eares so that if Christ should tell us that it was his Bodie we may as reasonably denie that he doth say what in trueth he doth say For the Eye is a lesse fallible sense than the Ear as Philosophers agree And whereas it is said We cannot see substances themselves but onely Accidents it matters not whether that Opinion be true or false being we see as much of those bodies and their substances as of any substance in the world and no more is needfull 8. Seventhly The sacred Symboles are called the Bodie and Blood of Christ because we should understand the dignity and efficacie and strait conjunction between them and Christ and Christ and us who thereby receive him as our Food 9. Lastly The meanes whereby we so receive Christ in this Blessed Sacrament is Faith as is truely and generally said but not alltogether as some may understand and conceive For Faith as in our Sanctification so in our Justification doth work and no otherwise doth it make us worthie and happie Communicants For it layes the foundation of all our Religion and becoming lively by love and Charitie gives life to all our spirituall performances and consequently renders them effectuall to us So that we must believe first according to the true Catholique Faith in generall then specially the nature ends and uses of this Sacrament Lastly we must have a comfortable perswasion of the goodnesse of God in accepting us in the Sacrament and his dispensations towards us but there must allso be joyned herewith 1. Discerning the Lords Body and that not to be it properly which we see but that which is invisible and spiritually taken 2. That we judge our selves by examination and humiliation of our selves that by rashnesse of approach we be not condemned of the Lord. 3. Invocation of Gods mercie for past sins and of his assisting Grace for preventing the like future failings and falls as we have been formerly subject to 4. To have no malice nor notorious hatred in our hearts but Charitie to all men especially towards them with whome we communicate 5. That we be void of all purpose or designe of committing over again any of those sinnes which we finde in our selves upon due enquity and examination but rather have a sincere how weak soever it may be desire and purpose of living more agreeably to Gods holy Will in all things 6. That we have a good hope through Gods Grace which some miscall Faith that we shall live according to our Vow in Baptisme of old made and there renewed and ratified and that this hope begets a care and conscience of our wayes hereafter lest we by relapsing into former errours dissolve that happie Union and conjunction obtained in this Blessed Sacrament with the Father and the Son. SECT X. Of the Difficulties and dangers in receiving the Holie Communion which are here discussed 1. WE are told in the Office of our Church for the celebration of the Communion That as the benefits are great if with a true penitent heart and a lively Faith we receive that Holy Sacrament so is the danger great if we receive the same unworthily for then are we guiltie of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ we eat and drink our own damnation not considering the Lords Body we kindle Gods wrath against us we provoke him to plague us with divers Diseases and sundry kindes of Death All which seems to be drawn from the words of Saint Paul 1 Corin. 11. ver 27. Whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this Cup unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. And ver 29. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to himselfe not discerning the Lords Bodie which Speeches it behoveth straitly to understand aright lest by violence used in wresting them to too favourable a sense we occasion the profanation of those Holy Mysteries by rudenesse and presumption of unbelieving and impenitent comers unto it or we so straiten the way to Gods holy Table that Believers and they none of the worst rank should be disheartened and discouraged from approaching to it The genuine sense therefore and importance of those Sayings are faithfully to be unfolded for the better informing of the Judgement and directing and satisfying the Conscience of the cordiall Christian and sincere For it is most certain upon too frequent experience that an horrible abuse is made of the opinion of the Holinesse of the Sacrament and Doctrine of Saint Paul and allso of the Church even now recited and that by worldly and loose men who believing in grosse the sacrednesse of the Communion alledge that for a sufficient cause to excuse themselves from receiving of it when God knowes they have little apprehension either of the Holinesse of that or their unholinesse or unfitnesse pretending more scrupulousnesse and warinesse than others and than the Word of God requires absolutely at their hands though it is granted that divers finde themselves so entangled between the consciousnesse of their own unworthinesse and perswasion of the worthinesse of that that they are unwillingly obstructed in drawing nigh thus unto Christ so mercifully offered to them For whose sake I have prepared these following instructions leaving others to be condemned for their falsenesse and hypocrisie in sacred things by their own consciences and that very judgement which is pretended to be feared in so abstaining 2. First then It is to be granted and supposed by all ingenuous as well as pious Christians that it is in it selfe incredible and a great injurie done to the wisdome and goodnesse of Christ instituting this holy Sacrament to imagine that he should so mock the greatest number of true though weak Believers as to ordain such a Sacrament and to such great ends and propound so great benefits and leave so many gracious and kinde invitations and exhortations to come to him there present and in readinesse to satisfie the hungrie Soule with goodnesse and to feast him with the fat and sweet of his own Table and yet withall cloth that precious Ordinance with so many severe circumstances and clogge it with so many dangerous difficult and heavie Conditions as very few should dare to come at it or be the better for it 3. Secondly There is to be observed a very great difference between Worthy Communicating and due or Fit communicating and that both these are vulgarly and Fallaciously contained in that one word Worthie which hath a double sense For he properly is said to be worthy who is equall in qualifications of Vertue and Graces to the worth and merits of that holy Sacrament and in this acceptation no man may be said to be worthy no not the best prepared and holiest man. Another sense of Worthinesse is that we call'd Fitnesse whereby how unworthy soever a Soule may be of that Sacrament he may be reputed worthy and come acceptably and fruitfully and so that willfully in such cases to absent himselfe may turne to his own
perdition more than his coming For excepting some monstrous and notorious evills into which a man may fall and that when the Communion is instant so that no competent time nor meanes remain to discharge his part in due preparation though sudden accidents of that nature may admitt of sudden remorse and intense Repentance when time is denied of more full and thorow humiliation then perhaps such excuses may be tolerable as unpreparednesse but when men have timely advice of such ensuing Solemnitie and have no unavoidable impediments but wilfully and necessarily involve themselves in matters inconsistent with it and so absent themselves neglecting that competent preparation required then doe they shun the Curse of communicating unworthily and fall into the condemnation of not preparing themselves and contempt of such meanes of Salvation as he under the Law that refused to purge his House of Leaven and purifie himselfe to eat the Passe-over 4. For in this one Evill many more are contained such as are frustrating Gods invitation to Grace and Mercy a great provocation of men who are of the same nature with our selves though greater in Power and Honour A bereaving our selves of the benefits there tendered and an hazarding of the losse of the fruits of all other meanes ordained by God to our Salvation For God requires that we should put on the whole Armour of God Ephes 6. 11 13. And Saint Paul likewise Coloss 4. 12. exhorteth to stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God. And Saint James assures us Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point he shall be guilty of all James 2. 10. insinuating sufficiently unto us that the willfull neglect of one such materiall Dutie and violating one so soveraign Ordinance as this doth injury to all and provokes God to withdraw his Blessing upon those other Ordinances we are content to admitt of For he that contemns him in one contemns the Authour of all and so cannot reasosonably expect any benefit from Sermons or from Publique or private service of God. For no man must trust to his making compensation to God one way having wronged him in another where both may be perfourmed And experience teacheth this to be true that none are generally more rare and remisse in the other parts of Gods Worship than they who are carelesse in this 3. A manifold Scandall is offered to Fellow Christians who upon observing the neglect of some in this point entertain suppositions of the little use of it and consequently that the offence in omitting the same is very inconsiderable and light passing it over accordingly or perhaps that receiving that Sacrament belongs chiefly to the Greater or better sort and such as are more at leisure than are they and not to poor obscure and busie persons as they are Furthermore a Scandall is hereby given to the Brethren of the same Faith and profession as if a Member of the Church were fallen away from them and found some evill in the Actions sacred For God doth not onely require at our hands that we should truely believe and become lively Members of Christs mysticall Body and invisible but allso Visible and not onely so but that so far as lies in us we should be visible members allso of that Body Visible and that we should declare the same and doe nothing to give ground or occasion to believe otherwise of us which must necessarily be if we forbear such necessary and solemn proofs and indications as this is even the Greatest of all and that which as it is Unitive of us to Christ so is it very effectuall to produce and preserve that bond of Charitie which Christ commands to be kept up amongst Brethren in Christ 3. Thirdly The main pretence and Apologie of abstaining from the Communion taken from its Sacrednesse and formidablenesse are grounded upon the foresaid words of Saint Paul which therefore to give a faithfull and proper sense of will be very expedient which we may attain to two wayes chiefly First by rightly understanding the occasion given him to write so severely above others For we finde nothing of the like charge given by Christ to his Disciples at the first Institution of it all which came with no other preparation to it than was Legall or Leviticall Neither have we in holy Writ any thing afterward except the words of Saint Paul about it who upon grosse corruptions and scandalous invading openly that holy Sacrament opportunely bestirs himselfe for the vindication of it from such abuses brings them back to the first institution of Christ which was that they should understand that to eat this as their own Supper was to profane it For Christ at that time had two Suppers One Mosaicall which though it had sacred Rites belonging to it did serve to the use of the naturall Body and was to imprint in their memories a sense of their deliverance from slaughter with the First-born in Egypt and from bondage there allso The other was Evangelicall not given in such quantitie as the other to nourish the Bodie but ceremoniously rather in such sort as might give the receiver certain information and proportionable affection of the Passion and death of Christ whose Bodie was broken and Blood shed for the sinnes of the whole World much more of true Believers Which if they who received those Elements did not consider of so as in them to discern the Lords Bodie thereby signified and his Passion thereby called to remembrance and received by the faithfull to their edification in faith and love and comfort but prophanely ventured to take it as common bread yea to come to it first stuffed full with their own riotous Suppers and drunk with excesse of Wine before all the world would judge and condemne them for so doing and more especially would God be avenged of them for such affront put upon him and those divine Mysteries of his ordaining and that by sudden Deaths or grievous Sicknesses and weaknesses upon their bodies besides the evill upon their Soules Others forbearing to eat and drink at home in their Houses kept their stomachs for the good Cheer they were wont to make and plentifully to take in Gods House or the place and at the time they should have soberly modestly and devoutly partaken of these great Mysteries which worthily so incensed the Apostle as to demand if they had not Houses of their own to eat and to drink in but must come into the publique place of Worship the House of God and there gluttonize and revell not considering nor discerning the Lords Body to the shame of themselves and Religion And that this is the most plain and naturall sense of that whole passage of the Apostle will clearly appear to every attentive and judicious Reader taking in the Context And this St. Chrysostome than whome none of his time magnifies more the Mysteries of the Eucharist doth agree to in a second Homilie he hath upon the Passeover Tom. 5. pag. 921. telling
Christ in the first place and derived unto his faithfull members from him the head mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 11. such as Quick understanding Wisdome Counsell Might or Fortitude Knowledge and the fear of the Lord and if there be any others distinct from these into which quarrell I will not now enter surely they are the speciall gifts of God given unto man for his instruction direction guidance and assistance in the affairs of his soule SECT VII Of Illumination reflexive whereby a Christian soule comes to the knowledge of its selfe in its Spirituall state 1. BY the Book of Nature a man attains to many rare and usefull things and especially of God and by common revelation in holy Scriptures may the mysteries of God and Godlinesse be made known unto him all which may be said to be necessary and usefull but scarce otherwise than as they lead him to the knowledge of himselfe and the state of his soule towards God to which a twofold Revelation is required The first common to all Christians declaring the Doctrine of Faith and rules of holy Life principles of well believing and doing But the second we are taught to be more necessary than the first that is such a knowledge or rather sense of a mans particular and inward man which tends to a censuring and condemning himselfe or a peaceable and comfortable perswasion of such a state of Grace and Gods favour as ends in immortall Blisse 2. And as our Saviour Christ saith What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soule So may we say What will it profit a Christian to know the whole world and to be ignorant of his own soule For to know the Heavens themselves and their nature and number and various motions is no heavenly knowledge And to know God himselfe by extraordinary speculations is no Godly knowledge of it selfe but the knowledge of a mans selfe in the particular relations he hath to God and Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world and of himselfe especially For this knowledge God seems to reserve to himselfe to be communicated at his pleasure For as Christ himselfe teaches us Matth. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Son but the Father and no man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whom soever the Son will reveale him it may no lesse truly be said No man knoweth himselfe in his Religious or Spirituall capacities but he to whom God hath revealed himselfe For this kinde of knowledge a man is as averse to as he is prone to naturall knowledge by industrious speculation For who desires to finde an hole or spot in his own Coat Yea who can patiently be told of any blemish in his Face that his Nose is too bigge and that his Eyes are too little or that his Face is pimpled and high colour'd or that his Mouth is too wide or that one Leg is shorter than another or such like imperfections of nature or deformities And the minde and soule being more neer unto us and valued by us than our visible parts much more troubled are we when any defect is in them noted For as it is observed that Nature hath made all men handsome enough in their own opinion as to their outward person so hath it made all men wise enough vertuous enough and holy enough And though a current principle of Religion teaches many men sometimes and upon some occasions in a manner to acknowledge their weaknesses and imperfections yet if another affirms the like things of them they are much molested and offended conceiving some ill will or spite to be the cause of such censures And men doe naturally but jest with themselves to others when they undervalue themselves in hopes and expectation that such as hear them will take an occasion from thence to refute them by the return of praises and commendations of their worth for that very thing in which they disparaged themselves more than recompensing such defects 3. Religion then and that not in Books but written in the tables of the Heart and affecting rather than advising can alone sufficiently imprint in a man the knowledge of himselfe towards God to which notwithstanding a good preparation is made by Gods Word untill the Grace of God and Illumination truly supernaturall shall open more fully the eyes of the understanding as Saint Paul speaks to a more perfect sense of a mans selfe by the consideration of these Five things What we were not What we were What we are What we ought to be and What we certainly shall be hereafter 4. By what we were not I mean that once we were not at all which Divine Revelation hath only infallibly taught us and determined above the Philosophie of some and against the Philosophie of others And once it was that not so much as in the loyns of Nature man was to be found as all we at present may be said to have been in the loyns of Adam before we appeared in the world For Adam himselfe was no where amongst naturall causes to be found in the most slender being of all untill God had produced him absolutely nothing of it selfe producing only nothing and being worse than that vile lump of earth out of which man was shaped all these things concurring to humble man upon the review of his base extraction by his Mothers side and being no better by his Fathers side God Creatour of all things than other ugly and odious creatures in his eye but much the worse as the masse of humane flesh being leaven'd with the vain cogitations of the minde and inordinate concupiscences and affectations corrupted himselfe above other creatures and by that contagion infecting him With what great blushing and confusion then should we reflect upon our frustrating Gods designe and order which being to be exemplarie in vertue and obedience to God unto other inferiour Creatures have render'd them more vile and disorderly And which is more lamentable as it is most shamefull in the state degencrate into which man is fallen by his free frailty for man to be more puffed up and fansie to himselfe an Empire even while he is tyrannized over by the rebells of his own brest this is that which requires his severest examination and judicature of him and not as the common manner is with modester Christians to shuffle up accounts between God and the soule others taking little notice of one way or other their past perfections or present imperfections and to confesse we are all to blame we have all sinned and are fallen short of the glorie of God and that we generally carrie about us a bodie full of spirituall infirmities and subject to failings and falls But these things touch us not more particularly or that besides the confused masse of sin acknowledged to dwell in us we have some proper and speciall passions or addictions to sin this we either cannot discerne in our selves or through selfe-conceitednesse naturall to all
Possessions And I can think little more reverently of the frequentation of Visions and Revelations celebrated in the Lives of those three famous Women published together viz. Hildegardis Elizabeth Micthildis which afford us such instances by bushells as it were I will not instance in Jacobus de Voragine his Golden Legend nor Caesarius Heiberstachius as I could to the great disadvantage of that Cause which was intended to be advanced thereby as such at which the modester and graver of the Roman Communion need not any other to put them upon blushing at they doe it of themselves But when I read in the Visions of Katharine of Sienna sainted a perpetuall storie of God himselfe appearing to her and preaching in person to her almost through the whole book though I like the Sermon very well and must needs acknowledge the Documents deliver'd to be many of them very Divine and usefull I cannot assent unto the Scene there given us If these Revelations as we say of Phanaticall and pretended Inspirations and gifts of Prayer in Publick were so Divine as reputed and affirmed why doe they not become Canonicall Why are they not equallized to the Holy Scriptures But things are not come to that height thankes be to God unlesse with them who glorying immodestly of a Light within them and the Word and Will and Wisdome of God given into them contemne the written Word themselves for this very reason becoming suspected convicted and detestable 10. But those Visions which are so practicall and grosse as that they end as in their consummation in the gratifying of our senses outward and them the grossest overthrow in my opinion the spiritualnesse and even the honesty of Revelations and notably shake the reputation of that Religion which countenances them If it were recorded only in an unapproved Author what I finde in the Sermon of an eminent Preacher Granatensis Vol. 5. pag. 387. concerning the same Katharine of Sienna Granatens Vol. 5. Conc. 3. in Cathar pag. 387. it might have been lesse scandalous to read of the great and frequent familiarity between Christ and her so that termes of wooing passed between them for a long time till at length she was sensibly espoused to him but what were the consequences of that Wedding I know not This to my apprehension is a true consequence of such Revelations that it must be the Devill rather than Christ that so appeared and led away a silly Woman laden with sinne in the midst of her profession of Sanctity or that these Talemongers have shamefully belied that reputed Saint And on the other side the like instances might be given of such who were so vehemently devoted to the Virgin Mary as to win her love so far as to condescend to suffer her breasts to be handled by her Saints A little more cleanly and credible is that story in the Remains of Gregorie Thaumaturgus Bishop of Neocaesarea of an Exposition of the Faith which he received from Saint John the Evangelist by the meanes of Mary the Mother of God. But the Romanists themselves are so modest we thank them as not to hold it to be the same we now have under that name And we are so bold to tell them that their Visions Miracles and Revelations so much sometimes with the ignorant sort boasted of have done them more discredit with the wiser than good or honour 11. And to these another note of true and false Illuminations and Alluminations which I may call all outward Discoveries made to the senses may be that made by the observation of the Masters of such Learning That in the true and near approach of God and his Holy Spirit to the sense outward or minde inward first great trouble surprisement consternation and deep humiliation are wrought upon the spirit of him the Lord vouchsafes so to honour with his presence as it appears by Ezechiell the Prophet Daniell and before them by Manoah who were struck with dread and confusion at the Revelations made unto them as likewise was the Blessed Virgin at the aspect and Annunciation of the Angell Gabriell but in the winding up and conclusion they were all refreshed and comforted aboundantly On the contrary the specious Pageantry and Insinuations of Evill Angells are begun with great delight of the deluded minde and in the conclusion bring shame sorrow and confusion answerable indeed to the method of the tempter in all other Cases in which the good Wine is brought forth first of which when men have well drunk followes the bad but Christ first sets before his faithfull servants the bad and keepeth the best to the last of all that he might humble thee and that he might prove thee to doe thee Good at the latter end as it is said Deuteron 8. ver 16. Brisk Pert and vaunting are the gifted by Evill Spirits reflecting upon such their perfections above others but modest humble and grave are they who are indeed taught of God. 12. And thus having briefly prepared the true Christian with a prospect given him of the nature use and necessitie of true Spirituall Illuminations translating him out of the Kingdome of darknesse into the marvellous light of saving Knowledge and Faith before due progresse can be made to the life and power of Faith in holy Conversation and likewise shewed the hazards of miscarrying through mistaken Light I proceed to the Second Part of Christian walking with God by walking according to that Light consisting principally in Spirituall Purgation or Sanctification A Prayer for Spirituall Illumination O Allmighty God and Heavenly Father the Light and life of the world lying in darknesse Who by thy Son Jesus Christ coming into the world enlightenest every one that cometh into the world and whome to know is eternall Life But who can know thee the Father but the Son and he to whome he shall reveale him and yet none can come unto the Son unlesse the Father draw him and none doth the Father draw unto him but by his holy Spirit teaching all things Send down I beseech thee that Spirit of light life and truth into my minde and heart that they may preserve me prevent and informe me and rule me that by that key of knowledge the door of my heart may be opened and the eyes of my understanding to perceive the things of God which are only spiritually discerned and that I may not love darknesse rather than light because my deeds are evill But grant that in thy light I may see Light and know how to choose the good and refuse the Evill not calling darknesse light nor light darknesse nor bitter sweet nor sweet bitter nor good evill nor evill good Various are the Mazes and Labyrinths of this World and many are lost in them Difficult is the road and strait is the way that leadeth unto trueth and life and few there be that find them Dangerous it is to lean to mine own understanding or wisdome who am but of yesterday and know nothing as I ought
shall begin to beat the Men-servants and Maidens and to eat and to drink and to be drunken the Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour when he is not aware and will cut him in sunder and will appoint him his portion with Vnbelievers And the wise Servant will not say within himselfe My Lord deferreth his coming understanding this to be spoken only of the coming of Christ at the last and generall Judgement but of his particular Domes-day when his life shall be called for by God and his own beloved sin of excesse shall snatch his Soule from his wretched bodie for indulging it How many Tragicall Instances doth our Age afford of such who have been confounded in their own sin and perished in this pleasure I shall need to name none of yesterday or of this Nation I would it were not notorious But two most eminent and mighty Potentates I may mention I hope without offence and not without sense or some effect Alexander the Great his Friends and Flatterers write that he died of Poison given him at Babylon but others more severe tellers of Trueth write that Wine was that Poison excessively taken and that Drunkennesse kill'd him as may be seen in Seneca Epist 58. And who so great a Man in his dayes and so victorious as Attilas who after his many Conquests not being able to overcome his Appetite of Wine was overcome by it to that degree one day that he was taken so ill the next night that he voided blood at his Mouth and so died choaked with it As Munster tells us in his Cosmographie Let these things then sink into our hearts and have such influence upon our lives and manners as to prevent such disorders and miscarriages And let all they whose faith is dim-sighted or weak as to have no power over them in declaring to them and convincing them of the defilements of their Soules contracted by these excesses and shamefull spewings on their own glorie as the Prophet Habakkuk aptly expresses it Chap. 2. 16. be taught at length and convinced by their senses and common experience what a stain to their Name what a wound to their Bodie they bring from which they can never be purged or of which cured but by Tears of timely Repentance and the happie change of due Renovation both which will be so much the more difficult by how much they are more deferred SECT XVII Of Slothfullnesse the last Capitall Sin. 1. SLothfulnesse and affected dulnesse of Minde and lazinesse of Bodie is not denied to be a Sin by any but to many seems so modest innocent and harmlesse that they wonder why it should be ranked amongst the most dangerous and deadly But as we before observed Sins are not to be estimated from their intrinsick or absolute evill only but allso from the tayle they draw after them and the brood issuing from them And thus Slothfullnesse may be inferiour in consequentiall mischiefs to none For this numnesse of minde and indisposition of bodie to act extendeth it selfe equally to both capacities viz. Naturall and Divine or Religious it being seldome known that he whose minde is dull'd by indulging to ease is active any wayes in Religion And in trueth so notorious is it that Divines treat of it onely or chiefly as to Religion which it corrupteth if not totally destroyeth 2. For as Labour and honest industry seems to be the first Vertue insinuated in Scripture and appointed to Man so may the Vice of Sloth be the very first of practicall Errours supposing that Pride was the first of Mentall Vices For we read Genesis Chap. 2. that there was at first no man to till the ground v. 5. and we read v. 8. That God made man so soon as he had made Eden and put him therein surely not to be idle lest the Earth should be idle too so that Action was a Vertue of Paradise And so it was afterward when man turned out from thence was to make a Vertue of necessity and work to keep him from adding sin unto sin and calamitie unto calamitie For as Chrysostome well observes it was an act of Goodnesse in God to turne fallen man out of Paradise to the wide world and a blessing to him to curse the Land so that without hard labour he could not well subsist For if when Man was master of so much Reason and owner of so much Grace given him of God he fell into temptations and from thence into sin who can imagine but destitute in great measure of such aids and abilities he should riot unmeasurably living in ease plenty spontaneous and unactive rest odious and dangerous 3. And therefore though my purpose be to oppose Sloth as it relates to Religion the Connexion being so neer and strait between diligence in humane and divine Affairs it is necessarie to declare the sinfullnesse and odiousnesse and to correct the pravitie of the first before we can expect any good event in the latter For a soft heavie temper is the originall of both and a sicklenesse and wearinesse in doing any thing long or of difficultie but a certain spiritlesse loying and lying still or as the saying is Wandering up and down to see who does nothing and help them untill all meanes used to gratifie flesh and blood and none sufficing idlenesse proves more tedious and tiresome than labour to others And none groan under the burden and heat and length of the day by labouring so much as the slothfull and idle person doth under void time and emptie hours And none brings more distempers upon his bodie by working nor so many as the Sluggard by doing nothing 4. But doe I say or suppose that a man awake and well in his witts and limbes can rest in the Negative doing nothing it is hard to be believed The Devill will not suffer his Soule to be as Aristotles Understanding of Infants Rasa Tabula a smooth and eaven Table or as white Paper in which nothing is writ but is capable of any stamp or impression it pleases the stander by to make in it but he will write his minde in it speedily This is saith Cassian Collat. 10. the judgement of the Monastique Fathers of old in Egypt that the industrious Monk is tempted with one Devill but the idle with innumerable So that as the same Author there allso tells it was the custome of Abbot Paul to avoid idlenesse to burne those effects of his labours which were more than sufficient to bring in a bare livelihood that he might never want work or become idle 5. And this he might learn of Saint Paul Rom. 12. 11. who teaches us the dependence secular labour in an honest way hath upon Religion and on the contrary saying Not slothfull in businesse fervent in spirit serving the Lord. Diligence here in businesse is set before Fervour in Spirit and in the service of God intimating the usefulnesse of bodily labour in disposing to
to us SECT III. Of the excesse of Vnitive Love of God in Extasies and Raptures with their abuses and uses noted 1. ALthough the principall designe in this Unitive Tractate be not to fill the Brain with gallant Speculations and gay Notions of Union with God yet because it seemeth necessary to a competent understanding of the Love wherewith God doth love us and of that whereby we love God to take in the Extent of it it will not be amisse to consider the doctrine and use of Extasies and Raptures too much famed by some and no lesse defamed by others For as supream Illuminations by Faith and Contemplation ordinarie do receive their Crown and summitie by extraordinarie Revelations and Visions God may and doth sometimes impart to his Servants so may it be that the top of spirituall Affections and Love seraphicall may touch the bottome of extraordinary Extasies and Raptures which are certain transportations of the Soule above the pitch of common Love though sincere sound faithfull and saving For in trueth I scarce read of any Religion except we make some factions Religions in which instances of wonderfull nature to this purpose are not found excepting the Mother faction of late For others issuing from them have gloried much of such elevations and transportations And Histories and Relations very credible assure us that of old amongst the Heathen and at this day amongst the Mahometans certain devout Persons in their way receive after some Ceremonies used to that end supernaturall impressions and Inspirations extaticall And why not Since it is very probable that all Religions tending either remotely or immediately to the worship of a Deity whereby some honour at large and blindly is given unto the only true God above what Atheists ascribe to the same and that according to the most probable Philosophie about Spirits there are divers kinds of them some purer others impurer some most malitious and mischievous others lesse noxious that God the most Wise just and infinite dispenser of all things and disposer may give way to Spirits to enter into and cooperate with zealous Persons in their simple yet intense devotion to a Deity and manage them according to the merits and manner of their Profession So that in very trueth faithfull and unerring judgement of a sound Religion cannot be made from such possessions and transportations but on the contrary rather that not the reality but purity and divinenesse of such Extasies are to be estimated from the reasonablenesse trueth and holinesse of the Religion professed by such Enthusiasts Onely this may be well granted that such Persons by such Enthusiasmes are competently characterized for select Persons in their Professions whether Idolatrous Hereticall or Orthodox 2. Or may we not say as there is one Fire necessary for the Cook to make his Vessels boyl over for Extasies are certain ebullitions of the spirit of a Man and another Fire requisite to the Smith to temper and fashion his Mettall and another to the Founder for his service so severall loves giving severall heats those severall heats have severall effects upon divers Subjects which they work on Certainly though true and modest Believers should not live or carrie themselves so towards God as if they would oblige him to extraordinarie Inspirations or Motions to be granted them so should the modestest of all demean themselves in their Religion as thereby they should be more susceptible of supererogated Gifts or measure running over as the Gospell speakes from God. Of which impartments I doe verily believe the professours of that Faction who are Enemies to all prescribed disciplining shall never be partakers pretending their Divinity is too spirituall to trouble themselves with such Exercises and they must goe the nearest way to Christ destructive of all bodily reverence decencie and due veneration which consists in select outward formes and fashions distinguishing to the sense divine from naturall morall or civill services as is most requisite 3. But as to Extasies of which we now speak as they are such which God vouchsafes to cause to the eminently constant and servent in his service and worship so may we not argue a certainty of Gods valuing those Vessels he so fills as more honourable or holy than some others from which he with-holds such gifts though where he so conferrs them and they are not delusions of idle and Evill Spirits imitating divine no doubt but there is some good degree of holinesse preceding not common to all true Believers For still we must look on them as gifts to profit withall and not as Graces whereby men actually have profited And the profit which succeeds thereupon is rather of others than themselves For such they are described to be that in them sometime the reason is taken away from them who suffer them and sometime their senses I scarce know what to judge of that saying of Antonie the Great undoubtedly eminently devout whatever Moderne Censurers may judge which Cassian in Collat relates That no man arrives at the perfection of Prayer who in Prayer understands what he sayes which possibly might give occasion to moderner Authours to invent such a kinde of Prayer which they call Supramentall that is such which is above Intelligence but this I may presume to say that if any whose Office it is to be the Voice of the People to God in Publique who then especially should together with him offer a reasonable Sacrifice to God should affect or willfully fall into such extaticall formes of speaking that neither he should understand himselfe nor should be understood by others he must be owing to some other Spirit for such his gifts than that of God. 4. And for privation of Senses in Extasies some Instances may be given very credible during such translations of minde which I dare neither rashly applaud nor condemn But whether this was the case of that holy man Elpidius of whome the Auncients write I know not that he was wont to stand whole Nights in Prayer and praising God in Psalmes not in recitation of Creeds and Ave Maries with such stedfastnesse that being once stung with a Scorpion he changed not his posture Which might be ascribed to an holy pertinacie against sense not without sense But if evill Spirits entring into and possessing Vessells of dishonour and impious drown the senses for that time there is no incrediblenesse that the good Spirit of Grace and Peace may overcome all sensations externall Was it not so with Saint Paul when as we read 2 Corinth 12. he was wrapt up into the third Heaven whether in the body or out of the body he knew not And 't is most apparent that some Epilepticall distempers bereave men both of sense and Reason And it is related to us by Bodin Theatr. Naturoe lib. 4. that in Germanie divers men are wont to cast themselves by Witchcraft into Extasies in such manner that for the time they feel no pain by blowes pinchings or burnings but returning to their common senses
in the Spirit so are we to walk in the Spirit according to St. Paul Galat. 5. 25. For by Baptisme saith the same Apostle Eph. 2. 10. we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good workes which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them and especially calling all good Souldiers of Christ Jesus as Joshuah did the chief of the Children of Israel to set their feet on the necks of the Canaanitish Princes to trample upon those seven Capitall Sins which not only fight against our Soules themselves but are leaders on of others to assault and spoil us And from hence have we led the Soule to the top of Pisgah by the Unitive Way of Contemplation and Love and Acquiescence in God to have a certain foretaste of the fruit of that Land of Promise we long after and expect by the conjunction the Soule hath with God which we finde not so extravagant a Notion straining the simpler Doctrine of Faith and Christ to a sense offensive to Eares not throughly opened to the Mysteries of Religion but a smattering thereof was had by Auncient Philosophers as appears by the disquisitions between Porphyrie and Jamblichus of the Egyptian Mysteries where great things are spoken of the Anagogicall way of conversing with the gods by elevation of the understanding through true knowledge of God and that Theurgicall Vnion i. e. as I understand his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that divinely operative conjunction whereby a man hath Communion with God but all this he swelleth with being blinded and carried away with Egyptian darknesse indeed leading to horrible superstitions to attain such Perfections whereas the light of the Gospell and Doctrine of Christ with infinite lesse superstition and more perspicuitie puritie and simplicitie conducteth to that Ascent of the Soule and resting in God which makes us like unto him and Perfect as our Father which is in heaven is perfect Matth. 5. with allowances for the infirmities of Flesh and blood and mutablenesse we are subject unto being as St. Peter saith partakers of the Divine Nature 2. For though the words of Saint Paul 2 Corinth 2. 14. Now thanks be to God which allwayes causeth us to triumph in Christ have their true sense yet that I suppose is of the state of a Christian which is firme and sure resting upon this Foundation The Lord knoweth who are his and he will never leave his chosen ones untill they totally forsake him if that may be said But as to the actuall and continuall possession by satisfaction in him and spirituall sensations the Christian is mutable here and that which not without great difficulty and industry is for some time attained unto is in a short time and suddenly interrupted and hid from the eyes to the great dismaying of the devout Soule so that great care is to be taken as well to hold that comfortable communion with God as to acquire it and to recover it intermitted as once to have attained it For as the Sheet let down from Heaven by the four Corners to Saint Peter Acts 12. wherein he saw in a Vision all manner of Fare his Appetite could long for was as suddenly again taken up into Heaven so is it with the delectations which the Spirit feeleth let down from Heaven to its wonderfull content they are suddenly taken away up into Heaven again And when we imagine our selves in the third Heaven with Saint Paul we unexpectedly feel a Thorne in the flesh to humble us lest we should be exalted above measure For Paradise here would be the greatest temptation to fall again into sin So that as we read of Abraham the Elect of God and taken by his Providence out of his own Countrie and Kindred signifying the state of Nature to us was led into the Land of Promise and shown it but had no Inheritance in it for the present no not so much as to set his foot Acts 7. So hath the religious Soule no footing firme here though by Faith and Affection it hath before its eyes the promised Possession 3. It is therefore one principall Rule of rightly using what we have at any time attained to in Consolations the fruit of Union with God but not incessant or inseparable from it to understand so much lest finding our selves frustrated of our expectations we call in question the state it selfe we are in and bring unprofitable confusions upon our selves For as the Apostle saith Coloss 3. 3. We are dead and our life is hid with Christ When Christ who is our life shall appear then shall we allso appear with him in glory The time will come but is not yet come that we should see what is better now hid and kept with Christ till such time as the second fullnesse of time shall come and Christ too when our life will be manifested It may be that a loving Father towards an obsequious and dutifull Child may sometimes shew him the Grand Deed whereby he hath settled a great Estate upon him yea may carrie him out and shew him the Lands Houses Mines and Timber on them which he purposes to give him but none of these are at all necessarie to the main end it selfe but onely to his encouragement to persevere in his dutie No more is necessarie to a certainty of Salvation an assurance of Salvation or such extraordinary arguments thereof as being denied us we should fall into despondencie and sluggishnesse of Spirit or be weak-handed in Gods service 4. For secondly God may hereby have a gracious and wise designe to wean the fond minde from sensible Delectations whereby it should take up short of the ultimate end of all God himselfe seeking its will and content rather than Gods to which the more truely spirituall a man is so much more he is intent above all things and lesse mindes intermediate consolations which the lesse they are contended for the oftener they happen 5. Thirdly The Patience and constancie of the faithfull Servant of God by submission to his fatherly wisdome and pleasure in such Dispensation is exercised and manifested And that he doth not serve God nor follow Christ meerly for the Loaves which he miraculously feeds some with but for his own sake We all know the beginning middle and Conclusion of holy Job's life how religious and prosperous he was at the same time before God and how miserable he was by the same Providence remaining all that while invincible in his resolutions of adhering to God and perserving in his wonted righteousnesse whereby he declared that his Pietie was not built upon the fluid Elements of this World nor the sensible comforts pertaining to the service of God but the intrinsick excellencie of Religion it selfe carrying its Reward with it And so as Saint James speakes we know the end of him and such his patience and faith For so it pleaseth God himselfe to give an account of the hardship brought upon his own People travailing fourtie yeares in the desolate Wildernesse viz.