Nature but still it hangs upon me and sinks and weighs down my Soul as oft as 't is aspiring towards thee O my God have pity upon me deliver me from this Body of Sin ease my weary and heavy laden Soul of this grievous Burthen under which it labours and groans and suffer not this spark of divine Life which thou hast kindled in me to be opprest and extinguisht by it but so cherish it I beseech thee with the continual Influences of thy Grace as that it may at length it may break through all this Rubbish that suppresses it and finally rise into a glorious Flame Then shall I always approach thee with Joy and breath up my Soul to thee in every Prayer then shall my Heart be firmly united to thee in a devout and chearful Affection and my Prayers shall come up as incense before thee and breathe a sweet-smelling savour into thy Nostrils Hear me therefore O my God I beseech thee and strengthen me with all might in the inward man that for the future I may contend more vigorously and successfully against these vile Inclinations of my Nature which do so miserably hamper and depress my soul that so at last I may be a conqueror and more than a conquerer through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen If through any bodily Infirmity such as Melancholy Weariness Drousiness or Sickness you find your self indisposed to divine Offices indeavour to quicken your sluggish Mind with the Consideration of some one of the most moving Arguments of your Religion such as the Love of God and of your Saviour the Majesty of Gods Presence in which you are or the blessed Immortality you hope for and then address your self to God in this following Prayer O Blessed God thou art a most pure and active Spirit who doest always move with an uncontrolable Freedom and art never hindred or wearied in thy Operations have pity upon me I beseech thee thy poor infirm Creature who am cumbred with this Body of death and so deprest by its manifold Frailties that I cannot lift up my Heart unto thee Thou knowest O Lord my spirit is willing though my flesh is weak my labouring Soul aspires towards thee it stretches forth the Wings of its Desires toward thee and would fain mount up above all earthly things and unite it self with thee in eternal Love but alas its Fervours are dampt and its Endeavours tired by this clog of Flesh that hangs upon it and perpetually sinks and weighs it down again O my God draw near unto me and touch my Mind with such a powerful sense of thee as in despight of these my bodily Indispositions may attract and draw up my Soul unto thee And if it be thy blessed will release me from these fleshly Incumbrances and fit my Body to my Mind that I may serve thee as I desire to do with a fervent and a chearful Spirit But if it shall seem good in thine Eyes to leave me strugling under these bodily Oppressions Lord give me Patience and Submission to thy heavenly Will that so when I cannot approach thee with that Pleasure and Satisfaction I desire I may be heartily content to serve thee upon any Terms and that what I want of Vigour and Chearfulness in my Religion I may make up in Truth and in Reality And O let the Sense of these my present Indispositions cause me more vehemently to long after that free and blessed State wherein with fixt and steady Thoughts with flagrant Love and an entire Devotion of Soul I shall for ever worship praise and glorifie thy name Amen If through present Worldly-mindedness or Vanity of Spirit you find your self cold and apt to be distracted in your Religious Offices indeavour to stir up your Affections by representing to your self the Greatness and Urgency of your spiritual Wants the Vanity of all outward things and the Reality and Fulness of heavenly Enjoyments And do what you can to recollect your wandring Thoughts by setting your self in the Presence of the great God to whose All-seeing Eye every Thought and Motion of your Soul is open and naked And when by thus doing you have composed your Mind into a more serious Frame present this following Prayer O Thou ever blessed Majesty who fillest Heaven and Earth with thy Presence and art always listening to the Supplications of a world of Creatures that hang upon thee open I beseech thee thine Ears of Mercy to me who am unfit and unworthy to approach thee who by setting my Affections upon things below and plunging my self into the Cares and Pleasures of this Life have estrang'd and alienated my Mind from thee and lost that delightful Relish of thee with which I was wont to draw near unto thee And now that I am retired from the World to converse with thee and spread my wants and my desires before thee those worldly Cares and Delights with which I have been too too conversant are importunately thrusting themselves upon me to divert my Thoughts distract my Intentions and carry away my Affections from thee by reason whereof my Mind wanders my Hope droops and my Desires are frozen and whilst I am drawing near thee with my lips my heart is running away from thee O my God have pity upon me pluck my Soul out of this deep mire quicken raise and spiritualize these my groveling Affections Possess this Heart which opens it self to thy gracious Influences with such a strong and vigorous Love to thee as may lift me up above all earthly things and continually carry forth my Soul in vehement Desires after thee that so I may always approach thee with a joyful Heart being glad to leave the company of all other things to go to thee my God my exceeding Joy Give me a sober diligent and collected spirit that is neither choaked with Cares nor scattered with Levity nor discomposed with Passion nor estranged from thee with sinful Prejudice or Inadvertency but fix it fast to thy self with the Indissoluble Bands of an active Love and pregnant Devotion that so when-ever I prostrate my self before thee I may presently be born away far above all these sensible Goods in a high Admiration of thee and a passionate Longing after thee And now O Lord while I am addressing to thee gather in I beseech thee my wandering Thoughts and fix and stay them upon thy self And O do thou touch my cold and earthy Desires with an out-stretched Ray from thy self and cause them to rise and flame up to thee in Fervours answerable to my pressing Wants that I may so ask as that I may receive so seek as that I may find so knock as that it may be opened unto me through Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Redeemer Amen If after this you find your Heart is very much enlarged and your Mind and Affections vigorously disposed towards God and heavenly things fix your Mind a little while upon the Beauty and Excellency of his Nature or upon some of the most
Happiness not only to co-habit but be acquainted with and in Heart and Will united to this Blessed and Glorious Company For what Soul that has any Spark of Cordial Love to Jesus the best Friend of Souls that ever was any grateful remembrance of what he did and suffered for our sakes would not esteem it a mighty Felicity to be admitted into his Presence and to be an Eye-witness of the happy Change of his past woful Circumstances To see him that was so cruelly treated so barbarously vilified tortured and butchered for our sakes raised to the highest pitch of Splendour and Dignity to be Head and Prince of all the Hierarchy of Heaven to be worshipped and celebrated throughout all the noble Choir of Archangels and Angels and Spirits of just men made Perfect Verily methinks had I only the Priviledge to look in and see my dear and blessed Lord surrounded with all this Circle of Glories it would be a most Heavenly Consolation to me though I were sure never to partake of it The very Communion I should have in the Joyes of my Master would be a kind of Heaven at Second-hand to me and my Soul would be wondrous Happy by Sympathizing with him in his Felicity and Advancement But Oh! when that Blessed Person shall not only permit me to see his Glory but introduce me into it and make me Partaker of it when I shall not only behold his Beloved Face but be admitted into his Dear Conversation and dwell in his Arms and Embraces for ever when I shall hear him record the wondrous Adventures of his Love through how many woful Stages he passed to rescue me from Misery and make me Happy and in the mean time shall have a most ravishing Feeling of that Happiness how will my Heart spring with Joy and burn with Love and my Mouth o'reflow with Praises and Thanksgivings to him AND as our Acquaintance with and Choice of the Blessed Jesus must needs contribute vastly to our Happiness so must also though not in so high a Degree our being intimately acquainted and united with Saints and Angels Who being not only endowed with large and comprehensive Vnderstandings but also with perfect Good-nature and most generous Charity must needs make excellent Company For as their Goodness cannot but render their Conversation infinitely free and benign so their great Knowledge must necessarily render it equally profitable and delightful And then being so Knowing as they are they must needs be supposed to understand all the wise Arts of Endearment and being so Good they must be also supposed to be continually practising them And if so what a Heavenly Conversation must theirs be the Scope whereof is the most glorious Knowledge and the Law whereof is the most perfect Friendship Who would not be willing to leave a foolish froward and ill-natured World for the blessed Society of these wise Friends and perfect Lovers And what a Felicity must it be to spend an Eternity in such a noble Conversation Where we shall hear the deep Philosophy of Heaven communicated with mutual Freedom in the Wise and Amicable Discourses of Angels and of Glorified Spirits who without any Reserve or affectation of Mystery without Passion or Interest or peevish Contention for Victory do freely Philosophize and mutually impart the treasures of each others Knowledge For since all Saints there are great Philosophers and all Philosophers perfect Saints we must needs suppose Knowledge and Goodness Wisdom and Charity to be equally intermingled throughout all their Conversation and being so what can be imagined more delightful When therefore we shall leave this impertinent and unsociable World and all our good old Friends that are gone to Heaven before us shall meet us as soon as we are landed upon the shore of Eternity and with infinite congratulations for our safe Arrival shall conduct us into the Company of the Patriarchs and Prophets Apostles and Martyrs and introduce us into an intimate Acquaintance with them and with all those brave and generous Souls who by their glorious Examples have recommended themselves to the World when we shall be familiar Friends with Angels and Arch-Angels and all the Courtiers of Heaven shall call us Brethren and bid us Welcome to their Masters Joy and we shall be received into their glorious Society with all the tender indearments and Caresses of those Heavenly Lovers what a mighty Addition to our Happiness will this be THERE are indeed some other additions to the Happiness of Heaven such as the Glory and Magnificence of the Place which is the Highest Heaven or the upper and purer Tracts of the Aether which our Saviour calls Paradise Luke xxiii 43 and St. Paul the Third Heaven 2 Cor. xii 2 both which in the phrase of that Age bespeak it to be a place of unspeakable Glory for so the Jews do commonly call this blessed Seat the Third or Angel-bearing Region of Heaven by which they denote it to be the Palace of the King of the whole World where his most glorious Courtiers do reside and they also call it Paradise in allusion to the Earthly Paradise of Eden because as that was the Garden of this lower World so this is of the whole Creation And though we have no exact description of this place in Scripture and that perhaps because no humane language can describe it yet since God hath chosen it for the Everlasting Theatre of Bliss and Happiness we may thence reasonably conclude that he hath most exquisitely furnished it with all accommodations that are requisite to a most happy and blissful Life BESIDES which also there is the everlasting Duration of it which is another great Accession to its Happiness That such is the Nature of its Enjoyments as that they do not like all other Pleasures spend and wast in the Fruition that though it will be always feeding our Faculties with new Delights yet it will never be exhausted but be always equally because infinitely distant from a Period So that its Happiness consisting of an infinite Variety of Pleasure extended to an infinite Duration it will be impossible for those that enjoy it to be either cloyd with the repetition of it or tormented with the fear of losing it BUT these Two last I only mention because they do not so properly belong to our present Argument which is only to explain the Nature of Heaven so far as is necessary to the right understanding of the Nature of those Means by which it is to be attained NOW from what hath been said concerning this great End of the Christian Life these Two things are to be inferr'd concerning the Nature of it I. THAT the main of Heaven consists not so much in any outward Possession as in an inward State and Temper For though Heaven be doubtless a most glorious Place and all its blessed Inhabitants do possess and hold it by an everlasting Tenure yet 't is a great mistake to imagine that the main happiness of Heaven consists in living
by passing out of one world into another And therefore as in this world it is Likeness that does congregate and associate Beings together so doubtless it is in the other too So that if we carry with us thither our wicked and devillish dispositions as we shall doubtless do unless we subdue and mortifie them here there will be no Company fit for us to associate with but only the devillish and damned Ghosts of wicked men with whom our wretched Spirits being already joined by a likeness of Nature will mingle themselves as soon as ever they are excommunicated from the society of Mortals For whither should they flock but to the Birds of their own Feather with whom should they associate but with those malignant Spirits to whom they are already joined by a Community of Nature So that supposing that when they land in Eternity it were left to their own Liberty to go to Heaven or Hell into the society of the Blessed or the Damned it is plain that Heaven would be no Place for them that the Air of that bright Region of eternal Day would never agree with their black and hellish Natures For alas what should they do among those Blessed Beings that inhabit it to whose God-like Natures Divine Contemplations and Heavenly Employments they have so great a Repugnancy and Aversation So that besides the having a Right to Heaven it is necessary to our enjoying it that we shoule be antecedently disposed and qualified for it And it being thus God hath been graciously pleased to to make those very Virtues the Conditions of our Right to Heaven which are the proper Dispositions and Qualifications of our Spirits for it that so with one and the same Labour we might entitle our selves to and qualifie our selves to enjoy it NOW as we shewed you before the Condition of our Right to Heaven is our practising those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End and as the Religion of the Means no further entitles us to Heaven than as it produces and promotes in us those Heavenly Virtues so it no further qualifies us for it For when the Soul goes into Eternity it leaves the Religion of the Means behind it and carries nothing with it but only those Heavenly Virtues and Dispositions which it here acquired by those Means For as for Faith and Consideration Hearing of Gods Word and Receiving of Sacraments c. they are all but Scaffolds to that Heavenly Building of inward Purity and Goodness and when this is once finished for Eternity then must those Scaffolds all go down as things of no further Use or Necessity But as for the Graces of the Mind they are to stand for ever to be the Receptacles and Habitations of all Heavenly Pleasure And hence the Apostle tells us that of those three Christian Graces Faith Hope and Charity Charity which in the largest sense of it comprehends all Heavenly Virtue is the greatest because the Two former being but Means of Charity shall cease in Heaven and be swallowed up for ever in Vision and Enjoyment but Charity saith he never faileth 1 Cor. xii 13 BY all which it is apparent that the Religion of the Means is no further useful to us than as it is apt to produce and promote in us those Heavenly Virtues the practice of which is the most direct and immediate Means to the ultimate End of a Christian. Wherefore as a man may knock and file and yet be no Mechanick though the Hammer and File with which he does it are very useful Tools to the making of any curious Machine so a man may pray and hear and receive Sacraments c. and yet be a very Bungler in the blessed Trade of a Heavenly Life For though it is true these are excellent Means of Heavenly Living yet as the Art of the Mechanick consists not barely in using his Tools but in using them in such a manner as is necessary to the perfecting and accomplishing his Work So the Art of one that pretends to the Heavenly Life consists not barely in praying and hearing c. but in using these Means with that Religious Skill and Artifice which is necessary to render them effectually subservient to the Ends of Piety and Virtue AND thus I have given a general Account of the Means which are necessary to our obtaining of Heaven and which as I have shewed are either such as tend more directly and immediately to it or such as more remotely respect it The first is the Practice of those Heavenly Virtues in the Perfection whereof the Happiness of Heaven consists the second is the Practising of those Duties which are necessary to our acquiring and perfecting those Heavenly Virtues And of these two Parts consists the whole Christian Life which takes in not only all those Virtues that are to be practised by us in Heaven but also all those Duties by which we are to overcome the Difficulty of those Virtues and to acquire and perfect them The first of these for Distinction sake we will call the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life it being that part of it which we shall lead in Heaven after we have learnt it here upon Earth The second I shall call the Warfaring or Militant Part of the Christian Life which is peculiar to our Earthly State wherein we are to contend and strive with the manifold Difficulties which attend us in the Exercise of those Heavenly Virtues Both which I conceive are implied in those words of the Apostle Phil. i. 27 Only let your Conversation be as becometh the Gospel where the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we render Let your Conversation be strictly signifies behaving our selves as Citizens or which if we may have leave to coin a word may be fitly rendered Citizen it as becomes the Gospel For the word implies that those of whom he speaks were Denizens of some Free City for so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Phil. iii. 20 is rendered Conversation strictly denotes a Citizenship from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Citizens and is of the same Import with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Acts xxii 28 is translatee a Freedom i. e. of the City of Rome which denotes the State and Condition of those who though they dwelt out of that City and sometimes remote from it had yet the Jus Civitatis Romanae the Privileges of it belonging to them For thus Cicero describes it Omnibus Municipibus duas esse Tatrias unam Naturae alteram Juris Catonis Exemplo qui Tusculi natus in Populi Romani Societaem susceptus est i. e. All such as are made free of the City have two Countries one of Nature the other of Law As Cato for instance who was born at Tusculum and afterwards admitted a Citizen of Rome Which exactly agrees with the Nature of this Heavenly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Citizenship which the Apostle here attributes to Christians who though they belong at present to another
Satisfaction and necessarily renders us by so many Degrees miserable as it exceeds the real worth and value of Things BESIDES which also it is to be considered that all these lesser Goods which are the Objects of our Extravagant Affections are things which we must ere long be for ever deprived of For the lesser Goods are those which are only good for the worser Part of us that is for our Body and Animal Life the proper Goods whereof are the Outward Sensitive Enjoyments of this World All which when we leave this world we must leave for ever and go away into Eternity with nothing about us but only the Good or Bad Dispositions of our Souls So that if our Soul be carnalized through our immoderate Affection to the things of this World we shall carry that Affection with us but leave the things which we thus vehemently affect behind us for ever For that which is the prevailing Temper of Souls in this Life will doubtless be so in the other too and so far is that of the Poet true Quae gratia currûm Armorúmque fuit vivis quae cura nitentes Pascere equos eadem sequitur tellure repostos For though the coming into the other world will questionless improve those Souls which are really good before yet it is not to be imagined how it should create those good who are habitually bad and if we retain in the other world that Prevailing Affection to these sensitive Goods which we contracted in this it must necessarily render us unspeakably miserable there For every Lust the Soul carries into the other world will by being eternally separated from its Pleasures convert into an Hopeless Desire and upon that account grow more furious and impatient For of all the Torments of the mind I know none that is comparable to that of an outragious Desire joined with Despair of Satisfaction which is just the case of sensual and worldly minded Souls in the other Life where they are full of sharp and unrebated Desires and like starving men that are shut up between two Dead Walls are tormented with a fierce but hopeless Hunger which having nothing else to feed on preys and quarries on themselves and in this desolate condition they are forced to wander to and fro tormented with a restless Rage an Hungry and Unsatisfied Desire craving food but neither finding nor expecting any and so in unexpressible Anguish they pine away a long Eternity And though they might find content and satisfaction could they but divert their Affections another way and reconcile them to the Heavenly Enjoyments yet being irrecoverably preingaged to sensual Goods they have no Savour or Relish of any thing else but are like Feaverish Tongues that disgust and nauseate the most grateful Liquors by reason of their own overflowing Gall. So impossible is it for men to be happy either here or hereafter so long as their Affections to the lesser Goods of this World do so immoderately exceed the worth and value of them ONE Essential Part therefore of the Christian Life which is the Great Means of our Happiness is the Virtue of Moderation the peculiar Office whereof is to bound our Concupiscible Affections and proportion them to the Intrinsic Worth of those outward Goods which we affect and desire For though the word Moderation according to our present Acceptation of it be no where to be found in the New Testament yet the Virtue expressed by it is frequently enjoined as particularly where we are forbid to set our Affections upon the Things of the Earth Col. iii. 2 To love the World or the Things that are in the World 1 John ii 15 Which Phrases are not to be so understood as if we were not to love the Enjoyments of the World at all for they are the Blessings of God and such as he has proposed to us in his Promises as the Rewards and Encouragements of our Obedience and to be sure he would never encourage us to obey him by the Hope of such Rewards as are unlawful for us to desire and love The meaning therefore of these Prohibitions is that we should so moderate our Affections to the world as not to permit them to exceed the Real Worth and Value of its Enjoyments For it is not simply our loving it but our loving it to such a Degree as is inconsistent with our Love of God that is here forbidden For he that loveth the world saith St. John the Love of the Father is not in him i. e. he that loves it to such a Degree as to prefer the Riches Honours and Pleasures of it before God and his Duty to him hath no real Love to God i. e. He loves not God as God as the Chiefest Good and Supream Beauty and Perfection And hence Covetousness which is an immoderate Desire of the world is called Idolatry Col. iii. 5 because it sets the world in the place of God and gives it that supream Degree of Affection which is only due to him And this the Apostle there calls Inordinate Affection because it extravagantly exceeds the Intrinsic Worth and Value of its Objects Wherefore we are strictly enjoined to take heed and beware of Covetousness Luke xii 15 And to let our Conversation be without Covetousness Heb. xiii 5 By all which and sundry other Commands and Prohibitions of the Gospel the Moderation of our Concupiscible Affections is made a necessary part of the Christian Life NOW that this also mightily contributes to our Acquisition of the Heavenly Happiness is evident not only from what hath been already said but also from hence that till our Affections are thus moderated we can have no Savour or Relish of the Heavenly Enjoyments For in this corrupt State of our Nature we generally understand by our Affections which like coloured Glass represent all Objects to us in their own Hue and Complexion When therefore a mans Affections are immoderately carried out towards worldly things they will be sure by Degrees to corrupt and deprave his Judgment and render him as unfit to judge of divine and spiritual Enjoyments as a Plowman is to be a Moderatour in the Schools For when a mans thoughts have been employed another way and the Delights of Sense have for a long while preoccupied his Vnderstanding he will judge things to be Good or Evil according as they disgust or gratifie his lower Appetites And this being the Standard by which he measures things 't is impossible he should have any Savour of those Spiritual Goods in which the Happiness of Heaven consists For though in his Nature there is a Tendency to Rational Pleasures yet this he may and very frequently does stifle and extinguish by addicting himself wholly to the Delights and Gratifications of his Sense which by degrees will so melt down his Rational Inclinations into his Sensual and confound and mingle them with his Carnal Appetites that his Soul will wholly sympathize with his Body and have all Likes and Dislikes in common with
into naked Spirits yet if we go away into the other World with these Affections unmortified in us they will not only be far more violent and outragious than now and we shall not only have a far quicker Sense of them than now but this our sharp sense of them shall be pure and simple without any intermixture of Pleasure to soften and allay it And if so Good Lord what exquisite Devils and Tormentors will they prove when an extreme Rage and Hate Envy and Revenge shall be all together like so many hungry Vultures preying on our Hearts and our Mind shall be continually baited and worried with all the furious Thoughts which these outragious Passions can suggest to us When with the meagre Eyes of Envy we shall look up towards the Regions of Happiness and incessantly pine and grieve at the Felicities of those that inhabit them when through a sense of our own Follies and of the miserable Effects of them our Rage and Impatience shall be heightned and boiled up into a Diabolical Fury and when at the same time an Inveterate Malice against all that we converse with and a fierce desire of Revenging our selves upon those who have contributed to our Ruine shall like a Wolf in our Breasts be continually gnawing and feeding upon our Souls what an insupportable Hell shall we be to our selves Doubtless that Outward Hell to which bad Spirits are condemned is very terrible but I cannot imagine but that the worst of their Hell is within themselves and that their own Devillish Passions are severer Furies to them than all those Devils that are without them For Wrath and Envy Malice and Revenge are both the Nature and the Plague of Devils and though as Angels they are the Creatures of God yet as Devils they are the Creatures of these their Devillish Affections they were these that transformed them from Blessed Angels into Cursed Fiends and could they but once cease to be envious and malicious they would cease to be Devils and turn Blessed Angels again If then these rancorous Affections have such a malignant Influence as to blacken Angels into Devils and make them the most miserable who were once the most happy Creatures how can we ever expect to be happy so long as we indulge and harbour them WHEREFORE to remove this great Impediment of our Happiness Christianity strictly enjoins us to practise this necessary Virtue of Fortitude which consists in the due Regulation of all these our Irascible Affections in moderating our Anger and Impatience suppressing our Envy and extinguishing all our unreasonable Hatred and Desire of Revenge For hitherto tend all those Evangelical Precepts which require us to put away all bitterness and wrath all clamor and evil speaking and malice Ephes. iv 31 to lay aside all malice and to be children in malice 1 Pet. ii 1 1 Cor. xiv 20 to be strengthned with all might unto all patience and long suffering Coloss. i. 11 And accordingly all the Virtues which are comprehended in this of Fortitude are reckoned among the Fruits of that Blessed Spirit by which we are to be guided and directed Gal. v. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is peace long-suffering gentleness goodness and meekness all which are nothing but this great Virtue of Fortitude severally exerting it self upon those several Irascible Affections that are in us and guiding and regulating them according to those Laws and Directions which right Reason severally prescribes them and setting such Bounds and Limits to each of them as are necessary to the Peace and Happiness of our Rational Natures That so when Outward Dangers or Evils do excite them they may not start out into such wild Excesses as to become Plagues and Diseases to our Minds NOW how much the Practice of this Virtue conduces to our Heavenly Happiness is evident from hence That all the Diseases and Distemperatures which our Mind is capable of are nothing else but the Excesses of its Concupiscible and Irascible Affections but it s being affected with Good and Evil beyond those Limits and Measures which Right Reason prescribes Did we but love outward Goods according to the value at which true Reason rates them we should neither be vexed with an Impatient Desire of them while we want nor disappointed of our Expectation while we enjoy them And when our Desires towards these outward Goods are reduced to that Coolness and Moderation as neither to be impatient in the Pursuit nor dissatisfied in the Enjoyment of them it is impossible they should give any Disturbance to our Minds And so on the other hand did we but take care to regulate our Resentments of Outward Evils and Dangers as Right Reason advises they would never be able to hurt or discompose our Minds For Right Reason advises that we should not so resent them as to increase and aggravate them that we should not add the Disquietude of an anxious Fear to the Dangers that threaten us nor the Torment of an Outragious Anger to the Indignities that are offered us nor the Smart of a Peevish Impatience to the sufferings that befall us In a word that we should not aggravate our Want through an invidious Pining at anothers Fulness nor sharpen the Injuries that are offered us by a malicious and revengeful Resentment of them And he that follows these Advices of Reason and conducts his Irascible Affections by them has a Mind that is elevated above the Reach of Injury that sits above the Clouds in a calm and quiet Aether and with a brave Indifferency hears the rowling Thunders grumble and burst under its Feet And whilst Outward Evils fall upon timorous and peevish and malicious Spirits like Sparks of Fire upon a heap of Gunpowder and do presently blow them up and put them all in Combustion when they happen to a dispassionate Mind they fall like Stones on a Bed of Down where they sit easily and quietly and are received with a calm and soft Complyance When therefore by the continual Practice of Moderation and Fortitude we have tamed and civilized our Concupiscible and Irascible Affections and reduced them under the Government of Reason our Minds will be free from all Disease and Disturbance and we shall be liable to no other Evil but that of Bodily Sense and Passion So that when we leave our Bodies and go into the World of Spirits we shall presently feel our selves in perfect Health and Ease For the Health of a Reasonable Soul consists in being perfectly Reasonable in having all its Affections perfectly subdued to a well-informed Mind and clothed in the Livery of its Reason And while it is thus it cannot be diseased in that Spiritual State wherein it will be wholly separated from all bodily Sense and Passion because it has no Affection in it that can any way disturb or ruffle its calm and gentle Thoughts And then feeling all within it self to be well and as it should be every String tuned into a perfect Harmony every Motion and
Affection corresponding with the most perfect Draughts and Models of its own Reason it must needs highly approve of and be perfectly satisfied with it self and while it surveys its own Motions and Actions it must necessarily have a most delicious Gust and Rellish of them they being all such as its best and purest Reason approves of with a full and ungainsaying Judgment And thus the Soul being cured of all irregular Affection and removed from all corporeal Passion will live in perfect Health and Vigor and for ever enjoy within it self a Heaven of Content and Peace IV. ANOTHER Virtue which appertains to a man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is TEMPERANCE which consists in not indulging our Bodily Appetites to the Hurt and Prejudice of our Rational Nature Or in refraining from all those Excesses of Bodily Pleasure of Eating Drinking and Venery which do either disorder our Reason or indispose us to enjoy the pure and spiritual Pleasures of the Mind For besides that all Excesses of Bodily Pleasures are naturally prejudicial to our Reason as they indispose those Bodily Organs by which it operates For so Drunkenness dilutes the Brain which is the Mint of the Understanding and drowns those Images it stamps upon it in a Floud of unwholesome Rheums and Moistures and Gluttony cloggs the Animal Spirits which are as it were the Wings of the Mind and indisposes them for the Highest and Noblest Flights of Reason so Wantonness chafes the Bloud into Feverish Heats and by causing it to boil up too fast into the Brain disorders the motions of the Spirits there and so confounds the Phantasms that the Mind can have no clear or distinct Perception of them by which means our Intellectual Faculties are very often interrupted and forced to sit still for want of proper Tools to work with and so by often loitering grow by degrees listless and unactive and at the last are utterly indisposed to any Rational Operations Besides this I say which must needs be a mighty prejudice to our Rational Nature by too much familiarizing our selves to bodily Pleasures we shall break off all our acquaintance with spiritual ones and grow by degrees such utter strangers to them that we shall never be able to rellish and enjoy them and our Soul will contract such an Vxorious Fondness of the Body that being the Shop of all the Pleasure it was ever acquainted with that 't will never be able to live happily without it For though in its separate state it cannot be supposed that the Soul will retain the Appetites of the Body yet if while it is in the Body it wholly abandons it self to Corporeal Pleasures it may and doubtless will retain a vehement hankering after it and longing to be re-united to it which I conceive is the only sensuality that a separated Soul is capable of For when such a Soul arrives into the Spiritual World her having wholly accustomed her self to bodily Pleasure and never experienced any other will necessarily render her incapable of enjoying the Pleasures of pure and blessed Spirits So that being left utterly destitute of all her dear Delights and Satisfactions which are such as she knows she can never enjoy but in conjunction with the Body all her Appetite and Longing must necessarily be an outragious Desire of being Embodied again that so she may be capable of repeating her old sensual Pleasures and acting over the brutish Scene anew AND this as some think is the Reason why such gross and sensual Souls have appeared so often after their separation in the Churchyards or Charnel-Houses where their Bodies were laid because they cannot please themselves without them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soul that is infected with a great Lust to the Body continues so for a great while after Death and suffering great Reluctancies hovers about this visible place and is hardly drawn from thence by force by the Demon that hath the Guard and Care of it Where by the visible Place he means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is About their Monuments and Sepulchres where the shadowy Phantasms of such Souls have sometimes appeared For being utterly unacquainted with the Pleasures of Spirits they have nothing in all the spiritual world to feed their hungry Desire which makes them when they are permitted to wander to hover about and linger after their Bodies the Impossibility of being re-united to them not being able to cure them of their impotent Desire of it but still they would fain be alive again and reassume their old Instruments of Pleasure Iterumque ad tarda reverti Corpora Quae lucis miseris tam dira Cupido And hence among other Reasons it was that the Primitive Christians did so severely abstain from Bodily Pleasures that by this means they might gently wean the Soul from the Body and teach it before hand to live upon the Delights of separated Spirits that so upon its separation it might drop into Eternity like ripe Fruit from the Tree with Ease and Willingness and that by accustoming it before to spiritual Pleasures and Delights it might acquire such a savoury Sense and Relish of them as to be able when it came into the spiritual world to live wholly upon them and to be so intirely satisfied with them as not to be endlesly vext with a tormenting Desire of returning to the Body again For so Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We that are hunting after the Heavenly Food must take heed that we keep our Earthly Belly in subjection and to keep a strict Government over those things that are pleasant to it For saith he a little before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither saith he is Food our Work nor Pleasure our Aim but we use them only as necessaries to our present Abode in which our Reason is instituting and training us up to a Life incorruptible i. e. They did so use them as that as much as in them lay they might wean their Souls from the pleasures of them that so they might have the better Appetite to that Spiritual Food upon which they were to live for ever AND therefore thus to temperate and restrain our selves in the Use of bodily Pleasures is one of the necessary Virtues of the Christian Life For hitherto tend all those Precepts concerning abstaining from fleshly lusts which war against our Souls I Pet. ii 11 and mortifying the deeds of the Body Rom. viii 13 and keeping under the Body 1 Cor. ix 27 and putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Coloss. ii 11 And we are strictly enjoined to be temperate in all things to watch and be sober and walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in excess of wine revellings and banquettings The sense of all which is That we should not indulge our bodily Appetites to the vitiating and depraving of our spiritual that we should not plunge our selves so far in
the Pleasures of the Flesh as to drown our Sense and Perception of Divine and Heavenly Enjoyments but that we should so far subdue and mortifie our Sensuality as that it may not have the Dominion over us nor be the prevalent Delight and Complacency of our Souls but that the commanding Biass and swaying Propension within us may be towards Divine and Heavenly Enjoyments that so when we leave this Body we may not be so wedded to the Pleasures of it as not to be able to be Happy without them but that we may carry with us into Eternity such a quick Sense and lively Rellish of the Pleasures above as to be able to live upon and be for ever satisfied with them SO that at first View it is evident how much the Practice of this Virtue conduces to our Future Happiness For by taking us off from all excess of bodily Pleasure it disposes us to enjoy the Pleasures of Heaven and connaturallizes our Souls to them So that when after a long Exercise of Temperance we come to leave the Body our Soul will be so loosned from it before hand and rendred so indifferent to the Delights of it that we shall be able to part both with It and Them without any great Regret or Reluctancy and to live from them for ever without any disquieting Longings or Hankerings after them For as when we are grown up by Age and Experience to a sense of more manly Pleasures we despise Nuts and Rattles which when we were Children we accounted our Happiness and should have reckoned our selves undone had we been deprived of them So when by the Practice of a severe Temperance we have acquired a thorough sense of the Pleasures of Virtue and Religion we shall look upon all our bodily Pleasures as the little Toys and Fooleries of our Infant State with which we pleased our childish Fancies when we knew no better And whereas had we been deprived of them then we should have cried and bemoaned our selves as little Children do when they lose their Play-Games and reckoned our selves undone and miserable upon the Experience we have had of the Nobler and more Generous Pleasures of Religion we shall be able to despise these little poor Entertainments of our Infancy to take our leave of them without a Tear in our Eyes and to live eternally without missing them For our Minds being for the main reconciled to Rational and Spiritual Pleasures we shall put off all Remains of bodily Lust with our Bodies and so flie away into the spiritual world with none but Pure and Spiritual Appetites about us where meeting with an infinite Fulness of Spiritual Joys and Pleasures of which we had many a foretast in the Body our predisposed Mind will presently close with and feed upon them with such an unspeakable Content and Satisfaction as will ravish it for ever from the Thoughts of all other Pleasures So that now we shall not only be able to subsist without Fleshly Delights but to despise and scorn them our Faculties being treated every moment with far nobler Fare and better Joys V. ANOTHER of those Virtues which belong to a man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is HUMILITY which consists in a modest and lowly opinion of our selves and of our own Acquisitions Merits or Endowments Or in not valuing our selves beyond what is due and just upon the account of any Good we are possessed of whether it be Internal or External For Pride or an over-weening Self-Conceit is the Bane of all our Virtue and Happiness It causes us to overlook our Defects and thereby hinders us from making farther Improvement and it possesses us with an opinion that we deserve more than we have and thereby renders us dissatisfied with our present Enjoyments For by how much any man over-values himself by so much he under-values what he enjoys because while he compares what he enjoys with the fond opinion that he hath of himself he always finds it short of his Desert and so can never be satisfied with it Yea such is the cross and capricious Humour of a proud Spirit that the more it possesses the bigger it swells with the opinion of its own Desert and the more it is opiniated of its own Desert the less it is satisfied with that which it possesses and enjoys For when a man is exceeding apt to flatter and cokes himself he will catch at any Pretence to exalt his own Merit and Desert and be ready to measure it not only by what he is but by what he has too and then reckoning his outward Possessions to be the Rewards or Products of his Inward Worth the more he has the more he will still imagine he deserves to have So that his Opinion of his own Desert will still run on so fast before his Enjoyments that though they should follow it never so close as the Hinder Wheels of a Coach do the Fore ones yet it would be impossible for them to overtake it And so long as he conceives his Enjoyments to be behind his Desert he will be always discontented and dissatisfied with them and while he continues of this Humour the utmost Bliss and Glory that Heaven affords would not to be able to satisfie him For if he were set equal in Glory with the highest Saint he would be so puffed and exalted by it in his own Conceit that he would fancy he merited the Glory of an Angel and if from thence he were advanced to the Throne of an Arch-Angel he would flatter himself into a conceit that he deserved the Glory and Dignity of a God And so long as he fancied his Advancement to be below his Merit he would never be contented with it how high soever it were but be continually vexing and repining that he was raised no higher AND this I verily believe was the Temper of the Devil and that which finally ruined and undid him For when he was an Angel of Light he was doubtless placed by the Father of Spirits in such an Order or Degree of Dignity as became the Dignity of his Nature But he reflecting on his own Indowments and the Glorious Condition wherein he was placed began first to swell with an arrogant and overweening conceit of himself and to set too high a value upon his own Angelical Graces and Perfections and as the natural Effect of this to imagine that he was not high enough advanced in the Scale of the Heavenly Hierarchy and that his Station in the Common-wealth of Angels was beneath the Grandeur and Dignity of his Nature This made him look up with envious Eyes upon the Glorious Orders above him into whose sublime Rank he being forbid to aspire by God the Prince of Spirits he proceeded by Degrees to malign and hate both Him and Them And this he first expressed by entring into a Conspiracy against him with some of his Fellow-Angels whom he found most apt to be wrought upon by him together with whom he made an open
or Authority sufficiently warrants him so to do And being thus rightfully enthroned by the infinite Preeminence of his own Power and Majesty all other Beings so far as they are capable stand immutably obliged to submit and resign themselves up to his Government BUT besides that we are obliged to him as he is God we are also bound to him as he is our Creatour For there is always a Power acquired by Benefits where there is none antecedently especially where the Benefit confer'd is no less than that of our Being which is the case between us and God And this is such a Benefit as is sufficient to entitle him to us by an absolute and unalienable Propriety though he had no antecedent right of Dominion over us by virtue of his own infinite Greatness So that though before he created us or any other Being he had free Power to act any thing that lay within the compass of just and lawful which just and lawful was undefineable by any other Law but that of his own Nature and though since his Creation his Power is no more than so so that he hath not acquired to himself any new Power by creating us but only made new Subjects whereon to exercise that ancient Power and Dominion which was eternally inherent in him yet doubtless by giving us our Beings he hath laid new Obligations upon us to obey him For now deriving our selves as we do from him we are bound by all the ties of Equity and Justice to render back our selves to him and to submit those powers to his Dominion which are the effects and off-spring of his Bounty For what can be more just and equal than that that Will which is the Cause of our Beings should be the Law and Rule of our Actions then that we should serve him with those Powers we derived from him and render him back the fruits of his own Plantation For now we are not our own but Gods and He alone hath power to dispose of us and whensoever we dispose of our selves contrary to his Will and Pleasure we do not only invade his Property but employ the spoils of it against him And whilst we continue thus doing it is impossible we should ever be happy For besides that while we continue in Rebellion against him we are in an actual Confederacy with Hell for so when we are told that Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft that is Rebellion against God the meaning is that like Witches we are in League with the Devil and are listed Volunteers under those infernal Powers who for blowing the Trumpet of Rebellion in Heaven were banished thence six thousand years ago and have ever since been raising Forces in this lower World against God so that whilst we continue with them in Defiance to God we are in the Devils Muster-Roll who is Captain General of all the revolted Legions and so are of the quite opposite Party to the Loyal people of Heaven and consequently can never hope while we continue such to be admitted to their Society and Happiness besides all this I say Rebellion against God doth naturally draw a Hell of Miseries after it For it cannot be supposed that the wise Sovereign of the World should be so unconcerned for his own Authority as to suffer his Creatures to spurn at and affront it without ever manifesting his Displeasure against them in some dire and sensible Effects And therefore though in this Life which is the time of our Tryal and Probation he mercifully forbears us to lead us to Repentance yet if we leave this Life with our Wills unsubdued and unresigned to him we must not expect to be thus gently dealt with in the other For it is as easie for him who is the Father of our Spirits to correct our Spirits as 't is for the Parents of our Flesh to correct our Flesh. And though our Souls are no more impressible with material stripes than Sun-beams are with the blows of a hammer yet are they liable to have horrid and dismal thoughts impress'd upon them and to be as much aggrieved by them as sensible Bodies are with the most exquisite Torments So that if God be displeased with us there is no doubt but he can imprint his Wrath upon our Minds in black and ghastly thoughts and cause it perpetually to drop like burning sulphur on our Souls And it being in his Power thus to lash our Spirits to be sure when once he is implacably incensed against us as he will be in the other World if we go Rebels thither he will more or less let loose his Power upon us and make us feel his wrathful Resentments by infusing supernatural Horrours into our Souls and scourging our guilty and defenceless Spirits with inspirations of dire and frightful Thoughts Now though this be not a natural and necessary Effect of our Rebellion against God because it depends upon his Will who is a free Agent yet considering that he is a wise Agent and that as such it is necessary he should one way or other manifest his Displeasure against such as are unreclaimable Rebels to his authority it is next to a natural one and at least the fearful Expectation of it in such rebellious spirits which is a misery next to the enduring it is necessary and unavoidable For God hath imprinted a dread of his own Power and Majesty so deeply on our Natures that we are not able with all our arts of Self-deceit wholly to obliterate and deface it and though in this life we may sometimes suppress and stupifie our Sense of God yet even here in despight of our selves 't will ever and anon return upon us And if when we have done what we know is offensive to that invisible Majesty we stand in aw of we do but suffer our selves seriously to reflect upon it there presently arises in our minds a swarm of horrid Thoughts and dismal Expectations and if in this present State in which we have so many Salvo's for our wounded spirits so many Pleasures and Self-delusions to charm our natural dread of God our overcharged Consciences do notwithstanding so often recoil upon us and alarm us with such dismal abodings what will they do hereafter when all those Pleasures are removed and all those Self-delusions baffled with which we were wont to sooth and divert them Then doubtless we shall be continually stung with sharp and dire Reflections and our Consciences like tragick Scenes be all hung round with the Ensigns of Horrour then shall the dread of God perpetually haunt us like a grim Fury and the terrour of his offended Majesty strike us into an everlasting Trembling and Agony For so S. James tells us that the Devils themselves do believe and tremble James ii 19 they believe that there is an Almighty Being above them and are conscious that they are in actual Rebellion against him which makes them horribly afraid of his vengeance and yet such is the inveterate devilishness of their
prudent considering what a treacherous and ill-natured World we have to deal with to be what we seem and not to paint ill Meanings with smiling Looks and smooth Pretences to notifie our Intentions and unfold our Hearts and so far as innocent Prudence will admit to turn our selves inside outwards to all we converse with to give to every one his due and not to intrench upon other mens Rights whether it be to their Lives or Liberties Reputations or Estates in a word to weigh to our Neighbours and our selves in the same Balance and to do to them whatsoever we could reasonably wish they should do to us if we were in their Persons and Circumstances By the Practice of which excellent Rules our Mind will by degrees be refined and purified from all Disposition to Fraud and Injustice and then when we go from hence into Eternity we shall carry thither with us such a just and righteous Frame of Mind such an honest Plainness and Integrity of Temper as will immediately qualifie and dispose us for the Society of just men made perfect who finding us already united to them in Disposition and Nature will joyfully receive us into their blessed Communion And now O! the blessed State we shall be in when being stripped of all Partiality and unjust Desire of all Insincerity and Craftiness of Temper we shall be admitted into a Nation of just and righteous People where every one has his appropriate Seat and Mansion of Glory and is so perfectly contented with it that he never covets what another enjoys so that every one possesses what is his own without the least suspicion of being ejected by a subtiler or more powerful Neighbour where being perfectly assured of each others Integrity they converse together with the greatest Openness and Freedom and in all their Language whatsoever it be do read their Hearts and convey their Intentions to one another where their Souls converse face to face and do freely unbosom themselves to one another without the least Disguise or Dissimulation so that in all their Society there is no such thing as a Secret or Mystery but they are all Bosom Friends to one another and every one has a Window into every ones Breast O! blessed God what a most happy Conversation must such just Souls as these enjoy with one another from whose Society all Fraud and Falshood Violence and Oppression is for ever banished For whilst they live together as they do in the continual Exercise of perfect Righteousness and Integrity they can neither design upon nor suspect one another and so consequently must needs converse together with infinite Security and Freedom And being all of them thus inviolably safe in each others Sincerity and Justice every one enjoys his proper Rank and Degree of Glory without Fear or Disturbance and freely communicates his wise and excellent Thoughts to every one without any Strangeness or Reserve Thus all Heaven over there is a most perfect Freedom of Conversation among those righteous People that inhabit it and every one is every ones Neighbour and every ones Neighbour is as Himself For in all their Communication and Intercourse they mutually exchange Persons with one another and there is no one doth that to another which he would not gladly have done to himself in the same Condition and Circumstances So that none of them all can possibly be aggrieved because they are every one dealt by just as they would be most fairly most righteously and faithfully And hence there can be no Grudges among them no Whisperings Backbitings or spightful Misrepresentations because every one likes what every one does and so they are all perfectly satisfied with one another And thus you see in the Exercise of perfect Righteousness and Integrity all the Society of Heaven is rendred perfectly happy III. AS we are rational Creatures related to one another we are obliged to behave our selves peaceably in our respective States and Relations For Society being nothing but an united Multitude it is indispensably necessary to the preservation of its Union that every Individual Member of it should peaceably comport himself towards every one in that Degree and Order wherein he is placed Because as the Health of natural Bodies depends upon the Harmony and Agreement of their Parts so doth the Prosperity of Societies or political ones For 't is Peace and mutual Accord which is the Soul that doth both animate and unite Society and keep the Parts of it from dispersing and flying abroad into Atoms which nothing but Force and Violence can hinder them from when once they are broken into Discords and Dissentions So true is that of our Saviour A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand For besides that Division impairs the strength of a Society which like an impetuous Stream being parted into several Currents runs with far less force and is much more easily forded for the several Factions that are in it are like the several Nations in a Confederate Army which though they be all united into one Body have several contrary Interests and Designs which divides their Councils and sows Jealousies among them and so renders them not only less able to withstand the Force of an unanimous Enemy but also less willing to aid and assist one another besides this I say Faction and Discord naturally disunite and separates Society as it dissolves the Bond of Peace which holds it together For a Society without Peace is but an aggregated Body whose Parts lie together in a confused heap but have no Joints or Sinews to fasten them to one another for want of which instead of mutually assisting they do but mutually load and oppress each other which must necessarily divide their Wills and their Interests and when that is done 't is only external Force that hinders them from dividing and separating their Society Upon this account therefore every man is obliged as he is a Member of Humane Society to comport himself peaceably with all men because otherwise he will necessarily render himself a publick Pest and Nuisance For so long as he is of an unquiet and turbulent Spirit instead of being an Help he must necessarily be a Disease to every Community of which he is a Member and if those with whom he is joined were all of his Humour and Spirit it would be much better for them all to live asunder in the most solitary Condition than to continue in Society together because instead of helping and assisting they would be sure to be continually vexing and plaguing one another IF therefore we go into the other World with an unquiet and quarrelsome Temper we shall be thereby inclined to and prepared for the most wretched and miserable Society even the Society of those factious Fiends that could not be quiet even in Heaven it self but raised a Mutiny before the Throne of God and for so doing were driven thence and damned to keep one another Company in endless Misery and Despair The Souls of men therefore
and Pleasures and in every act of our celestial Behaviour we should have some Foretast of the celestial Happiness So that now we shall no longer need external Arguments to convince us of the Truth and Reality of that blessed State for we shall feel it within our selves and be able to penetrate into its blessed Mysteries by the light of an infallible Experience Now we shall have no Occasion to search the Records of Heaven to assure our selves of our Interest in it for by a most sensible Earnest of Heaven within us we shall be as fully satisfied of our Title to it as if one of the winged Messengers of Heaven should come down from thence and tell us that he saw our Names inrolled in the Book of Life And with this sweet Experience of Heaven within us we shall go on to Heaven with unspeakable Triumph and Alacrity being tolled all along from step to step with the alluring Relishes of its Joys and Pleasures and in every vigorous Exercise of every Virtue of the Heavenly Life we shall have such lively tasts and sensations of Heaven as will continually excite us to exercise them still more vigorously and still the more vigorously we exert them the more of Heaven we shall tast in them and so the Vigour of our Virtue shall increase the Pleasure of it and the Pleasure of it shall increase its Vigour till both are perfected and grown up into the blessed State of Heaven Wherefore as we do love Pleasure which is the great Invitation to Action let us be persuaded once for all to make a through Experiment of the heavenly Life and if upon a sufficient Trial you do not find it the most pleasant kind of Life that ever you led if you do not experience a far more noble Satisfaction in it than ever you did in all your studied and artificial Luxuries I give you leave to brand me for an Impostor V. CONSIDER the great Repose and Ease of a Heavenly Life and Conversation In every sensual and devilish Course of Life we find by Experience there is a great deal of Vneasiness and Disquiet For the Mind is disturbed the Conscience galled the Affections divided into opposite Factions and the whole Soul in a most diseased and restless Posture And indeed it is no Wonder it should be so since 't is in an unnatural State and Condition For whilst 't is in any unreasonable Course of Action the very Frame and Constitution of it as it is a rational Being suffers an unnatural Violence and is all unjointed and disordered And therefore as a Body when its Bones are out is never at Rest till they are set again so a rational Soul when its Faculties and Powers are dislocated and put out of their natural i. e. rational Course of Action is continually restless and disturbed and always tossing to and fro shifting from one Posture to another turning it self from this to t'other Object and Enjoyment but finding no ease or satisfaction in any till 't is restored again to its own rational Course of Motion and that is to act and move towards God for whom it was made and in whom alone it can be happy And if its Reason were not strangely dozed and stupified with Sense and sensitive Pleasure it would doubtless be a thousand times more restless and dissatisfied in this its preternatural State than it is it would feel much more Distraction of Mind Anguish of Conscience and Tumult of Affections than 't is now capable of amidst the numerous Enjoyments and Diversions of this World For as a musical Instrument were it a living thing would doubtless be sensible of Harmony as its proper State as a great Author of our own ingeniously discourses and abhor Discord and Dissonancy as a thing preternatural to it even so were our Reason but alive and awake within us our Souls which according to their natural Frame were made Vnison with God would be exquisitely sensible of those divine Virtues wherein its Consonancy consists as of that which is its proper State and native Complection and complain as sadly of the vicious Distempers of its Faculties as the Body doth of Wounds and Diseases 't would be perfectly sick of every unreasonable Motion and never be able to rest till its disjointed Faculties were rectified and all its disordered Strings set in tune again Which being once effected as it will quickly be in a continued Course of heavenly Action we shall presently find our Souls disburthened of all those malignant Humours that do so perpetually disease disquet and disturb us For by relying upon God we shall totally quit and discharge our selves of all those restless Cares and Anxieties which circle and prick us like a Crown of Thorns by our hearty Submission to his heavenly Will we shall ease our Consciences of all that Horror Rage and Anguish which proceeds from the invenomed Stings of our Guilt by loving admiring and adoring him our Affections will be cured of all that Inconsistence and Inordinacy that render them so tumultuous and disquieting And these things being once accomplished the sick and restless Soul will presently find it self in perfect Health and Ease For now all her jarring Faculties being tuned to the musical Laws of Reason there will be a perfect Harmony in her Nature and she will have no disquieting Principle within her nothing but calm and gentle Thoughts soft and sweet Reflections tame and manageable Affections nothing but what abundantly contributes to her Repose and Satisfaction So that do but imagine what an Ease the Body enjoys when after a lingering Sickness it recovers a sound Constitution and feels a lively Vigour possessing every Part and actuating the Whole such and much more is the Ease and Quiet of the Soul when by the diligent Practice of the heavenly Life it feels it self recovered from the languishing Sickness of a sensual and devilish Nature Now she is no more tossed and agitated in a stormy sea of restless Thoughts and guilty Reflections no more scorched with Impatience or drowned with Grief or shook with Fear or bloated with Pride or Ambition but all her Affections are resigned to the blessed Empire of a spiritual Mind and cloathed in the Livery of her Reason Now all the War and Contest between the Law in her Members and the Law in her Mind is ended in a glorious Victory and happy Peace and those divided Streams her Will and Conscience her Passions and her Reason are united in one Channel and flow towards one and the same Ocean And being thus jointed and knit together by the Ties and Ligaments of Virtue the Soul is perfectly well and easie and enjoys a most sweet Repose within it self Wherefore as you value your own Rest and Ease and would not be endlesly turmoiled and disquieted be persuaded heartily to ingage your selves in the Course of a heavenly Conversation and then though at first you must expect to find some Difficulty in it by reason of its Contrariety to
Religion we should hate them and so turn the Current of our Activity into the contrary Channel he hath placed us in such Circumstances wherein we have frequent Opportunities to rest our wearied Minds from these abstracted Exercises in such innocent Employments as are necessary to our comfortable Subsistence in this World So that by putting us under the necessity of imploying our selves in secular Trades and Callings he hath taken care to intercept our Minds that they may not fly off from the pure Acts of Religion into the contrary Impieties and that when they are not divinely they may be innocently imployed and by diverting our Activity with honest when it is weary of spiritual Exercise he hath taken a wise Course to confine and bound it and leave it less Scope and Liberty to rove and make Incursions into sinful and prohibited Actions And therefore as Aristotle commends Archytas for his Invention of Rattles because Children by playing with them are kept from breaking Vessels of use so ought we to admire the Wisdom and Goodness of God for thus necessitating us to exert our Activity in secular Acts and Trades because by this innocently imploying our corrupt and busie Natures he hath taken an admirable Course to divert us from mischievous Actions AND he having thus obliged us by our Necessities to follow some honest Calling for a comfortable Livelihood he expects that we should be diligent and industrious in that particular Calling wherein his Providence hath placed us For otherwise he looses his End which was to restrain us from being sinfully active by necessitating us to be innocently so And now that by putting us into those Necessities by which we are put upon furnishing one another with those several Conveniences of life for the supply of which our respective Trades and Callings are intended we by being diligent therein approve our selves faithful Servants in the great Family of God and by industriously discharging those particular Offices wherein he hath placed us we act as dutiful Ministers of his Providence towards one another Because by so doing we supply those Wants and Necessities which God hath made and which he hath made to be supplyed by our Office and Ministries So that now to mind our own Business is a Part of our Religion and 't is that particular Part to which Gods Providence hath called us If therefore we are idle and neglective in this we are undutiful Servants to the common Master of the World how officious soever we may be in other matters For this is the proper Work of our Office and therefore if we are unfaithful in this we can be faithful in nothing Should the Bayliff of a Family neglect letting his Masters Lands and gathering in his Rents he would be thought a bad servant how diligent soever he might be in the Kitchen or the Stables and so if we are remiss in our particular Offices and Employments we are bad Servants to God how sedulous soever we may be either in the Offices of other Men or in the common Services which we all owe him and he that neglects his own Calling to serve God in his Closet or in the Church is like an unfaithful Steward that neglects providing for the Family to dress the Garden and water the Flowers 'T IS true as we ought not to devote to the common Service of God that Time and Attendance which by the rules of Prudence and good Husbandry are appropriated to our particular Callings so neither ought we to permit our particular Calling so to ingross our Time and Attendance as to leave none for our Prayers and those common Services whether private or publick which as Creatures and Christians we are obliged to render to our Creator For as he that to serve God neglects his Calling is a religious Truant so he that to attend his Calling neglects to serve God is a prophane Drudge But for a truly pious and industrious Man it is not at all difficult so to keep his Business and his Religion apart as that they may not interfere with one another and faithfully to discharge whatsoever his Calling exacts of him and yet leave void Spaces enough in his time to do all that his Religion requires NEITHER are we obliged to be so industrious in our Calling as to deny our selves any moderate Refreshments or Recreations which are not only useful but sometimes necessary to breath our Spirits after they have been almost stifled in a Croud of Business and divert our wearied Thoughts which like the strings of a Lute by being slackned now and then will sound the sweeter when they are wound up again But then we ought to take care that we do not turn our Physick into Food and make that our Business which should be only our Diversion that our Recreations be short and apt to refresh but not to steal away our Minds from severer Employments For long Sports and Recreations are like a large Entry to a little House they take up so much Room in the narrow Compass of our Time that there is not Space enough left in it for the more useful Apartments and so far as our Sports do exceed the Measures of necessary and convenient Recreation they are unwarrantable Encroachments upon our Calling and Religion 'T is true as for the Measures of Convenience they are not alike to all for as for those whose large Fortunes have placed them beyond the Necessities of the World they may conveniently allow themselves larger Portions of Recreation than those of meaner Circumstances who having not yet made a competent provision for their Families are obliged in Justice to a more constant Industry lest they fall under St. Pauls Censure of being worse than Infidels But how plentiful soever our outward Condition may be it will by no means warrant us either to live idely or to make our Recreations our continual Employments but the more Leisure we have from secular Business the greater Portions of our Time we ought to consecrate to Religion and since our Bodies and our Families are so liberally provided for to be so much the more industrious in supplying the Necessities of our Souls that so these may not be the only miserable things about us But then our Natures being so depraved as that they cannot dwell long on the severe Exercises of Religion and yet so active as that if in the Intervals of our Religion they be not Innocently imployed they will be apt to run into Mischief 't is in our own Defence necessary how prosperous soever our outward Condition may be that we should find out some honest Business or other to keep our Activity regularly Exercised And this will be no hard matter for us to do considering how many generous liberal and ingenuous Employments there are fit for persons of the highest Rank and Condition They may dedicate such Portions of their Time to the useful Studies of Philosophy or History or of the Laws and Customs of their own Countrey and such to
are of great Use to us in the Course and Progress of our spiritual Warfare For as for the Lords Day it is instituted and ever since the Apostles Time hath been observed in the Christian Church as a Day of publick Worship and weekly Thanksgiving for our Saviours Resurrection in which the great Work of our Redemption was consummated And certainly it must needs be of vast Advantage to be one day in seven sequester'd from the World and imployed in divine Offices in solemn Prayers Praises and Thanksgivings and be obliged to assist and edifie one another by the mutual Example and Vnion of our Devotions to hear the Duties of our Religion explained the Sins against it reprehended and the Doctrins of it unfolded and reduced to plain and easie Principles of Practice what a mighty advantage might we reap from all these blessed Ministries if we would but attend to them with that Concern and Seriousness which the matter of them requires and deserves Especially if when the publick Offices are over we would not let loose our selves all the rest of the Day as we too frequently do to our secular Cares and Diversions and thereby choak those good Instructions we have heard and stifle those devout and pious Affections which have been raised and excited in us but instead of so doing we would devote at least some good Portion of it to the Instruction of our Families and to the private Exercise of our Religion to Meditation and Prayer to the Examination of our selves concerning our past Behaviour and the reinforcing our Resolution to behave our selves better for the future if I say we would thus spend our Lords Day we should doubtless find our selves better Men for it all the Week after we should go into the World again with much better Affections and stronger Resolutions with our Graces more vigorous and our bad Inclinations more reduced and tamed and whereas the Jews were to gather Manna enough on their sixth Day to feed their Bodies on the ensuing Sabbath we should gather Manna enough upon our Sabbath to feed and strengthen our Souls all the six days after BUT to this we must also add frequent Communions with one another in the Holy Sacrament which is an Ordinance instituted on purpose by our blessed Saviour for the improving and furthering us in our Christian Warfare For besides that herein we have one of the most puissant Arguments against Sin represented by visible Signs to our Sense viz. the bloody Sacrifice of our blessed Lord to expiate and make Atonement for it besides that those bleeding Wounds of his which are here represented by the breaking of the Bread and pouring out of the Wine do proclaim our Sins his Asassines and Murderers the thought of which if we had any ingenuity in us were enough to incense in us the most implacable Indignation against them besides that his Sufferings for our Sins of which this sacred Solemnity is a lively Picture do horribly remonstrate Gods Displeasure against them who would not be induced to pardon them upon any meaner Expiation than the Blood of his Son than which Hell it self is not a more dreadful Argument to scare and terrifie us from them in a word besides that his so freely submitting and offering up himself to be a Propitiation for us of which this holy Festival is a solemn Commemoration is an expression of Kindness sufficient to captivate the most ungrateful Souls and extort Obedience from them besides all this I say as it is a Feast upon the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood it is a Federal Rite whereby God and we by feasting together do accordingly to the antient Customs both of Jews and Heathens mutually oblige our selves to one another whereby God by giving us the mystical Bread and Wine and we by receiving them do mutually ingage our selves to one another upon those sacred Pledges of Christs Body and Blood that we faithfully perform each others Part of that everlasting Covenant which was purchased by him And what can be a greater Restraint to us when we are solicited to any Sin than the sense of being under such a dreadful Vow and Obligation With what face dare we listen to any Temptation to Evil when we remember lately we solemnly ingaged our selves to the contrary and took the Sacrament upon it And verily I doubt 't is this that lies at the bottom of that seeming modest Pretence of Vnworthiness which men are wont to urge in Excuse for their Neglect of the Sacrament namely that they love their Lusts and cannot resolve to part with them and therefore are afraid to make such a solemn Abjuration of them as the eating and drinking the consecrated Elements implies And I confess if this be their Reason they are unworthy indeed the more shame for them but 't is such an Vnworthiness as is so far from excusing that it only aggravates their Neglect For for any man to plead that he dares not receive the Sacrament because he is resolved to sin on is to make that which is his Fault his Apology and to excuse one Sin with another Wherefore if we are heartily resolved by the Grace of God to reform and amend let us abstain no longer from this great Federal Rite upon Pretence of Vnworthiness For 't is by the use of this among other Means that we are to improve and grow more and more worthy For the very Repetition of our Resolution as I have shewed above is a proper Means of strengthning and confirming it and certainly it must needs be much more so when 't is renewed and repeated with the Solemnity of a Sacrament And therefore it is worth observing how much Care our Lord hath taken in the very Constitution of our Religion to oblige us to a constant solemn Repetition of our good Resolutions For at our first Entrance into Covenant with him we are to be baptized in which Solemnity we do openly renounce the Devil and all his Works and religiously devote our selves to his service But because we are apt to forget this our baptismal Vow and the Matter of it is continually to be performed and more than one World depends upon it therefore he hath thought fit not to trust wholly to this first Engagement but hath so methodized our Religion as that we are ever and anon obliged to give him new Security For which End he hath instituted this other Sacrament which is not like that of Baptism to be received by us once for all but to be often reiterated and repeated that so upon the frequent Returns of it we might still be obliged to repeat over our old Vows of Obedience For he hath not only injoyned us that we should do this in remembrance of him Luk. xxii 19 i. e. that we should celebrate this sacred Festival in the Memory of his Passion but by thus doing the Apostle tells us we are to continue the Memorial of it to the end of the World or to shew his death till he
Terrors and Allurements we should thereby disarm them of their main Strength and render them much less able to seduce us for the future And this methinks we might easily do if we would but fairly represent to our selves the present State and Posture of our Affairs For we are a sort of Beings that are every Moment travailing from hence to an eternal World where an unexpressible Happiness or Misery attends us and all that we enjoy or suffer in this Life is only the Convenience or Inconvenience of a short Journey to a long Home but can have no other Influence upon our everlasting Condition than as it is the Occasion either of our Virtue or Vice which are the only Goods and Evils that will accompany us to Eternity and make us happy or miserable there for ever But as for Poverty or Riches Pain or Pleasure Disgrace or Reputation they are things which probably within these ten or twenty Years will be as perfectly indifferent to us as our last Nights Dream was when we awoke in the Morning And this methinks duly considered were enough to render us very unconcerned at any Good or Evil that can happen to us here For what a mighty Matter is it whether I fare well or ill for twenty or thirty Years who when that is expired must be happy or miserable for Millions of Millions of Ages and what will these little Goods or Evils signifie to me when my Body is in the Grave and my Soul in Eternity When I am stript into a naked Spirit and set ashore upon the invisible World then all these things will be as if they never were and in the twinkling of an Eye I shall lose Sight of them for ever and of all that I enjoyed or suffered in this Life I shall have nothing remaining but my Virtue or Vice whose Issues will prove my eternal Happiness or Misery Doubtless would we but accustom our Minds to such Reflections as these they would effectually restrain us from the immoderate Love or Fear of the things of this World and reduce us to a constant and efficacious Persuasion that there is no Good in this World comparable to that of doing our Duty nor any Evil incident to us in this Life that is not infinitely less formidable than Sin And when once our Affection to this World and our Opinion of the Goods and Evils of it are thus moderated and rectified the Temptations to Sin will quite lose their hold of us and be no more able to fasten upon our Resolution So that now we may pass safely through them whilst they are sparkling about us there being no Tinder in our Breasts for them to catch fire and kindle upon Now they will be no longer capable to allure or affright us those bosom Orators being silenced that were wont to contend for them and to magnifie their Charms and Terrors and when we neither immoderately love nor fear them 't will be no hard matter to defend our Virtue and Innocence against all their Assaults and Importunities IV. TO our final Perseverance it is necessary that we should more curiously search into the smaller Defects and Indecencies of our Nature in order to our reforming and correcting them Hence we are commanded to hate even the garments spotted by the flesh Jude 23. i. e. to take care of the Beginnings of Sin of any thing that hath the least Spot or Infection of it and accordingly we are obliged not only to take care to rub out the greater Stains of our Nature but to be diligent that we may be found of our Lord in peace without spot and blameless 2 Pet. iii. 14 i. e. to indeavour to reform those smaller and more indiscernable Defects of our Nature which though they do not totally stain yet very much spot and blemish it that so at the coming of our Lord we may be found not only sincere and upright but as near as may be innocent and blameless For so Phil. ii 15 we are bid to be blameless harmless and without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation i. e. to endeavour so to demean our selves in this World as that we may appear not only honest for the main but so near as is possible spotless and unreproveable And indeed there is nothing doth more frequently occasion mens final Miscarriage in Religion than their not being careful and diligent in this matter When they first enter into the Christian Warfare they very industriously set themselves against that Course of wilful Sin in which they formerly lived and this were wondrous well if they did not stop here and go no farther but alas in the mean time while they are thus industriously busied in subduing their old Sins there are a great many lesser Flaws and Defects in their Nature which by a timely Care and Inspection they might easily correct but these they take no Notice of but quietly permit them to grow and increase till at last they become as hurtful dangerous to them as their old Sins were against which they have all this while so zealously contended As for Instance when they first entered upon a Resolution of Amendment they were profane it may be or sensual or vehemently adicted to Fraud and Oppression and against these they opposed themselves with great Zeal and Animosity and so far they did well but in the mean time perhaps there was Pride and Ostentation Envy and Peevishness Self-will and Censoriousness secretly budding and sprouting up in their Natures all which they might have easily cured by timely Applications but alas in the Heat of their Contest against their other Sins they never so much as minded or regarded these but e'en left them alone till they grew up into obstinate and inveterate Habits and became every whit as fatal and destructive to their Souls as those were which they have been all this while subduing and mortifying So that after all they have only changed their Sins and have been conjuring up one Devil while they have been laying another and whilst the Tide of their Wickedness hath been ebbing on this Shore it hath been flowing on the contrary and as it hath sunk in Sensuality it hath swelled into Devilishness Perhaps whilst you are zealously carrying on your Warfare against your old Sins you may find your selves too apt to be tickled with Applause and puff'd with vain Ostentation have a Care now that while you are starving one Vice you do not pamper another For if you do not correct this little Irregularity of your Nature betimes 't will soon be as dangerous and mischievous to you as ever any of those Vices were against which you are contending 't will by degrees so insinuate into your good Intentions and so sophisticate the Purity of them that at last you will intend nothing else but Applause and so your whole Religion will be converted into dead Shew and empty Pageantry and your spiritual Warfare will prove only a passage out of Profaneness
against the Dissuasions of thy Grace the Checks of my Conscience and the fairest Warnings of my Danger Had I done it Ignorantly or unawares or under a Surprize it had been pittiable but O my Guilt my Guilt 't was knowingly wilfully basely and maliciously that I did this evil in thy sight whereby I have forfeited my Soul my Innocence and thy Love and have got nothing in exchange but the Pleasure of a Minute and a lasting Shame and Repentance O vile Wretch O desperate Fool that I am what have I done whither am I fallen I have grieved thy Spirit contemn'd thy Authority trampled on thy Goodness and wounded my own Conscience and by one base Act have thrown my self headlong from all those glorious Hopes whereunto thou hadst raised me And now O God what can I say in my own behalf my Sin being so great my Folly so utterly inexcusable O I am asham'd I am asham'd of my self I lament and abhor the Madness and Wickedness of my own Choice and O that it were in my power to recall it But woe is me it is past into Act and by that Act my Innocence is already stained my Soul forfeited and it is no more in my Power to undo what I have done than to recall the Hours of yesterday What then shall I do or whether shall I turn my self 'T is against thee O Lord against thee I have sinned and now I have none but thee to flee to I have nothing of my own to plead in my own behalf my Conscience condemns me and my Sin my Sin cries aloud against me so that unless thou wilt be pleased to listen to the interceding Blood of thy Son and to consult thine own Bowels and Compassions and from thence to fetch Arguments of Mercy I am undone for ever by my own Folly Wherefore for Jesus Christ his sake for thy own Goodness and Mercies sake have pity have pity upon me heal my Soul for I have sin'd against thee be merciful to my Sin for it is great Thou hast promised to receive returning Sinners to blot out their Iniquities and to heal their Backslidings I desire O Lord to return unto thee I hate and renounce my Sin and do here abhor my self for it in Dust and Ashes before thee Wherefore for thy Praise sake O try me this once more and do not presently cast me away from thy Presence nor take thy holy Spirit from me but restrain me by his Grace from all presumptuous Sins and suffer them not to have Dominion over me And quicken me O Lord for thy Names sake that for the future I may watch more carefully resist more vigorously and walk more circumspectly than I have hitherto done And that from henceforth I may be intirely devoted to thee and serve thee without Interruption do thou so confirm me by thy Grace in my holy Resolution as that I may choose rather to die than to offend thee any more And now O Lord though by my Rebellion against thee this Day I have rendered my self most unworthy of thy fatherly Care and Protection yet I beseech thee to watch over me this Night for good and give me a safe Repose in the Arms of thy Providence that I may have yet a farther Space to repent of mine Iniquity And grant I beseech thee that when I awake in the Morning I may be warn'd by the woful Remembrance of this Days Fall to take more Care of my Steps and to shun or refuse those Snares and Temptations that lie all around me All which I do most humbly and earnestly beg of thee even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in the state of our Progress and Improvement in the Christian Life with Forms of private Devotion fitted for this State When you enter into your Closet in the Morning indeavour to affect your self with Gratitude and Thankfulness to God for his Grace by representing to your self the Danger and Misery of that sinful State out of which you are recovered and the great Incapacity you were in to recover without his Assistance and then make this thankful Acknowledgment to him O Most gracious and most merciful Father thou art a liberal Benefactor to thy Creation a never-failing Friend to Mankind and a most tender Lover of Souls for whose everlasting Welfare thou hast been always consulting and hast left no method of Love unattempted to rescue them from Sin and Misery O blessed for ever blessed be thy great Name for the Experience I have had of this thy fatherly Goodness I am a monument of thy Goodness a living Instance and Wonder of thy Mercy for me hast thou quickned who was dead in Trespasses and Sins and who had long ago perish'd in mine Iniquities hadst thou not been infinitely patient and long suffering I had forfeited my Soul to thee and thou mightest justly have cut me off and given me my Portion with Hypocrites and considering how I provok'd thee to it by my daily Rebellions I cannot but admire thy Forbearance towards me But that thou shouldest not only forbear me but follow me with thy Kindness and never cease importuning me to return to my Duty and Happiness till thou hadst conquered me by thy Gracious Persuasions O incomparable Love O amazing Goodness never to be sufficiently admired and adored Wherefore praised for ever praised be thy Grace which hath redeemed my Life from eternal Death and my Soul from the neathermost Hell which hath rescued me from the Snare of the Devil and the pernicious Bondage of my Lusts and implanted in my Nature these heavenly Graces and Dispositions and hitherto improv'd and advanc'd them towards my eternal Happiness This O my God all this I owe to thy free and undeserved Goodness that I that was dead am now alive that I that was lost am found that I that was a slave to my Lusts am made free from Sin and translated into the glorious Liberty of the sons of God is purely the Effect of thy free Grace and to be intirely ascribed to thy all-powerful Goodness Go on O Lord go on I beseech thee and perfect thine own Work that so the Glory of it may be for ever redounding to thee and that as I have been hitherto a signal Instance of thy Goodness so I may be an happy Instrument of thy Praise to eternal Ages And grant I beseech thee that the sense of thy unspeakble Kindness towards me may so captivate my Soul and all my Faculties as that I may be most intirely thine as that my Reason and Will my Fear and Hope and Love and Desire may from henceforth be all resign'd up to thee and for ever devoted to the Honour and Worship of thy infinite Glories and Perfections and this I most humbly beg for Jesus Christ his sake to whom with thy self and thy eternal Spirit be rendred all Honour Glory and Power from this time forth
it And there is nothing will be capable of pleasing the One but what does gratifie the unbounded Liquorishness of the Other NOW to such a Soul the spiritual World must needs be a barren wilderness where no Good grows that it can live upon none but what is nauseous and distastful to its coarse and vitiated Palate where there are noble Entertainments indeed for Minds that are contempered to them that have already tasted and experienced them but not one Drop of Water to cool the Tip of a Sensual Tongue or gratifie the Thirst of a Carnal Desire So that were we admitted to that Heavenly Place where the Blessed dwell yet unless we had acquired their Heavenly Disposition and Temper we could never participate with them in their Pleasures For so great would be the Antipathy of our sensual Affections to them that we should doubtless flie away from them and rather chuse to be for ever Insensible than be condemned to an everlasting Perception of what is so ungrateful to our Natures So that till we have in some measure moderated our Concupiscible Affections and weaned them from their excessive Dotages upon sensual Good it is impossible we should enjoy the Happiness of Heaven For such perfect Opposites are a Spiritual Heaven and a Carnal Mind that unless This be spiritualized or That be carnalized it is impossible they should ever meet and agree III. ANOTHER Virtue that belongs to a Man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is FORTITUDE which in the largest sense consists in not permitting our Irascible Affections to exceed those Evils or Dangers which we seek to repel or avoid in keeping our Fear and Anger our Malice Envy and Revenge in such due subjection as not to let them exceed those Bounds which Reason and the Nature of Things prescribe them For I do not take Fortitude here in the narrow sense of the Moralists as it is a Medium between Irrational Fear and Fool-Hardiness but as it is the Rule by which all those Irascible Passions in us which arise from the sense of any Evil or Danger ought to be guided and directed That by which we are to guard and defend our selves against all those troublesome and disquieting Impressions which outward Evils and Dangers are apt to make upon our Minds And in this Latitude Fortitude comprehends not only Courage as it is opposed to Fear but also Gentleness as it is opposed to Fierceness Sufferance as it is opposed to Impatience Contentedness as it is opposed to Envy and Meekness as it is opposed to Malice and Revenge All which are the Passions of weak and pusillanimous Minds that are not able to withstand an Evil nor endure the least Touch of it without being startled and disordered that are so softned with Baseness and Cowardise that they cannot resist the most gentle Impressions of Injury For as sick Persons are offended with the light of the Sun and the freshness of the Air which are highly pleasant and delightful to such as are well and in health Even so Persons of weak and feeble minds are easily offended their Spirits are so tender and effeminate that they cannot endure the least Air of Evil should blow upon them and what would be only a Diversion to a Couragious Soul troubles and incommodes Them And whatsoever Courage such persons may pretend to it 's meerly a Heat and Ferment of their Bloud and Spirits A Courage wherein Game-Cocks and Mastives out-vy the greatest Heroes of them all But as to that which is truly Rational and Manly which consists in a firm Composedness of Mind in the midst of Evil or Dangerous Accidents they are the most wretched Cowards in Nature For the true Fortitude of the Mind consists in being hardened against Evil upon Rational Principles in being so fenced and guarded with Reason and Consideration as that no dolorous Accident from without is able to invade it or raise any violent Commotions in it In a word in having such a constant Power over its Irascible Affections as not to be overprone either to be timorous in Danger or envious in Want or impatient in Suffering or angry at Contempt or malicious and revengeful under Injuries and Provocations And till we have in some measure acquired this Virtue we can never be happy either here or hereafter FOR whilst we are in this world we must expect to be encompassed with continual Crouds of Evil Accidents some or other of which will be always pressing upon and justling against us So that if our minds are sore and uneasie and over-apt to be affected with Evil we shall be continually pained and disquieted For whereas were our Minds but calm and easie all the Evil Accidents that befall us would be but like a Shower of Hail upon the Tiles of a Musick-House which with all its Clatter and Noise disturbs not the Harmony that is within our being too apt to be moved into Passion by them uncovers our mind to them and lays it open to the Tempest And commonly the greatest Hurt which these outward Evils do us is their disturbing our Minds into violent Passions and this they will never cease doing till we have throughly fortified our Reason against them For if our Reason commands not our Passions to be sure outward Accidents will and while they do so we are Tenants at will to them for all our Peace and Happiness and according as they happen to be Good or Bad so must we be sure still to be Happy or Miserable And in this Condition like a Ship without a Pilot in the midst of a Tempestuous Sea we are the sport of every wind and wave and know not till the Event hath determined it how the next Billow will dispose of us whether it will dash us against a Rock or drive us into a quiet Harbour SO miserable is our Condition here while we are utterly destitute of this Virtue of Fortitude But much more miserable will the want of it necessarily render us hereafter For all those Affections which fall under the Inspection and Government of Fortitude are in their Excesses naturally vexatious to the Mind and do always disturb and raise Tumults in it For so Wrath and Impatience distracts and alienates it from it self and confounds its Thoughts and shuffles them together into a heap of wild and disorderly Fancies so Malice Envy and Revenge do fill it with anxious biting Thoughts that like young Vipers gnaw the Womb that bears them and fret and gall the wretched Mind that forms and gives them Entertainment And though in this world we are not so sensible of the mischief which these black and rancorous Passions do us partly because our sense of them is abated with the Intermixture of our Bodily Pleasures and partly because while we operate as we do by these unwieldy Organs of Flesh our Reflexions cannot be comparably so quick nor our Passions so violent nor our Perceptions so brisk and exquisite as they will doubtless be when we are stript