sayd for the Philosophers that would cut off or rather root out Passion that it is an errour that doth little harme for man being naturally too passionate we must pull to the contrary extreme to bring him to a vertuous moderation for after we have rooted it out as much as may be there will remaine still too much of it Beasts have also their Passions and by them men are allyed with beasts But the Appetite of the beast is meerly sensual the appetite of man is partly sensual partly intellectual Passions may be marshalled into three orders according to the three principall faculties of the soul The inferiour order is of them that are onely in the sensitive Appetite and have their motions for the body onely as hunger and thirst Over these reason hath lesse power for she cannot perswade him that is hungry not to be so but she may retard the satisfaction of the appetite Other Passions are lodged in a higher storie and seeme to be seated in the Imagination as the Passion that one hath for curiosities and images of perfection increased by the desire These are more capable to be ruled by reason The third and highest order is of intellectual passions as the love of learning and contemplation These are more immediately in the power of reason It is the part of reason to forme and moderate those passions which are meerely under her jurisdiction and keepe a short bridle to those passions that are moved without her leave by nature chance or fancy As in a well governed kingdome all is done by the King the faculties of the soul must be kept in such order that within us all be done by Reason When that Soveraine is wise and well obeyed peace is in the inward State of man But when the Soveraine is made subject to his natural Subjects the sensual Passions then the soule is like a body with the heeles upward and the whole policy of the mind is turned upside downe Being to speake of the Passions as the winds that stirre and tosse that inward sea of the soule I must also speake of the Vertues that serve to represse them Not to treate of each severally and prolixely but to bring them to action and to minister to every Passion its proper remedy CHAP. III. Of Love LOve is the first of all Passions and the cause of most part of them It is the motion of the soule towards objects that promise rest and contenument By Love men are good or evill happy or unhappy as that Passion is applyed to good or evill objects In every soule there is a Master-love which beares rule over all the other Passions and subjecteth them to its principal object According to the quality of that object love is perfect or unperfect for as the objects of the sight change in some sort the apple of the eye into their colour and shape so by receiving the image of the beloved object into our soule our soule is transformed into it and wedded to its qualities He that loves a sordid thing becomes sordid Doth any love his hounds with that principal love his soule becomes of the same quality as his hounds He that loveth a high object becomes high by that love He that loveth God the soveraine good receiveth the soveraine good into his soule Many causes contribute to the contentment of minde but the chiefe cause of it is a worthy love And it may be truly sayd that neither in heaven nor in earth any thing is pleasant and contenting but Love God himselfe is love saith St Iohn 1. Ioh. 4.16 And I conceive as much as a finite mind dares conceive of the infinite God that in the substantial love embracing the three persons of the Godhead consisteth both their personal union and their felicity I have spoken before of the vertue of love which unites us with God and shewed that it is mans great duty and soverain felicity And hereafter I must speake of the Christian love due to our neighbours which is called charity and of the love of society which is friendship In all these relations love is a vertue either acquisite or infused But here wee consider it as a natural Passion which yet wee must endeavour to raise to a vertue and for that wee cannot but returne againe to the love of God The most natural love is the love of the sexe A Passion meerely sensual and common to men with beasts And yet it is that Passion which keepes the greatest stirre in mans heart and in the world That love softeneth magnanimous spirits and drawes downe the soule from the heaven of holy meditation to the dregs of the matter But for that Passion a man might come to a degree of Angelical purity in this world Wherefore there is great need to learne how to represse it To roote it out if one could find in his heart to doe it would be destroying nature and resisting the ordinance of God who gave that inclination to all animals for the propagation of their kind But because God gave also reason to men above other animals and his knowledge to Christians above other men the love of the Sexe hath need to be led by a better guide then Nature else it is brutish and that which is innocent in beasts is vicious in men By it men instead of the pleasure which they hunt after so hotly find sadnes remorse infamy destruction of body soule and estate It is a feareful sentence that no whoremonger nor uncleane person hath any inheritance in the kingdome of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 It is a criminal deplorable folly to turne into a snare of damnation that volupty which the indulgence of the wise creatour hath given to all animals to invite them to the continuation of themselves in their posterity and to climb up at the window with perill to steale pleasure with crime whilest marriage opens the doore to it unto which God men honesty duty utility and facility invite us Love altogether carnal doth not affect the person but the pleasure unless by the person a mansselfe be understood Love of beauty is love of onesselfe not of the desired person since beauty is desired for pleasure When that love of the sexe is joyned with a true affection to the person and that affection grounded in vertue and encouraged with mutual love then love and friendship meete and increase one another And if marriage followeth it may prove the greatest of temporal contentments But as in unlawfull love there is need of continence to refraine it so in the lawful there is need of temperance to moderate it Temperance is the preserver of love of pleasure also Both are lost by excesse As the flame of a taper turned upside downe is quencht by
the substance that feeds it so love goeth out by too much plenty of aliment But though love and pleasure could maintaine themselves in the excesse neither body nor mind losing any thing of their vigour yet there would be more losse then gaine in it for fervent passion troubleth the serenitie of the soul and any thing that subjecteth the understanding to the appetite degradeth the soule of her excellency especially when the appetite is meerely sensual Because in conjugal life two loves meete the love of the sexe and the love of society It will be a wise course to tye the last with all the bonds of benevolence These bonds are piety sweet conversation tender care of the beloved person patience to beare with her infirmities and a little winking not to see all that might diminish love omitting nothing to make the best of a bargaine which cannot be undone That indissoluble knot which unto fooles makes marriage a heavy yoake is unto the wise a helpe to contentment for by that necessity they are taught to love what they must love to seeke their delight in their duty The greatest fervour of love is not in matrimony for there one hath alwayes at hand wherewith to coole his thirst nor in unlawfull lust where also one knowes how to allay his heat though with the detriment of his conscience but in woing in longing desires tending to mariage That heat is increased by the lawfulnes of the end and the suggestion of a bewitched reason unto the conscience that one that loveth honestly cannot love too much And if that heat meet with opposition it increaseth againe by difficulty and often there is more love where there is lesse hope Quó que minùs sperat hôc magis ille cupit Passion will frame in a mans fancy an advantageous image of the beloved object which stands continually before him appears to him in dreames breakes his sleepe interrupts his best thoughts and his most important businesses makes his spirit a sea in perpetual agitation and his most quiet intervalls are sadnes and a browne study The worst is that God is forgotten and the love of heaven is put out by the love of the world Many not onely of the vulgar sort but of the bravest mindes having split their ship upon this rock there is need of extraordinary care to avoyd it So much greater because our Christian Philosophers have taken lesse care to appropriate their remedies to this sicknesse for when they inveigh against carnal and vicious love those lovers who are persuaded that their love is all vertuous because they would not though they could unlawfully possesse the beloved person esteeme that these censures belong not to them And yet God knoweth that their love is too carnal though they were virgins in their very thoughts for even the immoderate love of a mother to her child is carnal and vicious They need then to be put in mind that their love cannot be pure in the quality as long as it exceeds in the quantity excesse of love for a worldly object being a most impure quality for that Master-love which rules in the soul and brings all other Passions under is due unto God alone who will be loved with all our heart with all our soul with all our strength and with all our understanding This the Lord Jesus calls the first and the great commandement The great because it is the chiefe duty of man which comprehends all other duties And the first because it is a comment upon the first precept of the law Thou shalt have none other Gods but me As then we must adore none but God alone we must love none but God alone with that Master-love which gives to another the soverainty over ourselves for that love is a true adoration whereby all the faculties of the soul bow and prostrate themselves before the beloved object When carnall love is the Master-love in a soul then the soul hath another God then the true God and that Passion makes a burnt-offering of the heart to a false God some weake sinfull creature Certainly those impetuous burning fits of carnal love are violent rapines of the proper rights of God for to him belongeth the heart and upon him those raptures and strong agitations of love should have beene bestowed him onely we ought to love with all our soul and with all our strength O how farre are these violences from those which must take the Kingdome of God by force And how many teares and plaints of smarting remorse must fond lovers powre to doe penance for so many teares and plaints of carnal love that opinatre imbecillity whereby a man pines and torments himselfe for the love of another Sometimes these two sorts of teares proceeding out of such different causes have met together in generous and religious soules who being transported with those violences of humane love were at the same time strongly moved with godly jealousy the conscience grieving and expostulating with the Appetite for yeelding unto any but God the seignory of the heart Then the love of God opprest in the heart under the weight of the world and the flesh powerfully bestirred himselfe and getting strength by opposition overcame that rivall love and became in the end Master of the place But alas one victory doth not end the combat For carnal love when we think that it is shut out will re-enter having the porters of the soul the senses on his side which open the gate to its objects without the leave of reason and help it to make strong impressions upon the fancy Whereas the immaterial beauty of God hath no help from the senses makes no impression upon the imagination but in recompense it doth immediately illuminate the understanding and work upon the affections and so sanctifyeth and strengtheneth them that after many combats carnall love is subdued And if it pleade nature for staying with us yet it is brought to such a subjection that it moveth no more but orderly and within the limits of piety and reason possessing but such a parcel of the affection as it pleaseth the love of God to allow nature to hold under him The limits and rules of reason about the choice of the subject of that love are possibility lawfullnesse and conveniency The measure of love must be according to the price of the subject But when it comes to wedlock another measure is requisite that of oblgiation and duty before wedlock love is prone to overvalue his subject Let lovers remember that the most perfect persons are humane creatures therefore a humane love is fit for them not a divine service for then we serve them as God alone must be served when we make them Mistrisses of our heart Take the best of them their beauty will fade their sweetnesse will sowre and their persons must dye this bates much of their price Faire Diamonds would not be so deare if they could grow pale and weare out Know once the most
and ill wives they have need to learne obedience but in these bookes they learne soverainty Women being more given to these bookes then men shew that though they have lesse fougve of love then men they have neverthelesse a more constant inclination to it Who so will keepe himselfe holy in body and affection and preserve his soule serene and free from the tempest of that turbulent Passion must avoid the reading of such bookes whose proper office is to raise those stormes in a mans blood and appetite And I know not whether it be more dangerous to reade dissolute bookes which make of carnal love a jigg and a matter of sport openly shewing the ordure and the folly of it or dolefull amorous fables which make of it a grave and serious study and under the colour of honesty and constancy of love managed with an artificial and valourous carriage hoodwinke and bewitch the readers minde with a pertinacious Passion making their braines runne wilde after chimera's and hollow imaginations whereby some have runne mad Indeed one cannot follow the fancies of romances without straying from right sense Neither is there any thing that makes the heart more worldly and carnal and brings it further from God I will be judged by all good soules that would betake themselves to exercises of piety when they were newly come from this kind of reading Let them say in conscience how farre estranged from God they found themselves and ill disposed to every good worke Sure it is not without reason that these writers set up false Gods as being conscious to themselves that their writings are deviations from the true God and ashamed to name the God of truth among their fables Also because with some of them it is a prime piece of love-complement to make discontented lovers to wreake their anger upon the Deity they will have this excuse ready that they are not blasphemies against the true God but against the gods of Homer and Hesiod's making But from these blasphemous expostulations with false gods the readers learne to doe the like with the true and to avenge themselves upon him of all things that cross their impetuous Passion The same bookes set up the murtherous discipline of duells as a gallantry of love wherby lovers seale their affection to their mistresses by the blood of their rivals or their owne There are other matches of the wilde fire of carnal love which must be carefully avoyded wanton discourses vicious companies occasions to doe evil conversation with vaine malicious women whose chiefe aime and taske is to catch all the men that come in their way not that they may keep them but triumph over them and cast them away and feed their owne vanity with the disappointment of their suitors Take heed of idlenes it is Satans pillow the counsellour of vice and especially the procurer of lust He that doeth nothing thinkes on evill Take heed of intemperance Carnal love is so inbred with the matter that whatsoever heateth the blood sets the appetite on fire Wherefore Jeremiah sets intemperance and incontinence together Jer. 5.8 They were as fed horses in the morning every one neighed after his neighbours wife There be two great remedies to take downe that heate The one corporal which is mariage instituted by God for that end a holy and honourable state When both the parties are good and love one another it is the greatest sweetenes of life But whether a man be married or desire to be he must think on the vanity and short continuance of the most pleasant things of this world the frailty of life the certainty of death the uncertainty of the hour thence to inferre the conclusion of St Paul 1. Cor. 7.29 But this I say brethren that the time is short It remaines that they that have wives be as they that have none And so they that are woing must be as though they were not woing that is they must impose moderation upon their affections out of a wise apprehension of the vanity of the world and life ver 31. using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Wherefore should wee love with so much fervency that which wee cannot keepe when wee have got it which we must leave or which must leave us The other duty is Spiritual and it is that great and perpetual duty to Love God Let that holy Passion alwayes rule in our hearts Let us give to God his proper right which he demandeth in his word Pro. 25.26 My sonne give me thy heart and let us keep such a watchfull guard about it that none steale it from him and us Our love to a worthy Consort being so moderated will become both lawfull pleasant Humane condition hath nothing so delightfull as a reciprocal love Yea of all things to which mans will doth contribute it is the onely pleasant thing But as navigable rivers enrich a country with commerce and plenty when they keepe within their shores but ruine it when they overflow with a violent landflood Likewise love while it keepes within limits brings pleasure and utility when it exceeds them it brings displeasure and destruction Love that is not reciprocal will weare away in time But a wise man will shorten the worke of time with reason and will not obstinately court a person that will not love him For of what price soever she be in our regard she is of no price if she be not for us Wee must love our enemies but wee must let them alone CHAP. IV. Of Desire DEsire hath a neere kinred with love for it is the motion of the appetite towards the beloved object This is the difference that Love regardeth the present Desire aspireth to the future Some desires are natural some besides nature Natural desires are good and easily satisfied as long as they keepe within their mounds the first whereof is nature then reason to rule nature and piety to rule reason But wee must take heed of mistaking corrupted nature for pure Pure nature is contented with little but corrupted nature runs to excesse and embaseth natural desites with the allay of desires besides nature It is natural for a man to desire a woman but it is besides nature that he will have her so noble and so rich that he increaseth the desired object with imagination and kindleth his passion by difficulty It is natural to desire meate drink clothing but it is besides nature to desire great feasts gay garments and costly buildings Reason indeed was given us to embellish and inrich nature but Reason if it be well taught wil in all occasions make use of nature to rule the desire and teach it that besides Nature there can be no necessity Thus if your coach breake farre from the towne instead of grieving and fretting remember that Nature did not give you legs to sit in a coach and that it is not necessary for you to be carryed as long as you can goe If you be
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God When the glory of the world fills a mans thoughts while it doth lift him up with pride it brings him down by cupidity under those things that are under him But when the glory of God ruleth in our hearts it brings us low with humility and together raiseth us up by faith and a holy generosity far above all humane things even as high as the right hand of God with Christ there to rejoyce in his love and sweetly repose our hearts upon his fatherly care None shall attaine to that blessed state of the soul which is already a heaven upon earth unlesse he beate downe his pride A vice which makes a man incompatible with God for it pretends to that which to God alone is due which is glory incompatible with his neighbours for it perswades him that all things are due to him and that the honour and advancement bestowed upon any but himselfe is ill bestowed and incompatible with himselfe for it tortureth a mans minde with envy makes him secretly murmure against God and men and renders him incapable of the grace of God which is onely for the meeke and of his kingdome which is onely for the poore in spirit Matth. 5.3 Here this method must diligently be observed to rectifie our opinion first that we may rule our Passion To bring downe the tumour of Pride let us get a right opinion of ourselves How we are begotten like beasts borne in lamentation lying a long time in our ordure living in a sickly flesh wilde and foolish in our thoughts corrupted in our affections vaine and wicked in our conversation blind wretched and guilty before God and after a few evill dayes returning to the ground of our ignoble principle In the midst of the gawdy luster of the world let us looke to our end a winding sheet putrefaction wormes mourning of our heires for a little while and then perpetuall oblivion Let us beare these things in mind and then be proud if we can Many Passions have their origine from Pride which must be called to our barre after their Mother CHAP. X. Of Obstinacy OBstinacy is a compound of pride and ignorance It is an overthrow of the right polity of the soule where the will must consult reason but Obstinacy makes reason to consult the will so that a man will do or maintaine a thing not because it is reasonable but because he did it and maintained it before Ignorance begins which hoodwinks the understanding with errour Then comes Pride which pins that hood fast about his eyes pretending that it is a shame for a man to go from his opinion By Obstinacy a man comes to that desperate case of the soul which Philosophy calls feritas that is a savage brutishnesse incapable of all vertue and discipline For he must be either in god or beast that takes his instinct for his perpetual rule and sets before him his present will and doing as an immutable patterne of that he must will and do for ever after When Obstinacy hath thus shut the dore unto discipline and stopt a mans ear against counsell one of these two evills followeth Either he is hardned in evill without remedy Or if by chance he light on the right side he spoiles it as farre as in him lyes maintaining truth and equity not because it is so but because he will have it so There is no greater enemy to Christian wisedome then that stubborne disposition For thereby a man stands in direct opposition against God challenging to himselfe that which belongs to God alone even to make his will a reason and a law When the light of reason or the word of God or the manifest course of his providence declares to us what the will of God is neverthelesse to set our will against it out of a pretended constancy in our former opinion and inclination what is it else but to make warre against God As Obstinacy is odious to God so it is odious in society It makes a man troublesome ridiculous and the undoer of himselfe And of his Country also if he be assisted with power and hath many persons and businesses depending upon him Expect neither wisedome nor faire dealing nor serenity within nor good actions abroad where the will takes no counsell of reason There is no place left for amendment when one thinkes himselfe obliged never to alter his minde As Obstinacy hardeneth opinions it doth the like to passions to those chiefely that have melancholy for their fewell as sadnesse hatred envy and love also for of these growne once inveterate many times a man can give no reason but that he will continue as he hath begun This vice is a bastard imitation of Constancy whose name it borrowes but very injuriously for constancy consisteth not in stedfastnesse to a mans own will but in a firme adhering to goodnesse That which is good one time perhaps will not be so another time Righteousnesse indeed is alwayes one and the same but variety of incidences and circumstances makes it change faces As the needle of the compasse that stands so fixt upon the North not to be mooved from that point by the greatest tempests yet will in an instant turne to the South when the ship is gone beyond the Equinoctiall line and to that contrary point will keep with the like stedfastnesse so long as it is in that hemisphere Likewise a wise and good man will be firme in his resolutions where his duty calls him So because his duty lyes not at all times the same way his resolutions also are not bent at all times the same way but will turne with his duty Jeremiah desired sincerely the preservation of the Kingdome of Juda the liberty of his Country But after that Zedekiah had taken the Oath of allegiance to the King of Babylon he adviseth Zedekiah and his people to yeeld Jerusalem to him In vaine Obstinacy aspireth to the praise of a great and brave spirit it is rather a womanish narrowspirited weakenesse It was the proper saying of a femall Mene incoepto desistere victam Must I be overcome and desist from my purpose Great houses have some roomes for winter some for Summer and severall apartements for severall Offices But in small cabines the kitchin and the bedchamber are all one and the same still in all seasons Even so great spirits have a space for diversity of counsels according to the diversity of occurrences and various constellations of times and businesses which continually alter but they are narrowbreasted men that have but one resolution and one course to carry them through all things and times It is for a low and timorous spirit to be afraid to change fashion and think himselfe lost when he must travell by a way that he never went before whereas great spirits are complying facile universall and their knowledge of the world makes them finde nothing new or strange Obstinacy should be overcome from the cradle Even then
it will please them to provoke us to anger Yet a wiseman may expresse indignation without anger and an effectual vigour making others tremble himselfe standing unmooved Out of the anger of others wee may fetch three good uses The first is to learne to hate that passion and take heed of it seeing how it is imperious and servile together ugly unbecomming unreasonable hurtful to others and more to a mans selfe The second use is to gather carefully the wholesome warnings which an angry adversary will give us for he will be sure to tell us all the evill he seeth in us which ourselves see not A benefit not to be expected from our discreet friends The third is the noblest use To study the science of discerning the spirits considering with a judicious eye the several effects of every mans anger for no passion discovereth so much the nature of persons It layeth a man starke naked Ifone be a contemner of God as soone as he is angry he will be sure to wreake his anger upon God with blasphemies If he have piety and ingenuity he will make them pleade for him but lamely as discomposed by anger If he be a coward he will insult over the weake and if he find resistance you shall see him threaten and tremble together like base dogs then barking most when they runne away If he be haughty his anger will expresse it selfe in a malignant smile and he will boast of his blood and valour The occasions of anger will better discover what a man is inclined unto for every one will be sooner moved for those things where he is most interessed As in anger so in reconciliation a discerning eye will reade a character of the several humours The vaine and haughty man after he hath done wrong stands upon reparation The baseminded man is threatened into submissions after the injury received The covetous wretch will have reparation in money and puts a rate upon every bastinado The conscionable meeke and generous man is facile both in giving and receiving satisfaction and easily pardons another mans anger his owne with much adoe From this let us reflect to the first use that wee must make of the anger of others He that will mind well how wrath betrayes a man and layeth open his infirmities and how the man that hath no rule over his owne spirit is like a citty that is broken downe and without walles will fence himselfe against that treacherous passion by Christian meekenes and moderation and will learne to be wise by his neighbours harme To that meekenes we shal be much helped by the remembrance of our sins whereby we daily provoke God and for which wee mought have bin cast headlong into hell long agoe but that he is slow to wrath and abundant in goodnesse Exod. 34.6 To expect that God our father be slow to wrath towards us while we are hot to wrath against our brethren is the extremity of injustice and unreasonablenesse To conclude since we seeke here our tranquility which we have found every where inseparably conjoyned with our duty let us observe our Saviours precept grounded upon his example Matth. 11.29 Learne of me that I am meeke and lowly in heart and ye shall finde rest unto your soules That way the Lord Jesus the great Master of wisedome found rest unto his soul the same way shall wee finde rest to ours CHAP. XII Of Aversion Hatred and Revenge AVersion is the first seed of Hatred and hath a larger extent for hatred regards onely persons or actions but many have Aversions for unreasonable or inanimate things wherefore those Aversions are commonly unreasonable whether it be out of naturall antipathy or out of fancy wantonnesse Persons subject to those Aversions have commonly more Passion then reason and are such as are made tender and are soft spirited by ease Ladies have many antipathyes but among country wives and milkmayds you shall find but few that will swound at the sight of a spider or a frog A wise man must impartially examine those Aversions if he have any whether they consist in fancy or nature and not flatter himselse in such capricious weakenesses He shall do much for his rest and credit if he can weane himselfe altogether from them He that can command himselfe to have no Aversion of which he may not give a reason will traine his passion that way to have no unreasonable Hatred against any person Hatred is an indignation for an injury received or imagined or for an ill opinion conceived of a person or action This description is common to it with anger Herein they differ that anger is sudden and hath a short course but hatred is meditated at leasure and is lasting Also that anger seeks more a mans vindication then the harme of others but hatred studieth the harme of adversaries Hatred as anger is a compound of pride and sadnesse I meane the vicious hatred and the most common It proceeds likewise out of ignorance of ones selfe and the price and nature of things This Philosophy we learne of St. John 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hates his Brother is in darknesse and knowes not whither he goes because that darknesse hath blinded his eyes for ignorance is the darknesse of the soul As then blind men are commonly testy the blindnesse of ignorance will make men prone to hate their neighbours and hatred afterwards increaseth that blindnesse By the same ignorance whereby we love some persons and things without knowledge and reason we hate also some persons and things without reason and many will choose rather to lose a friend then a shilling Hatred is naturally good serving to make us avoyd things hurtfull and it is morally good when we use it to oppose that which is contrary to the Soveraine good which is God When we hate that which God hateth we cannot do amiss so that we be very certaine that God hates it such are the unjust habits and actions condemned by his word and by that law of nature written in mans heart But as for the persons because we have no declaration of Gods love and hatred to this or that man we must love them all and never feare to offend God by loving that which he hateth for we cannot offend him by obeying his commandement Now he commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves No doubt but we must love many persons which God hateth neither will it be time to hate them till we have heard the sentence of Gods personall hatred pronounced against them I say Gods personal hatred because there is a hatred of iniquity in God against those that oppose his glory which obligeth us to hate them also with that hatred of iniquity and to oppose them vigorously as long as they oppose God Of that hatred spake David when he said Psal 139.21 Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect hatred
declination of our body will miss us and hit our neighbours head A little winde will turne a great storme A sudden commotion in the State will create every where new interesses He that held us by the throat will be suddenly set upon by another will let us go to defend himself If we see no way for us to scape God seeth it After we have reckoned all the evill that our adversary can do we know not what God will do In the creation he made the light to shine out of darknesse and ever since he takes delight to fetch the comfort and advancement of those whom he loveth out of the things they feare That which we feare may happen but it will be for our good Unto many the bed or the prison hath bin a Sanctuary in an ill time Unto many the publique calamity hath bin a shelter against the particular Many times that which lookes grim a farre off smiles upon us neere hand And what is more common then to be promoted by those things which we feared most Exile and confiscation condemne us often to a happy tranquillity taking us from the crowd and the tumult to set us at large and at rest These considerations serve to decline not to overcome the evill Wherefore there is need of stronger remedies For that we may be healed of Feare it is not enough to say Perhaps the evill will not come or will not prove so terrible as it lookes Say we rather Suppose the evill must unavoydably come I do imagine the worst Say it be poverty close prison torture the scaffold the axe All that can take nothing from me that I may call mine God and a good conscience are mine onely true goods which no power and no violence can take from me All the rest is not worth the feare of losing Isa 12.2 Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song he also is become my salvation Then the remedy to the shaking ague of feare consisteth in knowing these two things The evill and the liberatour The evill cannot be very great since it hath an end No evill of this world but ends by death Death it selfe is good since it ends evills how much more when it begins eternall goods to the right Christian death is not a matter of feare but of hope Let us take away from the things we feare that hideous vizard which imagination puts upon them calmely looking into their nature and getting familiarity with them by meditation Let nothing that is incident to humane condition seeme strange or new to us What happens to one may happen to any other The ordinariest cause of feare is surprise That we be not surprised we must think betimes upon all that may come and stand prepared for all So nothing shall seeme strange when it comes But the chiefe remedy against feare is to lift up our hearts to the great Liberatour that hath goods and evills in his hand that sends afflictions and deliverances that brings downe and brings up againe that gives us strength according to the burden which he layeth upon us and multiplyeth his comforts with our afflictions Being perswaded that God is most wise and most good and that all things work together for good unto them that love him we will represse our feare of the accidents of life and second causes saying The will of the Lord be done we are sure that nothing but good can come to us since nothing can come but from God Wheresore instead of fearing to suffer evill we must feare to do it which is the safest course to prevent suffering He that commits sin is more unfortunate then he that suffers paine for suffering moveth Gods mercy but sin moveth his indignation That man cannot but feare sinne that beareth in mind that God hates it and markes it There then we must feare and the chiefe deliverance that we must aske of God is that he deliver us from every evill worke 2 Tim. 4.18 As we feare sufferings because of themselves so must we feare evill workes because of the evill that is in them besides the sufferings that attend them soone or late This Feare of love and revecence towards God puts out all other Feares He that feares God needs not Feare any thing else CHAP. XVII Of Confidence and Despaire OF these we need not say much having spoken before of Hope and Feare for confidence is the extremity of Hope and Despaire is the extremity of Feare Confidence which otherwise may be called a firme expectation is a certainty that we conceive of a future desired good or of the love and fidelity of a person whereby the heart is filled with joy and love Despaire is the certainty that the mind conceiveth of a future evill very odious or of the enmity or infidelity of a person whereby the heart is seized and in a manner squeazed with sorrow and hatred These Passions being so opposite yet ordinarily will passe the one into the other I meane Confidence into Despaire from Despaire to pass to Confidence it is rare The surest course to avoyd falling into Despaire for things of the world is to put no great confidence in them Moderate hopes being frustrated turne into moderate feares and sorrowes But a great and joyfull Confidence being disappointed will fall headlong into extream and desperate sorrow as they that tumble from a high precipice get a heavy fall One subject onely is proper for mans entire Confidence which is God all good all mighty and all wise Without him all things that men use to repose their confidence upon are waves and quicksands Men are mutable and though they could give a good security for the constancy of their will they can give none for the continuance of their life The goods of the earth faile our expectation or come short of our satisfaction or slip from our possession They will leave us or we them No wonder if they that repose their full and whole confidence in them are seene so often to fall into despaire Here then the true counsell for tranquillity is to trust wholly upon none but God on other things according to their nature and capacity They shall never deceive us if we require nothing of them above their nature There is a kind of Despaire improperly so called which is no more but to give over hoping a thing which upon our second and better thoughts we have found either inconvenient or impossible That Despaire will rather bring rest then trouble to the mind Wisemen are pliable and easy to be satisfyed with reason It is wisedome to despaire and desist betimes from unlikely and unfeasable designes It is a true Despaire when one seeth himselfe absolutely disappointed and excluded from the object of his chiefe love desire hope at which the soul is smitten with such a sorrow that she hates all things yea the very thing that she desired so much and herselfe more
which moved the beholders to compassion for that compassion made a breach into the heart and gave entrance into the understanding to that good confession which these holy men made in the midst of the fires for nothing is more perswasive then Pitty neither is there any fitter hold to draw and turne the soul But such compassionate soules may be as soone drawne to evill as to good by that hold Factious men brought to the gallowes for sedition have from that pulpit sowne the seed of mutiny into the minds of a compassionate multitude and those seeds like the teeth of Cadmus his Serpent have brought forth since a dismall harvest of intestine warre If then any good is formed in our minds by compassion we had need to lay a stedfaster foundation under it for the meere motions of Pitty are but fits and starts and are not actions but shakings of the soul A wise man will learne how to take hold of the spirits of men by Pitty but together will take heed that others hold him not by the like handle which therefore he will shorten and leave no hold but reason for others to take him by CHAP. XIX Of shamefacednesse SHamefacednesse is such a compounded passion that it may not be described in few words It is a sadness out of the sense or apprehension of a dishonest evill It is a selfe condemnation especially about matters of love and desires which one would satisfie in secret It is also a sudden amazement out of a diffidence of ourselves when we are surprized by some inopinate occurrence where we feare that more will be expected of us then we can performe And to give a more generall character It is a sad ressenting of ones owne infirmity with some inclination to goodnesse It is a cowardly Passion found onely in timorous natures yet in the more tender age and sexe it is pardonable and usefull too so it be not excessive for by good instruction it may be formed into a vertue but weake and sutable to the capacity of the subject Stronger spirits dyed with piety and wisedome abstaine not from evill out of Shamefacedness but out of knowledge and resolution But because strong spirits have bin weake when they were under age and the boldest have bin timorous unlesse they be altogether dull and bestiall by nature there is a time to frame them to vertue by shamefac'dnesse which may be called a necessary infirmity in the beginning And it is not expedient to remove it too soone from young minds by Stoicall precepts least they wanting that naturall bridle of the appetite and not being yet well trained and confirmed by reason let themselves loose to evill Children in whom no marke of Shamefacednesse appeares are perverse and ill natured and though they be merry sparkes they shall never be good nor able men Shamefaced children are towardly and disciplinable But in conscience is not the nature of men very weake and poore since their best naturall dispositions are infirmities and that there is need of those infirmities to bring them to some good Some natures are timorous in all the ages of their life by their native temper therefore more obnoxious to Shamefacednesse these are lesse capable of a great and heroicall vertue which is a compound of righteousnesse meekenesse and magnanimity but they are docible for a lesse eminent vertue and their inclination to shamefacedness is a pliable subject for good discipline That disposition must be well managed as the seed of modesty and in women the mother of pudicity their chiefe vertue How powerfull Shamefacednesse is with that sexe the knowne example of the Milesian Virgins shewes it There is another kind of shame recommended in Scripture That of Daniel O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but to us confusion of face Dan. 9.7 That of Ezra O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face unto thee Ezra 9.6 And of the penitent publican that stood a farre off and would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven Luk. 18.13 But that shame which is a godly contrition for sinne committed and feare to commit more is proper to a spirit fixt and confirmed in the love and feare of God and hath nothing common but the name with the passion of shame which with all her utilities is but a weakenesse of minde and a childish perplexednesse A wise and godly man must be ashamed of nothing but sin The remembrance of the greatnesse presence justice and holinesse of God and the sense of our owne imperfection must keepe us in perpetuall respect and humility which is that good shame of Daniel Ezra and the repenting Publican But for our conversation with men when we are come to mans age let us weane ourselves as much as we can from boyish Shamefacednesse which dejecteth and perplexeth the spirit and makes a man lose the fairest opportunities of doing good OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT OF MIND FOURTH BOOK Of Vertue and the exercise of it in Prosperity and Adversity CHAPTER I. Of the vertuous temper requisite for Peace and Contentment of Minde THis Book is but a result of the two precedent for who so hath got a right Opinion of things and learned how to governe his Passions wants nothing for vertue and tranquillity these two articles being not onely the materials and the rules of the building but the whole structure And the order is as essentiall as the matter for the understanding must be illuminated and satisfied about the right judgement of things and know how farre they are worthy that our appetite should stirre for them before we undertake to instruct our appetite how to behave ourselves with them Out of the right opinion the well governed Passion ariseth the true temper of Vertue which is a calme state of the Soul firme equall magnanimous meeke religious and beneficiall to a mans selfe and to others All the imperfection that is in our Vertue is a defect in one of these two or in both And who is not defective in them Who hath not errour in his Opinions and by consequent unrulinesse in his Passion Wherefore our descriptions of perfect human Vertue are accidents without substance But what we must not set before us any lesse patterne then perfection Matth. 5.48 Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Schoole gives definitions and divisions of the severall morall Vertues which is no more then is necessary Yet to speake properly there is but one even that equal temper just proportion of all the faculties and motions of the soul which is Justice producing the like just temper abroad in all the parts of conversation for to be just is to do all the parts of a mans duty towards God towards himselfe and towards his neighbour Temperance and Fortitude are handled in the Schooles as vertues by themselves which is to very good purpose for a more distinct exposition but in effect they are parts of justice for
things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth As nothing makes the mind more magnanimous so nothing makes it more holy then that doctrine which teacheth Gods children that all the world is too little for them and that God alone who adopteth them and calls them to the inheritance of his Kingdome is worthy to possesse their whole heart For would any that is so highly dignifyed stoope so low as to subject his affection to the things of the earth or would he be so ungrateful as to returne him disobedience for so much love Rather his high condition will fill him with high thoughts and according to the Apostles exhortation he will endeavour to walke worthy of God who hath called him to his Kingdome and glory 1 Thes 2.12 O could we apprehend the excellency of this high calling by a serious faith with what contempt would we looke upon those things that captivate the passions of men How should we laugh at that which others desire or feare We should looke upon the actions of men as beholding the earth from heaven seeing the clouds of cares and sorrowes gathering farre under our feet and tumultuous desires busling and raising stormes where we should have no other share but compassion of those that are tossed by them Neither temptation nor persecution should be capable to trouble our heavenly serenity The false profit and pleasure of sin should not tempt our desire but provoke our scorne and indignation as unworthy of men and muchmore of Gods children coheires of Christ in his eternall Kingdome called to be Kings and Priests unto God and their Father The same magnanimity will breed in us agodly ambition to imitate God our Father keeping righteousness in all things because the righteous Lord loveth righteousness Psal 11.7 using charity and liberality giving and forgiving because the Lordis good and his tender mercies are over all his workes Psal 145.9 Doing good to our enemies because God fills with his goods the mouthes that blaspheme him And because God gives alwayes and receiveth nothing we must thinke it more happy and divine to give then to receive From magnanimity reflect againe to meekeness Let all that is done magnanimously be done meekely together with simplicity and reality without noyse and ostentation These vertues going hand in hand meekenesse and magnanimity are the two supporters of Justice and the teachers of all goodnesse A meeke and magnanimous spirit is the fruitfull soyle of all vertues To express them in other termes more familiar to the Church They are humility and faith which with the love of God the true essence of Justice make up the greatest perfection that a man is capable of upon earth whereby the minde is sanctifyed sweetened and raised and filled with goodnesse peace contentment and assurance CHAP. II. Of the exercise of Vertue in Prosperity IF I treat not methodically and severally of all Vertues the title of this worke may excuse me I seeke not here the definitions and divisions of Vertues but the use And of all the uses that which conduceth to the peace and contentment of mind Besides all that we have said before and all that we have to say is an exercise of vertue which careth not much by what name she is called justice fortitude temperance or what you will if she may have leave to do her effect which is to maintaine the spirit every where in a vertuous tranquillity Her principall worke is so to informe or rather forme the minde both for Prosperity and Adversity that it be neither corrupted by the one nor dejected with the other That worke is the result of our second and third Book Who so hath learned to have a right Opinion of the things that the world desireth or feareth and to rule his passion accordingly is fenced against all inconveniencies of both fortunes But because it is a worke of the highest difficulty and importance to make the right use of these two different conditions and go through both with a serene and equall spirit Let us consider them with more care and learne to behave ourselves vertuously in both Let us begin at Prosperity as that which requires more vertue Infants will greedily graspe the bright blade of a new knife and cut their fingers The like is done by growne men dazled by the gay shew of honour wealth pleasure they lay hold on them eagerly and hurt themselves for they take them the wrong way We need not say that Prosperity is good in itselfe He that would say the contrary should not be beleeved Yea none would beleeve that such a man beleeveth what he saith But by the evill disposition of those into whose bosome prosperity falls it becomes evill yea farre worse then adversity For one that is ruined and brought to despaire by adversity ten are spoyled and undone by prosperity because adversity makes a man to retire within himselfe and warnes him to arme his minde with prudence piety and resolution But prosperity relaxeth the mind and by it weak braines are made weaker imprudent arrogant and profane acknowledging no vertue and no God but Fortune Which they think to be so enamoured with their person and merit as not to have the power to disgrace them Such is the character that David gives of a man corrupted with prosperity Psal 10.5 His wayes are alwaies grievous thy judgements are farre above out of his sight As for his enemies he puffeth at them He hath said in his heart I shall not be moved for I shall never be in adversity It is an unhappy prosperity that makes men dissolute outragious puft up with pride blinded with selfe love sometimes heavy with a drowzy sloath sometimes transported with an insolent joy The most dangerous and most ordinary abuse of prosperity is the diverting of a mans thoughts and love from God and a better life to fixe them upon the world Wherefore David speaking of men inclosed in their owne fat calls them men of the world whose portion is in this life Psal 17.14 intimating that they have no portion in the other life Truly prosperity is a slippery place With most men it is a faire walk ending in a precipice And the least harme it doth is to enervate the mind and dull the edge of industry The abuses of prosperity are divers according to the different humours of men Some of a joviall and inconsiderate humour glut themselves with prosperity and become fierce and violent Others of a darke and timorous constitution are opprest with wealth and honour as with heavy weights dare not enjoy what they have and live in an anxious care to lose all Eccles 5.12 The abundance of the rich will not suffer them to sleep They ought to thank him that should ease them of that heavy burden their riches Of the sicknesses that attend prosperity I have sayd much and of their remedy It comes to this To consider
maturely the worth of things that we may not love them above their worth or expect of them a satisfaction above their nature not to anchor our confidence upon their uncertainty not to love any or trust in any with all our heart but God the only perfect and permanent good To use the world as not using it and enjoy the things we love best in it as having the use of them not the possession aspiring continually to a better inheritance This is the way to get a sincere taste of all the good that worldly prosperity is capable to afford Now there is need of a singular prudence to pick that good among all the evill all the trash that worldly prosperity is made of not to mistake superfluity for necessity and that which is good in effect from that which is good in opinion only For that man whose curiosity hath turned superfluous things in to necessary and whom the tyranny of vice and custom suffers not to delight in any thing but unlawfull is made guilty and unfortunate by his prosperity Also to use prosperity wisely and get the true benefit of it a man hath need to weane himselfe from presumption and selfe love Whence comes it that so many spoyle their prosperity by lavishness and insolency others lose the taste of it by insatiable greedinesse of adding and increasing It is because they have such a high esteeme and love of themselves that they think all the goods of the world to be too little for them either to spend or to lay up Whereas he that hath an humble opinion of himselfe tasteth his prosperity with simplicity and thankfullnesse for he thinks that he hath much more then he deserveth He that cannot bring himself to that low conceit of his worth shall never be contented though God should poure all the treasures of the world into his lap and though he were mounted to the top of the wheel and had nailed it to the axeltree to keepe it from turning Who so will enjoy true prosperity must keepe fast to this Maxime that no true good can be got by doing ill So whereas vice and unrighteousness insinuate themselves under the baites of pleasure honour and profit there is great need to make provision of faith and good conscience as antidotes against the generall corruption As carefully as we walke armed and looke about us when we travell through forrests infested with robbers we should walke armed with the feare and love of God among the enticements of worldly profit honour and pleasure for Satan lyeth in ambush every where But whereas robbers will lurke in hideous and savage places to do their feates Satan doeth his in the most delicious places It was not among briers and thornes that he set upon man yet innocent he made use of a tree good for food pleasant to the eye and to be desired to make one wise Gen. 3.6 And he made use ever since of beauty daintyes and curiosity to destroy mankind Conversing among these is walking upon snares Job 18.8 There is great neede of wisedome and godliness to avoyd them and of a mercifull assistance of God to get out when our foot is ensnared in any of them To the pleasures honours and plenty of the world faith must oppose other sweeter pleasures more sublime honours and riches infinitely greater even the pleasures for evermore at Gods right hand the honour to be of his children and the plenty of his house These he hath promised and prepared to them that love him not to those that choose rather to fill themselves with unlawfull delight and unrighteous gaine than to walke before God unto all pleasing waiting for the fullfilling of his promises David expected to see Gods face in righteousnesse Psal 17.15 thereby supposing that without righteousnesse hee could not see Gods face St. Paul expected the Crowne of righteousness he must then be righteous before he have the Crowne and he must fight the good fight and keepe the faith before he be crowned Could the height of that felicity enter into our low understandings what it is to be filled with the contemplation of Gods face and receive at his hand the Crowne of righteousnesse hardly would we venture the missing of that glory for all the deceitfull delights and profits of iniquity Without looking so farre as the recompences and paines of the life to come even in this life a godly temperate and conscionable life is a thousand times more desirable and pleasant then a riotous dishonest life and advancement gotten by oppression Even those Pagans that lookt for no good after this life and laughed at infernall torments as old wives tales yet could say Nemo malus felix No wicked man is happy for unlawfull delight and gaine leave behind them a sting of remorse yea many times sin smothereth pleasure at its birth besides the disfavour of God and men which commonly followes We cast our reckonings amisse if we make account to possesse a happy and a wicked prosperity It cannot be happy if it be wicked for it is vertue it is innocence it is the love of God and faith in his promises it is justice and charity that give the pleasant relish and the very being of prosperity But suppose that the acquisition of the delights and advantages of the world be neither accompanyed with sin nor followed with remorse yet they are weake and transitory riches are burdens honours are fetters pleasures are feverish fame is a wind friendships are seeds of cares and sorrowes and yet in all these we seeke a solid and permanent content who can wonder that we find it not For I do not insist yet upon the principall thing that we should fix our desires upon God alone But I say now that to enjoy humane prosperity we must proportion our desire and expectation to the capacity and durablenesse of humane things and to the power we have to dispose of them and keepe them If we expect more we are disappointed and lose the true tast of our prosperity But there may be defect as well as excesse in the desire and enjoyment of worldly prosperity For there are some whose wild devotion kneaded with a timorous and savage humour is afraid of all temporall comforts be they never so simple naturall and innocent seeking vertue and merit by misusing of themselves and sowring all the prosperity that God giveth them with an unthankfull melancholy It is more then God requires at their hands but he will require an account at their hands how they have enjoyed their health and the fruits of his fatherly indulgence which he had given them to use with moderation comfort and thanksgiving Either there is pride and hypocrisy in that fantasticall marring of their prosperity or if they are in earnest their braines is crazed opprest by the black vapours of their splene Abstinence is laudable and necessary to be joyned sometimes with prayer to subject the body to the spirit But the spirit must
fortune hath her inconstancy as well as the good and the calme will come after the storme The proper exercise of vertue in Adversity is to imitate God who fetcheth good out of it and makes it a discipline of godlines wisedome and tranquillity to his children It is not enough to hope that after the storme the calme will come wee must study to find tranquillity in the very tempest and make profit of our damage Having spoken of the particular Adversities in the second booke I will endeavour here to set downe general remedies for all sorts of Adversities saving one the Adversity which a delicat man createth to himselfe out of a conceited tendernes for to such wilfully afflicted persons the counsells of reason are uselesse till they be afflicted in earnest They have need of real afflictions to be healed of imaginary To them that are sick with too much ease a smarting Adversity is a wholesome plaister As to the hypocondriaque who had a false opinion of a wound in his left thigh the surgeon made an incision in the right to make him feele the difference betweene real wounds and imaginary Indeed the most part of persons afflicted are more so out of opinion then any true ground but the wanton melancholy of some that were all their time dandled in fortunes lap addeth to that epidemical disease Wee will let them alone till they have reason to complaine and desire them that groane under some apparent Adversities to examine seriously whether they be such as they appeare For there are some Adversities or called so which rather are prosperities if they that complaine of them can obtaine of themselves rather to beleeve their owne sense then the opinion of others and to have no artificial and studied sense but meerely the natural Thus he that is fallen into disfavour whereby he hath lost wealth and honours and hath kept liberty and bread enough to subsist retired remote and neglected is very much obliged first to the envy and after to the contempt of the contrary prevailing faction if God give him the understanding to enjoy the prosperity created by his adversity It is a happy misfortune for a little barke to be cast by the storme upon a smooth shore where the Sea ebbing leaveth it dry but safe while the rest of the fleet is torne by the tempest The wave is more favorable if it thrust the ship upon the haven Now the godly wiseman finds a haven any where because God is every where Sitting under the shelter of his love and providence he lookes with compassion upon the blinde rage of parties flesht in the blood of one another praising God that he was hurled downe from a stage where they are acting a bloody tragedy that he may be an actour no more but a beholder onely disinteressed from the publique contradiction His ruine cannot equal his gaine if by the losse of his estate he hath bought his peace and the uninterrupted contemplation of God himselfe and the world It would be a long taske to enumerate all the commodious adversities for which neverthelesse comfort is given and received with great ceremony Many accidents bitter to us for a time turne afterwards to our great conveniency Some should have missed a great fortune had they not bin repulsed in the pursuite of a lesser Many teares are shed upon the dead but more would be shed if some of them should rise againe God hath so enterlaced good and evill that either brings the other If wee had the patience to let God doe and the wisedome to make use of all wee might finde good in most part of our Adversities Many persons ingenious to their owne torment are like the boulter that lets out the flowre and keepes the bran they keepe disgraces and misfortunes in their thoughts and let Gods benefits goe out of their minde It had bin better for them to resemble the rying seeve that lets out ill seedes and keepes the good corne taking off their thoughts from that which is troublesome in every accident of their life unlesse it be to remedy it setting their mind upon that hath which may yeeld profit or comfort Thus he that received some offence in company by his indiscretion in stead of making that offense an occasion of quarrel must make it a corrective of his rashnes He that is confined within the limits of a house and garden instead of grieving that he hath not the liberty of the street must rejoyce that he hath the liberty of a walke And how many crosses come upon us which being wisely managed would bring great commodities if anger troubling our judgement did not make us forgoe the care of our conveniency to attend our appetite of revenge Could wee keepe every where equality and serenity of spirit wee might scape many Adversities or make them more tolerable or turne them to our advantage All afflictions are profitable to the wise and godly Even when all is lost for the temporal there wants never matter for the principall Advantage which is the spiritual There wee learne to know the perversity and inconstancy of the world and the vanity of life that wee may not repose our trust and bend our affection upon it Since a curse is pronounced to the man that trusteth in man and to him that trusteth in his riches the way to the kingdome of heaven is as impassable as the going of a cable through a niedles eye and we notwithstanding these divine warnings are so prone to trust and love the world God therefore in his wisedome and mercy suffers that unsound reed which wee leane upon to breake in our hand and our love of the world to be payd with its hatred that wee may learne to settle our confidence and love in a better place Hereby also a man comes to know his sin and Gods Justice Though we be prone to attribute the good and evill that comes to us unto second causes there is such an affinity betweene sin and punishment that even in the most obdurate hearts affliction brings sin to mind and gives remorse to the conscience But in godly soules that remorse is salutary David having sayd to God Psal 32.5 Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer addeth I acknowledged my sin unto thee mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And whereas the appetite will run wilde when prosperity opens the broad gate of licentiousnesse Adversity comming upon that holds a short hand upon the appetite and awakes piety and wisedome David speakes of this experimentally Psal 119.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word ver 71. It is good for me that I have bin afflicted that I might learne thy statutes Prosperity is an evill counsellour and all her adresses are to the appetite but Adversity crossing the appetite calls upon the judgement
Repentance and Faith are seldome set on work by prosperity but Adversity raiseth our hearts to God and the feare of danger makes us flee to his Sanctuary A wise godly man will manage affliction for that end not contenting himselfe with the first pious motions suggested by feare and sorrow He will husband that accidentall heat of distresse to warme his zeale and having sought God out of necessity he will seeke him out of love The unkind entertainement he findes in the world will helpe him to take off his affection from it and transport his heart where his treasure is Acknowledging Adversity to be the wages of sin he will learne to walk before God in feare and from the feare of his judgements he will rise to the feare of his holiness esteeming that the greatest Adversity not to beare his heavy plagues but to transgress his holy will This filial feare of God is the way to prevent or avert many afflictions for they that humble themselves in prosperity need not to be humbled by Adversity Many times the repentance of the sinner hath wrested the destroying sword out of Gods hand Many times when good men have bin beset on all sides the feare of God hath opened them a gate to go out for he that feareth God shall come forth of all Ecces 7.18 Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all he keepeth all his bones not one of them is broken Psal 34.19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous because God formeth him to patience and perfecteth his faith by long exercise which endeth in comfort as he wrestled with Jacob a whole night and blest him in the morning He deales otherwise with the wicked for he lets them thrive a while but when he takes them in hand with his justice he destroyeth them utterly Psal 92.7 When the wicked spring as the grass and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish it is that they shal be destroyed for ever God exercised his people of Israel with diverse trials for forty yeares in the wilderness but he extermined the Cananites suddenly God forbid we should be of those to whom he gives but one blow Rather let him wrestle with us a long time with his fatherly hand which with the tryall brings strength to them that are tryed and gives them the crowne in the end of the combar Here is the patience and the faith of Saints Our very nature ought to acquaint us with adversity For suffering is the naturall condition of men Job 7.1 Is there not a warfarre appointed to man upon earth To be cast downe with sorrow for the adversities incident unto mans life sheweth ignorance of our condition The way not to be surprised with any thing is to be prepared for all and to think that the evill which happens to one man may happen to any other since all are men alike As at dice whosoever playeth is subject to all the casts of the dice he that is engaged in the game of life is subject to all the events incident to the living and must be prepared for them But because it is not fortune but providence that disposeth of the accidents of life the greater is our obligation to beare good evill accidents with a holy equanimity because all that happens to us is unavoidable as ordained by a fatal and eternal law Upon that wee must conceive as well as wee can that humane events and several personal interesses are so interwoven by that high providence that they have a mutual dependance among themselves and their meetings which in our regard are casual are twice necessary in regard of God both because they are decreed in his counsell and because they are requisite for the execution of many things To which if wee adde that God all-wise and all-good doeth nothing permitteth nothing but for a good end wee cannot reasonably complaine of any crosse befalling us though wee had not deserved it For wee must consider ourselves as pieces of the universe and engeenes which that great workman sets on going for the execution of his ends which being all good all meanes also tending to them are good in that regard Our crosses then being determined and directed to some good by the good hand of God which wee must firmely beleeve we must also beleeve them to be good because they serve for Gods end which is alwayes good So not onely wee must beare them with patience but receive them with content yea with thankes rejoycing as happy that even in suffering wee are instruments in the good hand of God to doe his work and advance his glory which many times we see not but he seeth it and that must silence and content us Being thus disposed this advantage we have above many of the wheeles and weights of that great machine of Providence that whereas some of them have no will some an ill will our will is acting with Gods will and our love to him boweth our self love to his pleasure so that for his glories sake into which all things end our afflictions appeare good unto us and so they are indeed since by them God is glorified Events being thus chained up and interlaced together it is a great injustice against God and the order by him settled in the universe to grudge at any thing that happens to us as though wee would have God to unweave in our behalfe the web of his providence create a new decree and make a new counsel-booke for us Let us goe willingly where Gods decree leads us for goe wee must howsoever Is it not better to goe streight forward where God will have us to goe then to be dragged backwards Indeed there is no need of a high reach of reason to perswade a man to bear with unavoydable accidents and to will that which it were to no purpose not to will But when wee consider besides that it is the will of God if wee be his true children we shall will cheerefully what he wills When we are in prosperity there is no praise to will what God willes for then God willes what wee will But that is pleasing to God to consent to his will when he smites us and to say after the Lord Jesus the patterne of all perfection Father not as I will but as thou wilt That resolution brings a great rest and a great perfection to the soul for by that meanes our will is changed into Gods will The way to have all our will is to will nothing but what God wils When God sends us affliction thereby He gives us a great matter to glorifie him and to draw a blessing upon ourselves For whereas unavoydable Adversities make us worse when we pull against them they worke in us a peaceable fruit of righteousnes when we not onely beare them patiently but receive them joyfully as comming from God I verily beleeve that God beholds nothing from heaven that pleaseth him more then a will so