deploring the evil effects of Covetousness namely That the life of man was miserable because Avarice like a spirit of Storms and Tempests had poured it self on Mortals and that it were to be wished that the best Physicians might meet together to cure the Disease The same may we say of Love since it is the fatal Plague among all Passions and no simple malady but one composed of all the evils in the world A Passion which maketh charms and illusions to march before it and draggeth on Furies disasters and rapines after it Was it not this which sharpned the sword which transfixed Ammon Which shaved and blinded Sampson Which gave a Halter to Phillis Alas How many wretched and caitif souls how many ship-wracked Spectacles may we behold standing on Promontory tops who tell us of the ruines which this Passion hath caused Simon Magus was undone by a Hellen being more bewitched by her love then he enchanted others by his Sorcery Apelles was corrupted by Phylumene Donatus by Lucilia Montanus by Maximilla Women having ended amongst all these what Heresie and Magick had but begun which made one wittily to say That Heaven was most happy in having a God In Coelo Angelus Angela c. Tertul. adversus Val. and Angels and no Goddesses since it might be feared that if there were diversity of Sex it would alter somthing of its tranquility Was it not the love of Women which caused Sampson's David's and Solomon's shipwracks Hath it not besotted the wise conquered the strong deceived the prudent corrupted Saints and humbled the mighty Hath it not trodden down Scepters and Crowns blasted the Lawrels of the greatest Conquerours troubled the most flourishing States Hath it not thrown Schism into Churches corruption among Judges and the greatest cruelties into Arms Hath it not acted Treasons Furies firings poysons murthers and ransackings And how should it spare its enemy since it is so cruel to its self It kills and murders those that have most constantly served it drinking their blood and insensibly devouring them and making many to sink in the twinkling of an eye It will open a Flood-gate to a Deluge of miseries and cares It will by some invisible hand as it were shoot Arrows amidst the Vermilion of Roses and the whiteness of Lilies It is the worm which gnaweth all our great actions the moth which eateth all the vigour of our spirit the Labyrinth which hindreth our chief designs yea it is the true snare of our soul which too often hides poison and death under a seeming sweetness See here the goodly sacrifices of Lust Behold the transfigurations of sottish Love What Nothing but Poyson Gibbets Massacres and Precipices Nothing to be seen but smoak flames darkness despairs and the sad complaints of unfortunate Lovers O God! What is he who beholding these Pictures would ever betray his soul heaven and his God to yeild obedience to loathsome lust In time then let us behold the disasters which wait on the experience of this miserable sin which is so ruinous to our body soul estate and reputation so full of fetters and snares It being impossible to write all the Tragedies which arise from this Passion for which all Pens are too weak all Wits too dull and all Tongues would be dryed up Neither is it to be wondred at what the Wise man said That the too free familiarity with Women was a firebrand in the bosome Prov. 6.27 and as another said It was as easie to live among burning coals as to converse with this Sex and not to wound the soul How careful then should we be to avoid whatsoever may endanger the scortching not only of our Body but our precious Soul yea how should we fear our Relapses and shun all occasions which may re-enkindle the flame For if vain Love be a Tree the fruit flowers and leaves whereof are nothing but sorrows if it be a Sea full of Tempests and Storms where a Haven is not to be hoped for but with the loss of our selves If it be a Passion which causeth a continual drunkenness of Reason If this Banquet which seems to be the source of life brings an Edict of Death with it and the best sports thereof are ordinarily bloody why should we embrace such cruelty as is mingled with delights Or that pleasure which is attended with Funerals O my Make us to bury all our concupiscences before we go to the Grave and so strive to live as that when death comes it may finde us prepared and that we may have little other business then to die That Love in its self is not a Vice but the Soul of all Vertues when it is tyed to its proper Object which is the Soveraign Good NEver shall the soul of man act any thing great in this world if he retain not holy fire in his veins since from the beginning of the world all things are held together by this Divine tye Concord which in its union causeth the happiness of all things and those sacred influences of Love have woven eternal chains to tye indissolubly all the parts of the Vniverse True joy is nothing else but a satisfaction of the soul in enjoying what it loves neither is the accomplishment of Pleasure any thing but the presence possession and fruition of the good which is known to us and which we love We cannot have one silly spark of love for God unless it be inspired into us by himself That which the Ayr is in the Elementary world the Sun in the Celestial and the Soul in the Intelligible the same is he throughout All He is the Ayr which all the afflicted desire to breathe in the Sun which dispelleth all our clouds the Soul which giveth life to all things and therefore he that is thus the Lover of our souls ought really to be the object with which our soul ought everlastingly to be in love And oh how happy are they who entertain this chaste and spiritual love for things Divine who embrace the wisdom of heaven which is so far beyond all humane Beauties as the light of the Stars surpass the petty sparklings and flitting fires of the earth but miserable are those who mount not above the flatteries and fading Beauty of the world From hence it was that the beauties of Solomon's Mistresses were no sooner adored but that through the neglect of his former Zeal and Courage Idols were worshipped That Sampson was no sooner blinded with love but that Dalilah forthwith blinded the eyes of his reason and body together Hence was it that David paid so dear for that unhappy cast of his eye on Bathsheba all which God is pleas'd to place as broken masts on the top of a mountain to make others take heed of the shipwracks of love And great care surely ought to be taken in the whole course and progress of our life sin being usually killed by flying the occasions of it Absence resistance coldness silence labour and diversion have overcome many assaults
enquire to pray and yet not finde the light of thy presence But O Lord Leave not this poor Soul of mine but make it to understand the unmeasurableness of thy Bounties and Mercy Oh for that day when this knowledge of mine now childish and darksome shall be turned into a full and clear Vision O happy darkness if thus to become lightsome The more hidden thou art now blessed Saviour the more glorious wilt thou be then Ah that my heavie thoughts had the wings of an Angel to soar aloft amongst those celestial Quires Me-thinks I see when thou shalt be pleas'd to remove the skreen of my mortal body which now detains me from thy presence and interrupts the view of thy glory how nothing will be able to hinder the eagerness of my Soul from flying to thee Me-thinks I see Eternity too short to enjoy thee Surely there 's no possibility of pleasure without thee no faculty of Soul to wish or think any thing but thee yea my Soul would more willingly wain into nothing then part with thee Thee my only incomprehensible and Eternal All my dear dearest Lord and God! Adieu then those charming warbles of a fleeting and deceitful world O merciful Father Behold my prodigal Soul which returns unto thee Receive me as a mercenary servant if thou wilt not receive me as a Son for I resolve no longer now to run after the salt waters of worldly pleasures and contentments The light of thy countenance is far better then life it self being able to turn the shaddows of death into life and the midnight of the sharpest adversities into the noon-tide of joy and chearfulness Oh how great is the clemency of God to hide from us the greatest part of things which will befal us in the world The knowledge whereof would continually overwhelm our wretched life with sadness and affrightment and give us no leave to breathe among the delicious Objects of the earth Had many great and eminent persons mounted on the highest degree of honour but seen how they were still falling into endless Abysses or beheld the change of their Fortune and the bloody ends of their life it is impossible but the joys of their Tryumphs would have been moistned with Tears and through a perpetual fear of inevitable necessity they would have lost all the moments of their felicity And did the poor and seemingly forsaken Soul thorowly at once apprehend the severe anger of an omnipotent God what alas would it do when it sees it self menaced by the hideous and affrightful terrors and mischiefs of Satan What shall the poor heart do when God is pleas'd to write bitter things against it when he shall scare it with dreams and terrifie it with Visions Surely not pains imprisonments poverty or death it self can be more troublesome to it Whereas the comforts of a quiet conscience becalmed with the gracious in-comes of Gods gracious presence and enlightned with his glorious Beams which expel the darkness and ignorance of our cursed Nature as are so many threads of gold which involve us here below in precious repose and a certain expectation of beatitude until at last we finde wings to take our flight to the City of Peace and Refuge promised unto us by that mouth which never erred and whose Laws are established upon foundations stronger then the pillars of heaven and earth and where we shall receive the excellent Promises and clearest revelations of Eternity The Soul admires the infinite Riches of her Saviours Love in taking Humane Nature upon him WIth what admiration is not the heart of man seized on when he entereth into the great Abysses which are discovered in our Redemption and when he seeth Jesus a Saviour to reveal unto us the secrets and wisdome of heaven by his blessed Incarnation For what saw he in our Nature but a brutish body and a Soul all covered over with crimes and wholly drenched in remediless miseries Or what could he set before him but a miserable ungracious wretch cast forth upon the face of the Earth wallowing in uncleanness abandoned to all sorts of scorns and injuries And yet behold how the Prince of Glory looking on us with the eyes of his mercy taketh us washeth cloatheth adorneth and tyeth us to himself by a hand of infinite Love He laid aside the beautiful Angels and came upon earth to seek this lost creature though a Foe to his Honour and injurious to his Glory See O my Soul How that God far beyond all other created Essences hath been so liberal as to bestow himself on thee He bowed the Heaven and came down rendering his sacred Person subject to all the misery of humanity to bruises to tearings to shatters to violences oppositions and tyrannies and all to accomplish a King of sorrow calamity and scorn He laid aside all the Prerogatives of his most perfect Soul exposing it to labours to tears and griefs to those stupendious Throws in the Garden which made him cry out in those expressive words My God! My God! To what a point hast thou let me to be brought and in the end to be commended even to death it self How alas didst thou abandon thy body to heat to cold to weakness to hunger to thirst to travel to weariness to fear to sadness of Soul and death it self What was it but Love and Love alone that brought down God from heaven to be incarnate in the womb of a Virgin and to suffer all the hardships not sinful to which humane Nature is subject So that thou art not able to conceive the multitude and greatness nor any way comprehend the worth of his mercies And what then canst thou say but only lie gasping with admiration of so vast so unknown a goodness and sigh out the rest in the Center of thy heart Good God What sublimate is made in the Limbeck of Love What attractive was there in Humane Nature to draw thee from the highest part of the heavens to its love Thou out of thy goodness wouldst not lose him who through his own weakness delighteth to lose himself O miracle That humane Nature should be thus tyed to the Divine That glory should be separated from the estate and condition of glory yeilding his Soul up as a prey to sadness O dear Saviour Thou stretchest out thy hand to him who turns his back to thee Man flyeth as a Fugitive and thou pursuest him even to the shaddow of Death What may we say more of so profuse a Bounty Oh how thou courtest sinful flesh Being not content to pardon his crimes but even through thy own death to procure him a Kingdom All the ancient Patriarchs who were persecuted in times past and all the glorious Martyrs who since our Saviour have endured such torments made but a tryal of his Dolours Impatient souls then as we are Can we expect a greater motive to suffering then to have our Saviour for an example Who then will complain Or who is the man who cannot bear a
canst thou love more or express it beyond this yet to all these and infinitely more tortures and unspeakable miseries was thy Saviour expos'd O my Soul for thy sake for thine my soul that thou maist not complain thou wantest an Object a Motive a Pattern or invitation to love O mirrour of Love Love it self Christ our Saviour Hovv earnest wert thou nay how delighted wert thou to Treat of thy Passion It were thy sweet words not long before thy death With desire have I desired to eat And when S. Peter would have disswaded thee from thy last Sufferings thou reprovedst him more for this then for his denyal of thee in the High Priests Hall Thou only castedst thy eye upon him for the first as minding him thereby of his great promise made never to deny him but for the other thou bidst him avaunt yea call'st him Satan as being the hinderer of thy much desired and longed for death Ah! incomparable Love who can think on and not admire the Extasies of our sweet Saviour How is he even ravished with the object of his Death and transported with the Idea of his sufferings Behold how he encourageth himself in this combate How troubled he is at all those that hinder it How confident doth he look on the Cross as the Fountain of his Glory And shall we not love his Cross which Jesus hath cherished every place is a Paradise to him that knows how to love the Cross and every thing a Hell to those that fly it Oh blessed Saviour then who canst lift up all the Earth with the least finger of thy power raise up a little this sinful mass of my Body which so sadly weighs it self down by its sinnes O my God fix thine eyes upon me and thou shalt thereby bring me to the fountain of true happiness The Father hath given me to thee and I am the conquest of thy precious bloud and wilt thou suffer a Soul to be taken away from thee that hath cost thee so many sweats and sufferings Alas Lord thou hast but one life and I see 1000 instruments of death that have taken it away Was there need of so many bloudy Doors to let out thy innocent Soul Could it not part from thy Body without making on all sides so many wounds which after they had served for the Objects of mens Cruelty serve now for those of thy mercy O Lance cruel Lance why didst thou open his most tender side But in thus playing the Murtherer thou hast made a Sepulchre wherein I will from henceforth bury my Soul When I behold the wounds of my dear Saviour I do acknowledge the stroaks of my own hand and will therefore likewise there engrave my Repentance Give me then O sacred mouth give me that Gall which I see upon thy lips to sprinckle all my pleasures divide with me O beautiful head thy dolorous Crown of Thorns seeing it were my sinnes which sowed them Lend me O sacred hands and adored feet the Nails that have pierced them and while I live let me never breathe any other life but that onely which shall be produced from my Crucified Saviour Surely we shall never be worthy of him until we thus bear the Ensigns of his War and Ornaments of our Peace And alas what reason hath wretched man to complain Is not suffering our Trade our Vow our Profession As the Clock goeth on by the help of its counnter-poise so a Christians life never proceedeth so much in virtue as by the counter-ballance of its Crosses Make me then to serve thee to imitate thee yea to suffer for thee O thou King of the afflicted Ah that I had a Sea of sweet odours to empty on an Object so worthy of love Art thou unwilling to bear part of thy Saviours Cross yet give O my Soul give at least tears to him who satisfied for thy sins Consider that thy miscalled Sufferings ifrightly used are indeed Blessings What if thou lose thy fortunes it is to make thee know thy self what if thy Health be empaired it will make thee disaffect this world What if thou lose thy Riches is it not to make thee seek out better By all which God is pleased to shew us the straightest way to that life which he hath promised us and to assure us by his own Tribulation who could not but know and embrace what is best that the way of Tribulation is the high-way to Heaven We find indeed Tertullian in one place thus complaining Eternal Wisdom which thus cuts thy childrens Threats and use them as Sacrifices as if thou couldest not Crown them but by their Torments or Honour them but by their punishments But alas he that will love must serve And Behold August Serm. 19. de verb. Apost saith S. Au-gustine The foolish Lovers and Amorists of the world are not they who are surprised therewith ready to serve to endure all commands in Attire in Habite and behaviour for a Mistress sake Oh foul confusion of life and prostitution of spirit God who promiseth never to behold us with a good eye unless we keep his Commandments deserves to be loved above all things Love that cannot suffer is not Love Yea the last Character of love to our Saviour is to suffer for him the Prince of Sufferings Our Souls are engaged by Oath saith Tertullian to this warfare so soon as we first enter into Christianity Tertul. ad Scap. Besides know we not that all Creatures of the world groan and bring forth that all the Elements are in Travell and in a ceaseless agitation The Air it self say the Philosophers is perpetually struck with the motion of Heaven to prevent the hatching of Poyson The Rivers are purified by their streaming current One deep must call upon another the deep of Afflictions calls for that of Honour and the heights of Honour are prepared according to the measure of our Tribulations In this world Cruelty is mingled with Lights and Pleasures with Funerals Gods Prison is a School of Wisdome In this Captivity are we free under these Bonds and Irons our Soul can walk with God in the midst of Groans and sighs our heart can rejoyce it can talk with him though with the three Children in the midst of the fiery Furnace And as the most rigorous of Punishments became a Throne of Honour to those three Champions the fire forgetting it self to be fire and the Furnace strewing it self with Roses so all the Thorny paths of our Pilgrimage here seem but like a Meadow enamelled over with Flowers If we here make Jesus the Object of our present Dolours he will hereafter prove the Fountain of our Eternall Joyes Behold then the exact method which providence keeps in the conduct of her chosen ones Behold the Character of an humble Soul persecuted by the Tongues of Slanderers by the Arms of his kindred by the contempt of his friends by the ingratitude of his Enemies yea of those upon whom he had still heaped good turns without
of the enemy solitude of heart fasting prayer and the Word of God are weapons of an excellent force and which the Word teacheth us to use in our conflicts And sure it imports us much to fight valiantly and to bring with us the hearts of Lions what honour can we expect by yeilding to the first Temptation How many Martyrs have been roasted in burning flames because they would not speak an ill word Let us consider also the Crown we shall get at last by fixing our love aright If God be the Essence of Essences why do we please our selves by making so many nothings If God be a Spirit why should we our selves be perpetually fixed to carnal pleasures which only flatter to strangle us Why should not the day yeild up all our thoughts to him Why should the night which seemeth made to arrest the agitations of our spirit any way raze the remembrance of him from our heart Oh the unconquerable fire of holy love that can neither be quenched with many waters nor drowned with mighty floods but like the Ark in the Deluge by how much the waters swell higher by so much the more it ascendeth towards the place of its birth and first original the bosome of him who is the Author and Father of it Did we but behold all humane things from the top of the Palace of eternity O how would they seem like rotten pieces yea alas How often would the heavens and the elements conspire against thy affections which thou hast so unworthily and disasterously placed Or did we but see the miseries attending us in the violent pursuit of our desires who alas is it who would enter into this Hell of torment to rob himself of the joys of chastity and to live like Ixion on the wheel of Eternal vexation Were it not much better to throw away this frantick love this troublesome curiosity this rashness of judgement and all that fomenteth and nourisheth so ill a passion O my God! Make me from henceforth to enter into the bottom of my soul and to silence all those tempting and troublesome creatures these inordinate affections which so often bereave me of the happiness of thy sight and my eternal welfare O thou which canst draw Being out of the Abyss of nothing and bring the shades of death into light make me to put a difference between true love and concupiscence the which being once enjoyed dies and is ofter resolved into the smoak of disgrace and the ashes of hate whereas the other is still more ardent towards the thing beloved by possessing and enjoying it O unexhaustible Fountain of all Beauty whither shall I go to quench those violent distempers and wicked thirst kindled within my soul but to thee O Saviour who canst shew me my stains and give me water to wash them to thee who only canst quench those in-lets of sin with the tears of repentance O then melt that heart which hath retained so many vain and lustful thoughts in the sacred Limbeck of thy Love and distil it out by my eyes Why should any impure thoughts pollute that soul which thou hast sanctified Why should any profane words pollute that Tongue which thou hast commanded to be the Organ of thy Praises Why should any unchaste action rend the vail of that Temple wherein thou hast pleased to enter and chusest for thy habitation And thrice happy shall all those be who can seal up all their senses from vain objects and suffer them to be wholly possessed with Religion fortified with prudence watchfulness and mortification and have bound up their eyes and heart from all strange and disorderly affections and have so far watered them with the smoak which ariseth from the fire of this worlds prosperity as to finde delight in nothing here below neither to prefer any thing before the hopes and expectation of celestial glory Of the Nature and Qualities of Divine Love and wherein it exceeds all other Love ALL things here below being transitory and frail little is the support we can find in them until God hath poured his holy Love into our heart which can alone purifie our life and eternize our Souls It is he which inspireth the love with which he will be loved It is his gift alone by which we love him above all and all for him God in the first place gives us a taste of his Word and makes us to taste sweetness therein and he only it is who gives us good resolutions towards the amendment of our life Consider then O Soul redeemed with the blood of the Son of God that thou canst not live without Love since on what side soever thou turnest thou must necessarily love and God who is the Author of Love and makes of the lightnings thereof eruptions whereby to communicate himself to man seeing this necessity would that thou take the object of his love for the object of thy own who is altogether lovely neither is there spot or blemish in him And O my soul when thou hast heedfully contemplated his Beauty strive to finde a reciprocal love enkindled in thy breast towards him who loved thee when there was nothing lovely in thee who made no love to Beauties to gold or greatness but loved thy very poverty and miseries From this Love it is that we are diligent and assiduous in praying to him that we endeavour the keeping of our Conscience unspotted that sin is weakned his Law observed our lusts abated that humane considerations and all the respects of flesh and blood are trod under foot yea that we account all things worse then a Dunghil to gain Jesus Christ Hence further it is that we are patient in adversities that we embrace the Cross that we love our enemies and do good to those that persecute us Behold the accomplishment also of true love left us in the pattern of our blessed Saviour who made himself the highest example thereof in laying down his life to save us Few there are who in an unshaken constancy persevere till death we read indeed of strange examples of Amity and Affection between †Luci. Toxorh friends as of him who left his whole family in a fire to carry â—ut his dearest Friend on his shoulders of another who gave his own eyes for the ransom of him he tenderly affected We finde mention also of many Women tyed with the indissoluble chains of vertuous inclinations As Valeria who said Though her husband were dead to others he was not so to her Of Sulpitia who in spite of her Mother broke doors and locks to run after her banished Husband Of Eponina many years shut up with her Husband in a hollow Tomb. Of Mithridates Queen who in the midst of all his Captains followed him through snows storms and wildernesses But especially of Mary Magdalen that mirrour of Love and ardent affection whose soul dissolved and melted with spiritual languor on the heart of her beloved Saviour We read also of some who have licked whole
the envenomed wounds of their Husbands who have breathed out their last upon the Graves of those who first gave them heart and affections and of those who have forsaken all their friends renounced their fortunes and exposed themselves to the greatest hazards envie or time could bring upon them But alas saith the poor soul what is all this if heaped together to the love of my Saviour How far is it from that beatifical love How small a drop to that Deluge of his mysterious and adorable love Now those that desire to profit in this love must by fervent prayer beg it of God they must value and esteem it above all earthly things and apply all their actions thereunto since it will no way be entertained in a soul sullyed with worldly and terrestrial affections They must render him fervency and earnestness in all their meditations and devotion no hour must pass without some ejaculation in all companies we must publish his greatness we must refer all objects all creatures to his love and love nothing but in him and for him yea we must engrave all his words wounds and actions in the bottom of our hear And O that we could often present unto our selves as the principal means whereby we may come to this heavenly obedience that infinite love of Jesus Christ Oh that we could here be raised on the highest Region of Grace and poize our selves on the wings of Faith there being no tongue so eloquent no pen so learned sufficiently to express it But oh the deadness and dulness of our spirits Could we but here reflect and a little lift up our eyes surcharged with so many earthly humours and vanities to behold that president which he hath given for the rule of our Love What secrets What mysteries of love should we there finde What greatness and purity must we needs conceive therein And oh how much shame ought we then to have so to defile our love with the impurities of the earth This this alone is it which hath made many forsake the shaddows of Diadems and Scepters which so easily deceive the credulity of the most passionately ambitious by their fond illusions and have thereby attain'd Renown on earth and a Crown in heaven These are Celestial fires which ever proceed from God as being their proper Sphere It is he that begetteth them and breedeth them being no way constrained to descend upon earth to seek nourishment from perishing creatures Those indeed which seek nothing in the world but sensual pleasures which are more thin then smoak and lighter then Wind cannot imagine how much these fair amities which are the daughters of Vertues nourish holy delights The love of God saith one is an influence of Eternity because coming from an Eternal God It is rather inspired then studied It is given to us by the favour of heaven Though good Books and Discourses contribute much to this purpose yet they who think to learn the love of God only by precepts have little in them that is solid And those Lovers who have the ardours of heaven who entertain chaste and spiritual love for things divine partake of those pleasures which the jealous eye cannot espye the slanderous tongue cannot hite And when we thus love God we finde him every where we serve him every where and every where meet with the recompence of our services we may Jonah with Jonah cry unto him out of the Whales 2.2 Belly as from a Chappel and talk with him with the three children in the midst of flames Dan. 3.25 Surely to love truly is to love aloft and to love him who made us when once we are come thus far we shall finde all the greatness of the world lower then our feet Let us not then put a Balm so precious into an unclean Vessel Let us retain no Idols or passions in our hearts to oppose or withstand this excellent Guest Let us entertain this Love with all the strength and vigour of our heart and soul yea make it our continual practice Shall we set our Affections so eagerly on the despicable and inconsiderable affairs of the world Shall we slight a matter of so great importance as the love of God Shall worldly Lovens espouse all occasions use all ways and diligence transform themselves into all shapes and humours pass through fire ice tears blood fearful Torrents enraged Seas enflamed Serpents to attain their hearts wish and arive at the least of their desires and pretensions and shall not we with the greatest applications of minde and soul use all possible industry to profit in a more divine and heavenly Love O shameful reproach That all this should be done for a vain and worldly love which ends always in bitterness and endangers our souls and there is none but Jesus who is chiefly to be loved for whom we will not stir a hand or a foot Out alas Why are we so blinde as to love servitude and to make a Goddess of the Worlds Beauties Why should we make it our glory to sacrifice our Liberty and kiss the Fetters of our slavery Alas How dear doth it cost us to destroy our poor souls Did the man of uncleanness but think that whiles he is in the embraces of his fulsome Mistris that his soul is waited on by death and death by eternity Did he but think that those eyes which did burn in Lust should in a bottomless Furnace be scorched with Brimstone That those ears which here were wont to wanton it with Minstrels shall there be filled with nothing else but the groans of Divels and the shrill screetches of the damned that the Tongue which delighted in the relation of fond and idle Stories should there cry out for water to cool it and the whole Body which was here clothed in rich and fantastique garbs should be hereafter enwrapped in a mantle at once of darkness and yet of flames and the Voice which here was taken up with the Songs and Ditties of Love should there nothing but complain of Torments Would he I say but consider all this it were impossible that he which thus loves pleasure and cannot endure to be tormented should delight to thrust himself into the fire or that he which fears to lose one drop of blood should delight in the wounding of his whole Body Stand amazed then O poor Soul and bewail thy self that thou shouldest no better value so inestimable a favour as thy Saviours love and resolve for the remaining part of thy life to be crucified unto all those Objects of pleasure profit and honour which have heretofore transported thee O sweet Jesus Thy Beauties are without stain and shall I be of the number of those souls which are distasted with Manna Shall I languish after the Onyons of Aegypt O make me rather dear Saviour to sanctifie all that is esteemed profane If my Eyes have been the cause to entertain fond love O let them now become Vessels of Water to wash away the spots of all unchaste
our selves any where into the hands of Innocency rather then among the imaginary felicities of sin and wickedness Say to thy self O my Soul it will not be long until thy Eyes be shut and thy body become troublesome to all that come near it unless speedily yeilded up to the Earth And no sooner will death absent thee from the eyes of thy Friends but forgetfulness will draw thee off from their heart Thou art enforced O my Soul to inhabite in a sickly body encountring with all sorts of pains and maladies O my God! What a favour then is it to be banished from so many Gouts Sciaticks Collicks so many pains of Head Teeth and Heart so much hunger thirst and other infirmities which afflict a frail and momentary body And oh that we would but remember this when Temptation comes upon us When we are tempted to give up our minde to the world and drown our selves in earthly cares when we are tempted to profits pleasures and evil company with the neglect of the Duties of Gods Worship That we would but seriously be-think whether the world will then be as sweet as now Whether our unruly Passions and Lusts will then bear the same sway with us and whether all the Glories Beauty Honours and Preferments of the world will not then seem needless vain and unprofitable Alas Will any of those things be comfortable to thee at that day of Reckoning Is this a day to be forgotten Is not that man worse then mad that is going to judgement and never thinks of it Should we not rather forget to eat to drink to sleep or work then a matter of so great concernment What To forget that we must remember for ever O poor Souls How much rather should we in the midst of all our Temptations and allurements to sin imitate him who wheresoever he went seem'd to hear a Voice calling to the World Arise ye Dead and come to judgement The Misery of those who have yeilded to the Passion of Love and the Glory of Souls which have overcome it TO mention the sad effects of sensual Love which hath so many ways of working will be a Task very hard and difficult seeing this Fury hath a thousand hands and a thousand attractives yea for the most part different and quite opposite It takes by the eyes by the ears by the Imagination by change of purpose by flying pursuing honouring and insulting by complacency and by disdain Somtimes it lays hold by Tears by laughing by modesty by boldness by confidence by subtilty by simplicity by speech and by silence It assaileth us somtimes in company somtimes in solitude at windows in grates in Theaters at Feasts at Sports yea oftentimes at the Church and in Duties of Devotion Briefly if we behold one transfixed with violent Love we shall finde he hath all that in his love which Divines have placed in Hell viz. Darkness flames an evil Conscience an ill savour and banishment from the presence of God Sin will not at first discover its dreadful events and Tragedies It will perchance shew you a chamber wherein Beauty is presented which hideth gross infirmities It presents you with smiles glances Courtships and flatteries which yet carry nothing with them but ruine yea it shews you Sports and Banquets Tears and Funerals in one day Alas How many millions of men are there in the world who would be most fortunate and flourishing if they knew how to avoid the mischievous power of this Passion Hence is it that so many Virgins are stoln away so many Families desolated and Parents precipitated often times into their Tombs by their ungrateful children That so many little Innocents are made away by death whose birth also is often prevented Hence is it that so many Widdows are dishonoured that chaste Wedlocks are disturbed and so many Rapes committed Is it not hence that so many are abandoned to dishonour their Estates to pillage and poverty their Reputation to infamy and their whole lives to continual disturbances Is it not hence that poysons are mingled that Halters are noozed that Swords are sharpned and those Tragedies begun in the Night are executed upon the Scaffold in full day-light Good God! What heavie scourges do always fall on sin and what a pleasing spectacle among so many confusions is it to see any Victory gained over evil Love It were easie to enlarge the History of Loves power which would require a Volumn greater then hath yet been seen if I should tell you how Love oftentimes rejecteth the greatest commands wisest Edicts and best Laws How it despiseth Honour neglects Fame Wealth Health Life Soul and all It is compared also by some to Fire the most active and strongest worker of all the Elements which destroyeth Castles Houses and Cities which melts and consumes the hardest Metals and if our contemplation dive into former Times or if we turn over the variety as well of Modern as Ancient Histories not only Divine but Humane we shall finde the sad effects of our evil Love how Ambition Revenge and Murther vices which not only eclipse our judgments but darken our understandings have ever proved fatal to the Undertakers thereof and that we shall not only see with grief but finde with repentance how this Passion of fond Love hath brought shame instead of glory misery for felicity and affliction for content where affection hath not had reason for its guide nor vertue for its object I shall spare to insist on those infamous Ladies whose memory purchased by odious Lust will survive the course of time as Cleopatra Faustina Clitemnestra with the last whereof Aegistus lost his honour through too great a familiarity and we finde not a few to suffer a great eclipse of their credit through their too much effeminacy whence it was that Demosthenes being demanded a great price for a little pleasure by the Courtezan Lais answered I will not buy repentance at so dear a rate well considering that the fairest flowers do as well serve for a shelter to hide Aspes and Serpents as to beautifie Garlands and Chaplets neither would desire the fruit of that Tree nor the kernel of that Apple which was at first of that fatal and dreadful consequence to the Taster The things we finde commended in Mary Magdalen by our blessed Saviour was her humility and the Office she performed to his feet and no way admiring her comly countenance and the pleasant flower of her youth which she had too often made as a snare to betrey her Lovers and all to let us see how loathsome disrelishing and unsavoury are the husks of vain and empty Beauty and how irksome the taste of sinful pleasures are which like deep laughing still carries a deep sigh in the end in respect of those inward vertues of the soul to be preferred beyond the fair and ruddy fruit of Earthly Beauty But then again on the contrary how large do we finde History in setting forth the admirable command which some have had
trouble Greatness without change Pleasures without sorrow and at last fully laden with celestial Honours This surpassing Joy having one time so far transported a heavenly lover as to give occasion to some who beheld him to think him besides himself you are in the right said he my Beloved hath taken away my will and I have given him my understanding there is nothing left me but memory to remember his mercy Oh what a great Abyss of Delights are reserved for those purified Souls who are thus wholly rapt in the contemplation of heavenly Beauties and altogether ravished in the consideration of Gods divine Goodness No longer do they suffer themselves to be transported with earthly prosperities but in the midst of all worldly Pomps their eyes are firmly fixed upon the many benefits received from God their Ears being charmed their Tears wiped their Fetters broken And what way do they more seek out then how to testifie their gratitude and poure themselves as incense upon Coals towards the Altar of divine Majesty Yea there is a love so tender in them and a fear of offending so infinite a Saviour as that they apprehend the least shadows of sinne as Death Day and Night do they send forth Centinels before the Altars who cease not to implore the assistance of Heaven for the salvation of their Souls How often in the deep silence of darkness when no eye sees nor ear hears do they cause their weeping eyes to speak to God and address their many vowes to Heaven for the attaining of Eternal life How willingly do they part with all the Interests of Flesh and Blood and all other impediments about them They think they can never do too much for eternal happiness whatsoever are their sufferings here the know Paradice will still be purchased at a good penny-worth Oh true zeal O most powerful Alchymie changing all Tears and Troubles into Marble and Gold What Wisdome what Grace what Eloquence doth a heart truly endowed therewith use towards the attaining of Heaven What love for its Soul what fervour for its salvation what care for its direction what resignation of its will to the mind of God What a heart of Diamond doth it express against a thousand stroaks of dolours and sufferings how joyfully doth it meet death yea what Triumphs afterwards in all conditions and after all its afflictions offering up unto God the obedience of the heart the Prayers of the lips and all the faculties of Soul and Body which appear in a general conformity to the commands of God And what indeed can that Soul fear nay what can he not hope for who hath a Jesus for a Protector and a God absolutely powerful and whose power and essence walk hand in hand which is without limits embraceth all places and no way confin'd to any certain number of Ages since it is Eternal and involveth all time What can he doubt of who can conclude an Interest in him who made the world with the least blast of his mouth and can as easily the same way unmake it all the great variety of this Universe where there are Creatures without number Beauties without end and Greatnesses innumerable being but an effect of his word O how brave a thing do we account it for a Prince to possess an earthly Kingdom in the hearts of men to make himself a Throne of Peace to which love raiseth an Eternal Basis and on which God raineth infinite Blessings Whereas what a hideous spectacle is it to see Tyrants hidden like Owls in perpetual Nights with a mind possest and beset with horrid Fancies filled with suspitions and seised by distrust whose Dreams are full of bloody spectacles for whom Thunder seems to roar and for whom Heaven prepares all its Thunderbolts Oh what horror is it to see them not dare to appear in publick without being clothed with Iron and dispoiled of the peoples affections to appear among their Subjects in nothing but Blood Terrors Torments and Massacres and afterwards to be hated like Plagues and poysons Is not this the way to make a Hell of his life a Tyranny of his manners and to increase vowes towards his death Just so is the difference between a poor Soul vvho daily marcheth under the standard of Gods providence and is every hour replenished with the mercies and benefits of Heaven Like a virtuous King the one adventures to live in the most unfrequented Wildernesses without Corps-du-gard He finds assurance in Battels prosperity in his House veneration abroad admiration at home When he sleeps his Saviour who is more watchful then a million of eyes wakes for him when he prayes that voice which is better then a million of mouthes makes intercession for him His joyes are pure his pleasures innocent his repose dreadless his eating and drinking without fear of poyson his Life happy and his Memory blessed Whereas divine Providence which sharpens the Sword of Justice in the Tears of the miserable pours it on the head of the other consumes him by strange Maladies a thousand hands are ready to punish him his life is a reproach his memory full of cursings dung-hills are provided to interre him yea the Stones or Mettals afterwards punished and defaced for no other crime but to mention his Actions and set forth his feature The Soul contemplates and sets forth her Folly in hazarding Eternal Joyes by preferring Earthly Vanities AReprobate sense being the last step which any one makes to enter into Hell O how great is the happiness of an enlightned Soul which sets all the glory of the world at its feet and preferres the knowledge of Christ and an obedience to his will and command beyond any thing here below which shall come in competition with it Often doth she thus expostulate with her self what alas shall the sight of Temporal Beauty which too often fills our Soul with nothing but fire and flames abate the more fervent love of Eternal things Is it possible that I should so adore my prison and fetters here as to ballance them with the Cross of my Saviour Jesus who alas can give me Tears sufficient having thus forsaken my God! Origen mentions of Mary Magdalen That Heaven and the Angels were a burden to her and that she could live no longer then she beheld him that made them and shall we here preferre an Earthly Pilgrimage before a Heavenly Paradice Is it possible that I should suffer my self to be entangled with worldly vanities which are more brittle then Glass more light then smoak and more swift then the wind that I should fatten my self in earthly Pleasures that I should nourish this Carrion this Dunghill of my Body and neglect and forget and despise my Soul Oh! what horrid Phantasms will seem to reproach me with ingratitude when the affairs of my conscience shall be set in order and say unto me I am the Pleasure thou hast obeyed I am the Ambition to which thou wert a slave I am the Covetousness which was the aim
Fear not O Spouse thy Beloved is not wholly departed Be not troubled if thy journey to Canaan be through the wilderness of this world and if in thy way to Sion thou pass through the valley of Baca since Christ is a Cloud and Pillar to direct thee Thus by the Gates of Hell doth God oftentimes shew us the way to Heaven He who is not tyed alwayes to bring a Soul thither by one and the same Road can make Death the way to life The Sun of Righteousness is stil bright though behind a Cloud and not seen to us The Nurse is withdrawn oftentimes that the Mother may get the chiefest affections of the Child And though God leave a poor Soul labouring in the Pangs of Desertion yet through the Sun-shine of Gods countenance ripening its Graces cloudy weather still advantageth her growth and her Barrenness at last yeelds a fruitful Harvest Gods relief comming alwaies in the best time and she patiently attends his help from Heaven even until the fourth which is the last watch of the Night And when vvith Peter she is freed out of the Prison of strong Temptation and God is pleased to come in unto her with abundance of comfort Oh! how is she raised to bless the Lord who hath forgiven her sinnes and healed all her infirmities The waves of Terrours and flouds of Afflictions never beat so violently upon her neither did she so much complain of spiritual wants as now she saw the wonders of God in the deep and the infinitenefs of his Wisdom in the dispensations of comfort and joy of grief and terrour The Souls complaint now is no longer Where is my God become or that There is no soundness in her flesh because of his anger All her distempers seem but as so much Physick to clense her from her manifold sins Yea she now seems even drown'd in sweetness and in sinking cryes out Oh the breadth of thy unfathomable love what Saint what Tongue what Angel can speak out thy unexpressible kindness Ephes 5.17 Thou hast loosed my Bonds Oh that my heart could burn in love towards thee Oh that I could as I desire make known to others hovv good thou hast been to me in preserving strengthning and fixing my fiath on a Rock not to be over-born vvith the storms and swelling Surges of Satans Temptations Methinks I meet thee every where O blessed Jesus with a hundred arms unfolded to do me good what place what time what moment is not filled vvith thy Bounty Though passions have for a time assailed my mind and thy Terrours have affrighted my spirits yet behold now thy Grace hath shot through the dark Clouds of my Sin and doubting thy Darts have pierced the Center of my heart with quickning sparklings my spirits are come again Ah how my Soul is fill'd with joy ravishment and admiration Oh God! who is he who beholds the fading shadows of the world this dismal place where cares and sorrows are still growing young and never die that would ever betray his Soul Heaven and his God to yield obedience thereunto who vvould betray an Eternity of blessing for a Pleasure so short and wretched who would build Tabernacles here to lose a Mansion among Celestial Souls where Love onely Reigns who would not give a farewel to those earthly Cottages to ascend those mounts of Bliss vvhere every season is a constant Spring who vvould desire to make his name great here on Earth and desire to have them enrolled among the Saints in Heaven O what Celestial mirth what an expansion of all the faculties of the Spirit yea what rejoycing is there in the heart of Man vvhen Christ begins to make it his Throne all Powers do him homage all Passions render him service Who can conceive what joy passeth in the Soul vvhen Jesus is pleased to take up his lodging in it Hovv is the heart excited awakened and enflamed towards Heaven what distaste is there of all things in the world It is as light to bleared eyes It is as food to hungry Travellers It is the repose to the wearied the Country of poor Pilgrims and the Crown of all our happiness Nothing but Fires Desires Sweetness Affections Joyes and Admirations will transport our Souls having once regained our wel-beloved our thoughts will wholly be employed upon Jesus we shall be dead and insensible to all the Objects of the world All the Thornes wherewith it is encompassed will seem as Roses If we swim in the Tears of Wotmwood it will be no other then sweet water All the wounds we receive will be but like Rubies and Pearls Our Maladies will prove but sports our Calumnies will be our blessings yea Death it self no other then a happy life When the Soul sleeps Jesus is in her sleep vvhen she speaks Jesus is under her Tongue when she Writes Jesus is under her Pen and when she is merry she chaunts forth the praises of her Jesus in her solitude she seems all environed with Raptures And vvhen any reproves her for being alone she cries out nothing less before she vvas interrupted with their company In the morning she grieves to think how often she shall offend God before Night Being about to rest she bitterly vvith scalding Tears laments that she shall have no more power over her Dreams but offend her Saviour while she slept Thus is her mind alwayes running after her dear Spouse Se is in a prison of Love vvhere her Thoughts her Hopes her Joyes were Chains And still doth she elevate her self upon the wings of Faith in the highest postures she can towards Heaven taking the choisest affections vvith her vvhereby to ascend that Mountain of pure and inexpressible light She vvell knew that true Pleasure vvas to be found no vvhere but in God vvhose Joyes are like those Gardens which never vvither but are perpetually watered vvith immortal Graces And oh How if it vvere possible vvould she express her love to him by daily offering her self a hundred times for him in as many Sacrifices as she hath Thoughts and Body Members Never Ship laden vvith Gold arrived more gladly at the Haven after many tedious Tempests and a thousand disasters among Pirates at Sea as the poor soul novv seems to take content in the love of God And having spun out all the Web vvhich he gave her cryes out I have ended all the hopes of the vvorld why stayest thou O my God! to receive my Soul which I bear in my lips O Jesus at whose name the Heaven the Earth and Hell do bend the knee I now care not what I suffer for thee so I sin not against thee so I may for ever injoy thee Thus the love of God is like Lightning in a Cloud still striving to break forth and suffers the Soul to take little rest in any thing but what it undertakes for the glory of her Maker Joh. 11. who many times defers the cure that his power may be the more manifest the heats of
CELESTIAL AMITIES OR A SOUL Sighing for the Love of her SAVIOUR BY Edward Reynell Esq CANT 7.10 I am my Beloveds and his desire is towards me CANT 8.6 Set me as a Seal upon thy heart as a Seal upon thy Arm for Love is strong as Death LONDON Printed by J. M. for Abel Roper and are to be Sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Sun over against S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1660. To the LADIES of our Times IT was the passage of an able Pen That to describe a Holy State without a virtuous Lady Full. Ho. State pag. 300. were to paint out a year without a Spring And how might I seem guilty of the like neglect should I treâ—t of Love and not reflect on you Ladies who account your selves and indeed should be the chiefe Ornaments thereof Some there are I confess who have an Itch to set down your Crimes rather then your Virtues They say you are the Syrens of the Earth which cause shipwrack without water and if you but step awry they look on you presently as a Star in Eclipse they cry out Omne malum fere ex Gynesio Women are usually the originall of all mischief But the fairest Beauty is not without some Cloud And I shall no way desire to strike at your Vices by slandering your Sex it savouring rather of Passion then Charity to blame the General for the defects of Particulars Though too many there are indeed who follow the steps of the first VVoman and abandon themselves to Luxury vanity and dissolute Pleasures But what though Dinah will be gadding abroad and say it is to visit the Daughters though it be to entangle and to be taken by the men of the Land Do we not find three Maries at the foot of the Cross humble and mortified What though Pride the eldest Daughter of this fair Mother Beauty seldome begets the best House-wives yet how many Women are there truly Divine who shine in their Houses like rising Stars or the Sun in his Orb. And he that would equal their worth shall rather find insufficiency in his purpose then want of merit in the Object Solomon also gives us a large description of a virtuous Woman Eccles 6. perpetually exercised on good works travelling incessantly like Bees from their Birth and losing no time but to give it unto God Devotion being the first Portion which he hath granted them whereas were they never so well composed had they all the Beauties which a heart could desire or the imagination feign it would be but like some cruel Creature whom nature had lodged in a painted house or like a Case covered with precious Stones to preserve a Dunghil And for your incouragement in the wayes of Holiness how many eminent Patterns could I lay before you whom Histories have hardly scope enough to commend and who appear to the world like a blushing Morning which riseth the more fair after a shower Oh what a wealthy Exchequer of true Beauties what a spacious Store-house of heavenly minded Lovers do we find in the sacred Scriptures what a rich Mine of costly Jewels may we there behold Shall I shew you the Humility of the Maries the Faith of Sara the upright and blameless walking in the commandments of God of Elizabeth Shall I present you with a Dorcas fruitful in good works a Priscilla heavenly in discourse a Lidea whose heart was opened a Bersheba Lois Eunice careful to teach their Children in the fear of the Lord. What shall I tell you of the great Woman of Shunem 2 King 4.9.10 vers 23. Act. 16.13 Phil. 4.3 who made preparation for the Prophet and attended his Ministry of such as hearkned to Pauls Sermon and were helpers to him also of a Hanna an Abigail a Judah a Hester and many others which are there registred for our imitation and lie hid like Treasures of great value in the veins of the Earth And as if Innocency were never better lodged then at the sign of Labour Idleness being the source of embroiling the Spirits do we not find the wisest of men further describing a virtuous woman by the Oeconomy she holds forth in the Government of her Family And if we look upon other Histories we shall find Augustus Caesar the Founder of Empires not reputing the working with the Needle such kind of employments unworthy of his Daughters And the Romans much more preferring as a Relick the Distaff of Queen Tanaquilla then the Lance or Sword of Romulus You Ladies then that consume your precious Time in Painting Powdering Perfuming and adorning your selves with such other Actings as if Death and Love had conspired to make their feast in one and the same place you who complain if the least beam pierce through a little hole of your Fan or if a Fly chance to light upon it You who if a Hair be but amiss presently call a Council for the reforming thereof Oh consider that such vanities conclude not your happiness But the perfections of your Sex end in wisdom and the fear of God which is the first and last Ornament Remember also how suddenly the Scene in the Masque will be altered what then will become of your Shops of vanity those superfluous Ornaments and that long Inventory of Ladies Gallantry which made the Gates of the City to lament and mourn Isai 3.11 Isai 3.18.21 and which since that day have been increased amongst you by modern Fashion-mongers Time and Age will one day wither the Blossoms of your youth as the Sun davers the freshest Roses and Lillies Spend some time then more then for the Body Pride and Earth Let not your thoughts strike sail to Affection nor your hearts do homage to that which will ensnare and imprison you in the Fetters of sinne Do you know how speedily the Storms of an evil Conscience may trouble the serenity of your delights and the seeming tranquillity of your Affections the best of our Joyes here being but fires of straw or flattering Sun-shines which are either suddenly washed away with a shower or Eclipsed by a Tempest Labour then to supply your natural defects with the virtues of your mind Read constant Lectures of your own mortality Those Flowers are best and sweetest which grow in the Garden and not in the Wilderness Adam was never more beautiful then when he was in his Innocency and free from gaudiness and we find Solomons Spouse all glorious within and needs no outward Ornaments to make her amiable Oh think not then on Religion as upon some fearful Apparition whose visage is so fair and lovely You say nothing delights you more then to love and to be beloved and is not a true Christian the best Lover and beloved of the best You say nothing is more ravishing then Beauty and can you he better delighted then in the highest Beauty of your Saviour Briefly that you may the better behold that precious Oyntment which drops down from the head of Jesus into the Souls
glances If my Hairs have been Nets to captivate any soul under the yoke of wanton Love O let them be trampled under feet as the Ensigns and Standards of wicked Cupid Let those Embraces which carried nothing but the poyson of a luxurious passion now clasp him under whose shelter I shall eternally rest secure Briefly let me breathe nothing but the delicacies of Chastity and let those pleasing Odours which were once vowed to sensuality at last become the sweetest exhalation of odoriferous persume at the Altar of my Saviour that so I may practise a sanctified revenge on my self and my Repentance never end but with my life That our love to God ought to precede and exceed all other Loves SO many and great are the delights and enticements of the Flesh the Divel and the World to withdraw man's love from God as that he hath not only imprinted in his heart that he was solely to love his Creator but such was his infinite goodness to the end man might never forget it as to leave him his spiritual Law written in Tables of Stone Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy might Deut. 6. Neither do we finde any Law or Precept so strongly and largely enjoyn'd as this binding the heart tongue hand eyes and the faculties of our soul to love God How then can we answer our own Soul without blushing here or without confusion or condemnation at the last day Or can we render any thing less then love Can any price be set too high for so infinite a ransome whereby both soul and body forfeited by our sins to Satan and eternal Hell fire are freed through the shameful tortures the disgraceful usage and cruel murthering of a merciful Saviour Had God as justly he might in return of his infinite love commanded thee to offer unto him all thy Wealth to sacrifice all thy Children as some Heathen have done and as once he tempted Abraham Had he required thee with stripes and fastings to mortifie and kill thy body Had he commanded bounty to the poor the poor man might have said I cannot give it If labour or fasting the sick and infirm or if knowledge the simple might have said I have them not in my power But if in lieu of all this he require only that which is the least thy love and which without expence pain or labour thou mayest easily afford O my soul How canst thou make a better purchase then by love to make God Heaven and Earth to be wholly thine All that God Courts and Wooes man for is his Heart Prov. 23.26 and wilt thou not grant him this desire O my soul He might have required all thy substance all thy actions to be spent in his immediate service and worship He grants thee thy wealth and the fruits of thy honest labour and bids thee give only what thou canst best spare of all thy Increase he takes only a Tenth and from all thy worldly labours only a sevonth part Love and the affection of thy heart being all that he entirely calls for Thy blessed Saviour so highly valued this Treasure of love as that even then when he was to depart and leave the world he left it as his last Will and Testament to his Disciples and that as he had loved them so they should love one another John 13.34 Ah! saith he being at the last point as it were before his Possion to his Disciples and in them to us my time is but short and I finde death approaching before which I have one only remembrance to give you That you love one another It was not long before that he desired them that If they did love him they would keep his Commandments Love being as it were the Embassadour of God and hath not only proclaimed the Fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 but as our Saviour himself pronounced thereon depends the Law and the Prophets O then my God! my Jesus make me to keep the Law of thy Love and nothing else Thy love is a yoke which brings with it more honour then burden It is a yoke that hath no weariness in it O my sweet Saviour My soul is weary and greatly distasted with all the fading delights of this transitory world and doth incessantly languish after thee Shew me then my stains and give me water to wash them out Let the night cease to cast a dark Vail over my mortal body but let the Sun be advanced high and the break of day begin to guild the mountains where my Soul hovereth and is ashamed to see its self so dark before light and smutted over before thy immortal whiteness Alas I am altogether but one stain and thou art all purity do not however write me on the ground as a childe of the earth but write me in heaven since I am the portion which thou hast purchased with thy precious blood Thy love is the Center of all our true love on which our heart as on the point of a Compass being set the other part moves about the Circumference of the World Is it not the Almighty whose mercies are without number Where hath it been well with us without him Or How can it be ill with us where he is present I had rather saith one be a Pilgrim here on earth with him then be in heaven without him And blessed then sure are they who delight to attend his service and cast from him all the fetters and impediments of worldly love For what will all things avail if we be forsaken of our Creatour Can we live without the Fountain of Life All places are solitary where he is not and where he is there only is fulness of pleasure O Jesus the author of all Glories henceforth be unto me my only Crown For oh how vain is the rest and solace of man who though nothing brings joy and comfort without God and that he finds so little entertainment in all worldly treasures as that the vanity in possession will soon reprove the violence of his appetite is notwithstanding still sullying himself in the puddles thereof How often do we cry out with the perverse Jews not Christ but Barrabas not God but Mammon How often with the Idolatrous Israelites do we say of our Covetousness Honours Greatness and the rest of our Lusts Ye are our Gods whereas alas God cannot endure that one Temple should receive both his Ark and the Idol Dagon He will not have the Divel the Flesh and the World should come in and lodge in his Bed-chamber thy heart it being but just with God to require it But oh how unreasonable art thou in dividing it between him and his enemies between God and Baal between Light and Darkness 1 Cor. 6.14 Fond Worldlings Can you be so great enemies to your souls as being once unloosed from slavery to sigh wither and languish for your fetters for shame then forsake the love of these poor Cottages these
fading pleasures these little Ant-hills which enflame thy heart Thy Country is no longer Earth behold the great Globe of Heaven all replenished with glorious Lights why do we so extreamly torment our poor life running after this worlds shadows which we cannot follow without trouble nor possess without fear nor lose without sorrow He that cloaths the flowers of the Meadows more gorgeously then Monarchs who lodgeth so many little Fishes in golden and azure shells He who but openeth his hand and replenisheth all Nature with his blessings will never forsake us at our need if we love him and keep his Commandments A man that must die needs very few worldly things but whole Kingdoms will not satisfie covetousness O my God Shall I always then fly after that which flies from me and never follow Jesus who follows me and even loves me when I am ungrateful Ah no more let me run after the vanishing Beauties of a deceitful world Our love to Jesus should be like the Needle in the Seamans Chard which though it be ever moving and casting about as it were to several parts yet it still returns and retains its whole setled course to the true Pole-star It should be like the Oak the Hart and the Elephant which as Naturalists observe are long liv'd and not like Pincks Roses and Tulips flowers of sight and smell but delightful only for a few hours If you will examine King David the man after Gods own heart he will tell you he hath conquered the Bear and the Lyon and that great Gyant Goliah yet was not satisfied He had stept from a Sheep fold to a Crown yet was not contented He had subdued all his Enemies and Rebels yet had he no rest until he enjoyed Heaven I have a goodly Heritage saith he but the Lord is the fulness of my Inheritance in whose presence there is fulness of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. And therefore it is that he again saith Psal 73.24 There is none O Lord upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee We finde all sublunary bodies compounded of the four Elements and all the goods of the Body reduced to four heads First Life under which we understand health strength and beauty of Body Secondly Honour under which may be comprised Titles Offices Priviledges and Retinue Thirdly Wealth Lands Money and Revenues have place Fourthly Pleasures which are as various as there are objects of our senses pleasing to our taste sight touch hearing and smell Now though all these ordinately desired and lawfully used may be both useful and lawful yet are they not able to satisfie the soul longer then a wind or lightning And therefore man should not and indeed truly he cannot set his love upon them And alas O poor soul What canst thou finde in all other loves which prove no other then that of Sampson who paid so dearly for relying on his trecherous Dalilah or as the Prodigals Lovers in the Gospel who like Mice Whores and Swallows make love and frequent the house in the Summer of prosperity or like Lice who continue no longer then there is sweat to nourish them but in the end like Actaeon's hounds prove your destroyers The like we finde of Job's friends and of those the Prophet mentions Isa 1.23 Who loved gifts and followed after Rewards Not much unlike to those were the seeming friends of King David of whom he so often complains and prays against as being of his Council and eating his bread Psal 54. yet while they had butter and oyl on their lips their hearts and tongues were spears swords and very poyson And as these to David were more dangerous then his publique enemies for of those saith he I could have taken heed so are all the false Loves of Delight Feature Beauty or other parts or gifts Yea their Loves are like the Apples of Sodom or like that creature called Acucena which at twice handling yeilds out an ill savour or as the flowers of the Garden which long hold neither colour nor scent Ye then which cry Come and let us crown our selves with Roses Let us eat drink and take our fill of love Ah! How suddenly are you and your loves vanished And your place no where to be found How do ye starve like Tantalus in the midst of all your glory and abundance How doth that which seemeth so much to encrease your felicity occasion your punishment Yea How doth the pain you meet with mix gall and bitterness with all the sweet appearances of the world What wanted Solomon of all the desireable things under heaven He had seven hundred Wives and three hundred Concubines He built himself stately Palaces adorn'd them with variety of Orchards and Gardens He had Attendants answerable to his Wealth and Glory yet when he weighed all together instead of proclaiâ—ing himself happy he cryed out All is but vanity and vexation of spirit Prov. 1.1 How great then alas is our folly to seek and expect our happiness here in the best enjoyments and most pleasing delights the world holds forth unto us Sit no longer then O my Soul by the fire of earthly comforts where the cold of carn I fears and sorrows do still afflict thee Wilt thou house thy self still on worldly thoughts and confine thy self to worldly dulness Away with those Soul-tormenting cares and fears Away with those Heart-vexing worldly sorrows Stand by a little O forbear to trouble my aspiring soul whilst I look up and see my eternal happiness whilst I lay aside my mourning robes and partake the joys of an everlasting Spring Happy change to leave these clods of earth and perpetually enjoy the glory of the Sun Blessed Conquest to tryumph on earth and enjoy heaven to conquer death and enjoy life to withdraw thy love from a wretched world and wholly fix it on thy Saviour the Fountain of all true love and goodness O that I were able O that I could feelingly say I love thee But ah Lord What is a Feast without an appetite Thou must give me a stomack as well as meat Thou mayst set the Dainties of Heaven before me but alas I am blinde and cannot see them I am sick and cannot relish them I am benummed and cannot receive them O then thou Spirit of Life breathe thy Graces upon me Take me by the hand and lead me up from earth to thy self that I may see by faith what thou hast laid up for them that love and wait for thee That the Soul can take pleasure in nothing until it meet with satisfaction from its Maker GOd having concluded our salvation in Love shews us that the best and speediest way to be happy is to love him who is the Author of our felicity and the immoveable Sun about which so many changes and agitations of all Creatures circumvolve which continually groan and aim at this first Beauty as the true Center of everlasting repose Oh this is the most assured way
to arive to tranquility It is a Treasure which will be infinitely profitable if we can tell how to attain it It taketh hearts which as yet are but of earth and clay and enkindleth them with a divine flame It beats them under the hammer of Tribulations and sufferings to make them fit for their Saviours reception Yea it makes fit vessels of them worthy to be placed above the chiefest of terrene enjoyments We finde Love indeed divided into many branches to wit Natural love which consisteth in things inanimate having their sympathies and antipathies as the Amber draws the Straw the Adamant Iron and as Trees and Plants bend or decline one from another Next Animal Love is that beginning which giveth motion to the sensitive appetite of Beasts to see that which is fit for them and to take pleasure therein Reasonable Love is that which seeketh and accepteth the good represented by the Understanding But alas What are all these to that Divine and Angelical Love by whose sides are lodged Beauty and Goodness which make up all loves the soul of man being able no where to fix it self until it re-ascend to God It is the nature of Quicksilver to tremble up and down and never leaveth until it have found Gold wherewith to mingle it self so boundeth and leapeth the heart of man here and there in all its troubles and disturbances there being nothing but Ebbs and Floods in it until such time as it is united to its Creator as being the Temple of all repose There only it is that the Banished finde a Country the Poor a Patrimony the Ignorant Knowledge the Feeble Support the Sick Health and the Afflicted Comfort It is that only which immortalizeth us after death and gives us light in our darkest affairs It is that alone which is the sanctity of all humane hearts the comfort of our souls the repose of life and the knot of all felicities And what is the cause that the blessed are never weary of loving but that they perpetually finde in God new Beauties and Perfections The body of man is finite and quickly thrusts out all its qualities which with time doth rather fade then flourish but our soul in some sort tendeth to infinity Oh what sweetness Oh what an earnest of the life of the blessed is that Love which is inviolably grounded upon Vertue and Holiness upon heaven and the Beauty thereof Whereas on the contrary when we wax cold in the love of God and in the exercise of Devotion taking too much liberty in our conversation with such things as we affect how insensibly do we finde our selves surprized by the eyes and ears the heart the gesture the smiles the speech yea the whole carriage of any who lays a Plot with our passion to betray our Reason How do we dote wax pale cry to the woods and mountains one hour we write another we blot then tear out all our repast is unpleasant and irksom and repose which charmeth all the cares of the world seems not made for us So doth the poyson of Love spread it self over all our Veins Absence unquietness and disturbance of minde ever keeps waking the imagination Still our fair one still our cruel one tormenteth us and God makes a whip for us of that thing we most affect How wretched then are those poor souls who seek for pleasure in their affections As that of Eloquence of Poesie of Musick ingenious sports and witty jests since these though for a time sweet to the sense are subject to the diversity of Ages Humours Seasons and Employments If we consult with History how many millions of Lovers shall we finde who complain of the infidelity of their Mistresses and those they seem to adore But the Love placed upon heavenly objects never fails to make an answerable return It is from thence that the blood is enflamed the body weakned the colour changed That the eyes grow hollow the senses stupified and the whole body overthrown And though there be diversities of Love in some sharp and violent in others dull and cloudy in others light and wanton in others turbulent and perplexed and in others weak soppish fantastique and inconstant yet as if somthing of Idolatry adhered to it how do all seem to Deifie the creature of whom they are so passionately enamoured and would willingly place it amongst the Sun Stars and Altars yea they would die a hundred times for it chains and wounds being accounted honourable so it throw but so much as a handful of Flowers or distil but one poor Tear on their Tomb. And as for affections purely Conjugal you shall finde them now adays very rare and for Celestial loves they are much more scarce But for the love of Fantasie the love of sensuality of servitude of fury on what side soever you turn your face you shall not fail to meet them though nothing be beautiful or to be affected in the best of them Surely a small Circle since Volumns are not sufficient will not shew you the Essence the Causes the Symptoms sorts and effects of Love neither the inconstancy and fickleness thereof Some feign it to be the Sun of the Wind to signifie it may be the wavering and diversified colours thereof appearing in the beginning all in Rubies Diamonds and Emeralds over our heads but afterwards to cause storms and tempests discovering it self first with such bright semblances to our senses whilest it occasions much corruption in our mindes Insomuch that if we do but observe one which is transfixed with violent Love we shall finde he hath all that in his love which Divines have placed in Hell namely Darkness Flames the worm of Conscience an evil savour and banishment from the presence of God He sometimes entereth into quakings sometimes into faintings one time into fits of fire and another time into ice If I go about to fetter Love saith one it gets out of my hands if I will judge it it grows into favour with me when I intend to punish it it flatters me if I will fly from it it seems tied to me when I destroy it with one hand I repair it with the other if it be too much cherished it assaults me more violently if watching withers it sleep pampereth it by treating it ill I endanger my life by pampering it too much I incur death Briefly Love enters into the most secret places which seem inaccessible but to Spirits and Lightnings It bewitcheth the minde dislocateth the brain and eclipseth the reason All that the Lover beholdeth all that he meditateth on all he dreameth all he speaketh of is the Creature he loveth He hath her in his head his heart he carves her into the most pleasing forms he fears he hopes he despairs he sighs he groans and blusheth yea he never takes rest If Beauty then of it self be so much to be dreaded when it hath no other companions how dangerous think you is it when Pomp of Apparel attractives dalliances cunning wiles
freedom of conversation height of diet courting musick idleness night-watchings solitude and other incitements are joyned to it Surely we need require no other charms to work the ruine of a Soul And since fond Love thus sets our reason to sale if it carefully take not heed and insensibly draweth it to its side and thereby fighteth against our selves making use of our members as of the instruments of its battels and the organ of its wiles since without the singular grace of God it causeth Sedition within War without and never any true repose Since we have all one Domestick Enemy which is our own Body that perpetually almost opposeth the dispositions of the spirit how great should be our resistance how notable our victories Conscience and Honour indeed many times make some resistance and glimmering flashes yet how quickly doth the understanding create to it self many new and evil Lights and the will too much false fire did not the fire of God awaken us and make us even ashamed to tell our own thoughts to our proper heart Oh this Feaver this perpetual Frenzy this wandring of the Soul this neglect of the true God and setting up of Idols How can it be sufficiently deplored How is reason hereby weakned shamefac'dness banished passion entertained good counsel abandoned yea at last how do they impute to the Stars to Destiny to Necessity what is nothing else but their own folly It is thought by some that in great Storms evil Spirits shuffle to stir up Lightning-flashes whereby the Tempests become more dreadful and pernicious And may we not well suppose that the Angel of Darkness involveth himself in the great Tempests of Love and many times maketh use of the abominable help of Magicians Is it not the Rock which wracketh the greatest Vessels yea the Gulph which devoureth our Bodies and Souls Let no man then flatter you in the passion of sensual Love as if it were a prime vertue of your profession which is the stain that defileth all the ornaments of your life Neither among all the qualities of a vertuous life is there any sweeter odour then that Temperance which represseth the voluptuous pleasure of the body That many may have their eyes Love-proof and their hearts shut up against all the assaults of Fond-Love IT is not impossible but that the Soul wholly propending to the thing beloved vertuous and civil Amities may be between persons of different Sex who are endowed with singular and excellent Vertues and who manage their Affections with great discretion the which though rarely done yet if there be any which abuse themselves by ill placing their Love through want of discretion it doth not follow neither is it fit by reason of blasted members we should blame sound parts there being not a few who with much prudence and chariness have therein comported themselves yea very many great Souls who are so powerfully possessed by the love of God which replenisheth their hearts and who live a conversation in continual exercises of Prayer and mortification as by a conversation sweetly grave and simply prudent to converse with women without changing the Love which they bear to the vertue of Chastity And therefore Democritus needed not have voluntarily made himself blinde by looking stedfastly on the Beams of the Sun to free himself from the importunities of the love of women who perchance shut up two gates against Love and opened a thousand to his Imagination Neither needed Origen to have deprived himself of the distinction of Sex to rebate the stings of sensuality which bred him much mischief It being a better way of repulse given by her who being importuned by a young man with all the violent assaults this Passion could suggest told him she had resolved to fast forty days with bread and water desiring him therein also to give a Tryal of his Love which being accepted in few days thought more of his death then precedent folly Neither let us think Chastity to be onely found in Cloisters but every where where the fear of God is And though as Justin Martyr faith a singular discretion ought to be had to treat with women and he doth very much who can love their Vertues without danger yet we see there is sometimes need but of a Spiders web to beat back the Darts of Love that at other times the Ramparts of Semiramis are not strong enough against and that a well fortified heart is like the Bed of a Phoenix which takes no fire but from the beams of the Sun yea that Chastity is often times impenetrable by the darts of Love amidst all the delights and temptations of the World A large president whereof we have in pious Joseph who having opportunities enow to advance himself in the Court of Pharaoh by satisfying the desires of his Mistris who had tempted him to sin accounted it the greatest tryal of his Vertues to have sin in his power and innocence in his will neither would raise fortunes of Glass upon the foundations of Iniquity But preferring Reason before Passion Grace before Nature and God before any thing else represented the faithfulness he had promised to his Master to himself and leaving his garment behinde him came out of the Chamber where the snare was laid as a Ruby out of burning flames without losing any thing of his integrity And surely as they who will with profit make use of the proper instruments of Vertue must so live as if they were always under the Physicians hands so ought we so to live as if we were still to give an account for every word of our mouth every thought of our heart every glance of our eye every minute of our time every duty we have omitted and every sin we have committed Jesus our great Master hath by the account of some abridged six hundred and thirteen Precepts of the Old Testament within the Law of Love Do but Love saith St. Austin and do what you will onely let your love go to the right Fountain which is God Be not afraid to shew him thy heart stark naked that he may pierce it with his Arrows His wounds are more precious then Rubies thou shalt gain all by loving him and death it self which comes from his love is the gate of life Our Love being once thus fixed we need not fear the extravagancy thereof With this excellent and holy temper of spirit it was that Hester changed King Ahasuerus into a Lamb that Abigal was much stronger then the Arms of David and that the eye of Judith triumphing over Holofernes and with a little Ray of its flames burning up a whole Army did more then her hand which destroyed 100000 men by cutting off one only head O what magnificent employments had Love in these Acts And to say truth even consecrating its Arrows never was it so innocent in its Combates never was it so glorious in its Triumphs We finde in the Ecclesiastical History that Athanasius being with rage and fury persecuted by
a gross indiscretion I shall shew you the Medeas we often Court under the Story of One who had almost lost his Wits as well as Reputation through the violent pursuit of a Lady he much adored who finding no other slight or stratagem to vanquish the importunate extravagancies of this passionate Lover shewed him her Neck and uncovered her Bosome all gnawn and eaten with a maligne Cancer Behold fond Lover said she what thou so eagerly Courtest and so instantly made the Cancer of her body to cure the Cancer of his minde vitae Patrum Occid l. 6. Is it not a shame to entertain such worldly Amities and petty Loves only to please flesh and blood and which are no sooner disliked by the Eye but distasted by the heart We read of some who have fought with it on Thorns Hair-clothes and other austerities and we finde mention of One who being bound to a Bed of Roses with silken Cords to resigne himself to the love of a Courtezan spit out his Tongue in her Face Some have also asswaged their Passion by flames Others have quenched the heat of their desires in snows Others by living in rocks and solitary wildernesses as if nothing were so invincible and hardly attain'd as this Vertue of Chastity Nothing so difficult as to see all the follies of entranced Lovers But the chiefest way amongst many humane Industries which tend to the curing of Love it being to no end to hold long Discourses and to appoint many Meditations to a sharp Fever which is full of ravings and furious symptomes is to owe all our health this way to the fear of God to Prayer Fasting and Devotion which is far better then all other inventions Make use also often of the memory of death Set an assiduous watch over thy eyes ears heart and senses Avoid anger since anger and love work upon one subject Absent your self from that Presence which is the nourishment of your Flames Those Comets which are said to be fed by the vapours of the Earth are no longer maintained then nourishment is afforded and that Love which burns and shines like a false Star in our heart will soon go out if you refuse sustenance from the face you admire and the company which entertains you in an enchanted Palace full of chains and charms Withdraw your self then betime from this captivity gain the Haven before the storm surprize you for if you be once engaged there is neither Arm nor Oar can bring you safe Let us enter seriously into our selves and daylie consider what passeth there cutting off this Passion which raiseth such a Storm within us Let us ever keep a vigilant Guard lest Satan betray us and our lusts like expert Enemies who politiquely strengthen themselves with all advantages make head against us And lastly Let us throw out this Jesabel who with her Natural cruelty hath slain so many Innocents ruined so many Cities disturbed States and let us come out of that servitude in which like a Mill-wheel we labour much and get little and which hath always folly for guide Poverty for Dowry and Misery for recompence That Outward Ornaments should not invite our Love HE that loves the World and the Glories thereof entertains a thousand businesses and every business hath a world of employments and those so multiplied by variety of circumstances as that it is troublesome to understand them and much more to encounter with them whereas sweet are the sleeps of those who prefer heaven before earth and Chastity and Temperance before the wantonness and impurities of a debauched conversation Why alas then should we ruine our certainties in the fruitless expectation of vanity and shaddows What slender footing will these accessory commodities have when death deformity poverty contempt and sickness are at our heels Let us timely consider then how many boxes full of Pills the fairest Beauties have at home in their Chests to take when the Rheum and other infirmities assail them Since God gives us leave to dispose of our dislodging from these fading Tabernacles shall we not prepare our selves unto it O let us seasonably bid farewel to our company and let us shake off those violent Hold-fasts which estrange us from our future happiness As those eyes seldom burn with Lust which are bedewed with Tears so those who prefer the light of God's presence before all corporal Beauty do easily perceive how little it is to be regarded They will not exchange the glorious Sun for the light of a candle Here they can have no Lightning without the Thunder that makes it seems more dreadful then delightful and therefore will prefer a silent night before a tempestuous day and the everlasting views of the face of God before the false Lights of the world The light of the Sun indeed lighteth all the world but how useless will it be when Jesus who is the true light of the world shall appear in the glory of heaven The Rose looks fair indeed but is not the Beauty faded and the sweetness expired oftentimes before the scars in gathering of it be healed The honey seems pleasant to the taste but alas Who would have it with so many smarting stings Thou then that art taken with a pleasing smile thou whom a sigh a glance or tears beguil oh turn thine eyes aside Forbear to Sayl in so dangerous a Tyde lest Syrens assail or shipwrack attend thee few attaining their desired harbour with such a wind of vanity all thy labour and rowing in so leaking and weather-beaten a Vessel will prove at last but as a handful of waters to a man that is drowning which will help rather to destroy then save him Alas What is the Beauty that thou so admirest When the night comes it is nothing to thee and while thou hast gazed on it Hath it not withered away Canst thou not even shut thy eyes and fancy all into darkness or deformity Or will not a few leprous spots or malignant ulcers soon divert thy affections and make the Idol of thy Love to become the sad spectacle of thy distaste Suppose that thou saw'st that beautiful Carcass lying on a Bier carrying to be buried or rotting in a grave the skul digged up and the bones scattered where will be thy lovely object Canst thou then love a skin full of dirt Or didst thou but behold thy beautiful Dalilah thy lovely Mistris on a dying Bed panting schrieching groaning turning from one side to another and panting for breath her eyes gastfully rolling her lips fading her hands trembling her mouth distorted through violent Convulsions those White and Reds so much admired turn'd into a black swarthiness and her whole body declining into clay Ah tell me now what thou thinkest Canst thou now sweetly embrace it or take any pleasure in it O my Soul then Withdraw thy thoughts from the fading Beauties of the world Let not the shaddow but the Sun direct thee Labour to fix thy eyes upon the only true and lovely object
of thy eternal happiness That when all Loves fail the Love of God remains THe Soul of man is unsatisfied nothing but the Creator thereof will content it It walks but sadly amongst the Riches Honours and Dignities of the world all the joys glories and beatitudes of the earth afford it no comfort It wholly represents God as the beginning and end of all things and is ravished with its glory as poor creatures use to be with the heat of the Sun It is he alone which the soul seeks esteems and honours All that she sees hears or understands besides is nothing to her if it carry not his Name and take colour from his Beauty she well knows she shall get all by loving him and death it self which comes from his Love is the gate of Life Here we every night finde a little death in our sleep sickness and pains are still subject to overtake us neither indeed do we know what belongs to a Crown Scepter or Kingdom while we are in this base life But surely had we talked only one quarter of an hour with a blessed Soul departed and discoursed of the State of the other life Oh! How would our heart dissolve into desires How would we hasten to go out of that ruinous house where of we are but Tenants How would we be ravished to hear these words Go faithful soul out of this Body go out with joy in full peace and safety the eternal mountains those glorious Heavens and all the goodly company of Angels and blessed Spirits which there inhabite will there receive thee Go on confidently behold God is ready to wipe away all thy Tears No more sorrows no more clamours behold an Estate altogether new Oh What Repose What Peace What cessation of Troubles shall we there meet with Our Saviour met the Young-man that was carried to Burial at the Gate of Naim Luke 7.11 which is interpreted The Town of Beauties to shew us that neither Beauty nor Youth are freed from the Laws of Death And it was not impertinately storyed of a young man who going eagerly after the pursuit of his Lusts met a dead Corps in his way which occasion'd his return and the future amendment of that and other his exorbitant and lascivious courses And truly as the consideration of our ashes will humble us under the greatest Pride so will it abate and consume our burning Lust he being very strong by Nature or wicked by his own choice who will not amend himself having ashes for his Glass and death for his Mistris Oh! What then is it silly dust and ashes that thus strangely enflames thy swelling veins when the least breath or shew of death is like Belshazzar's hand-writing on the Wall ever ready to affright thee Wilt thou then pursue those seeming joys and fancies which will at last vanish into a dejected Melancholy Wilt thou unadvisedly let loose the Reins of thy affections towards the enjoyment of such perishing Pleasures If so oh How dearly wilt thou buy thy folly What are we alas and what is all we call ours To day we flourish and are well spoken of we please and are in favour with men But out alas our flower will fade to morrow and we shall be evil spoken of and out of favour with God and man And whither tends all this O my soul but to tell thee that thou art made to wait on thy Lord and Spouse and wholly to thirst after Divine things neither must thou ever think to attain perfect rest and happiness in the troublesome Bed of this world Three cubits of earth will suffice us and how little or much soever we possess how beautiful or deformed soever we are this is all shall be left us Yet how often O God! doth it come to pass that for a little deceitful Beauty a little fugitive honour a little filthy pleasure and that not long we so slightly regard the joys of heaven neither dread the everlasting pains of hell He that but truly be-thinks himself of Haman's pride of Belshazzar's sacriledge Ahab's covetousness Absolon's hair Sampson's locks and Dives riches shall quickly finde that these things wherein we most presum'd and which we esteem'd our best support may suddenly become the occasion of our ruine and destruction You then that say Come and let us enjoy the pleasures that are let us take our fill of precious wine and sweet perfumes and no way lose the flower of our time let us crown our selves with Roses before they fade away and let no meadow be untraversed by us O that ye would but a little apprehend that what this way seems most to afford you content exposeth you a hundred times a day to the hazard of your lives For how little alas is the continuance at best of all the favours of Fortune When one Sun-shine of pleasure is past in comes a Tempest and when one storm is dispersed how are we again cast into new despairs and at last with what dreadful complaints able to rend Rocks and Marbles asunder will we lament our sins then presented unto us like so many Furies which heretofore we esteemed so light If then at any time thou art taken with the Syren and pleasing smiles of the world if thou seem here to content thy self in the beholding of earthly Palaces rich furniture exquisite pictures and sweet Perfumes if thou seem here to please thy melancholy Fancy in high Mountains goodly Forrests rich Marbles fair Meadows pleasant Rivers and beautiful Flowers O do but be-think thy self What are these What is this to Heaven What is this to Eternity All being but a little Atome to the unspeakable joys of the Celestial Paradice Earthly delights may I confess astonish but can never satiate our senses Temporal Beauty is but a transitory charm an illusion of our senses a Flower which hath but a moment of life and a Dyal which we never look on but when the Sun shines What is humane glory but a Dunghil covered with snow a Glass painted with false colours a sugar'd Fruit gilded with poyson or a dangerous Hostess in a fair House Shall we then trust so fading a good Shall we hazard our Souls in so unhappy a snare Or shall we tye out contentments to so slippery a knot Or dote upon temporal goods which like chirping Birds give us only a little Musick in the Summer and so fly away There are some who upon these words of the Psalmist By the waters of Babylon we sate down and wept have compared the temporal goods and delights of the world to these Waters not only for their swift running away and never returning but for their trouble in procuring and their sorrow in losing and well may we therefore hang up our Harps and sit down weeping while we live in this Babylon of Captivity And surely Wisdom tells us that such is the vanity of all earthly goods as that there is nothing so great in this Vale of Tears whose loss should any way disquiet us VVhat
thou canst think on here below When all things leave thee the love of God and a good Conscience will be thy familiar friends and which must ever attend thee That Balmof Gilead which must chear thee and that Palm of Peace which must at last crown thee And truly we have daylie need of God and not of man to help us One cries out here Wretch that I am who will help me out of misery Where shall I finde Tears enow to save me Another cries out What shall I do Must I needs leave my only Father my dear Husband my loving Brother my sweet and only Childe Oh let me die Some good body or other make an end of me The black clouds of sorrow somtimes so sadly overshadow us as that with Jacob we rend our clothes and will needs go down with sorrow to our Grave We often cry out What for ever In aeternum valedicere What to part for ever To forsake the world and all our friends what more troublesome What To take this young betrothed this poor Maid this intended Husband What To lay hold on one so well beloved in the flower of his age so fresh so flourishing so full of Honour and Prosperity O cruel and malicious Death What Hast thou Ears of Brass and Diamonds and wilt not hear our cries Alas What do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Why hadst thou not rather taken away this Begger that Cripple who hath not wherewith to live Ah Death Now shoot the utmost of thy Darts Thus do our humane respects too often seem to withstand the Divine Providence But oh thou that art thus unwilling to part with a Dunghil an earthly Cottage to enjoy a life of perpetual Beauty and felicity What alas may we think of thee That Heaven should open it self to thee and thou wilt neither embrace it nor open thy heart to love him that offers it Alas O Soul many times ungrateful and disloyal what wilt thou answer for so great a neglect when God shall call thee to an account Ah! If we love any thing in the world let us love it for life eternal The joys of heaven are without example Oh that we might then know our names to be written in the book of Life Oh how should we finde our Spirits ravished with those beautiful Ideas of glory Where can we more fitly commend our selves then unto so vast a bosom of Compassion as shall set a period to all the miseries of this sinful life To God I say who is an endless Ocean and boundless Sea of mercy How can we better fix our thoughts then on our crucified Saviour and in his countenance to read the lively characters of that infinite love he bears us the remembrance of death it self being sweet to those who lead their life so as to meet him comfortably as their Judge at the last day It will be no more to him to die then is one nights sweet repose on a bed of Roses Who can but behold the spirit of Jesus amongst those great Convulsions of the world moving round about the Cross in the midst of those bloody dolours insolent cries and insupportable blasphemies O behold and see him there as in a Sanctuary bleeding weeping and praying yea mingling his prayers with his tears and blood and at last to die unmoveably upon the Throne of his patience Oh madness of men That spend all their time encrease their account and lose so many fair opportunities when they might have gotten heaven for a tear a sigh or a groan from a penitent heart for the attaining of that which not only proves their eternal ruine hereafter but occasions their miserable vexation here O worldlings Thus to deceive your selves Who shall weep over you since you know not how to lament and bewail your selves Why alas are you so careful and tender of your bodies yet daylie entangle your poor souls in a thousand vanities a thousand Courtships and a thousand worldly loves which defile you and must one day be discharged at a dear rate Miserable wretches How will you then cry out what have we done Once had we time to have wrought out our salvation O precious time but these golden days are past And have we thus miserably undone our selves Come Rocks and fall upon us Come ye Furies and tear us until we moulder into nothing Sad creatures then as we are to procrastinate and put off our Repentance Since the Sun which goes so many miles in a minute and the Stars in the Firmament which go many more make not so much speed as our body hastens to the Grave The devouring sword the consuming fire the winds from the Wilderness the Diseases of the Body and all that afflicted holy Job are still at our heels what daylie reports do we hear Such a man is slain another is drowned a third breaks his neck this man died eating that man playing another sleeping this by accident that by his own hands Oh how great an Elephant and yet how small a Mouse can destroy us a pin a comb a hair pulled out hath gangren'd Nay our joy our mirth and laughter our shame and blushing may ruine us and in the very flower of our youth and blossome of our age we may be untimely nipt and sent down into the dust And alas If God but a little withdraw our breath vain is the power of art vain is the Physitians skill vain and fruitless are the sighs and tears of thy friends yea vain and helpless are the wishes of all our kinsfolk Here sits one weeping there another lamenting yet all to no purpose Neither is it Beauty or the Damask skin that can help us when we feel the slow pace of our panting pulse It is not mirth nor greatness which can then affect us when death in a moment shall dissolve all our honour into darkness The whole world cannot afford us content when our Soul is expiring from our body Neither can all her alluring baits smiling blandishments and beautiful temptations avail thee when thy spirits shall tremble with affrightful pangs when all thy senses shall decline and all the faculties of thy soul attempt which way soonest to leave thy body O then that we did but present unto our selves the sad and miserable condition at present and the happiness which is to come How effectual it would be to raise up our thoughts from the fading blossoms and perishing pleasures of this transitory world How would it comfort us in all conditions whatsoever How little would we care for the losses and crosses of this world did we think of a heavenly kingdom We are all in the time of our absence from God but strangers upon earth Let us then pass the time of our sojourning here in fear 1 Pet. 1.17 and then he needs not care for ill usage in his pilgrimage here who knows he is a King at home But alas We too often eat husks when we should
feed on Manna Great riches cannot make our clothes warm nor our meat more nourishing why then do we tumble in the myres of this world Seek rather O Christian Soul for that Kingdom whereof there is no end that Kingdom which is infinitely glorious Luke 1.33 and every way blessed the King that ruleth is eternal and they that live there never die Let our hearts and mouths be ever filled with the praises of it Let our thoughts and words ever bend towards it since we have no other way then this to attain any true and lasting glory Let us also wholly resign our selves to him that sent us here We have too long lived in the Gardens of Adonis which in the beginning make shew of Flowers but at last bring forth nothing but Thorns Let us then fix a nail in the wheel of this furious and yet inconstant Chariot lest at last we expose our selves to the hazard of a precipitous fall Can there be a greater victory then to conquer our own tumultuous thoughts in such a conjuncture of time when our own ruine lies at stake Can we better use our choicest skill then to shake off those enchanting embraces and turn away our earsfrom those betraying sighs lest like that insolent Conquerour who was vanquished by his own slave we become strangely cruel to our selves Alas That we did but consider how fearful will be the case of those who have neglected the day of their salvation If it be a troublesome thing to be tyed to a Bed of Roses though but for a little time with silken strings oh what may we think of those damned Souls which must dwell in a bed of Flames as long as there is a God! It will be in vain then to cry to the Hills to fall on us and to the Mountains to cover us It will be in vain to repent and wish we had not slighted the day of our Visitation nor sold it for a little pleasure It will be in vain then to cry Lord open to us oh spare us oh pity us do not cast us into Eternal Burnings O what ease What eternal darkness Blinded world Prostituted World Desperate World Ah hadst thou but known Hadst thou but known But alas Thy unhappiness hath put a Scarf before thine eyes O poor secure Worldlings What will you then do when he that will be your Judge shall come in the clouds of Glory and Majesty Where will you hide your selves What shall cover you Mountains are gone the Earth and Heavens do pass away and how do you wish your selves might melt away as they do But ah wishes are now in vain To what end dost thou cry Lord Lord It is too late alas too late why then dost thou look about thee Whither dost thou run Can any save thee Wretches as you are To what pass have you brought your selves How happy had you now been if you had believed and obeyed having only time left to bewail and lament your miserable condition Ah drowsie earthy Creatures Are you still hanging downward when heaven is before ye Are you sleeping when so great a Treasure is set before you Are ye taken up with your delights and pleasures Had ye rather sit down in dirt and dung then walk in the Palace of Heaven Is it better to be there then above with your Saviour Alas deceived Soul Come away then out of the Wilderness of this World make no excuses frame no delays look not back on thy worldly business thy unbridled lusts thy sinful company which here took up thy thoughts in this howling Desart this Valley of Tears Do but consider how soon thou art to depart hence then wilt thou finde what thou hast neglected in following trifles and so much minding thy provision in the way whilst thou art hastening so fast to another world and thy eternal happiness lies at stake How wilt thou then cry out upon thy rocky heart thy proud and unbelieving heart thy Atheistical and Idolatrous and worldly heart yea thy carnal and sensual heart for here toyling and selling an endless glory for worldly vanities and adventuring the loss of heaven for the pleasure of sin to have thy portion in this life where the best things are often the lot of the most miserable wretches and to lose thy part in heaven and eternal happiness to take up thy ease and dwelling here in a nest of straw of wind and vanity the greatest of Plagues and forest of curses which God can give thee over to and to lose thy part in Paradise and thy Mansion in the heavenly Jerusalem But oh the strange aversness of our souls from God! that we should account our misery a happiness Nay that we should rather groan under any intolerable burden and servitude then seek our happiness in him That we should think these Honours delightful that Beauty tempting those goods lands and houses our dependance that merry company our solace that health and strength contentful those buildings walks apparel and pastimes to be pleasant and after all those seeming enjoyments and heart-contenting thoughts we shall look behinde us and see death with open mouth proclaiming these words Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee O gross Idolatry to make any creature or means our relyance To place any dependance on the worlds favours to settle our soul upon such hazardous enjoyments or to say here am I well here will I rest And wilt thou here rest oh my soul on the top of those tempestuous mountains Wilt thou swallow down those deceitful baits where death is nearest when the pleasure seems sweetest Alas Settle not in this perishing world where all our days are sorrow and our labour grief The Souls solitude and content in her Separation from the great enticements of the world HOw strange a thing is it that God is always with us and we are so little with him We have our life our being our moving from him and yet all this while we scarce know what he is Alas What is the cause But that our eyes are dazled with the false lights of the world they are darkned with so many mists and vapours of our own appetites and passions as that we cannot see the goods of heaven in the brightest of the day Whereas to speak true our Soul should always be languishing after her Jesus and count it a sad thing to be separated from him so much as in thought Would we but learn a little to talk with him O how would it sweeten the sadness of our Pilgrimage by the contemplation of his Beauties Were we but embarqued in his Vessel while we sayl on the Seas of this troublesom world we would not amuze our selves to gather Cockles on the shore but we would always have our eyes fixed upon Paradice Or had we but our eyes well opened to penetrate and see what the world is we should finde its chains indeed to have a certain pleasure and seeming vigour in them but only painted and attended with
a most certain sorrow and uncertain contentment Yea we should then say of all the most ravishing Objects thereof How senseless was I when I Courted you O deceitful World Thou didst appear great to me when I saw thee not as thou art but so soon as I did see thee aright thou wert no mo more to me but just nothing Whither then dost thou straggle O my Soul Whither dost thou fly O seek out him who hath marked his steps with his great Conquests Who hath made visible his way by his own light paved it with his wounds and watered it with his most precious blood Say unto him at least O my Jesus Stay with me for it is late in my heart and the night is far advanced by the want of true light Alas O my Lord wherefore art thou pleased to hide thy self from a Soul that languisheth for thee Ah! Take away the vail from my eyes and suffer thy self to be seen in the habit of thy excellent Beauties Oh my God! If I cannot enter as sorrowful as I would into my grave I will yet go repentant into some obscure and savage Cave where the Sun shall no more shine on a head so sinful as mine or trace some desart mountains where with freedom I may pour forth my sighs and complaints There will I make that mouth which hath been often the gate of unchaste and idle speeches to become a Temple of thy Praises There shall those arms and hands which have been the chains of wanton embracements have room enough to be lifted up in prayer to heaven mine eyes O mine eyes which first received that fire which hath so passionately devoured my Soul shall there turn Fountains and want no water to wash that heart which hath so long been a burning Furnace of worldly lusts and affections and those feet which have strayed in the ways of sin and wickedness shall there traverse and weary themselves in the desolate paths of Furies and wilde Beasts Briefly O my God! Since I have so betrayed my heart abused my youth spent prodigally thy treasures and made Crowns of silver to the Idol of my own inventions since I have forsaken thee who art the unchangeable eternal and incomparable goodness and without whom all other goods are nothing to follow the wanton fires of my own lusts where alas shall I finde Tears sufficient to wash away my Offences Where shall I finde parts enow of my body to be offer'd up as the Sacrifice of my Repentance Wash me wash me again O my Jesus Make clean I beseech thee merciful Saviour my most sinful Soul What though it were as black as hell yet being once in thy hands how soon will it become more white then that Dove of silver wings whereof the Prophet speaks Oh my God! Have some pity on that heart which is so many times torn in pieces and strays among so great a multitude of Objects which estrange and draw me from thee Draw me O Lord from the great throng of so many inferiour things that so I may retyre into my own heart and finde peace in thee Make me to see the first beams of that Liberty which thou grantest to thy children Ah! When shall my thoughts return from wandring in those barren Regions where thou art not acknowledged When shall they cease to run in full career after all that pleaseth their sense and account thy Cross only and the Throne on Mount Calvary to be the true Path-way to heaven Here I am I confess in the Wilderness of sin in the Desart of this world O when shall I be re-united and so purifyed by thy favours that I may celebrate continual days of Feasting in my Soul I was one of those and I cannot deny it that through my sins helped to apprehend thee in that obscure and dolorous night wherein thou wert betrayed and when thou enteredst into the Garden of Mount Olivet to expiate the sin committed in a Garden by our first Parents Were not my sins then the Traytors that laid hold on thee Were they not my sins which drew those bitter sorrows from those most dainty Sweets Which made thee suffer pains in a place of delight and turn'd that place which was made for Recreation into a dismal Den of Desolation Oh sad change Ah my Jesus What hath my sins brought upon thee Those Olives which were tokens of Peace did there denounce War against thee the Plants there did groan the Flowers were flowers of death and those clear Fountains were turn'd to fountains of sweat and blood What then remains but that I be now ashamed of all the fading curiosities of the world Ah! Shall I not study this Garden And forsaking all other pleasures make my heart fit ground for Jesus to reside and delight in O beautiful Garden since made so by the sighs of my dear Saviour Here let me only breathe in thy walks let me lose my self that I may never be lost with my God Let me gather thy flowers since thou hast deckt them with thy blood Let me wash my self in those Fountains which thou hast sanctified with thy sweat O my dear Saviour Let me have no other Will but thine Wilt thou be abridged of thy own Will to give me an example of mortifying my Passions and shall I retain any wicked or inordinate appetite Hast thou like the Dove of Noah's Ark escaped the Deluge of so many Passions and torrents of dolours falling headlong so fast on one another to bring me green Olive-branch of peace and shall my soul be so audacious as to wage war against thee by my sins O what earth could then open wide enough to swallow me What thus to live with a hand stretched out against heaven which pours out for nothing but Flowers and Roses Out alas No no Raign O my dear Saviour within all the conquered powers of my Soul Let thy Wounds be the adored Altars of my Vows Let me hereupon promise an inviolable fidelity to thy service Let me live no more but for thee since thou makest my life to flourish with thy tryumphant Resurrection Ah my Soul Dost thou want any thing to provoke thy Love Is there not a Sea of Love here before thee Cast thy self in then and swim in the Ocean thereof Sit no longer under the weeping banks of worldly sorrow Thou hast long sate mourning with Hagar Gen. 21.15 1 Kin. 19.6 2 King 6.16 in this Valley of Tears Thou hast long been in the posture of Elias sitting down under the Tree forlorn and solitary yea desiring rather to die then to live Nay how many times hast thou cryed out with Elisha Alas What shall I do and with passionate Jonah I am weary of my life When shall I be out of this frail this corruptible Body this ruinous ensnaring and deceiving flesh O when shall I be out of this vexatious world whose vain pleasures are but deluding Dreams What remains then O my Soul But that thou strive to get out
of this sink of sadness this skin full of groans this snow-bail of Tears this Carcass of fears this channel of the waâ—â—rs of affliction and betake thy self wholly into the arms of thy Saviour The Soul complaineth of her Condition and Misery by reason of the darkness and ignorance of sin THe Spirit of Man naturally tendeth to God as its first cause neither can take any contentment without him though too often indeed hindered by the weight of the Body and the bait of Concupiscence He will what God will loves what God loves and if in this wayfaring life his love sticks upon frivolous objects which like foolish Fires lead him into precipices and dangerous paths he speedily complains how much he is misguided Now the reason hereof is That as every thing tendeth to the imitation of its Original so a Soul truly Christian hath all its strength and vigour from God He is the end of all his works and if God chance to fail it the whole Fabrick of its salvation falls to the ground When a gracious heart hath its eyes cleared by the Rays of Divine Majesty he is at the end of its journey and no longer entertaineth a multiplicity of desires since he hath found the Center of Eternal rest And well then may the Soul of man which is out of the Limits which God hath assign'd it finde Inns to lodge in but never finde a Home to reside in Alas then what is our life and the affairs of man That which is past is nothing the present is a fantasie and the future an Abyss where even those that stand on the brink see not any thing Our life only is hid in Christ as saith the Apostle And surely he only who knows how to accommodate himself to the Will of his Saviour knows only how to live and hath found the industry of an infinite happiness in the accomplishment of his desires Neither is there any thing so turmoiled so torn and so divided as a Soul which hath always before it the Image of its own crimes And this is it which makes the Vermilion of the cheeks to fade that maketh paleness to overspread all the face hence is it that a miserable man being fallen as it were into a Tempest not foreseen cryes out Humane hopes where are ye Ah true dreams of aery Fancies Fleeting fires which shine not but to extinguish your selves and being put out bereave us of all true light leaving only the ill savour and sorrow of losing all your seeming glories To what shall I compare your Beauties but to those who carry under a smooth face a heart spotted like the skin of a Panther What are your Pleasures but like those enchanted Islands which recoyl backward and vanish when men most think to approach them Alas my Tears What fitness can ye finde to bemoan my misery Alas my eyes Why are those flames which once so sweetly blazed in you now fallen into an Eclipse My voice is interrupted and words imperfectly spoken all the Organs and Bands of my Body are loosened and untyed Oh how doth fear and trembling spread it self over all the Basis of Natures building Nor is this evil passion content only to seize on our Body but it flyeth to the superiour Region of our Soul to cause disorder robbing it almost in a moment of memory understanding judgement will courage yea rendering us benumm'd dull and stupid in all our actions and would a thousand times overcome us with Melancholy were it not from the consolations drawn from the fountain of true piety Alas O Lord How is our Soul confounded to see so many sparkles of pride lust and covetousness arise from this Caitiff dust which we are compos'd of So little do we learn how to live and so late how to die which made S. Austin cry out My God my life and my happiness I confess my misery unto thee after so many temporal consolations have separated me from thee Thus is the poor Soul ever bewailing her condition and bedewing that face with mournful Tears wherein God once caused the sanctity of a gracious heart to be resplendent And though formerly it had seem'd chearful yet now alas behold it though heretofore retaining the vigour of holy alacrity altogether dissolved with austerities and maladies Nothing but spectres of terrors ruine outrages solitudes darknesses revengeful thunders and innovations extreamly weaken and affright the heart until at last having reckoned up the dolours which on every side environed her Saviour she raiseth up her self like the Palm against the weight of her afflictions O inestimable Bounty O greatness unheard of O inexhaustible love of God! whose goodness is such not only thus to divert our miseries and fit them to our condition but even from our Tears to draw sweetness and consolation for our solace Now as pious Hannah forsook all the distracted looks which sorrow caused in her after she had conceived the little Samuel so doth the poor Soul being again honoured with the re-enjoyment of God in its heart drive away all the disturbances of grief and sadness Oh saith she what thoughts of Satan are these to deliver up my self to distrust of comfort in the sight of a Jesus who beareth my reconciliation on his sacred wounds and pleadeth my cause before his eternal Father with as many mouths as my sins in him have made wounds It is not possible I should doubt of his love and fatherly goodness if I look upon his hands I shall there see it written with those nails that pierc'd them I shall see it in his side which was opened for me by that Lance which digged out the remainder of his life Alas Who was more destitute then man more brutish and ignorant in so great a night and horrible confusions Who was more unfurnished with wise directions And yet he affordeth us his examples Who more forlorn And yet he adopteth us for children Who more needy And yet he giveth us the treasure of his merits Who more hungry And yet he feedeth us with his flesh and blood Who more imhappy And yet how doth he divide every part of his body amongst us O goodly spectacle to behold How he blesseth us with his presence How he replenisheth us by his greatness How he governeth us by his power and sanctifieth us by his influences Oh for ever unhappy If after so many benefits we remain still faithless and ungrateful Lord As thou revealest to me more of my misery so reveal also more of thy mercy I confess my self indeed to be too often intangled in some pleasant or profitable Lust Satan is the Bellows my corruption the tinder and the world the wilde-fire to burn my soul and so dangerously to withdraw my love as that although O my Saviour thou art still calling me yet am I loth to leave my Bed of ease Cant. 5.1 How justly then to prevent my spiritual pride mayest thou leave me in ignorance and darkness as thou didst thy Spouse yea to go to
inexplicable sweetnesses of his bounty O the excellency of divine Love which thus causeth a Calm to be found in a Tempest Safety in the midst of Dangers Life on the brinck of Death Comfort in Disasters an Upholding in the midst of Weakness and which protects so many people under the shadow of its Branches Happy Souls which flyes hence into heaven enricht with the purple stains of so heavenly a Fountain yea happy are the wounds from whence flow so much virtue and goodness What greater mercy could there be then to see a Humane Nature sought unto by God which was once despoiled of the Robe of Honour and Diadem of Glory as a just chastisement of its Rebellions and condemned to a Prison of Flames and Darkness even then when it was unable to free it selfe and when neither Angel nor Man could deliver it from the misery whereinto it was plunged To see it I say sought unto by God when it flew from him and to consider how so heavenly a Father transported with unspeakable love said unto it Take my only Son to redeem thee from thy many remediless calamities And this onely Son disdaineth not to become its Ransom and delivered himself for it to Torments so enormious and Confusions so hideous What shall we further admire in the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation Can there be any thing in the world greater then a Man-God If we cast our eyes on our heavenly Father we there see a work of the power of his Arm wherein he seems to have exhausted all his strength The Heaven and the Stars saith Gregory Nyssen were but the works of the Fingers of this divine Majesty but in the Incarnation he proceedeth with all the extent of his might with all the Engines of his power and Miracles of his greatness Blessed Jesus who can chuse but love and adore thee who wert not content onely to reconcile us to thy Father but espousedst our Nature and unitedst it to thy selfe by an indissoluble Band we naturally use to shew an aversion and dislike to such persons as are loathsome mishapen and infected and if with those defects we find a Soul wicked ungrateful and an Enemy to God we conceive him with such horror as that we had need be more then men to endure him But were not we in as bad estate as this for besides the mis-fortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides were we not Enemies to God by being too much a friend to our selves and yet all this while he accepteth us and appropriateth us unto himselfe amongst all these contrarieties The Soul checks her selfe for her backwardness and too much neglect of her Saviours invitations WHat imagination is sufficiently powerful to figure to its selfe the ardent dolours of a wounded Soul who desiring to be free and purified from the contagions of the earth and apprehending the shadows of the least sinnes hath its spirit seised on with the consciousness of some more hainous and grosser omissions How hard a matter is it for the Soul to guid the Helm of Reason in so tempestuous a storm of disturbances and in so dead a night of misery to adore the Ray of Gods Providence since almost swallowed in the depth of her sorrows But Nature having at last evicted a huge Tide of Tears she thus sighs out the other in Complaints My God! how justly have my sins deserved this desolate condition yea to endure the Trial of those sorrows which might ever befall the thoughts of a wretched Creature How happy alas are those pure and innocent Souls who have departed from their Bodies when they were ignorant of the sinnes which have approached my knowledge and defiled my thoughts They like little blossoms were cut off in the tenderness of their Age and thrice happy had my Soul been to have been transported into the other world before I had felt that trouble and anguish of Spirit which through the sense and horrour of my sinnes in refusing those gracious tenders of a mercifull Saviour now so sadly afflicts me O wicked and ungrateful heart it is thou which art the source and spring of all my disasters wretch whether goest thou what hast thou to do with the things of the world which will at last ruine thee wilt thou thus cast underfoot the Laws of thy God! Is it not madness to let pass so many golden Harvests which time presents thee and to sow nothing but wind and vanity which onely return thee thorns and sorrows and at last abandons thee as a Pilgrime rob'd and dispoil'd by a Thief O poor Soul wilt thou live rather amongst feavers and burning coals in an inconstant world then tie thy self to the will of God Miserable man to have thy heart fill'd with such restless desires wilt thou like Ravens be ever feeding upon Carrion Is it for such infamous pleasures thou renouncest the delights of heaven unhappy man where wilt thou find place to rest on at the last Dost thou forget the words of the Prophet Jer. 17.11 Silly Partridge thou broodest borrowed Eggs thou hast hatched Birds which were not thine let them fly since thou canst not hold them And canst thou yet fix thy beatitude upon this Gold that Silver that Beauty that Profit and Pleasure as on a little Divinity Is not Jesus thy Saviour enough to content thee must a world be made of Gold and Roses to please thee Alas senseless Soul canst thou have any better Object to behold then a Saviour on the Cross all naked and who in his nakedness giveth all things Oh! how little are all things mortall with him who looks upon a God immortal Blessed Jesus having thee for my guid I will walk confidently in the shades of death since they cannot separate me from the fountain of life I came not into the world glittering with precious Stones neither can I go out poorer then I came Let Poverty then come against me with all its terrours I shall account it a Glory to die poor for a God so dispoiled If Banishment come what need I care what Land be under my feet so my eyes be fixed in Heaven Or what at last can Imprisonment Fetters Gibbets yea death it selfe take from me but a life of Pismires and Flies and a miserable Carkass subject to a thousand deaths And woe unto that Soul the darkness of whose understanding is so great that though Jesus be all light he cannot see him how deprived is that will who though he be all goodness he cannot love How are his affections perverted who though he be all power will yet refuse to submit unto him Alas how art thou estranged from him when thou wert created it was by his power If thou live it is by his bounty if thou move it is by his assistance If thou lie down he sustaineth thee if thou sleep he refresheth thee if thou awake he enlightneth thee if thou read he teacheth thee if thou eat he nourisheth thee if thou art cloathed he warms
thee no Creature being able towork by its own strength having all but dependent Beings from God alone Miserable wretches then as we are as not to see him with our bodily eyes so not to behold his Glory in our most retired Meditations that he should be all brightness yet we view him not all sweetness yet we taste him not That he should be in all places yet we feel him not alas what strangers are we in the House of our Father O that our life here should be fuch an estrangement from him and that when we most behold him it should be but as it were in a Glass darkly Draw nearer then O my Soul bring forth thy strongest burning Love here 's matter for thee to work upon here 's something truly worth thy loving Oh see what bounty presents it self Is not all the Goodness in the world contracted here Is not all the Beauty in the world deformity to it Here is comfort for thy Soul and a feast for thine eyes Ah! that ever thou shouldest need to be invited to feed on it That thou shouldst be invited to love where thou feel'st a heavenly sweetness accompanying it and where the very Act of loving is unexpressibly sweet O what wouldst thou give for such a life couldst thou be all love and alwaies loving Come away then O my Soul stand no longer looking on that Beauty admiring this Face or Idolizing these earthly shadowes But behold that Glory which is onely to be enjoyed in the lap of Eternity Ah that thou couldst bid the world farewel and here immure thy self that thou couldst shut the door upon thee and injoy the sweet content of divine and heavenly Meditation But Oh the dulness of thy desires after so great a happiness How doth thy backwardness accuse thee of Ingratitude must thy Saviour procure thee Heaven at so dear a rate and wilt thou not more value it must he purchase thy life by the Pangs of a bitter death must he go before and prepare a Mansion and art thou loath to follow must his blood and pains and care be lost O unworthy and ungrateful Soul what is loathing if this be love Ah wretched Creature if thou art not ashamed to neglect so great a mercy The Soul repents the time that ever she was Cloistered up in the walls of Clay and thrown into the Dungeon of that corrupt mass of Flesh THe Soul of Man being embarqued in the dangerous Sea of this world where her adventure is very hazardous and full of Rocks and having no Port to put in at but either Repentance or Death bewailes the want of her Pilot without whose guidance she is sure to meet with a miserable shipwrack and which she conceives as natural to her as swiming is to Fishes flight to Birds beauty in Flowers and rayes in the Sun Woe is me saith he that ever I was born to see the Light Why did my Mother rejoyce to hear me cry and to receive the news that I was a living Soul when first I entered into the world I bore the Image of my Creator in some lustre and glory but since that time my first Parents who bore as it were in one Vessel the Riches of all Mankind had lost all that which wretches might lose or men desire and which with grief we yet deplore it s scarce discernable in me in regard of those Leaprous spots of sin and taintures of iniquity which I have contracted from those frail corporeal Organs which have so pittifully dis-figured and transformed me as that the Character of my God is almost lost in me Alas I am but an unweildly lump of Earth a meer passive thing of my self Those eyes of mine which should have been as christal Casements through which I might behold the glorious Firmament and study my Creator in the Volums of Nature have let out the Beams of vanity and lightness Those Ears which should have let in wholsome precepts and holy exhortations have been no other then Trunks to receive idle discourses and vain sounds That Mouth and Tongue which should have sounded out the praises and glory of my Creator and sung Halelujahs to him have been instruments of Equivocation Sinne and Prophaness Those hands which were design'd to deeds of Charity have been employed in evill and sinful works That Throat which was intended as a Conduit-pipe to poure out divine and pious Ejaculations hath been made the instruments of Luxury and excess And those Feet which were made to walk in the paths of Piety and Virtue have been used to run into the Road of al Licentiousness But oh when I examine my heart the seat of my affections what a sinck of sin a Cage of unclean Birds do I find it and whereas I should have made it a Closet for my Saviour to sit and reside in alas what Hatred what Hypocrisie what spiritual Pride and Choler hath infected every corner thereof And if I look further how shall I find every Cell of my Brain infected My Fantasy is become wild and extravagant my Memory hath been more mindfull of bad then good things my Understanding full of darkness my Will wholly blinded my Reason strangely besotted and my Imagination wholly puffed up with airy passions and malignant humours which interpose between me and the glorious Beams of my Saviour Ah whether have the Councels of those transported me which desire the ruine of my Soul How am I environed with admires of Lusts and besieged with Legions of inordinate affections Miserable that I am what shall I do to hinder the designs of my naturall Corruptions Alas How they prevail against me unhappy that I am that the Sun which this day shines so bright over my head should see his face defiled with the stains of my sins What do I here in this house of Pleasure where we seem to enter in by five Gates which are all Crowned with Roses and bear the face of youth and prosperity Are not those five Gates the five Senses by which all the passages are made into carnal pleasures and the vain delights of the world Is this the way to live like a Christian to walk according to the Rules and propensions of Nature Is this the Babylon of worldly hopes which in the beginning sheweth it self as a Miracle carrying Hony in the lip Light in the face but Poyson in the tail Why alas should I thus live in the fervours of a Feaver why should I desire to live in that greatness which will onely serve to make my fall the more miserable Why should I rest upon those worldly comforts whose acquisition is painful whose fruition uncertain and taste unsavory And how pleasing soever they appear in the dawning of the day seeming in the first springing to be spread with Emeralds and Rubies yet will they at last be changed into the horrours or a sad Tempest and ever waited on by ignomy and confusion O that I should thus spend the latter part of my age after smokes and
thou save thy self if thou put not thy selfe under the shelter of thy Saviours Cross If thou lose him thou hast nothing left to comfort thee In him thou hast all things If thou art Hungry thou needest but to taste of his love if Thirsty the light of his countenance is farre better then the Corn and Wine of this world We read of many accomplished Beauties in former ages which have drawn the affections of those that beheld them but what are those but fading shadows to the love of Jesus which winneth whole Nations and Monarchies to it From hence it is that so many Kings Queens and great Personages have forsaken the Pomp and Beauty of the World and followed him through Thornes and Rocks that so many millions of the wisest and most purified Souls upon Earth have abandoned themselves and loved him even to the suffering of Flames and Wheeles yea the dismembring of their whole Body Oh that our hearts could then dissolve for him Oh that they could dayly melt in his service without consuming since there is nothing which equalizeth the excellency of this Celestial Love But wretched Creatures as we are can we chuse but grievc to see them torn and divided by so many vile and base Objects which divert our Affections and hinder us from giving them to God for which they were made Oh how much should we blush thus to contaminate our hearts with the wickedness and impurities of the Earth The heart of Man should be as a fortunate Island wherein there is nothing but God and it Or like the Nest of that little Bird which cannot hold one silly Fly more then it self But alas what Creatures are there there lodged to the prejudice of our Creator O poor Soul really miserable do but once open thine eyes and thou shalt soon see the head-long ruine which threatneth thee Carnal Souls have much ado to conceive how a man may become passionate in the love of God it is a love too high say they to transfer our Affections into Heaven we know no affection but for temporal and visible things O blinded Spirits ignorant of the glorious Mysteries of Heaven How do ye thus argue with your selves O sad Souls is Heaven a Country wherein they have no commerce Doth God speak to thee in all his Creatures nay doth he seek for thee dost thou behold him through the veil of Nature in somany various Objects Dost thou daily see him in the Image of his Bounty and Greatness of his power and the splendor of his Beauty and in the lively Characters of his Majesty and wilt thou be so much charmed with the present pleasures and delighted so with the Workmanship as to forget the Workman Wilt thou embrace the shadow for the body and momentary Beauties for Eternal verities Oh! but thou objectest that he is a secret so hidden and invisible to men that our poor spirits finde more confusion then light in seeking him I answer hold thy peace O thou ignorant and mis-judging Soul God shews himself in as many mirrours as there are Creatures in the world All that we see hear touch or handle cease not to recount unto us the love of our Maker Do we not find the daily experience of his love in every minutes preservation Do we not hear the sweetness of his voice and harmonies in the chirping of every little Bird and Nightingale yea the least silly Fly holds forth a tone which all the art of the world cannot frame If we behold the murmuring of those silver streams which so sweetly charme and delight our senses if we cast an eye upon those various party-coloured Flowers with what an exquisite delicacie shall we find them adorn'd insomuch that as we have it from the sacred lips of Eternal Wisdom Solomon in all his Royalty was not like one of these But when we cast our eyes towards Heaven when we behold the Sun the Moon and those silver sparcles which shew themselves as soon as the Night spreads its Mantle over the inferior Regions of the World Ah! how may we with the Princely Prophet cry out The Heavens declare the Glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy-work Expose not then the loss of thy innocency and sanctity O poor Soul to the alluring occasions of this tempting world and thou needest not fear but in him to find salve forall thy wounds It may be thou fearest Poverty alas hath not thy Saviour consecrated it in the Crib and in Clouts Dost thou fear Reproaches he hath sanctified them in the loss of his Reputation Dost thou fear dolours he hath lodged them in his own flesh Dost thou fear Death he hath overcome it for thee only let thy heart be devested from the ardent affections thou hast towards worldly enablements beholding them as an inconstant moving of shadowes and Spirits which with a swift course glide before our eyes And lastly let us look towards the eye of God which perpetually beholdeth us Let us behold it as our Pole-star and flaming Pillar whereby at last we shall learn to repose our selves in his bosome slumber upon his heart and sleep eternally between his Arms. The Soul breaks into Sighes and dissolves into desires for the presence of God THe Soul of Man being made to the Image of God and for the possession and fruition of God will never rest but in the conformity of its understanding and will to its Creator It casts its eyes indeed oftentimes on the Sea the Earth with so many Rivers which moisten it so many Trees which cover it so many living Creatures which furnish it so many men which inhabite and dress it but yet rests not there It figures also the Air in its thoughts with all its Birds so different in shape so various in colour so diversified in their Notes but alas like Noahs Dove she finds no rest for her footing It glanceth up further to those Christaline and azure Vaults where the Sun the Moon and so many silver Stars perform their career with such measure as God hath determined yet finds not God in any of them It contemplates those innumerable Legions of Angels Spirits of Fire and light which resplendently shine as Lamps before the face of God yet ever cryes out it is not be God onely being he who comprehendeth all things and not onely bounds them but incomparably surpasseth them What do I here then O Jesus without thee but sail without Stars and labour without the Sun Alas if I can do nothing here without thee if without the Sun-shine of thy presence I am but an unprofitable servant and burden to the Earth what do I here All that satisfieth the desires of the curious all that which inviteth the admiration of the wisest all that which enflameth the hearts of the most passionate yea Land and Sea Thrones and Scepters Arms and Empires are but as a silly drop of dew before thy face And wilt thou yet O disloyal Soul entertain in thy heart a mass of
worldly desires Wilt thou rather live among Fevers and burning Coals then tie thy selfe to the will of God wretched Rebel wilt thou prostitute thy selfe and have affection in store for a deceiving Creature O ungrateful and faithless Soul the same Paradice that God hath prepared for him self he hath prepared for thee he will that thou possess thy self in him and wilt thou take liberty to fly after all Objects as Bees after Flowers wilt thou flutter up and down like a silly Butter-fly amongst so many Creatures so many desires perpetually hungry ever distant from thy good ever a Traytor to thy own repose and glory wilt thou adventure on a Sea that hath neither bottom nor shore Beggerly Soul which beggest every where miserable Soul which in every place findest want in abundance when wilt thou rally all thy desires into one Period when wilt thou begin to live the life of God to be satisfied with Gods contentment and to be happy with Gods felicity But alas methinks I hear thee say of thy self thou art able to do nothing stretch out thy arms then unto me O mild Saviour a poor Exile I am I confess yet redeemed by thy Blood Cast an eye on me from heaven in these storms of life O lead me to that plâ—ce where thou for ever reignest where youth waxeth not old where life hath no limits where Beauty decayes not where health doth not empair nor love abate If I cannot reach Heaven by my own strength let me go thither by thy love which is the true gate whereby we enter into the Sanctuary eternally to enjoy the sight of the inaccessible Beauty of the divine Presence O God as thou art dispersed throughout us by love so banish all the cursed hatreds of hell and the world and make us love all in thy goodness to possess all in thy fruition Never suffer me O Lord to fill all the sails of my desires with the windy vanities of this world which are more light then Smoak more slippery then Ice whose promises are Perjuries and whose perjuries are forsakings Ah never let us run at random after the transitory honours of the Earth which glister like a worm in rotten wood which prick like Thorns and withdraw our affections from thee who Crownest the Heads of thy Elect with Eternal Garlands Oh let me not live daily in the fits of Fire and Ice for the slight toyes and fading beauty of the world and for such things as for shame we dare not oftentimes express and have neither heart nor thought for thee I see all things which environ me those Riches those Pomps those Honours are but flitting company deceitful and momentary things and serve for nothing but Snares and Prisons Oh then let me look on all the Objects of pleasure not as they are when they first sooth me but when they turn their backs and forsake me All pleasures of sense pass but to the outward skin and all the Flowers of the Garden of this world are without fruition pleasing onely to the Imagination and no way satisfying the desires of a gracious Soul Enter then into thy heart O my Soul and lay thy hand upon thy thoughts and thou shalt find that all thy unhappinesse commeth from being too much tyed to Honours Ambitions and worldly Commodities It was the saying of one defining the life which he called the Pilgrimage of a perfect Christian that true and perfect Religion is in a generall despair of all things And truly the Remedy of all evils will never be but in a holy despair of all the frivolous and fair semblances of the world O happy despair indeed to put all our hope in God alone to remove those deceitful and treacherous Props which besiege our credulous minds and cease not to enter into our hearts and hinder us from bidding adieu to all the charming Promises and allurements of a barren and lying world and from turning our eyes towards the heavenly Jerusalem our true Country Ah! how sweet are the expressions between the Bridegroom and the Bride where she saith My Beloved is mine and I am his Cant. 2.16 And again I am my wel-beloveds and my wel-beloved is mine Cant. 6.3 She first returns her soul and love to him and then confirms his to her self And when Love like that of Jonathan to David hath thus united their Souls all the affections and actions of the Soul to will to do to say the same thing will speedily follow Surely the Spouse was at little rest while absent from her Beloved When saith she will the day of Redemption appear Where O where art thou whom my Soul loveth Cant. 1.7 By night I sought him whom my soul loveth I will rise and go about the City and in the streets and in the broad wayes will I seek him whom my Soul loveth Cant. 3.1.2 and when she seeks and finds him not O how doth she bemoan self to the Watchmen and having found him she holds him fast and will not let him go ever crying out O how shall I adhere unto him how shall I incorporate my self with him how shall I melt into praisings and love-breathing Ditties how shall I get into that Fountain of Goodness Oh come Oh come that happy day come even now I fear neither Hell nor Judgement for I know thou canst bear no wrath against those that love thee come then come and draw my Soul from this loathsome body screw up my Affections O dear Saviour to thy own self unloose the Fetters and Bonds of my imprisoned Soul which keep me from the sight of my beloved Spouse and Master and at last set me at liberty in the Eternal freedom of thy Palace and everlasting glory of thy presence O free me from the snares of the world the wiles of Satan and the deceits of the flesh O when will that day of Redemption come when I shall drink at the full those comforts which are here dispersed but by small drops And thrice happy is he who hath here raised his gain from his losses his assurance from this worlds incertainties his strength out of his infirmities his hopes out of his despairs and is not contented but in God who can onely satisfie his desires and Crown him with Felicities Happy I say is he who beholds all wordly things as Roses which still with their odour cast forth some of their substance who look on them afar off and in the dark as painted Women and adulterate Merchandice who behold them as Torches which wast and annihilate themselves leaving nothing behind for the most part but stench and smoak The world I confess thinks it no easie matter to trust Christ upon his word though he have told us Mat. 11.30 His yoak is easie and his burden light What say some is it so easie to renounce all that a man hath Wealth Liberty Life and all are these so light yes poor Soul Truth it self hath spoken it and most true it is that love makes them both light
and easie What though thou here seem to weep for a time thou shalt but onely resemble the Flower-de-luce which weeps a little and out of its own Tears produceth seeds to renew its Beauty The salt Sea of this world shall become a flourishing field as it did to the people of God when they came out of the chains of Egypt Wee are here in this World like little Infants without Air or Light besmeared with blood and swadled in Clouts which Nature onely gave thee for a time to fit thee the better for that life where thou shalt for ever breath in all freedom and liberty We are yet in Prison Fetters and Obscurity until the coming of the great day wherein God shall give us a Spiritual body All the pomp of this World all our life yea all that pleaseth here and taketh up our heart is but the shadow of that Glorious Beauty and contentment which passeth in Eternity Let me then O my God! continually exercise my self in the desires of joyes Eternal let me sanctifie all other Loves to the love of Jesus Christ let me forsake all humane things O my God! and betake my self wholly to the consideration of his excellency When I speak let it be of Heaven as of my resting place and of thee as of the Object of my Felicity Ah! what can be more divine then to see a Soul thus capable of the influences of Heaven whom the Sithe of Time cannot affright whom the Threats of the world nor the wheel of Inconstancy neither the power of Death can dismay O House of God! O Temple of Peace when will the time come which will devest us of all that is mortal which will sweeten the bitterness of our life replenish our hearts with spiritual refreshment and at last put us into the bosom of Immortality The Soul filled with Heavenly Love sends forth the pure flames of her Affection GOd who loves the importunities of his servants often hides his face the longer to the end his Grace may with the more brightness afterwards appear We find in Nature that the Sun is never more resplendent then after an Eclipse the Sea never more calm then after a Tempest nor the Air brighter then after a shower Neither is it ever too late to knock and cry at the Gate of Heaven The fainting Beggar which neglects the re-inforcing of his complaint often goes away without his reward The weary and lingering Christian seldom attains the end of his journey where he shall live for ever in the Palace of Peace and contentment where our happiness shall be perpetual and our fulness never occasion loathing to him that possesseth it Neither doth God do us any injury if after long waiting here instead of a Crown which is the Weather-cock of winds of a Scepter which is the Reed of the times or of a Life which is the Harbenger of Death he affords us delights and glories which outstrip the flight of Thoughts which drie up all our Tears and surmount all our Imaginations It was once told a great Prince being in his Infancy bred up in the House of a Peasant whose Son he took himself to be that he should no longer follow so mean an employment of life that his Hat should be turned into a Diadem his Spade into a Scepter his Raggs into Robes of Gold his Cottage into a Pallace and his servitude into an Empire Oh can we think how he was ravished with the love of a Father by whom he was born to so much Treasure and Greatness And shall we not have the like approbation when our Saviour tells us we are not created to live among Mire and Dirt to be tyed to a wretched frail and miserable Body to walk among Bryars and Thornes and embroyl our selves in the toyls and cares of a mortal life Bring me then O dear Jesus in thine own time into those celestial Palaces of incomprehensible lights and unspeakable Beauties Enlighten me O thou Son of Righteousness to discover those glorious excellencies all white with Innocency and resplendent with the Rayes of Glory from the Syrens of the world which so much abuse us with deceits vanitie and infamies I acknowledge thus far the infinite mercy of thy divine Providence that while I was in darkness and under the black Cloud of thy heavy displeasure thou sanctifiest my Fetters and hast now raised up my Ashes above the Crowns of the World Thou mightest indeed have made me ambitious delicate haughty covetous and adorned with worldly Treasures to have walked on Roses to have putrifed in delights yea made my happiness seemingly to have out-run my desires Such there are I confess who have defiled their names with reproach wearied the Earth with their vices astonished Posterity with their deportments and peopled Hell with their crimes But O mercy that thou makest me to see light in the most dusky Nights and a Haven of comfort in the most forlorn shipwracks O most Mighty O most Soveraign Lord of all things visible and invisible were I with thee in the shades of death what should I fear being between the arms of Life O great eye who seest all and art not seen of any here below Thou art truly worthy if we with mortal lips may call thee worthy yea worthy to whom all the world should give continual thanks for thy inexplicable Benefits Worthy before whom we on our bended knees should all our life-time remain prostrate Worthy that for thee we should have Prayers and prayers everlastingly on our lips O Monsters of impudency if yet we see not thy goodness and persist insensibly of thy mercy With these considerations if the Soul now wholly ravished she walks on Earth as a man suspended in Heaven drenched in God and fill'd with the joyes of his Spirit Her eyes are listed up towards Heaven though streaming down tears for sinne upon Earth Her hands are still lifted up thither by prayer Her heart formerly contracted with sadness for crimes committed against so good a God now melts with joy unspeakable Neither earing nor drinking nor sleeping is able to dissolve the sweet conversation she hath with God Now is it that the Soul begins to lead a life wholly Celestial as one who seems to have nothing to do with the Bodies and conversations of the living Now is it that after so many Tempests so many Thunder-claps and Whiriwinds of grief and sadness she arrives at a Port not of temporal felicity but of the unspeakable joyes of Heaven Ah ignorant that we are of the works of God! perpetually fixed to the Earth and deprived of those sparkles of heavenly fire and light Let us but a little draw aside the Curtain and we shall see through so many Clouds the glorious Rayes of lasting happiness There may you behold the Effigies of a gracious Soul with a Crown on its Head and Scepter in its Hand with prosperity continually smiling with loves free from disturbance with desires void of denials with affairs without
state wherein thou wouldst die to fear Hell always that thou maist not fear it ar all to frame a tender and timerous conscience to thy self and to call thy self often to account in this manner Ah poor Soul if thou wert now at this instant to dislodge out of this world art thou in an estate to be presented before the Throne of the supream Judge hast thou not some sinnes unrepented of some restitution to make do there not some vain thoughts and worldly lusts lodge and remain within thy heart Say further to thy self alas what is a little time when it is gone how quickly shall I be in another world how speedily will our years pass how will our minutes of pleasure be then repaid with everlasting sufferings what have I then to do but to provide for heaven And let me think that time lost wherein Nothing is done to that end And seeing all the pleasure of sinne here in this world is but to converse with Swine and feed on Husks O that we had but a right apprehension of the fulness and pollution thereof and how momentary and uncertain that delight is vvhich vve reap by it The Soul being ready to sink under the weight and apprehension of her Sins bemoanes the weakness of her Faith and desires help from her Saviour THough Prosperity and the Beauty of the world doth not easily corrupt Souls which have once taken upon them to live in the fear of God yet notwithstanding they oftentimes vvould and in some sort change them every sin being a tripping off of the Souls heels The poor labouring and industrious Bee sometimes goes so long upon her hony as that by much walking she there entangles her feet So a Soul yea one of those who are most devout being continually soothed by a long sequel of pleasing successes and the delights of the world taketh some small flight out of it self and seeketh content in the smiling and delicate aire of the worlds delights though at last they prove nothing but the Objects of grief and sorrow But no sooner doth adversity strike and God hold up his finger but the Soul re-entereth into it self it raiseth it self above the wayes of the Moon and compass of the Sun to the goodly Temple of Eternity where Spirits live dispoiled from these Masses of flesh and Bones which we draw along with us in the midst of the various revolutions of this mortal life This is the way which the Soul taketh so soon as through sinne she is alienated from the Court of Heaven She entereth into a sad retirement and in this manner bespeaks her self O Lord this World is irksome to me I cry unto thee Lord unto thee do I fly O thou whose clemency reacheth from Heaven to Earth set my sinnes from me as wide as the East is from the West It is thou onely O Jesus that canst cure the ardours of my Sufferings It is thou onely that canst dry up my Tears break my Fetters and dissipate all my Troubles If I am in darkness thou art light if in doubt thou art my councel if in danger of shipwrack thou art my Haven if in a Labyrinth of Dangers thou art the Thread to guide me out yea if at the Gates of death thou art my Life O suffer me not dear Saviour now to sink under the grievous weight of my many infirmities Then she looks about her as if it seemed Nature had displayed the Mountains Valleys the Woods Forrests and Rivers and the great Theatre of the works of God altogether to assist and further her in the height of her sadness She that formerly seemed like those that shined in the Majesty of sumptuous attire was now covered with course Cloth She who seemed like those that altogether sparkled with precious Stones appeared now in a Livery of Sackcloth and since he had formerly entertained a mortal beauty was now wholly taken up and wasted with sadness and mortification of the Flesh Methinks I hear how the Soul reasoning with her self and being ever perplexed and involved finding pain in repose thirst in abundance and seeming separated from the fountain of true comfort sadly cries out My God! I know that no good can be had without thee the true and soveraign Good In every place that I am without thee I am in pain All the Riches which are not in thee seem to be meer poverty All the greatness pleasures and profits of the World are nothing to me unless I can call thee Saviour From thee onely comes that joy which all the Saints have studied with pain with delight and tasted with Glory It is that which S. Peter calls 1. Pet. 1.8 A joy vnspeakable and full of Glory It is that which S. James said contained the consummation of all comforts Iam. 1.2 which S. Paul found in the Caverns of the Earth which some have found upon Wheels others in Flames some in Gibbets others on Gredirons and lastly it is that which descenderh from Heaven and with Eternal streams of comfort watereth the dry and parched hearts of distressed Souls Thus was the divine Soul like the Moon in an Eclipse which appeareth wholly dark on the side towards the Earth but faileth not to be most bright in that part which looketh towards Heaven And though some who behold her with carnal eyes in such a state may think her totally darkned yet God in this retirement and sweetness of repose darts his glorious Rayes upon her through the Cloud of the Body and causeth her to see the eyes of Angels as a Soul wholly invested with the Sun of Righteousness In the mean time she relisheth this retreat as Manna from Heaven and tasteth this deep silence with incredible delight after so many confused clamours of a troubled Conscience It seemeth unto her that she then speaks to God face to face and that she saw all the pride of the Earth much lower then her feet Her Soul was whitened in her Tears and purified in her desires pouring out all unto God as it were through the Limbeck of her ardent Devotion and drawing the Curtain over all worldly affairs to be onely entertained with God And from this time forward she lives beyond the sense of worldly affections Time seems to have no Sythe for her Death is unprovided with Darts Calumny loseth its Teeth at her and Glory spreads throughout the Ensigns of Immortality She seems onely to live on Extasies turning that little breath which remained on her lips to the praises of God She now also sees it a matter very reasonable that God should make use of all manner of Arms to prosecute a Fugitive from his Providence who hath made a divore from its Creator and seeks to save himself in a Region of nothing She can bethink of no better way to purifie those eyes then with tears which are now wholly bent towards Heaven neither any better course then mortifyings and fastings to whither the beautiful Roses of her face and at last to
in all its dimensions Here it is that our Reason is Eclipsed and we often stray from our chiefest good but there it is that after an admirable Transformation the Soul is wholly absorpt in Felicity And as a small drop of water pouted into the Sea instantly takes the colour and taste there of so the Souls taste is fully inebriated and coloured with the divine Glory O Beauty O Greatness O Goodness Beauty to inhabite in the Idea of God as in a Paradise of Glory and Greatness to have capacity infinite and truly apprehensive of divine Majesty Hence also may we take notice that as there is ever some weakness in humane things which sticketh to the most smiling Felicities and never giveth us wine but with a mixture of dregs so never doth the day of God shine clearly in a Soul which hath too much light of man and sips too deeply in the fading vanities of the world such dayes being seldom without Clouds For O deceitful Riches O fading Beauty O Phantasms of Honour How painful are ye to those that sue for you How Traiterous are ye to those that possess you and dolorous to those that leave you unhappy are those that prize you through error that court you through vanity and obtain you by iniquity How much better is it to put our hands in flames then to lay them on Crowns covered with injustice what will it avail us to have worn Purple when we arrive at the period of Death if we have defiled it with the spots of uncleaness and that we must make an Exchange of all our glory and greatness for a habite of Flames which shall no more wear out then Eternity And who so blind as those who behold not the Diamonds of a Royal Crown to sweat with horrour upon a Head poisoned with Pride and Ambition Who is so weak as sees it not his best course to withdraw from the great conversations of the world from the imbroilment of affairs wherein is so little profit from the Court from specious Offices Preferments and Negotiations from all worldly Ambitions and to cultivate a sweet repose and quiet in the service of Jesus O God of the Patient and Eternal mirrour of Patience may my Soul for ever hover in that Region where thou inhabitest may it speedily arrive to that fortunate Island where divine tranquility dwelleth and where there is an everlasting springof Beauty and Glory may it enter into the Temple and may the continual odours of the Sacrifice of Reconciliation Mercy and Propitiation mount up to thy Throne which thou taughtest us upon Calvary in the bitter and sharp dolours of thy body amidst the sorrow of Heaven the darkness of the Sun the opening of Sepulchres the breaking of Stones the effusion of thy Blood and the desolation of thy Soul And as thy arms Blessed Lord were stretched out upon the Cross so at last receive me into the stretched-out arms of thy mercy The Sin-sick Soul can take no rest until she be further reconciled to her Saviour AS there is never any thing good without the experience of evil so God is often pleased here to afflict his Children the berter to make them relish his comforts And hence is it that as David saith Psal 55.19 The wicked fear not God because they have no changes God sending troubles to his Children in mercy but gives prosperity to the wicked in his wrath And hence it is that while the workers of iniquity do flourish the children of God being heavy loaden with the weight and burden of their sinnes cry out Lay on us O God! any affliction rather then suffer us to prosper in the way that is evil As the little Nightingale which lives innocently by some little seeds of Plants sings sweetly while we see all those Birds of Prey which feed upon the flesh of Beasts send forth a horrid cry And as the poor Turtle ceaseth not to groan having lost her Mate and often beholds her self in the silver streams where in every wave she sees she laments the waving Image of her misfortune yet is far more secure since the memelancholly Object of pitty then those who are more obvious to the eye of the Fowler so a pious Soul though seemingly deprived of her sweet liberty and seeing her self severed from all commerce with Man kind to be banished into a Desert where nothing but Rocks are witnesses of her sufferings is notwithstanding still fastned unto God by Chains not to be dissolved whom she fervently desires to vouchsafe her comfort and to confirm her spirit which was descended into the bottom of the miseries of this world When the poor Soul hath offended her God she can never be friends with her self untill she be reconciled to him and conceive his countenance to be turned again to her If he once but hide himself she looks forward if he be there on the right hand and on the left if she may find him She takes all ocasions of holy Conferences and useth all means with the Spouse to enquire for her Beloved which way he was gone and whether he was turned aside Early and late doth she seek the Lord of her life she takes no rest in traversing the Forrests the Woods the Meadows the Mountains and Floods Cant. 1.3 and 6.3 She seeks him by night whom her Soul loveth she will arise and look about the streets with groans and cryes with sighes and prayers in her Chamber and Closet in Church and Chappel she sends up her vowes to the God of her salvation How powerfully also doth she desire God first bedewing her own eyes to water the barrenness of her Soul what sad complaints being all swoln with Tears doth she pour out What is Heaven turn'd Brass that neither Tears nor sighes can enter Shall there be no more commerce between Heaven and the unhappy Progeny of sinfull Adam Alas O God! saith the forlorn Soul Wilt thou alwayes be hidden from me Shall I never see that face which with one glimpse of splendor can make me eternally happy where am I what do I Alas my soul is in night and darkness and I sadly feel O blessed Saviour that thou art far from me My heart is near sinkingin a sea of sorrow I row strongly but can advance nothing except thou come into my Soul Come then O my most blessed Saviour walk upon this tempestuous Sea of my heart say unto me It is I be not afraid O come speedily and Reign within me to disperse those cares to enlighten my understanding to enflame my will to cure my Infirmities and recover my decayed Senses Many and bitter no doubt are the assaults of Satan all this while within the poor Soul Can God love thee saith he and leave thee thus to my power Why then is all this befaln thee where are all his mercies thou boastest of sure he hath now forsaken and delivered thee into my hand why then shouldst thou wait any longer But still doth the Soul stop her ears
to the voyce of his deceitful charming not doubting that however Christ had for a time withdrawn his wonted favour he was still her Advocate and even at that instant pleading her case and answering for her at the Bar of Gods Justice all those suits which Satan was then objecting against her Oh saith the Soul it is he that dyed for my sins and rose again for my Justification my own Righteousness alas is but as menstruous Rags It is he onely that was made for me Wisdome Righteousness and Redemption Rom. 5.25 It is he that hath satisfied an infinite Justice for my sinnes Isai 53.4 5 6. It is he that bears my grief and carries my sorrows and will at last cure my sufferings Behold then the various Dispensations of a merciful God! Oh the wonderful experience of a strong belief in a high mounted Soul whose excellent Graces of Charity and Humility are like so many wings to carry her above all the sense of her present Afflictions giving her to see that though Jesus were sometimes pleased to hide himself in the Gospel as the Sun within a Cloud yet he would again draw the Curtain the Sun of Righteousness would appear with healing in his wings and notwithstanding his present withdrawment did receive her sighs and bottle up her Tears and would again shew himself in the best time And whensoever the ship of her Soul seemed wrack't then would she endeavour to save her self upon the Rock of his infinite mercy at this Pool of Bethesda would she still lie until he cured her on this Thread would she catch to bear up her wounded spirit and upon him would she still wait who loves those to the end whom he once loves whose presence she always desired to cherish and resolved still to wait on him who but for a time hides his face from the house of Jacob Isai 8.17 And Iob. 10.1 laying her complaint upon her self How often would she thus expostulate with her offended God Ah Lord the marks of thy bounty * Semel electus semper dilectus I confess are no less then all I am and have Ah wretched I that continually wear about me all the Tokens of thy kindness and yet not love thee what shall I answer when thou saist unto me I created thee like unto my self I made thee a little God on Earth I imprinted on thy forehead the Character of my Greatness The Sun shined on thee the Earth supported thee the Creatures clothed thee and yet thou hast forgotten me O admirer of thy self and ignorant of my works Why hast thou husbanded my goods as to change them into evil Alas poor Soul what evidence will at the last day be produced against thee The Devils who first tempted thee to sin will then rise up as witnesses against thee The Angels of God before whom thou shouldst not have sinned will then testifie against thee The abused Creatures will then be brought in to thy conviction The Messengers of God will cry aloud against thee for neglecting their Doctrine All the personal mercies which thou hast received will also be so many evidences against thee the Earth that bore thee the Air thou breathedst in the Food which nourished thee the Clothes which covered thee the Creatures that laboured for thee the Houses thou dwelledst in and all things else that served for thy use will then further thy condemnation And may not God himself justly expostulate with thee Did all my mercies deserve no more thanks shouldst thou not have better served me that gave them was I so hard a Master was my work so hard and unreasonable or my Rewards of so little value as no way to perswade thee to my service Ah ungrateful wretch that the love of God the evil of sinne the blood of thy Saviour the Judgements to come the Glory promised and the punishment threatned should not be as forcible to draw thee to Holiness as a little fleshly delight and worldly gain is to draw thee to wickedness O whether will thy mind fail when distempers shall steer it Whether will thy Fancy run when Diseases shall ride it What Hell wilt thou frame within thy Conscience Watchings will surprize thee Dreams will terrifie thee and if some terrible Bird do but croak in the Night it is presently the sad voice of some dead man who bids thee prepare for another world Ah! that thou couldst but think of thy perplexed condition vvhen thy conscience being once awakened shall blush and stare thee in the face when thy sins with David Psal 51.3 Shall be ever in thy sight Then will thy mouth be confessing thy eyes weeping thy cheeks blushing thy hands writinging and smiting thy bosome thy heart-bleeding thy Heart-strings breaking and thy voice crying out vvith Cain My sinnes are greater then can be forgiven Then too late wilt thou cry Lord have mercy upon me vvhen a ruinous house shall be ready to fall about thy ears vvhen tediousness of sickness loss of Goods and confusion of understanding shall encompass thee when thy windy sighes and deep-fetch't Groans of thy breaking heart when the misty Clouds of thy closing eyes the Roaring thunder of thy stammering tongue sometimes perchance venting horrible Oathes and Blasphemies shall represent nothing but Images to the Beholders And alas vvhat vvilt thou do when in the last agonies of Death thy Body shall feel such great disturbances as will make thee to turn here and there to rub the Bed-clothes vvhich over-power thee with Convulsions vvhich choke thy speeches make thy Visage Pale thy memory to faulter and a cold sweat to over-spread all thy body which is onely encompassed with weeping eyes whining countenances distracted looks affrighted and dejected Visages hideous out-cryes and perchance which is worse with petty Furies Ah! what content wilt thou then take when Death comes to sound his last Trumpet in thy Ears saying unto thee Come let us be going thou must dislodge from thy Riches thy large possessions from thy Beauties and fading Pleasures from thy friends and from thy kindred and never more to return again Oh! how bitter will be the remembrance of death how harsh will it be unto unmortified spirits when they shall say to the Body ah whither goest thou dear Hostess whether goest thou Thou hast hitherto most tenderly pampered me pompously cloathed me wantonly cherished me I was thy Idol thy Pride thy Glory and whether now must thou go What into a Grave with Serpents and Wormes alas what wilt thou do there and what will become of thee Thus fares it with distressed Souls in the shades of Death when fixing their dying eyes upon their former acquaintance they find some weeping others screeching some fainting and all under a veil of sorrow encompassing their Bed with this sad Note alas do you leave us and shall we meet no more Farewel pleasing amities adieu all our sports feasts and loves now is the time come that me must leave all our earthly acquaintance all our Table
friends Ranters Gamesters Amorists and all the delights of former Companies since from this moment we shall be for ever separated Whereas far otherwise shall it be with those heavenly and victorious souls who have lived to God Time and the Laws of Death have nothing to affright them with All that they have to do is but to go out of a dark Dungeon and a streight Prison to leave a world of sadness and misery and enter into a spacious Temple of Eternal Splendors where their Being shall have no end their knowledge no ignorance nor their love suffer change Repair then unto him O my Soul who is all-sufficient and though the discharge of thy duty be above the power of thy ability yet can he give thee a heart to perform what he requireth from thee There is no Prison for a Soul whom God hath set at liberty The whole world belongs to him who knows how to misprise it God seeketh thy conversion and he is able to turn thee He requireth thy faith and he is able to make thee believe he requireth thy love and by knocking at the door of thy heart he is able to get entrance into it Be not sad then O my Soul but adore that infinite mercy which doth at any time chastise thee with Temporary punishments being not willing to make thee an Object of that fury which is kindled by Eternity of Flames Why shouldst thou not bend all thy affections to Jesus who is onely able to delight thee Why shouldst not thou be enamoured of his Beauties Why shouldst thou not sigh after his Attractives If we behold the Sun we cannot chuse but love God that Glorious Light being the Image of the Soveraign King the Eye of the which enlightneth the Stars in Heaven createth the Fruits and Flowers upon Earth and giveth strength to all living Creatures How pleasant a thing also is it to behold those goodly Forrests to trace those flourishing Woods to be delighted with the murmuring Waters to hear the pleasant notes and warbling of Birds in the sweetness of solitude and retirement But O my Soul rest not here Let thy Spirit fly to that hidden Spirit which thus distributeth it self through so many melodious Divisions throughout the whole world When thou contemplatest the world and all things thereto belonging think on that secret Spirit which insinuateth it self thereunto with such admirable power ravishing sweetness and incomparable harmony Oh love thy Jesus because he is fair and made all these Beauties presented before thee Love him because he is good and communicateth himself unto thee Love him because he is thine and thou art wholly his O be thou still touched with his beauty his wisdom and goodness and let his mercy still soften thy heart And how a thousand times wilt thou bless the hour of this Resolution Ah Jesus why should I argue any longer with my vain Thoughts Why should I dispute any longer with my sinful Lusts Why do I not fly away weigh Anchor set Sails and go forward towards my Eternal happiness Shall I create unto my self an Empire in my Banishment shall I suppose my self in a Haven in the midst of shipwrack surely the Soul which is ravished with the contemplation of Heaven will not stay upon Flesh She hath nothing to do with the standing puddles of Egypt which do onely enflame thirst in her veins but is ever seeking refreshment in the Cisterns of Bethel No more will she ask where is her God become not a tract of a Tear will be visible on those cheeks where Flouds and Billowes of sorrow had formerly appeared Though formerly she went weeping under the heavy load of her sinnes she at last returns with precious seed she soons recovers her joy Psal 51.10.11 and peace and loseth no Graines Psal 126.6 but rather gets ground in the fire of Temptation she receives double with Iob for all her losses for a Cup of Affliction Vessels of joy and for a few disconsolate dayes moneths and years of delight and comfort in Heaven where she no longer complains of her frailties but cryes out It is enough Lord it is enough what am I or what is my Fathers House that thou shouldst thus deal with me And oh if there be such pleasures in the Kingdom of Grace how unspeakable are those laid up for us in the Kingdom of Glory The Soul is ravished upon the Return of her Saviours Presence THough the Soul of Man may live at uncertainties upon a certain Faith and in time of desertion trembling may accompany the people of God yet it truly relies upon Christs mercy Job 13.15.16 Psal 6.8 it shews a true saving and justifying faith in the very act of Reliance and dependance And though Gods Afflictions are oftentimes like hot Spices comfortable to the stomack though hot in the mouth yet the Soul with the Spouse is ever waking whensoever it falls into any spiritual slumber The greatest darkness ordinarily as we use to say is about the break of day And it is not impossble but that when sadness and melancholly which is many times the Nurse of doubting shall pervert our Reason and clad the Soul in mourning weeds there may be an Eclipse at the fairest Noon through the with-drawment of Gods favour and the interposition of Satans Temptations The dark Cloud which sometimes comes between God and the Soul is again cleared with many Lights and most sweet consolations insomuch that being again gilded over with the most radient Splendors and admirable Beauty of her beloved she breaks out with profusions of heart not to be expressed Holy Asaph may complain Will the Lord absent himself for ever Will he be favourable no more hath God forgotten to be Gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercy Psal 77.7.8 9. and yet all this expostulating with God is not because he suspects the truth of his Promises but because at such times the Soul cannot so plainly see it it looks upon its sinnes in a multiplying-Glass and in the gloomy day of Affliction is ready to behold them as an evidence that it wants that interest in God it should have and thinks with David and the Church it is wholly cast off Psal 43.2 44 9 80 1. But after those fainting and soul-swounding fits and too much eying and poaring on sin without observing the nature of God in his Covenant when the poor Soul as well looks upwards with one eye towards Gods mercy as with the other downward on her sins she is kept from being over-powred with Satans temptations she concludes there is yet some help in her God she still layes hold on the merits of her Saviour And however her stomack may be gone for a time yet when she awakes out of her spiritual Desertion she cryes out Surely the Lord is in this place though I knew it not Ps 4.3.8 I shall again sit at Davids Table who bids me to come and taste and see how good the Lord is
thy Masters Table sometimes suffice thee Canst thou not be content to touch the Hem of his Garment Hast thou eaten so plentifully of the Loaves of his mercy canst thou not sometimes be content to fast with him in the Wilderness Wilt thou be with him in the Calm and not with Peter adventure to him on the waves of Trouble Thus doth the poor Soul often check her self for her great faintness under the power of some affliction But though she see it a sad thing to row where Jesus is not in the Boat yet at last she finds all things to fall out aright with those who embarque with him If he once say It is I be not afraid Mat. 14.6.26 How quickly doth the storm of temptation cease Nothing seems grievous to a sincere Christian so as at last with the Apostle he may finish his course with Joy He is like a Pearl coming out of the salt Sea beholding himself involved almost from his birth in great acerbities and horrible confusions from whence he mounts with so much lustre as to make his adversities the steps to the Temple of Glory That Soul which hath brought it self to love God above all and to despise all in comparison of him and accounts it self unhappy if for one moment of time diverted from the sweet Idea's and most sublime thoughts of his person will with comfort pass over all the troubles and acerbities suffered in in his service perpetually languishing with most ardent desires to behold him face to face Have you never seen those poor Tulips in a Garden shut up with melancholly under the shadie coldness of the night which in the next morning have been as it were unlock with the Key of the Suns Rayes Just so doth it happen to those drooping Souls who sometimes seem benummed and frozen through the want of that Presence which at last enlivens them with great refreshment and cheerfulness Who would have thought that Jonah when contrary to the advice of his Master he would turn Polititian and fly from his Presence should forthwith be swallowed by the greedy Ocean yet behold when the Tempest pursued him the Sea raged on him the Belly of a Whale which we thought his Sepulcher became his Palace wherein had he not been buried he had dyed Sure there is I know not what kind of charm in holy sadnesses which cannot be sufficiently expressed but such it is that a Soul contristated from God when it is fallen into those Abysses wherein all the world reputes it lost findeth in the bottom of its heart such lights and sweetnesses as that there is not any comfort in the world to be compared with them Still is the dejected Soul crying out My God! I adore thy holy Providence which sometimes drencheth me with Gall and Wormwood in an age wherein others are accustomed to vvalk on Roses Thou know'st O Lord that my pride hath need of such a counter-poise and in all equity hast thou done that which thy wisdom thought good What though mine eyes are moistned and fail not every night to pour forth streaming Rivers Is it reason I should live without some light hurt seeing thee wounded on all sides for my example Can I receive or take contentment in the hopes of a better fortune Where should I gather those pleasures that I shall at last in joy in thee It s true I am yet upon the weeping banks of the River of Babylon But since thou hast at last promised to wipe off those Tears since thou hast told me Thy yoke is easie and thy burden light and hast at last promised to ease all those that labour and are heavy laden why should I not fix all my consolations and songs at the feet of thy Cross why should I desire any thing more in the world then the performance of thy holy will Observe then whosoever thou art that readest these lines of what wood God useth to frame his Saints Do we not see oftentimes that some escape out of Prison by fire others falling into precipices very gently have found their liberty in the bottom thereof others to whom poyson hath turn'd into nourishment others to whom blowes of a Sword have prolonged life by opening their Impostumes yea often it is that the seeds of good hap are sometimes hid under the appearances of evil Oh silly humane Prudence then which darest to row against the providence of God! finding us many precpices in thy passions which seem so pleasing to thee as thou openest snares to betray thy poor soul Is it possible that any who bears the Name of a Christian should not be grieved to lead a life an Enemy to the Cross of Christ That so many good men as we read of should by the power of virtue afflict their bodies and preferre contempt above all that the world esteemeth that they might conform to the sufferings of their Saviour and any contentment should be delightful which comes not from divine things and blots out all the memory of sensual delectations Can it possibly be that the Soul which hath forsaken the Love-dalliances of the world and razed out of his heart all other love as the Rayes of the Sun scatter the Shadows and Phantasms of the Night should any more delight in its former pleasures No sure she returns as from the Country of the dead with languishing voyce and interrupted words she bedews her self with tears for every vain thought and idle word which offers violence or makes the least breach on her former engagement When David avvaked as it were out of a dead sleep after he had remained nine moneths covered with filth and blood without coming to himself until Nathan took away that veil that blinded him how soon did he become another man He was no more that amourous David but a Penitent exceedingly humbled having a heart bleeding eyes weeping a sad and disfigured face a body made thin sighings redoubled one upon another Joynts pined away with fastings and austereness Bones broken by reason of his sin Society was unpleasing to him the light unwelcome to him because reproaching him with his offence His Couch swam with Tears his Harp was employed in expressing his griefs his whole Body all this while dying to all mortal things of the earth ecchoed his groanings and swell'd with weeping on the Sea of Repentance until he regained that presence from which he desired God never more to cast him And oh that we could but cast those eyes which have so often descried the fair prospects of the world upon Jesus our Saviour the true brazen Serpent to free us from the Serpents of Hell Fire yea O dear Saviour look back upon me as thou didst upon Peter cast those eyes upon me which did incessantly watch for my salvation even to the passing of whole Nights in sighs and Prayers O cast those eyes of love of mercy and compassion upon me which dart the beams of day-light into souls that love thee Let those eyes
Soul resolves for ever to yield an humble submission to his Will THe Soul of Man can hardly entertain any Portion of Gods will but that wherein it s own is concerned It is usually more troubled for any chastisement then for its sin yea it often mourns for sin rather because it deprives her of comfort then because it provoketh God Nay how hardly can it embrace his word with that joy and his providence with that contentment as to say at all times with patient Eli It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Alas vvhat patience hath it in committing sinne but how impatient in suffering for it how ready to execute vice but how unwilling to endure the punishment Oh good God! How many years have I retain'd an inclination to sin my Soul is bound as it were with Iron Chains in this unhappy Bed Will there be no Angel to move the water for me How strange a thing is it that God should be so near us and yet we so far from him But alas we are too much for the world too fast nailed to the Earth He that desires the society of Angels must not embarque himself deeply in worldly affairs God is a Spirit and he that intends to receive good from him must not be a slave to his Body He that intends to find Christ must search for him as the three Kings did in the Manger of his Humility he must look for him as the blessed Virgin did in the Temple in his piety yea he must seek for him as the Maries did in his Sepulchre in the imitation of his death But where O Saviour shall I begin thy passion shall I go with thee into the Garden indeed there it begun there it was that thy Soul began to be exceeding sorrowful even unto the death There it was that thou beggest That the Cup might pass from thee Mat. 26.38 c. There it was that thou sweatedst in a cold night on the Ground in a cold Garden yea there it was that those drops of blood which so freely issued from thy veins were forthwith congealed with the Air. Oh thy matchless love Ah how sweet is the smell of it there in thy great Agony But shall we follow thee from the Garden into the High Priests Hall O how hideous were the outcryes of the rude Rabble against thee Ah Lord what was that vvhich stopped thy ear that thou wouldst not regard or silenced thy Tongue that thou wouldst not reply was it not thy Love Some spit upon thee others smiled on thee some railed on thee others blasphemed thee some scoffed others buffeted many accused and all cryed out against thee But stay may we not yet follow thee further and ascend mount Calvary Shall we not here see thee Nailed to the Cross for our sakes Shall we not here find thee breathing out thy last and pouring out thy hearts blood in a shameful cursed and tormenting way Ah the depth of thy Love O the transcendency of thy affections No man having ever thus laid down his life for his friends Unfortunate Sons of Adam the effects of whose fond disobedience are now become so sadly evident Behold thy Saviour cast on the Ground his knees bent his eyes over-flown with Tears his Hands stretched up towards Heaven all covered with gloomy Clouds and darkness his heart swoln with grief and is ready to break into some loud and doleful complaint against mans Ingratitude O my God! what means this universal strife and contention within thy own breast Art thou daunted at the sight of danger Is the sight of danger become so frightful to thee Thou weepedst indeed over Hierusalem and Mary Magdalen drew Tears from thy eyes but not with such astonishment as this Thou discoursedst of thy Passion on mount Tabor but with a Glory which ravished the eyes and hearts of all that beheld it thou hast often profest a great desire to see the hour of thy suffering and can horror possibly seize on thee Can grief surround thee cold and stupifying Tears possess thee now thou art arrived so near the place of thy wishes O no! thy great Design is to be tempted in all things without sinne that we might be comforted in the tremblings and faintings of our heart and that we might learn this great and difficult Lesson how to comfort our selves at the full Tide of anguish and Tribulations Behold further O my Soul what a glorious Lesson of Patience thy Saviour hath set before thy eyes Bend but thy ears to those sacred words Not my will but thine be fulfilled and who would think but that the excess of grief should a little disturbe thy memory Thou fore-saw'st no question Blessed Saviour those Clubs and Lantherns Souldiers and Officers prepared to lay hands upon thee and with loud cryes and scorns to carry thee to Hierusalem Hierusalem where thon hadst done so many miracles Hierusalem where thou so lately enteredst with Joy and Triumph and yet thou cryedst thy will be done Thou well knewest that Judges of all sorts Priests and Divines and Religious men which daily ministred at thy Holy Altar were appointed to discredit and accuse thee That Kings and Presidents Jews and Gentiles and an infinite number assembled at this great Feast would scorn and condemn thee and yet still thou cryedst thy will be done Thou beheldest those whips and scourges those Speâ—rs and Thornes prepared to afflict thee a mock purple and the ridiculous Scepter of a Reed to vilifie and abuse thee a heavy Cross and tearing Nails unmerciful hands and ungrateful hearts to torment and affront thee yet could no way alter thee from crying Thy will be done It was no news to thee that a Murtherer should be preferred before thee and begg'd in thy place by thy beloved People amongst whom thou spentst thy life that two Theeves should be thy Companions and fellow-sufferers That Judas amongst thy own Disciples should betray thee that three of thy best friends should lie sleeping by thee that Peter himself should deny thee yea that all should shamefully forsake and fly from thee and yet still O dear Saviour thou said Thy will be done Thou sawest afore hand thy weeping and disconsolate Mother stand at the foot of thy Cross and afflicting thy departing Soul with the sight of thy grief and disconsolate condition thou leavest her in and last of all that thou shouldst be abandoned on all hands and not so much as thy lifes last breath spared O invincible Courage O admirable Fortitude which neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor fears nor torments could so far alter thy resolution but still thou submittest in these words Thy will be done Lord and not my own But alas Is there no remedy after all this submission for thy blessed Soul Must thou alone drink of this sower Cup Must thou alone tread the wine-press of sowre Grapes Alas dearest Saviour where is then the God of Elias Are his bowels of mercy turn'd
into Adamant are the Eternal Springs of Lebanon dryed up are the Heavens become Iron that no drops of dew can distill down to refresh thy languishing Soul Where are now thy old friends which were so much delighted with thy Glory upon mount Tabor who lately sung so cheerfully at thy entering into Hierusalem yea even solemnly protested their readiness to die with thee Alas they are all asleep so fast so dead asleep that neither shame nor compassion on their Masters disconsolate condition can make them to say so much as one short prayer for themselves Oh weak condition of humane friendship unhappy and miserably deluded are all they who build on so false a Bottom How far better is it to trust in God then Man O ill requited Master is this the fruit of all thy Teachings Is this thy reward for all thy Benefits Is this the Profit of all thy Wonders thou hast made amongst them What though Judas were tempted with the glittering of Silver which dazels the eyes of all the World yet what Plea have thy beloved Disciples to excuse their dulness their coldness and want of Love Though Earth fail Heaven should be kind And now O my Soul thou who hast been witness to this great Spectacle What shall not this strange and incomparable love of thy Saviour make thee wholly to go out of thy self Look if thou are able to look at so glorious a Light or judge of so infinite charity and tell me what thou canst do Canst thou love any thing after this but thy Lord Jesus Canst thou affect any thing but thy dear Saviour Can thy greatest troubles or hardships distaste thee Thou complainest indeed of thy Sufferings but weigh them in this Ballance and alas how little cause hast thou to complain Ah! what poor flea-bitings are those which thou art afflicted with in respect of the Torments thy Saviour underwent for thee whom thou thus seest to have traced out the way with his own gored footsteps having his Head Crown'd with Thorns his shoulders charg'd with the infamous Burden of the Cross his ears pierced with Reproachful speeches and his eyes floating with Tears in which condition he ascended mount Calvary and invites thee to follow him Were they not thy sins O my Soul which were the Nails that fastned his Hands and his Feet were they not the Spears which pierced his sacred side Look upon thy Hypocrisie which was the kiss that betrayed him Behold thy Back-slidings which made his Soul weary to death which caused the withdrawment of his Fathers love and made him cry out that he was forsaken Hath Christ endured so much for thee and wilt thou not suffer a little for him Ah happy is that Affliction which is raised from thy Saviours love How rich shall we be when we have him for our Portion yea how high when we shall see a true contempt of the world under our feet Maist thou forbid O blessed Jesus that I should go about any worldly Throne which carries not thy Scepter or that I should talk of Honours when there is mention made of thy Holy Cross Let all greatness where thou art not be baseness unto me and let me mount up unto thee by those stairs of Humility whereby thou camest down to me O let me kiss the paths of that Mount which thou hast sprinkled with thy precious Bloud and esteem that Cross above all earthly things which thou hast consecrated by thy cruel pains Alas is it not a shameful thing that God should seek us among the heats of his Love and Sufferings and yet we cannot be found by him Shall we not forsake all the Disorders of a sensual life which hinder the effect of his Grace shall we not with the Samaritan woman forsake and leave behind us our Pitcher that we may return full of Jesus Christ shall we not bid farewel to all those occasions which lead us to sin O dear Saviour the most pure of all Beauties since it is for thee that so many Champions have peopled Deserts and passed the stream of bitterness and sorrow bearing their Crosses after thee and amongst the most cruel of dolours have felt the sweetness of thy presence shall I shed no Tears for those sins that pierced thee shall Jesus carry so many Thorns upon his Head and shall I have none in my heart Alas my Soul canst thou behold a Crown of Thorns grafted upon a man of sorrow what Spectacle alas is this no more a man but a skin dispoiled and bloody taken from the teeth of Tigers and Leopards Every stroak made a wound every wound a fountain of blood O hideous Prodigies which took away from us the light of the Sun and covered the Moon with a sorrowful darkness Heaven wears mourning upon his Cross all the Citizens of Heaven weep over his Torments The Earth quakes the Stones rend the Sepulchres open the Dead arise and all to teach us by insensible Creatures the pitty we should take of his Sufferings And in conclusion of all what should we hence learn but imitating our blessed Saviour who having sadness in his Soul even to death yea taking up a resolution and deprecation in the approaches thereof cryed out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me willingly to submit to all those Sufferings he shall think fit to lay upon us Neither to be any way fearful or solicitous in what manner God will please to take us to him or in the least manner to be troubled touching the place hour or manner of our Dissolution since he that made us best knows how to dispose of us as he please who can give us a Cordial in our greatest fainting Fits and therefore his will ought to be the rule of our Life and Death our Sufferings and our Sorrows since from him who is all goodness of himself we cannot expect any thing but the best Are we mortal and shall we grieve to die Shall we not gladly drink of that Cup whereof our Saviour hath begun Death is unwelcom onely to those who have not mortified their desires and affections here while they lived why then should we have regret to leave so miserable a lise Why should we be unwilling to bid adieu and quit this place where we have endured so many Deaths and which hath so long been the place of our sorrows O my God! what a vain fear then is that which startles me what a sad Pensiveness which over-spreads me Oh when and where shall I take my flight unto thee Do not tell me O dear Saviour there is a great Chaos between thee and me since thou hast already passed it and wilt thou not then lift me up by thy mercy I am here as within the Deserts of Africa in a burning world the drought whereof makes it a habitation for Devils O my God! I am tormented in this flame until some Lazarus be found to dip the end of his finger in thy blood to allay the burning of my thirst and restore me into the bosome of a merciful God O bessed day when we shall be free from sorrow and suffering but not from comfort where we shal rest from our Labours and perfectly injoy the most perfect God who as he is love it self will perfectly love us yea love us for ever O comfortable words how sweet must they needs be to our ears how refreshing to our wearied Senses and languid Spirits Ah What smiles shall we then perceive in that face of Sorrows and with whom we have here suffered when he shall pronounce that joyful sentence Come ye blessed of my Father shal we then repent our Sufferings and Sorrows are not the Tears of Repentance sweet unto us This is that joy which was procured by sorrow This is that Crown which was procured by the Cross Jesus did weep that our Tears might be washed away Our Saviour bled that we might not be wounded O blessed Love Oh in what a frame will our Soul then be who can express who can conceive the infinite love and unexpressible joy of so happy a Union so sweet a Reconcilement who can question the love which he doth so sweetly taste or doubt of that vvhich vvith such joy he feeleth vvhen vve shall be incircled in Eternity and for ever praise him FINIS