live without Care or any sort of Seriousness keep what the World calls the best Company have their choice of Women and Wine and deny themselves nothing of Sensuality And all this as the World now goes without running any great Hazard of losing their Reputation but not of losing their immortal Souls which sure ought most to be regarded by them To these supine Christians and Slaves to their own Lusts who know better but yet as it were in their own Defence take the Liberty not only of living Counter to but also of drolling upon all that is serious or sacred even the Holy Scriptures and our blessed Saviour himself rather than be stopp'd or check'd in their Career or in the leastwise hindred the following the full Swinge of their own unbridled Appetites and ungovernable Wits I can only propose First The Impurity and Filthiness of such Sins and Secondly The severe Punishments that inseparably attend them CHAP. II. Of the Impurity and Filthiness of such Sins PAssions Frailties and Infirmities are the common Plea and Pretence of Sinners Whereas the defect and proneness of our Nature to sin is in it self no Sin so long as not compli'd withall and besides is abundantly repaired and supernatural Assistance recovered by the Incarnation of our Saviour and the Means he hath afforded us to a holy Life if we are not wanting in the Application The loss of our Innocency hath not deprived us of any of our Faculties Our Understanding and Will are still the same and we have the same freedom to chuse the Good and reject the Evil nor is the divine Assistance God be thanked denied to any that seek it So that the Commission of Sin is entirely from our selves Perditio tua ex te Thy Destruction is from thy self Hos 13.9 says the Prophet and the preventing of it wholly in our own power And one would think we should not readily fall in love with so great deformity My present Subject however is those grosser Sins the Sins of the Flesh as being most rise amongst us and such as destroy all seriousness the foulness and filthiness whereof appears 1st From the great offence they give to God's own Holiness and Purity To which every evil even in Thought is opposite Sanctity being his great and most proper Attribute than which the Seraphims could find none greater when they sung Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth Besides the Divine Nature being absolute Purity without any Mixture or Composition whatsoever and being also absolute Perfection so that no defect or want of any good thing is in him it must needs be that what is contrary to those as is all imperfection and evilness must also be opposite to him Which speaking according to the manner of men is to be displeasing to be grievous to be loathsome and odious to him but most of all these grosser sins And this we know also from God's putting all along in Scripture a particular mark of his displeasure upon them setting them in the front as the Captains and Ring-leaders of the rest These are the members we are to mortify upon Earth Col. 3.5 Fornication Vncleanness inordinate Affection evil Concupiscence c. So again 1 Cor. 6.9 be not deceived neither Fornicators c. nor Adulterers Rom. 1 24 c. Thess 4.5 Eph. 4.1 nor Effeminate Persons nor Abusers of themselves with Mankind c. shall inherit the Kingdom of God These are the sins with which the Gentiles when they offended God most of all before the light of the Gospel shone amongst them stand every where in Scripture principally charged Nay so great an offence are these sins to the Holiness of Almighty God that he seems to equal them to the greatest sin of all 1 Cor. 6.9 Rev. 22.15 Col. 3.5 And therefore in Holy Write we find them ordinarily linked together with the sin of Idolatry And sometimes also with Covetousness taken in its largest sence for Coveting either Persons or Riches which last is said also to be Idolatry And the former may be called so too for the same reason because it is hard to say which of the two Harlots or Money is most powerful and most idolized in this lower World The Impurity and filthiness of Fornication and other grosser sins of the Flesh appears yet farther from their oppositeness to that Holiness and Cleanness which ought to be in the Body as well as in the Soul of all those who profess themselves Members of Christ Not that this filthiness of the Flesh is any External Deformity in the Body or any Diseases Ulcers or Sores For we find Job Lazarus and many other great Saints who had been well pleasing in God's sight were before men very loathsom Persons But it is a real defilement of the Body as the Body is the honourable Instrument and Associate of the Soul and ought by it to be employed to a more noble end even together with the Soul to be employed to the Glorifying God and one day also to be presented with it before him in his Heavenly Tabernacle 1 Thess 4.4 This is the will of God saith St. Paul even your Sanctification that you should abstain from Fornication that every one of you should know how to possess his Vessel i. e. his body in Sanctification and Honour Vers 7. not in Lust of Concupiscence for God hath called us not to uncleanness but unto holiness And the same Apostle in his first Epistle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6.20 addresses himself to the Men of this Age as well as those of all others after a most prevailing manner Know you not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you and not your own or at your own disposing for ye are bought with a price the precious Blood of our Lord to be also his Spouse and his Members therefore ought to glorifie God both in Body and Soul which are God's And is there not good reason that after being purchased even our body as well as soul at so dear a rate as the Inestimable Blood of our Lord we should at least in gratitude sanctifie and devote our selves wholly to his honour and service But to compell us to it unless we will deny our selves to be Men and rational Creatures the Apostle's Argument here and in his other Epistles runs thus The Church is the Spouse of Christ Eph. 5.29 30 c. 1 Cor. 6.17.6 13. whom he bought and purchased to himself with his own Blood and Life whom he Cherisheth also with the like care as the same Flesh and Bone and the same Spirit with himself And for the same reason is now our Body as wel as our Soul for the Lord and the Lord for the Body If therefore the Wife have not power over her own Body but the Husband no more hath Christ's Spouse the Church or we her Members 1 Cor. 7.34 power over our selves but Christ And tho' it be said only of
written and allowed of by the Ancient Fathers and the whole Church of God in all Ages And then as to the necessity of Prayer if we consider our many wants Temporal and Spiritual to be relieved many sins wherein we still offend God to be pardoned many Temptations and Dangers from which to be preserved many Benefits and Assistances received and all these with a respect also to our Fellow Christians we cannot but acknowledge every moment of our Lives had we no other necessary Duties too little to be spent in this one Great Duty of Continual Prayer 1 Thess 5.17 Our good Lord assist us by his Holy Spirit in the diligent and sincere performance thereof The other Chief Means of our obtaining Divine Assistances against our Lusts is 2ly Frequen Communicating as many good Christians now do and the Primitive Christians did almost every day I do not intend here to treat largely of this Holy Sacrament there being many good Books Written designedly on that Subject but only recommend to the Reader without medling with God's power therein which transcends all Humane Conception and Comprehension the Immense Benefit of this Holy Mystery to each worthy Communicant in reference to his particular Necessities For obtaining Remission of this or that Sin a Remedy of this or that Infirmity a Deliverance from this or that Affliction for receiving a Benefit or giving thanks for a Benefit received for helping our Neighbour for encreasing the Holy Spirit and Love of God in us Because as by one Spirit in Baptism We are made one Mystical Body of Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 so likewise in the Eucharist are we made to drink into the partaking of one Spirit The Blessed Eucharist being as necessary for the continuing and encreasing as Baptism for the first receiving the Holy Spirit Because also this is that particular Nourishment instituted by Christ for the preserving our Body and Soul to Everlasting Life that particular Pledge and Assurance of our Resurrection that true Bread from Heaven which mystically also Incorporates us into Christ and makes us continue and grow up into perfect Members of his Body that so thus partaking of the Nature and Spirit of the Second Adam the Heir of all things we may become with him Sons of God Heirs of Eternal Life as we were by the First Adam of Eternal Death That true Heavenly Bread lastly so Exalting and Assimulating our Nature into Christ when worthily Communicating as to make us one with him as he and the Father are one According to our Saviour's Prayer when he was Instituting this Blessed Sacrament I pray thee Father John 17. that they may be one as we are one O Blessed Union between poor Man and his Maker O happy those Souls who here worthily feed on this Heavenly Bread the only true Nourishment of the Life of Grace enabling them in the Strength thereof to walk even to the Mount of God the Life of Glory The Conclusion THE Summ of this Discourse is The Sins of the Flesh are most dangerous because most natural to us And by reason of their filthiness most loathsome to Almighty God and most severely punished by him For not only those of the greater magnitude Fornication Adultery Incest Sodomy Beastiality are followed with God's most Tremendous Judgments but also we find in Scripture Vncleanness and Laciviousness Gal. 5.19 Eph. 5.3 destinct from the foregoing and of a less denomination every where joyned with such Sins as exclude the Practisers thereof from the Kingdom of Heaven The way to prevent such Sins and to avoid the punishment of them is To mortify our Passions our Memory and Imagination to beware of impure Suggestions cheirsh Holy Inspirations and avoid all the occasions of such Sins to Improve lastly the Grace of God in us by Assiduous Prayer daily Examination of our selves perfect Repentance frequent Communicating and all other holy means pressing still farther to higher and higher Gifts particularly to the attaining that most excellent Gift of Charity which makes us love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves hate even our own Lives for love of Him who first loved us undergoing the the greatest sufferings with Thankfulness and Complacency performing all our Actions on purpose to please him referring them to his Honour offering them up to his Praise and Glory To whom Father Son and Holy Ghost be all Honour Praise and Glory to all Eternity Amen God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth Joh. 4.24 Grace and Truth i. e. means of Salvation came by Jesus Christ Joh. 1.17 God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts that they that live should not henceforth live unto themselves but to him who dyed for them Gal. 4.6 2 Cor. 5.15 Wretched is that man who is all for the good things of this Life a good House good Apparel good Provision c. and is content to have a bad Soul Int. Christ Some Short Directions and Heads of Meditation for the Persons Concerned in the Preceeding Discourse CHAP. I. Of Meditation it's Requisites and how it differs from Contemplation MEditation is called the first Essential part of Prayer leading to Contemplation Thanksgiving Petition c. in which all the Principal Faculties of the Soul the Memory Vnderstanding Will and Affections are severally employed The Memory recollects the matter to be Meditated upon and also placeth the Soul in the Divine Presence The Vnderstanding judgeth of the Subject and its Vertues and accordingly proposeth it to the Will The Will excites in us divers Acts and Affections either of Love Affiance Gratitude c. towards God Or of Hatred Compunction desire of doing better c. towards our selves which is indeed the main Scope and end of Meditation Then follows our Praying and representing to Almighty God our Miseries Necessities Temptations which we most earnestly beg him to redress for his own Love and Compassion's sake and the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ But when the Faculties of the Soul are unactive or slow in their Operations as it often happens they are to be excited by the help of good Books which ought always to be at hand when we Meditate and in all such holy exercise we are to approach the Divine Presence with our greatest Reverence and Humiliation And it is also necessary before every Meditation to make a strict Examen of Conscience 1. What Benefits we have received that day from Almighty God for which we are to return Thanks 2. What Sins we have that day committed running through every hour in thought word and deed for which we are to beg pardon 3. We are to resolve upon an amendment in every particular by the Grace of God After such strict Examination of all our Thoughts Desires Words and Works judging our selves that we be not judged of the Lord and Confessing our Sins in the bitterness of our Soul as the Church requires and taking also
A CHECK TO Debauchery AND OTHER CRYING SINS Of these TIMES WITH Several useful Rules for the attaining the contrary Virtues To which are annexed some Directions and Heads for Meditation and Prayer taken out of Holy Scripture Except the Lord had left unto us a very small Remnant we should have been as Sodom and we should have been like unto Gomorrah Is 1.9 Oct. 26. 92. Imprimatur Edm. Bohun LONDON Printed for Richard Butt in Princes-street near Covent-Garden and are to be sould by Randal Taylor near Stacioners-Hall 1692. A LETTER TO A FRIEND SIR I make you this small Present as knowing a Gentleman ought to be as zealous for Virtue as he is for Honour and to shew his Courage chiefly in conquering himself Your Example influences very far being so well known and so well beloved And I need not tell you how many out of meer Emulation are apt enough to become your Creatures and Followers The Conversation of some Gentlemen is not so innocent as becomes their Quality and as it ought to be But it is commonly either Drollery or hard drinking In the former they neither spare Friend nor Foe have no regard to Modesty or good Manners and many times not to sacred Things themselves And in the latter they are obnoxious to all other even the greatest Sins It is Solomon's Observation concerning Drunkenness that it leads to Whoredom and all Lewd things and renders Men more insensible than Beasts and yet so great is the sottishness of its followers they will seek it still and not refrain Prov. 23.33 c. Those false Maxims so much in Vogue with some God will deal with me as a Gentleman a Souldier a Courtier and the like so often urged in Excuse of a Vicious Life were invented by the Common Enemy of Mankind to justle out the Laws of God and to render all good Instructions of Pious Men ineffectual Whereas the H. Scripture assures us That God is no respecter of Persons but in every Nation he that feareth God and worketh Righteousness i. e. becomes and does the duty of a Christian is accepted of him and none others Acts 10.34 35. John 3.18 And if we profess to know God and deny him in our Works we are no better than Infidels and if we say we do know him and not keep his Commandments we are Lyars let our Quality or Station be what it will Tit. 1.16 Many Saints now in Heaven were indeed not always so upon Earth but then resolutely reforming themselves and retracting their past Course of Life the Divine Grace and assistance being never wanting to such they afterwards by incessant vertue became great Instruments of God's Glory in the Salvation of innumerable Souls This is more or less applicable to every Man whilst he lives in this World who hath always some fault or other if not ill habit to retract which by God's assistance he may do when he pleases and it is his greatest wisdom not to delay his Endeavours as the contrary his greatest folly I hope therefore you will not think me your Enemy because I tell you the truth Who am on the contrary Sir Your Faithful Friend in this highest point of Friendship and most ready to serve you in any thing conducing to your eternal happiness at least my poor Prayers shall not be wanting SIR Your most Sincere Humble Servant L. D. THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Courteous Reader THese Collections were designed chiefly for the good of my self and some particular Freinds but may perhaps be of service towards the awakening and exciting others to endeavour the pulling down those abominable sins which walk our Streets at Noon day with a Whores forehead unmasked and inhabit with us in our very Gates even in the most Eminent and most frequented places of our Cities without any notice taken of them unless it be to Caress and Encourage them The wiser Heathen would have thought such gross sins a reproach to Reason and a Disgrace to Humane Nature and therefore for Christians to spend their whole lives here in them and expect Heaven at the last which is the reward only of Vertue and Holiness would be the greatest folly and madness in the World The way to Salvation is now by Grace not by weak Nature by what is revealed to â—â— to be the will of God not what we can think or can know any other way by Faith the evidence of things not seen by the Light of Nature yet most certain to us not by sight or blind Reason by denying not pleasing our selves Paradise is not to be gained the same way it was lost but the contrary Not by eating but by forbearing to eat the forbidden Fruit. Not that ceasing to do evil is sufficient to make us happy unless we also learn to do well we must besides bridling our Appetites perform such dayly duty to God as he requires of us Go on from Grace to Grace from Vertue to Vertue from one degree of Holiness to another till we come to the measure of the Stature of the fulness of Christ The first and principal step however to Vertue is the ceasing to be Vicious and this cannot be done without renouncing all sensuality and subduing our Lusts In order to which we are to pray for the assistance of God's Grace to consult good Men and good Books and resolve to follow their Example and Directions And if this short Treatise should conduce any thing towards the reclaiming of but one single Sinner from a lewd sensual debauched Course of Life to become a sober chast sincere Christian it would be thought more then a sufficient recompence to Courteous Reader Your Faithful Freind for the Good of your Soul L. D. The Contents CHAP. I. OF Gross Carnal Sins in General Pag. 1 Marriage a lawful Remedy Pag. 3 And so also our Lord's Counsel of a Single Life Ibid. The practice of the present Age too contrary to both ibid. CHAP. II. Of the impurity and filthiness of such sins Pag. 6 They proceed wholly from our selves Pag. 7 Natural Infirmities no sins Pag. 6 Opposite to God's own Holiness ibid. A particular mark set upon them in Scripture Pag. 8 Opposite to the cleanness and sanctity which ought to be in the Body as well as in the Soul of every Christian Pag. 9 Diseases Sores c. are not the uncleanness her meant ibid The Body the Temple of the Holy Ghost a Member of Christ his Spouse purchased with his precious Blood therefore to be kept holy Pag. 10 11. Fornication c. Dishonourable and Disgraceful to the committors thereof Offers the greatest indignity to Christ's Incarnation Pag. 12 Filthy Discourse tending thereunto to be avoided ibid. A Natural shame accompanies such sins Pag. 14 The Habit thereof changes Men into Beasts Pag. 15 These were the sins the Heathen sell into when abandoned by God for their Idolatry Pag. 15 16 CHAP. III. Of the punishments of such sins Pag. 17 God a revenges of such sins himself Pag.
Virgins that they more especially care for the things of the Lord how to please him in every thing and so become Holy both in Body and in Spirit yet are Married People also as the Circumstances of their Stations will permit obliged to care for the things of the Lord above all other things for the Spouse of Christ the Church being a chast Virgin as St. Paul calls her we that profess ourselves Members of that spotless Church 2 Cor. 11.2 whether we be married or unmarried ought also to be chast and neither in action or thought make the Members of Christ the members of an Harlot The same Apostle in his first Epistle to the Corinthians Argues still more against Fornication 1 Cor. 6.18 Fly Fornication saith he and why so For every other Sin that a Man doth is without the Body i. e. doth not so immediately touch the body with any proper Infamy or so entirely remove it from under the power of our Lord But he that committeth Fornication and much more if Adultery c. sinneth against his own body i. e. dishonours it the most he can by degrading himself to so base an Alliance as to become one and the same with that vile nasty Creature with whom he sinneth and so from a pure Member of Christ he renders himself the filthy Member of an Infamous Harlot or something worse I here add that this sin offers also the greatest Indignity to the Incarnation of the Son of God imaginable who did therefore take upon him our Flesh to exalt it into his own nature his Heavenly Image that no such filthiness might any longer inhabit in it To prevent which vileness in us the same Apostle also peculiarly concerning this sin or any filthy Discourse tending towards it gives charge that it should not be so much as named amongst such as would pass for Christians But Fornication saith he to the Ephesians and all Vncleanness Eph. 5.3 4. c. let it not be so much as once named amongst you as becometh Saints Nor Filthiness nor Foolish Talking nor Jesting which are not Convenient And the Apostle there assures us that no Whoremonger or unclean Person hath any Inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Besides the Seal of the Covenant of Grace with Abraham was it not ordered by God to be so particularly placed upon all the Faithful as to become in a manner a punishment of their Lusts And is there not a Natural shame upon every man in the committing of those sins or any thing like them tho' lawful So as that the light of the Sun the sight of a pious Picture the coming in of a little Child or almost any of God's Creatures even a pious thought which proceeds also from God is sufficient sometimes to overawe prevent and put by the most hardned Sinner from embracing the Temptation And is it not a burning shame that the presence of Almighty God and His. Holy Angels who with perfect hatred of all Impurities are continually looking upon us and disswading us to the contrary should not be much more prevalent with us against such enormous wickedness But yet so strong are the habits of such Sins as in a manner to dispoil us of all shamefacedness and wholly to alter and corrupt the Nature and Reason of those Persons in which they are insomuch that the Practisers but of one Species of them are called in the Revelations by the name of Dogs Rev. 22.15 Phil. 3.2 and so are the Gnosticks by St. Paul for their being guilty of some such like impurities As if the Custom and Beastliness of such sins did utterly depose men from their manhood and change them into Dogs And lastly not to omit the greatest Argument of all of the Deformity and Filthiness of the sins of the Flesh Rom. 1.16 we find in the Epistle to the Romans when God had abandoned those Heathens that had first forsaken him to follow their own Imaginations since they would not hearken to his Commands which were Holy Just and Good they committed such monstrous unnatural Lusts that were the greatest disgrace to Humane Nature that possibly could be Men with Men and so Women also committing those things that were unseemly and unbefitting rational Creatures God grant that we be not so left to our selves so given over to our own hearts Lusts a certain sign of God's highest displeasure and a fore-runner of his heaviest Judgments CHAP. III. Of the punishments of such Sins TO those dissolute unthinking Wretches who will not by the preceeding Arguments be prevailed on to leave their lewd unmanly Course of Life I shall propose in the second place the Terrors of the Lord to perswade them the severe Punishments which inevitably attend such sins that the Practisers thereof may most rightly measure the greatness of their faults which they make Natural and for that reason excusable by the great revenge God himself takes of them Thus St. Paul warns his Thessalonians to abstain from the Fornication of the Gentiles 1 Thess 4.6 7. the defrauding our Brother of his Wife c And what is the reason because the Lord saith he is the avenger of all such all manner of Lusts even those commited only in the heart And so in his Epistle to the Hebrews he pronounceth the same thing Heb. 13.4 Marriage is Honourable and the bed undefiled but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will Judge And in detestation of such unlawful Lusts the Lord appointed under Moses's Law That a Bastard should not enter into the Congregation of the Lord Deut. 23.2 until the tenth Generation And does not the Prophet Jeremiah most particularly threaten in God's Name such Sinners for their Assembling in Troops into Harlots Houses and running like fed Horses after their Neighbours Wives Shall I not Visit for these things saith the Lord Jer. 5.7 and shall not my Soul be avenged of such a Nation as this Those Expressions The Lord is the Avenger God will Judge the Lord appointed shall I not visit plainly show that God taketh the punishing all such abominations into his own hands that they may be sure not to go unpunished even in this Life But this is not all we find in Sacred Scripture God inflicting on these sins not ordinary punishments but such fearful Judgments to which none other can be compared The drowning of the whole World about a Thousand Years after its Creation when all Flesh excepting some very few Persons had corrupted their ways was it not to wash away its pollution from these sins with a Flood And how many thousand Souls better than our selves perished in that Deluge The dreadful Raining of Fire and Brimstone from Heaven upon those miserable brutish Cities Sodom and Gomorrha and the Cities about them which yet perhaps were not so bad as some Cities even now-a-days amongst us was it not to purifie their Land which was once a Paradise upon Earth from those loathsome sins by Fire The
God God himself Innocent c. What and how grievous things he suffered So many griefs So great Ignominy He hath born our griefs Behold the Man Behold and see were there ever sufferings like his And all this for his Enemies ungrateful sinners and me in particular to Reconcile them to God Reflect Oh the Obedience Humility Patience Perseverance Charity of his sufferings Wednesday What passed in the Garden His Agony His Soul was heavy even to Death He sweat drops of Blood He Prayed against the bitter Cup but with a Resignation to his Fathers Will. Thy will not mine be done And soon after with unparallell'd Fortitude surrendred himself If you seek me let these go their ways desiring to tread the Wine-press of God's Wrath alone Thursday Our Saviour's Vsage before Annas Caiphas Herod and Pilate Before Annas Questioned for his Doctrine In Caiphas's house false Witnesses were brought against him He was kept Prisoner there all Night Mockt by the Souldiers and others Denyed by Peter Before Herod despised Before Pilate first declared Innocent but afterwards Condemned by him for Treason to please the People and secure his own Interest with them St. Peter's Repentance very speedy But the Obstinacy of the Jews continues to this very day Friday Our Saviour's Vsage at the Pillar his Crown of Thorns his Journey to Mount Calvary bearing his Cross his barbarous Crucifixion the Wounds he received the sweet words he uttered Father forgive them c. yet the Rocks were more Compassionate than the Jews and We. Saturday Of our Saviours Burial Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea his Blessed Mother and St. Mary Magdalene and some other Honourable and Holy Persons were concerned in it They wash'd his Wounds with their holy Tears and Embalmed his Body with their Sighs and Prayers and Richest Odours He made his Sepulcher with the Rich and Honourable but yet the malicious Jews sealed the Stone and set a Watch to prevent if possible his rising again to Glory Sunday Of our Saviour's Resurrection Ascension and sending of the Holy Ghost 1. The manner of his Resurrection His Conversing Fourty days upon Earth Comforting his Freinds Strengthening his Disciples and giving them charge over his Flock 2. his Ascention into Heaven siting on the right hand of God that our Hearts and Affections might thither also ascend 3. His sending the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost his Disciples having Fasted Watch'd and Pray'd continually day and night for ten days before Reflect His Resurrection the first Fruits and earnest of ours His Ascension to draw us and our affections after him His sending the Holy Ghost that the same Spirit that raised up him the Head might also quicken us his Members CHAP. IV. Meditations for the fifth Week MOnday Of the Nobility of the Soul 1. Created by God after his own Image 2. God giveth his Angels Charge over it As the Hills stand about Jerusalem so standeth the Lord round about them that fear him 3. Of so great value is the Soul that our Saviour left the Bosom of his Father to redeem it even with the price of his Blood Tuesday Of a pure Conscience a right Faith and doing all things for God's Honour These Three constitute the good Christian for the Life we now live is by Faith And the pure in heart shall see God shall have a clear and more naked perception of him even in this Life No Image or Idea can represent a Spirit such as God is He is Purity it self perceptible only to the pure in Heart after an ineffable manner and void of all sensible Idea's Reflect The purging therefore our Consciences is to be carefully minded Wednesday Of the Presence of God With the thoughts of this so great Presence many holy Persons have preserv'd themselves from sin Enoch walked with God and was translated Abraham walked before God and was perfect King David set God always before him that he should not sin So Elijah and Elisha God liveth in whose sight and presence I stand And nothing more certain than that God filleth and worketh in all his Creatures In him we live and move and have our being and all things subsist and are upheld by his immediate hand But he more nearly dwells and inhabits in every good Man and directs him by the Interiour Language of his Inspirations and gives him leave also to Communicate to him as to a most faithful Freind all his Wants Desires Resolutions Infirmities Temptations c. And the oftner he recollects his Faculties from external objects and retireth into himself to God so much the better and his progress in holiness greater and more easy Reflect How great a folly therefore is it to live insensible of the Assistance of so great a presence so near us even within us Thursday Of the Conjunction of the Soul with God Which consists in a Conformity of our Will to the Divine We must Will the same thing with God and the same means to it My Son give me thy heart says God by Solomon It is good for me to cleave to God says David And St. Paul nothing could separate from Christ Neither Life nor Death c. 2. Such a Person is always Examining his Conscience Keep 's a strict guard that his thoughts wander not abroad or be over long busied in outward Affairs for fear of losing that presence that Consolation he always carries about with him in his Soul Prayers Meditation Contemplation Recollection the Holy Sacraments are in a manner the entertainment of his whole Life Reflect All these things are irksome and nauseous to the Carnal Worldly Man Friday Of Humility 1. The Humble man retains a true sence of God's Favours What great things he hath both done and suffered for him and that out of a free and most amazingly generous Goodness without any the least merit on his side And on the contrary what returns he hath made how many and how great wickednesses committed against that good God So that he knows not which way to turn himself Thinks no place vile enough for him who for his sins deserves the greatest Afflictions the greatest Torments He hath no way but to humble himself before God with Confusion of Face and Offer and Resign himself wholly to his boundless Mercy to deal with him as his Compassion pleases 2. The true Humble Man is Servant of all Especially his lawful Governours and Teachers to whose wiser Judgment he readily submits his own less wise As knowing they have more ability to judge than himself and more assistance also promised not to mistake To these therefore he submits as to Christ himself being commanded so to do Ezek. 33.7 8. Heb. 13.17 3ly Being contemned he rejoiceth being honoured he referrs the honour to God and so all other Benefits he receives But the shame of his sins he takes to himself and confesses with the poor Publican that he is not worthy to lift up his eyes to Heaven 4ly What humilty can equal that of our Lord in all