of the Use of Reason by the insufferable Torments of a Stone either of which will render us incapable of every thing but dying Or if neither of these should happen yet to be sure a dying State will bring Work enough with it Sorrows and Care enough Fears and Impatiencies enough to exercise all our Vertue and imploy all our Reason So that if we carry with us to our Death-bed any Item or Relique of uncancel'd Guilt 't is a thousand to one but in the Hurry of dying we shall leave it uncancel'd and be arrested for it by the Divine Justice when we come into Eternity Wherefore as we would prevent this fatal Issue of our Christian Warfare it concerns us now we are well to make a diligent Inspection into our Consciences to see if there yet remains any old Reckonings of Guilt undischarged by us and if there be not to give rest to our Eyes nor slumber to our Eye-lids till by an actual unsinning and Revocation of the Facts we have totally cross'd and discharged them But then because many of these may slip out of our Mind and so be past Recovery IX TO the happy Conclusion of this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that to Compensate so far as we are able for these Reliques of Guilt in us we should take care to redeem the time we have formerly mispent in sinful Courses by being doubly diligent in the Exercise of all the contrary Vertues and the doing all the contrary Good we are able For of all the outward Blessings that God affords us our Time is incomparably the most precious and inestimable and therefore though he gives us his other Blessings in great Variety and provides for us a plentiful Choice of Meats Drinks and Raiment yet in the Distribution of our Time he seems to be more sparing and streight-handed for he gives it not to us in Rivers but Drop by Drop and Minute after Minute so that we can never injoy two Moments together but when-ever he gives us one he always takes away another And yet good God! what Wast do we make of these precious Drops of which thou art so nice and sparing How great a Part of it do we consume in our Childhood upon the indifferent Vanities of Nuts and Rattles and afterwards upon the much more ridiculous and unreasonable ones of ous vicious profuse and extravagant appetites So that by that time we come to a serious Prosecution of the great End of our Beings the main Part of our time is usually elapsed beyond revocation How much therefore doth it concern us after we have so prodigally squandered away the greatest Part of the Treasure of our Time to make the best Improvement of the small Remainder that so we may at least Morally recover that which is Physically irrecoverable For though we cannot cause the past Minutes we have ill spent to be present again yet we can redouble our Diligence for the future and thereby render every one Minute to come equivalent to every two that are past For by a double diligence we may live as much in one Day as we can in two by a single and consequently by doubly improving that Part of our time which is yet good and to come we may morally retrieve that Part which is lost and gone THIS therefore the Gospel requires at our hands that after we have lived out a great Part of our Time to no Purpose we should from thenceforth live much in a little while and retrieve our past Negligence by our future Diligence and redeem the Time we have spent upon our Lusts by exerting the contrary Vertues more vigorously for the future that the more prophane we have been for the time past the more devout we should be for the time to come that the more we have abounded heretofore in Frauds and Oppressions the more we should abound hereafter in Charity and Alms that the more industrious we have been to seduce and debauch men the more zealous we should be to reduce and reclaim them and by our future Candor and Charitable Construction of men indeavour to compensate for the Malice of our past Slanders and Defamations Thus Eph. iv 28 Let him that stole steal no more ay but that is not enough but he must also indeavour to redeem his past Thefts by a more vigorous Exercise of the contrary Vertue for the future but rather let him labour working with his own hands the thing which is good that he may have to give to him that needs So also Dan. iv 27 break off thy sins by righteousness and thine iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor i. e. whereas for the Time past the Course of thy Life hath very much abounded with Cruelty and Injustice do thou now indeavour to redeem the Guilt of it for so the Hebrew Verb signifies by exerting more vigorously the contrary Vertues viz. of Justice to all and of Mercy to the poor and afflicted And to this Purpose St. Paul's Example is proposed to our Imitation who because for the Time past he had been a great Persecutor of Christianity did for the future labour more abundantly than any other Apostle to advance and propagate it 1 Cor. xv 9 10. The Observance of which Rule is highly necessary to the reducing this our Warfare to a prosperous Issue For as I told you before there are many Sins which after we have forsaken the Practice of them do stick such a guilt upon the Conscience as without our undoing them so far as we are able is not to be wiped off such as wicked Counsel malicious Detraction and unjust Gain all which we are bound so far as 't is in our Power not only to avoid but actually to revoke But alas there are many of these which in a long Course of Sin are utterly forgotten by us and consequently are past Revocation and in this Case all we can do to take off the Guilt of them is in the general Course of our Lives to abound in the Practice of the contrary Vertues and to do the utmost Service we are able to the Souls and good Names and Bodies of men For Charity saith the Apostle shall cover a multitude of sins 1 Pet. iv 8 that is when it appears by the Abundance of our Charity that we would abolish and repair all the Injuries we have done if it were in our Power God in this Case will accept the Will for the Deed and deal as mercifully by us as if we had actually done it For if it appear in his Sight that we would do it if we could we are in his Account as truly obedient to him as if we had actually performed it and consequently shall be dealt with by the same Proportions of Mercy But 't is only an extraordinary Charity that can evidence this since what is ordinary we are obliged to though we had no past Injuries to abolish but to ensure our Reconciliation with God it is requisite that we should evidence
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
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
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
those acts that have most of Sense in them so is the Rational with those that have most of Reason in them And certainly those have most Reason in them which are terminated upon Objects which most deserve them and what Object can so well deserve to be acted upon by Reasonable Beings as God or what Acts can they so reasonably exert upon him as those of Love and Adoration Homage and Imitation Trust and Dependence But as no Acts of Sense can be very grateful to our Sensitive Nature so long as we exert them either with repugnance or indifferency so neither can any Acts of Reason be to our Rational the Pleasure of all Acts whether Sensitive or Rational consisting as I shew'd before in the Sprightfulness and Vigour of them And this is the cause why men now find so little Felicity in these most Rational Acts of Godliness because by their own bad customs they have rendered themselves averse or at least very cold and indifferent to them which necessarily renders us dead and listless in the exercise of them and consequently causes them to go off with little gust if not with an ungrateful relish But even in this imperfect state we find by experience that the more our corrupted nature discharges and disburdens it self of those vicious indispositions which do so cramp and arrest it in these its Heavenly operations the more it is pleased still and delighted in them Yea and that when it is so far inured to a Godly Life as to be able to practise the several vertues of it but with the same degree of activity and vigour as 't was wont to do its most beloved Lusts it is unspeakably more pleased and satisfied and finds more Sweetness by a thousand degrees in its Love and Adoration Obedience and Imitation of God than ever it did in the highest relishes of Epicurism and Sensuality that the more perfectly we Love and Adore c. the more of Heaven we tast in these Blessed Acts and that when by a long and constant practice of them we have once rendered them natural to us we enjoy such an Heaven upon Earth in the easie free and vigorous exercise of them as we would not exchange for all the Pleasures and Felicities which the World can afford us And yet God knows the most perfect state of Godliness which we attain to here hath so many degrees of imperfection in it and in this we are so disturbed and interrupted by bodily Indispositions and the troubles and necessities of this present Life that from the Joy and Pleasure which results from it here we can hardly guess at those ravishing Felicities which will spring out of it hereafter When we shall be perfectly released from all the encumbrances of flesh and blood and sin when we shall be translated into a free and quiet state wherein we shall have nothing else to do but only to know and love obey and imitate and have no imperfection either natural or vicious to clog or disturb us in this our Beatifical employment Wherein we shall act with all our vigour and might and thrust forth the whole strength of our Souls in every Love and every Obedience so that every motion of our Souls towards God shall have the Vehemence of a Rapture in it without the Violence When I say we shall be eternally fixed in a State of such perfect Freedom and Activity our Happiness must needs be as large as our Desires and as great as our utmost Capacity or Power of Acting upon God For now we shall most lively imitate the most Perfect and adore the most Adorable as much as ever we are able that is we shall perform with all our might and vigour the Acts that are most agreable to our Reasonable Nature and in the utmost vigour of such Acts as I have already shewed consists our utmost Happiness SUPPOSE we then a Society of Rational Beings placed in such a State wherein they have an Object of infinite Perfections always before them and no Evil from without or within to check or divert them from exerting all their Powers upon him in the most reasonable Actions Suppose them now to be moving with unspeakable vigour and agility like so many ever living Orbs about this their everlasting Center to be as full of Love and Duty to him as ever their Hearts can hold to be copying his Perfections and adoring his Excellencies with an uncontrouled Freedom and Alacrity and breathing forth themselves to him in chearful Praises and Rapturous Halelujahs in a word to be exercising themselves about him to their utmost Strength and Power in all those blessed Offices which his Nature and their Relation to him call for Suppose I say all this and you have before ye that which is the very top and flower of the Heaven of a reasonable Creature who in this blessed state is fixed as it were in his own proper Element where without any let or disturbance he freely moves and acts according to his most natural Tendence and Inclination AND now by this time I think it is clear enough that the main and principal Part of the Heaven of a Man considered as a reasonable Creature consists in Knowing and Chusing of God But besides this there are other blessed Ingredients of Heaven the principal whereof is the Knowing and Chusing those that are most like unto God namely the blessed Jesus in his Human Nature and the Holy Angels and Saints who are all in their several Measures and Degrees the express and lively Images of God And therefore if to Know and Chuse God be the supreme Felicity of Heaven then doubtless the next to that is to Know and be Acquainted with these blessed Images of him and freely to chuse their Company and Conversation and be entirely united to them in Affection without which it would be no Felicity to dwell in the same place with them For to co-habit with Jesus and with Saints and Angels and not be acquainted with and united to them in Heart and Affection would be rather a Burden than a Pleasure The Happiness therefore of being in their Society consists in Knowing and Chusing them And this is every where implied where our being with them is mentioned as a part of our Heaven Thus 1 Thes. iv 17 to be ever with the Lord is the same thing with being ever in Heaven but then 't is to be ever with him upon Choice for so those words imply Phil. i. 23 I desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better And accordingly this is mentioned by the Apostle as a dear Priviledge of our being Members of the Christian Church whereby we are entituled to the Society of Holy Myriads of Angels of the general assembly of the Church of the first-born of God the Judge of all of the Spirits of Just men made perfect and of Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant Heb. xii 22 23 24. And indeed this must needs be an inestimable
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
Conversation should be a continual Intercourse of mutual Mischiefs and Vexations especially considering how they here laid the foundation of an eternal Quarrel against one another For there all those Companions in Sin will meet who by their ill Counsels wicked Insinuations and bad Examples did mutually contribute to each others Ruine and being met in such a woful State how will the tormenting sense of those irreparable injuries they have done each other whet their Fury against and incite them to play the Devils with one another And what can be expected from such a Company of waspish Beings so implacably incensed against one another but that being shut up together in the infernal Den they should be perpetually hissing at and stinging each other But then besides those mutual plagues which these furious Spirits must be supposed to inflict upon one another they will be also nakedly exposed to the powerful Malice of the Devils those fierce Executioners of Gods righteous Vengeance who as we now find by Experience have power to suggest black and horrid Thoughts to us and to torture our Souls with such dreadful Imaginations as are far more sharp and exquisite than any bodily Torments And if now they have such Power over us when God thinks fit to let them loose what will they have hereafter when our wretched Spirits shall be wholly abandoned to their Mercy and they shall have free Scope to exercise their Fury upon us and glut their hungry Malice with our Griefs and Vexations It seems at least a mighty probable Notion that that horrid Agony of our Saviour in the Garden which caused him to shriek and grone and sweat as it were great Drops of Blood was chiefly the effect of those preternatural Terrours which the Devils with whom he was then contesting impressed upon his innocent Mind And if they had so much Power over his pure and mighty Soul that was so strongly guarded with the most perfect and unspotted Virtues what will they have over ours when we are abandoned to them and thrown as Preys into their Mouths With what an Hellish Rage will they fly upon our guilty and timorous Souls in which there is so much Tinder for their injected Sparks of Horror to take fire on SINCE therefore Rancour and Malice doth so naturally incline and hurry our Souls towards the wretched Society of Devils and damned Spirits the Gospel which so industriously consults our Happiness takes all possible Care to train us up in Charity and mutual Love and makes it a Principal as well as necessary Part of our Christian Life heartily to love one another For this as our Saviour tells us is the Darling Precept which lay next to his Heart this is my Commandment that ye love one another Joh. xv 12 And accordingly we are bid not only to follow after Charity 1 Cor. xiv 1 and to do all things with Charity 1 Cor. xvi 14 but also to put on Charity above all things Col. iii. 14 and to dwell in Love which the Apostle tells us is to dwell in God who is Love 1 Joh. iv 16 The intent of all which is to oblige us to bear an universal good Will to all and to take an hearty Complacency in all that are truly lovely to be ready to contribute to and rejoice in every ones Good and Welfare and in a word to live in the continual exercise of all those charitable Offices which our present State and Condition requires and calls for To be courteous and affable and to treat all those we converse with with an obliging Look a gentile Deportment and endearing Language To be long-suffering mild and easie to be entreated not to break forth into Rage and Storm upon every petty Provocation and when we are justly provoked not to suffer our Displeasure to fester into Malice and Rancour but to be forward and easie to be reconciled To be of a compassionate and sympathizing Temper and to rejoice with those that rejoice and weep with those that weep To be candid Interpreters of Men and their Actions to be ready to mitigate and excuse their Faults and put fair Comments on their Actions and to be so far from making malicious Glosses on their innocent Meaning from proclaiming their Miscarriages and rejoicing in their Falls as not to believe ill of them but upon undeniable Evidence and when we are forced to do so to pity and lament them and endeavour and pray and hope for their Reformation In short to be benign and bountiful to the necessitous and distressed and to endeavour according to our Ability to allay their Sorrows remove their Oppressions support them under their Calamities and counsel them in their Doubts to be ready to every good Work and like Fields of Spices to be scattering our Perfumes through all the Neighbourhood and all this out of an honest and sincere purpose to promote their Good and not meerly to acquire to our selves a popular Vogue and Reputation All which are essential Parts of that Charity which the Gospel enjoins us to exercise towards one another For so the Apostle assures us 1 Cor. xiii 4 5 6 7. Charity suffereth long and is kind charity envieth not charity vaunteth not it self is not puffed up doth not behave it self unseemly seeketh not her own is not easily provoked thinketh no evil rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things NOW though there be several Acts of Charity that will cease for ever in Heaven such as long-suffering giving of Alms and forgiving of Injuries and the like because among the People of Heaven there will be none of the Faults or Miseries about which these Acts are conversant yet even the Practice of these is indispensably necessary to temper and dispose our Minds to heavenly Charity which till we are disposed to by universal Love we shall never be capable of exercising but since all virtuous Dispositions are acquired by Acts it is impossible we should acquire the Disposition of universal Love unless we universally practise it 'T is by giving Alms that that we must acquire cordial Charity to the poor and needy and by forgiving Injuries that we must dispose our selves to love those that offend us For these Acts are Causes as well as Signs of a charitable Temper and are necessary not only to signifie it where it is but also to produce it where it is not When therfore by acting all those Parts of Charity which are proper to this as well as the other State we have acquired this blessed Disposition of universal Charity our Minds are fairly framed and tempered for the Society of Heaven And though in the perpetual Justle and Tumult of this World some little Piques and Displeasures should now and then arise in our Minds yet if in the cool and standing Temper of our Souls we are hearty Well-wishers to all Men and hearty Lovers of all that do in any measure love and resemble
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
which End it will be needful that we should read and impartially consider some of the Apologies for the Christian Religion of which we have sundry excellent ones in our own Language and if we will but take the pains to instruct our selves in the plain and easie Evidences of Christianity we shall quickly see abundant cause to assent to it and then our Faith being founded on a firm Basis of Reason will be able to bid defiance to the World and to out-stand the most furious Storms of Temptation II. TO our good Beginning of this our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should duly consider the Motives of our Religion and ballance them with the Hardships and Difficulties we are to undergo For thus our Saviour makes Consideration a necessary Introduction to our Christian Warfare Luke xiv 28 where he compares mens rushing headlong into the Difficulties of the Christian Life without Consideration to a mans resolving to build a Tower without computing the Charge of it or a Kings going to War without ever considering before-hand whether with his Army of ten Thousand he be able to encounter his Enemy with Twenty By both which Comparisons he intimates to us the unprosperous Issue of mens listing themselves under his Banner to combat the Devil the World and their own Lusts without ever considering before-hand either their own Strength or their Enemies the Arguments with which they must fight or the Difficulties that will trash and oppose them So that when they come to execute their rash Resolutions there start up so many Difficulties in their way which they never thought of and against which they took no care to fore-arm themselves that they have not the Heart and Courage to stand before them but after a few faint Attempts are presently sounding a cowardly Retreat FOR indeed Consideration is the Life and Soul of Faith that animates and actuates its Principles and elicits and draws forth all their natural Power and Energy And let the Truths we believe be never so weighty and momentous in themselves never so apt to spirit and invigorate us yet unless we seriously consider and apply them to our Wills and Affections and take the pains to extract out of them their native Vigour and Efficacy and to infuse it into our Faculties and Powers they will lie like so many dead Notions in our Minds and never impart to us the least Degree of spiritual Courage and Activity And accordingly our Saviour attributes the ill Success of Gods Word in the Hearts of men which he compares to the high-way the stony and thorny Ground either to their not considering it at all or to their not considering it deeply enough or to their not considering it long enough Either the divine Truths which they heard went no farther than their Ears and so lay openly exposed like so many loose corns upon the high-way to be picked up by the Fowls of the Air or if it entred into their Mind and Consideration it was so slightly and superficially that like corn sown in a rocky ground it had not Depth enough to take root to fasten and grow into their minds and digest into Principles of Action or if they at present received it into their deeper and more serious Consideration it was but for a little while for by and by they permit their worldly Cares and Pleasures like Thorns to spring up in their Thoughts and Choak it before it was arrived to any Maturity But that which rendred it so prosperous and fruitful in good and honest Hearts was that having heard the word they kept it i. e. retained it in their Thoughts and Consideration and so brought forth fruit with patience Luk. viii 12 13 14 15. So that to the making of a good Beginning in Religion it is not only necessary that we should ponder the Motives and Arguments of Religion and ballance them with the Difficulties of it but that we should revolve and repeat them on our minds till we have represented to our selves with the utmost Life and Reality whatsoever makes for and against our Entrance into the Christian Warfare and upon our having weighed them over and over in the Scales of an even and impartial Judgment we have brought the Debate to this Result and Conclusion that there is infinitely more Weight in the Arguments of Religion to persuade us to it than in all the Difficulties of it to dishearten us from it For unless we enter into Religion fore-armed with the Motives and forewarned of the difficulties of it we shall never be able to stand our Ground but finding more Opposition than we expected and having not a sufficient Strength of Argument to bear up against it we shall quickly repent of our rash Undertaking and be forced to retreat from it with Shame and Dishonour For this is usually the Issue of those rash and unsetled Purposes which men make in the heats of their Passion when they have been warmed by some pathetick Discourse or startled by some great Danger or chafed into a Displeasure against their Sins by the sense of some very dolorous Accident whereinto they have been betrayed by them in these or such like Cases its usual with men to make hasty Resolutions of Amendment without considering either the Matters which they resolve upon or the Motives which should support their Resolution and so finding when they come to Practice more Difficulty in the Matter than they were aware of and having not sufficient Motives to carry them through it their Resolution flags in the Execution and very often yields to the next Temptation which encounters them NOW though I do not deny but that those Heats of Passion are good Opportunities to begin our Religion in and if wisely improved will very much contribute to our Voyage heavenwards and like a brisk Gale of Wind render it much more expedite and easie yet if in these Heats we resolve too soon without a due Consideration of all Particulars and of the Difficulties on the one side and the Arguments on the other it is hardly possible that our Resolution should ever prove a lasting Principle of Goodness For when we resolve inconsiderately we resolve to do we know not what and our Resolution includes a thousand Particulars that we are not aware of most of which being repugnant to our vicious Inclinations will when we come to practise them be attended with such Difficulties as will easily startle our weak Resolution which having not a sufficient Foundation of Reason to support it will never be able to outstand those boisterous Storms of Temptation whereunto it will be continually exposed If therefore we mean our Resolution should hold out and commence a living Principle of Goodness we must found it in a through Consideration both of the Duties and Difficulties of Religion and of the Motives which should ingage us to embrace it we must set before our Minds all the Sins we must part with and all the Duties we must submit
received by men of all Nations and Religions however it came to pass I know not that for sinful men to appease the incensed Divinity it was necessary first that some Life should be sacrificed to him by way of Satisfaction for their Sins and that the nobler it was the more propitious it rendred him 2. That some high Favourite of his should be prevailed with to intercede with him in their behalf Whereupon understanding by universal Tradition that there were a sort of middle Beings whom they called Demons between the sovereign God and Men they began to address to these and to bribe them with sacred Honours to interpose with God in their Behalf And if they could make a shift to rely upon Sacrifices the most precious of which were the Lives of sinful Men and to depend upon Intercessors of whose Interest with God they had little or no Security what a mighty ground of Confidence and Assurance have we for whom the Son of God once offered such a meritorious Sacrifice upon Earth and continues to make such a powerful Intercession in Heaven For besides that as he was a spotless and innocent Person his Sacrifice was wholly meritorious for guilty offenders and besides that as he was a Person of infinite Value and Dignity his Sacrifice was meritorious for a World of guilty offenders God upon whose good Pleasure the Admission or Refusal of it intirely depended has openly declared his Acceptation thereof as a Propitiation for the sins of the World and ingaged himself by a publick Grant and Charter of Mercy to indemnifie for the sake of it every sinner in the World that will but return to him by a serious and hearty Repentance neither of which great things could ever be said of any other Sacrifice And in the virtue of this Sacrifice as well as of his own personal Interest with his Father he now intercedes in our behalf and pleading our Cause as he doth with the price of our Souls in his hand even his precious Blood by which he redeemed them we may be sure that with that powerful Oratory he cannot fail of succeeding in our behalf For having purchased for us by his Blood all those favours which he intercedes for he is invested with the Right and Power of bestowing them upon us So that now for our greater Security all those Favours which God hath promised us are actually deposited in the hands of our Mediator and though his bare Promise is in it self as great an Assurance as can be given us yet it is to be considered that guilty Minds are naturally anxious and full of unreasonable Jealousies and consequently whilst they looked upon God as their adverse Party and a Party infinitely offended by them would have been very prone to suspect the worst had they had nothing but his bare Word to depend on And therefore in Condescension to this pitiable Infirmity of his sinful Creatures he hath not only promised them his Acceptance and Favour upon Condition of their Return to him but hath also put the Performance of his Promise into a third Hand even into the Hand of a Mediator who by the Nature of his Office is equally concerned for both Parties as well that God should perform his Promise if we performed our Duty as that we should perform our Duty if we received the Benefit of his Promise And hence Heb. vii 22 our Mediator is called the Sponsor or Surety of a better Covenant So that now we have no longer to do with God immediately as our adverse Party but by a Mediator who by his Office is obliged to be on our side as well as Gods and to take care that neither receive the others Part of the Covenant without performing his own Thus as he hath been sometimes pleased in Complyance with humane Weakness to enforce his Promise with his Oath not that the one is in its own Nature a greater Security from God than the other but because with Men an Oath is more obliging than a Promise so in great Condescension to the unreasonable Diffidence of our guilty Minds he hath not only promised us Pardon and Acceptance upon our Repentance but he hath also given us a collateral Security for the Performance of it even the Security of a Mediator in whose hands he hath deposited whatsoever he hath promised us Not that in it self this is a greater Security than his own bare Word and Promise which he cannot falsifie without renouncing his Being but because this way of giving Security by a third Person is more accommodate to the Method of our Covenants and Agreements with one another and consequently more apt to satisfie our anxious and diffident Minds AND thus the Conviction of our need of a Mediator and the Persuasion of the Reality and Excellency of his Mediation will powerfully work both on our Hope and Fear which are the main Springs of all our religious Endeavours and give us at once the most horrible Prospect of the Evil of Sin and the most comfortable Assurance of Pardon and Acceptance with God upon our Repentance and Amendment both which are absolutely necessary to our successful Entrance into the Christian Warfare IV. TO our Beginning of this Holy Warfare it is also necessary that we should be affected with a deep Sorrow and Shame and Remorse for our past Iniquities For this the Apostle calls sorrowing to repentance and tells us that godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of 2 Cor. vii 9 10. and accordingly it is recorded of St. Peter's Converts that the beginning of their repentance was their being pricked at the heart Acts ii 37 and even Repentance it self is in Scripture called a broken and contrite heart this being the most immediate Preparation to a true Repentance or Change of mind Psal. li. 17 And hence the ancient Penitents are described in Scripture as girding themselves with sackcloth and repenting in dust and ashes in Allusion to the antient manner of great and solemn Mournings which was to put on Sackcloth cover the Head with Ashes and sit in the Dust. And in the primitive and purest Ages of Christianity it is evident that the bitterest Sorrows and Remorses were looked upon as necessary Preparations to Repentance for the Penitents in those days as Tertullian and Nazianzen describes them lay prostrate at the Church Doors in Sackcloth and Ashes supplicating the Prayers of the Presbyters and Widows hanging on the Garments and Knees of those that entred into the Church kissing their Footsteps and with rivers of Tears in their eyes beseeching their Prayers to God for their Pardon Now though we are not under the Severities of such an Ecclesiastical Discipline yet are we equally obliged with those ancient Penitents to exercise it internally in our Hearts For sin is as bad now as it was then and as great an evil in us as it was in them and therefore ought to be lamented by us with an equal Sorrow and Remorse And indeed
great an incapacity of repenting as if he had withdrawn their Lives from them it being as possible for us to repent without Life when we are dead as without Gods Grace while we are living So that promising that we will repent hereafter we promise not only for our selves but for God too we promise that he shall wait our leisure and dance Attendance after us through all the tedious Stages of our Delays and Procrastinations that he shall tamely put up all those Affronts and Provocations which between this and our hereafter we are resolved to offer him and in the end be as much at our beck and as ready to come in to our Assistance when we shall think fit to call for him as if we had never given him the least Offence or Provocation to the contrary For unless we can secure our selves of this it will be every whit as uncertain whether we repent hereafter if we live as whether we live to hereafter to repent And what a madness is it for men that have now their Lives and Souls in their own hands to stake and venture them upon two such contingent Issues that are both of them so far out of their Power and Disposal BUT suppose there were no Hazard in either of these that we were as secure both of our own Lives and Gods Grace as we are of the present Moment yet we can never hope to begin our Christian Warfare so advanaagiously as now For all the time we are deferring it our Enemies are gathering Strength and mustering up their Forces against us our bad Inclinations are ripening and improving and our evil Habits are growing more inveterate and so many Degrees of Strength as these get we lose and so proportionably as their power to offend us increases ours to defend our selves against them decreases What a madness therefore is it for men who pretend to be resolved to ingage in the Christian Warfare to defer it as they do from time to time when they cannot but be sensible if they take any notice of themselves how much every further Delay improves their Lusts and impairs their Reason how it fortifies their Enemy and weakens themselves You say you are convinced of the Necessity of this Warfare and resolved to undertake it one time or other though as yet you cannot prevail with your selves to enter upon it And why not yet why for some reason or other forsooth you find your selves averse to it and do you imagine that if you are averse to it to day you will be less averse to it to morrow or next day No fond Men do not abuse your selves for if you will not enter upon it now be assured of this you will never find your selves either so willing to it or so fit and able for it again as long as you live For your Lusts will grow every day dearer and dearer to you and so twine and wrap themselves by degrees about your Hearts and Affections that you will every day find your selves more and more unwilling to part with them and at last they will cling so fast that there will be no pulling them from ye without pulling away your Souls with them Wherefore talk no more I beseech you of repenting hereafter but resolve once for all that you will repent now or never III. CONSIDER the final Success of this your spiritual Warfare doth very much depend upon your well beginning of it By what hath been said you plainly see there is an absolute Necessity of beginning it one time or other and that you can never begin it so securely and advantagiously as now but unless you begin it well now that is with a through Preparation of Heart you were e'en as good sit still and not begin at all For when once you come to the Trial to encounter the Oppositions of a corrupt Nature and contend with the Difficulties of a holy Life you will then quickly find your sappy Resolutions sink and like so many rotten Banks yield and give way at every spring-tide of Temptation But as the well laying the Foundations of a house secures the Superstructures against the violences of all future Storms and foul weather so the first setling of your Resolution upon a firm and stedfast Basis will be a mighty Safeguard to it against all ensuing Storms of Temptation That well-grounded Faith and through Consideration which induced us to it will go along with it and guard it through the Enemies Quarters with such invincible Reasons as no sinful Motive will be able to disprove or cope with That hearty Shame and bitter Sorrow and Regret which we felt in the forming our Resolution will animate and render it more firm and inexorable against all the Solicitations of sin for the future Those fervent and earnest Prayers which preceded and accompanied it will not only ingage us to take the more care and regard of it but ingage God also to contribute more aid and assistance to it in all its ensuing Conflicts and Encounters And when in the framing of our Resolution we have taken effectual care before-hand not to resolve upon any thing but what we have considered the difficulty of or against any thing but what we have felt the shame and smart of or upon any Reason but what we have throughly pondered and do firmly believe and together with all this have ingaged by our earnest Prayers the God of all Grace to aid and assist us we may with some Assurance promise our selves a blessed Issue and Success For now we are forewarned of and fore-armed against all that can happen to us in our spiritual Warfare now there is no Difficulty can arise in our way which we did not foresee and provide against when we first set forward to Heaven So that if from henceforth we do but take an honest care to watch the Motions of our Enemy and to keep up our own Hearts and Courage we cannot miss of a glorious Victory and after that an everlasting Triumph BUT if we make a rash Beginning and resolve precipitantly without observing the above-named Rules and Directions in all probability our hasty Purposes will end in a leisurely Repentance So that unless we intend to take a great deal of pains in Religion to no purpose to weave a Penelope's web and do and undo as long as we live and only to dance round in an eternal Circle of sinning and resolving against it resolving and sinning again without ever making a step forward but still wheeling about to the same Point let us now at last resolve to begin in that prudent Method which God hath prescribed us IV. CONSIDER that when once we have begun it well we have conquered the main Difficulty of this our spiritual Warfare For though it be an easie matter to begin ill to resolve against our sins in a sudden Pet or transient Heat of Passion yet it must be confessed that to resolve well and wisely that is with that firm Belief and through
and to be than to be seen His Heavenly-mindedness was such as rendred him neither too sour nor too talkative and his Patience was always equally distant from Stupidity and Effeminacy For so when he endured that miserable Death of the Cross he suffered like a Man that was sensible of Pain and yet very well knew how to undergo it as became him For as on the one hand he did not breath out his Soul like an effeminate Epicure in whining Complaints and wretched Lamentations so neither on the other hand did he give up the Ghost like a flanting Stoick in a huffing Contempt of death or an affected Insensibility of Pain and Misery But from the beginning to the end he acted his Part in that bloody Tragedy as one that was neither insensible of Torment nor conquered by it For the last words which he breathed which were a hearty Prayer for his Murderers manifested his Soul to be calm and serene under all the Agonies of his Body Thus is his great Example intirely composed of those excellent Virtues that are the proper Graces and Ornaments of humane Nature Now though there be some Actions of our Saviours Life which were never intended for our Imitation viz. such wherein he either exercised or proved and asserted his divine Authority yet whatsoever he did of precise Morality and in pursuance to his own Laws he designed and intended for our Imitation So that in all such matters as his Law is to be our Map and Rule so his Practice is to be our Guide and President FOR this is the great End of our Religion to which God hath predestinated us namely to be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. viii 29 and in this consists our putting on of the Lord Jesus Christ namely in imitating his Manners and following the Garb and Fashion of his Conversation and accordingly our Saviour tells his Disciples John xiii 15 I have given you an example that is of Humility and Charity that you should do as I have done to you and 't is one of his great Commands that we should learn of him who was meek and lowly of heart with a promise that in so doing we should find rest unto our Souls Mat. xi 29 WHEREFORE if we would lead a holy Life pursuant to our holy Resolution we must set holy Examples before our eyes and especially that most holy one of our blessed Saviour We must peruse the History of his sacred Life and diligently observe his Carriage and Demeanour in all those Capacities and Circumstances wherein he was placed and closely apply it all to our selves as a perfect Pattern of Action Thus and thus did my Saviour Sic ille manus sic ora so he demeaned himself when he was in my Circumstances after this manner he acted and thus he suffered and can I follow a more glorious Example nay would it not be a burning Shame for me not to imitate his Manners whilst I profess my self his Disciple Think O my Soul what would he have now done if he were in thy Condition and had thy Temptations before him Would he have pawned his Innocence for such a Trifle or prostituted himself to such a base infamous Action to avoid such an inconsiderable Inconvenience No doubtless he would not and art thou not ashamed to comply with such a Temptation knowing with what Indignation thy Saviour would have rejected it If we would but thus inure our selves to reflect upon our Saviours Example and apply it to and compare it with our own Actions we cannot imagine with what a divine Emulation 't would inspire us how it would animate our Weaknesses and shame our Irregularities and inamour our Souls with true Virtue and Goodness III. TO the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare it is also necessary that we should frequently apply our selves for Advice and Direction to our spiritual Guides For it is to be considered that men of a secular Life and Conversation are generally so engaged in the Business and Affairs of this World that they very rarely acquire Skill enough in Religion to conduct themselves safely to Heaven through all those Difficulties and Temptations that lie in their way For before they can be capable to guide themselves safely they must in all points of great moment be able to distinguish between Truth and Falshood and to make a difference between good and evil which in many Instances do border so near upon one another that it requires much greater Skill and Knowledge than the Generality of men are Masters of to discern the Point and Boundary that parts them And supposing their Vnderstandings to be so well instructed as to be able to resolve them truly in all those doubtful Cases wherein they are or may be concerned yet still there is generally such a fault in their Wills as renders them incompetent Judges for themselves and that is that through an Excess of Self-love they are prone to be partial in their own Concerns and consequently unless the Case be very plain to vote that true that is most for their Interest and determine on that side they are most inclined to For when a mans Judgment is before in Suspence a very small weight of Interest on the wrong side of the Question usually turns the Scale against the greater probability on the right And whilst Interest fees mens Affections and their Affections bribe their Judgments it will be almost impossible for them to secure their Innocence whilst they determine all Cases of Right and Wrong at the Tribunal of their own Reason For when once they have determined falsly as many times to be sure they will besides the many single Miscarriages in Practice that will be consequent thereunto by practising on upon their false Determinations they will intangle themselves in such evil Customs and Habits as by that time they have discovered the Error of their Judgment will render it very difficult for them to correct the error of their Practice And therefore to secure our selves in our Innocence and Duty it is mighty necessary that in all doubtful Cases we should appeal from our selves to the Judgment of others who having no Interest to biass them one way or t'other will be much more impartial and therefore if they have but equal Understanding more competent Judges of our Case than our selves UPON both which accounts the Christian Religion hath wisely separated an Order of Men from the World to be the Guides and Conducts of Souls to oversee and direct the secular Flock who upon the above-mentioned accounts cannot be supposed to be in all Cases competent Guides of themselves For 't was to this purpose that our Saviour before his Ascension commissioned his Disciples Mat. xxviii 18 19 20. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth Go ye therefore and teach all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
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
most nauseous to its Disease and those Duties which in its Health 't would have imbraced with the greatest Pleasure will in its Sickness be the greatest Burthen and Oppression to it And when we have spoiled the Purity of our Constitution and are degenerated from the humane Nature into the brutal or diabolical one it is no great wonder that the Religion of a Man should be a Burthen to the Nature of a Beast or a Devil So that whatsoever Difficulties there are in Religion they arise not out of the Nature of the things it requires but out of the perverse Indispositions of our Natures to them and these were for the most part contracted by our selves so that instead of complaining of the Difficulty we ought to strive and contend the more earnestly against it because we may thank our selves for it When a man hath plaid the Fool and set his House on Fire the Sense of his own Folly ought to make him more industrious to extinguish it but if instead of so doing he should sit with his Hands in his Bosom and complain of the Mischief and the Difficulty of stopping it what would Folks say of him Mischievous doth it become thee to sit here idely complaining of the Effect of thy own Villany whilst 't is yet in thy Power wouldst thou but bestir thy self to quench the Flame and prevent the spreading of it For shame get up and do thy utmost Endeavour to repair thy own Act and to extinguish this spreading Mischief of which thou art the Author Since therefore we have been so obstinately foolish as to set fire to our own Souls and kindle in them by our vicious Courses such destructive Flames of unnatural Lust how monstrously ridiculous is it whilst 't is yet in our Power to extinguish them to sit whining and complaining of the Difficulty of it and in the mean time permit them to rage and burn on without Interruption O miserable men if they are so hard to be quench'd who may ye thank for it Was it not you that kindled them and do you now sit idly complaining of your own Act when you should be the more industrious to repair the Mischief of it because it is your own For shame arise and bestir your selves and since you are conscious that the Difficulties of your Religion are of your own creating and that those Lusts which indispose ye to it are the products of your own Actions let this excite ye to a more vigorous Endeavour to subdue and conquer them II. CONSIDER that in the Course of your Sins there is a great deal of Difficulty as well as in your Warfare against them For I dare appeal to your own Experience whether you have not found a great deal of Hardship in Wickedness especially while you were educating and training up your Natures to it Did not your Nature oftentimes recoil and start and boggle at your vicious Actions and were you not fain sometimes to curb and sometimes to spur it to commit many Outrages and Violences upon it whilst you were backing and managing it before you could reduce it to a Through-pace in Iniquity How often have you put your modest Nature to the Blush at the sense of a filthy and uncomly Action whilst your wicked Will hath been dragging it along like a timorous Virgin to an Adulterers Bed and what terrible Shreiks have your Consciences many times given in the midst of your sinful Commissions when you were acting the first Rapes upon your Innocence How many a pensive Mood hath the Review of your sinful Pleasures cost ye and what Swarms of Horror and dreadful Expectation hath the Reflection on your past Guilts raised in your Minds And then with what excessive Difficulty have you been fain to practise some Vices only to get an Habit of practising them more easily How often have you been forced to swallow Sickness to drink dead Palsies and foaming Epilepsies to render your Intemperances familiar to you and in what Qualms and fainting sweats and sottish Confusions have you many times awaked before ever you could Connaturalize your midnight Revels to your Temper And when with so much Labour and Violence you have pretty well trained and exercised your selves in this hellish Warfare and thereby rendered it natural and habitual to you to how many Inconveniences hath it daily exposed you what base and unmanly Shifts hath it put you upon to extricate your selves out of those Difficulties wherein it hath involved you What violent Passions and Perturbations doth it raise in your Minds and into what wild Tumults of Action doth it frequently hurry you In a word how doth it perplex and intrigue the whole Course of your Lives and intangle ye in a labyrinth of Knavish Tricks and Collusions so that many times you are at your Wits end and know not which way to turn your selves All these Difficulties and a great many more which I cannot presently think of you must have contended with in a sinful Course of Action if you have made any considerable Experiment of it AND do you complain of the Difficulty of persevering in Religion you that have so couragiously persevered in a worse Way against Difficulties that are as great all things considered if not greater you that have hitherto sin'd on so industriously that have broke through so many strong Barricadoes to come at and injoy your Lusts are you not ashamed to start and boggle as you do at the Difficulties of Virtue and Religion Look but how the industrious Sinner upbraids you His way leads directly to Ruine and he knows it and yet he presses on couragiously as if he were ambitious to be a Heroe in Iniquity and charges through all the modesty of Humane Nature through all his native sense of a God and a divine Vengeance he marches forward through Infamy and Diseases Dangers and a world of Inconveniences and offers a kind of Violence to Hell as if he meant to force open its brazen Portal and enter headlong into it before 't is ready to receive him whilst you in the mean time like a company of Crest-faln Creatures stand shivering at a few trifling Difficulties in your Way though you have Heaven for your End and a Crown of Glory for your Reward IN short therefore this is the true State of your Case choose which side you please whether to march under Christs or the Devils Banner you must expect before-hand to encounter some Difficulties yea and perhaps as great on the one side as on the other and if so then you have little else to do but to compare their Ends and to consider which of the two is most eligible a Crown of Glory or eternal Torment III. CONSIDER that how Difficult soever this your spiritual Warfare may be it must be indured or that which is much more intollerable I confess were it not absolutely necessary we might with some colour of Reason urge the Difficulty of it to excuse our selves from undertaking and
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
Endeavour So that unless thou wilt still go along with me and still quicken and animate me by thy blessed Spirit my Work is so great and my Strength so little that it will be in vain for me to proceed any farther These importunate Temptations that surround me will quickly conquer my present Resolution and I shall do as I have too often done already resolve and sin and sin and resolve and so increase my Guilt by the Treachery of my Vows and Engagements Wherefore for Jesus Christ his sake withdraw not thy self from me but continue to assist my weak Endeavours by thy powerful Grace till thou hast crown'd them with a perfect Victory For which End I beseech thee inspire me more and more with Patience and Constancy of Mind that I may stand fast in my good Resolution in despite of all Temptations to the contrary Suggest to my Mind those holy Examples thou hast set before me especially that of my blessed Saviour and incline my Heart to coppy and imitate them Direct me to some wise and faithful Guide that may be willing and able to assist me in all my spiritual Necessities and by frequently exciting me to dedicate my Actions to thee do thou purifie my Intentions from sinful and from carnal Aims that so I may always live to thy Glory And since thou art present with me wherever I am and dost always behold me whatsoever I am doing O do thou inspire me with such a strong continual and actual Sense of it as may be a constant Check to my sinful Inclinations and render me afraid of offending thee Let thy blessed Spirit be my constant Monitor to put me in mind to consider my Ways and frequently to examine my Actions that so whenever I go astray I may be immediatly convinc'd of it and by my speedy Repentance recover my self before I have wandered too far from my Duty And grant I beseech thee that the sense of my past Failings may still render me more watchful and circumspect for the future that whensoever I have been carelesly or wilfully faulty I may from thenceforth be more cautious of my Actions and more vigilant against the Temptations that betrayed me And that I may not run my self unnecessarily into Temptation for the future preserve me O Lord from sloth and idleness and from intermedling with matters that do not belong to me and do thou still put me in mind to do my own Business and to be faithful and diligent in the State and Calling wherein thou hast placed me And that I may always serve thee with Freedom and Alacrity remove from me I beseech thee all unprofitable Sadness and Melancholy and help me to acquire an equal Tranquillity of Mind and a becoming Chearfulness of Spirit For which end Good Lord do thou inspire me with a lively Sense and earnest Expectation of that blissful State towards which I am travelling that having this glorious Prospect always in my Eye I may go on with Joy and Triumph over all the Difficulties and Temptations that oppose me And that by all these means I may be more and more strengthened and confirmed in the good Resolution I have made do thou stir up my slothful mind to a dilligent Attendance on thy publick Ordinances that so in the solemn Assemblies of thy Saints I may constantly hear thy Word with Reverence and Attention offer up my Prayers with Fervency and Devotion and approach thy Table with all that Humility and Love Gratitude and Resignation of Soul that becomes this solemn Remembrance and Representation of my dying Saviour In these things and whatsoever else is needful to secure my Resolution of Obedience assist me O Lord for Jesus Christ his sake to whom with thy self and eternal Spirit be render'd all Honor Glory and Power from his time forth and for evermore After this Prayer bethink your self a little what Temptations you are like to meet with in the ensuing Business of the Day and briefly recollect those powerful Arguments which the Gospel urges to fortifie you against them and apply them particularly to the Sin or Sins you are most inclined to and then renew your Resolution to God in the following Prayer O God who art my Hope and Strength upon whose Aid and Assistance I depend look down I beseech thee upon a poor helpless Creature who am going forth into a busie World that is full of Snares and Temptations Blessed be thy Name my Heart continues still resolved upon a through Course of Amendment and therefore here in thy dreadful Presence I do again most solemnly promise and ingage my self that whatsoever Temptations I meet with this Day I will not wilfully commit any Sin no not the Sin I am most inclined to nor omit any Duty how contrary soever it may be too my Nature and that I will faithfully indeavour to keep such a constant Guard upon my self as that I may not be surprized and overtaken through my own Inadvertence and Vnwariness But this O Lord I promise not out of any Confidence in my own Strength but in Dependence upon thee and in Hope that out of thy tender Pity to a poor impotent Wretch thou wilt not be wanting to me in any necessary Assistance but that either thou wilt remove from me all great and importunate Temptations or inable me by thy Grace to repel and vanquish them and this I do most earnestly beseech in the Name and Mediation of Jesus Christ with whose Prayer I conclude this my morning Sacrifice Our Father c. In the Evening when you find your self best disposed for religious Exercise set apart such Portions of your Time as you can conveniently spare from your necessary Refreshment and Diversion to call your self to Account concerning the Actions of the Day and enquire whether they have been agreeable to your Morning Promise and Resolution and upon Enquiry you will find either that you have faithfully discharged what you promised or that you have sinned unawares or through Carelesness and Self-neglect or that you have sinned wilfully and against your own Conscience If upon Enquiry it appear that you have been faithful to your Morning Engagement represent to your self the great Reason you have to rejoice in it and to praise God for it and then offer up this following Thanksgiving BLessed be thy Name O most gracious and merciful Father for those great and numberless Favours which from time to time thou hast heaped upon me who am less than the least of all thy Mercies particularly for the signal Mercies of this Day for that thou hast not shut thine Ears against my Prayers nor withdrawn thy self from me but hast accompanied me with thy Grace through all those Snares and Temptations to which I have been exposed Praised be thy Name that thou hast not suffered me to be tempted above what I was able that thou hast so powerfully assisted me against those Temptations I have been ingag'd with and by putting so many good Thoughts into my
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
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
affecting Instances of his Love or upon the blessed State above and then go on with this following Prayer O Thou most excellent Being thou infinitely amiable and adorable Majesty thou Pattern of Beauty and Standard of Goodness who art glorious beyond all Praise and dost out-reach all Wonder and comprehend all perfection blessed be thy Name thou hast touch'd my soul with a lively sense of thy Glory I feel it shining through me and like an active Flame insinuating into my Heart it fires my Love cherishes my Hope wings my Devotion and diffuses a vital Warmth over all my Faculties it raises me up into a heavenly State and fills me with joy unspeakable and full of glory it captivates every thought into Obedience to thy Will and brings every Power of my soul into Subjection to thee Blessed be thy Name thou hast conquered me by thy Love and I resign my self to thee with a chearful Heart I am intirely thine I am thy Servant truly I am thy Servant and in this Title I glory more than in all the Honours of the World But though I am highly advanc'd and exalted by serving thee yet thou art so infinitely happy in the boundless perfections of thy own Nature that thou canst reap no other Advantage from it but only the pleasure of seeing thy poor Creature blessed and made happy by it What then shall I render unto thee O thou Joy of my Life thou Treasure of my Love thou supream Felicity of my Nature Alas I have nothing but my self to give thee nothing but this poor Heart that burns with Love to thee that pants and breaths after thee and desires above all things in the world to be eternally united to thee in perfect Love If I had ten thousand Hearts to love thee ten thousand Tongues to praise thee I would devote them all to thee as freely and chearfully as I do my self For whom have I in heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee O God thou art my God and my Portion for ever In thee I am blest and in the Light of thy Countenance I rejoice more than in all the Joys and Pleasures of the World I am ravisht with thy Beauty I admire thy Love and from the bottom of my Soul adore thy Wisdom and Goodness My heart is ready O Lord my Heart is ready I will sing and give praise Awake up my Glory awake all the Powers of my Soul I my self will awake and celebrate thy praises Praised be the God of Glory praised be the God of Love praised be the Father of Mercies praised be the best Friend of Souls for thy Goodness reaches to the heavens thy Glory shines throughout the Creation and thy Mercy is spread over all thy works Who can comprehend thine infinite Beauties who can rehearse thy noble Acts who can shew forth all thy Praise I do confess my Thoughts are infinitely too short my Affections too narrow my Expressions too scanty to comprehend and sufficiently admire and celebrate thy Glory But O my God thou knowest that I love thee and blessed be thy Name I feel infinite reasons so to do O that I could love thee more that I could love thee but as much as Angels and glorified Spirits do who yet cannot love thee as much as thou deservest because thou deservest to be belov'd infinitely But my soul thirsts for thee and longs after thee O when shall I be admitted into thy blessed Presence there to see and admire and love and adore thee for ever when shall I shake off this clog of sinful Mortality that sinks and depresses me and flee to those happy Regions of perfect Love where I shall continually feed upon thee with inexpressible Delight and be filled with a strong and everlasting Sense of thy goodness O thou that art the beginner and finisher of every good work be pleased to assist my holy Endeavours to withdraw my Mind more and more from these sensible things that it may have a clearer sight of its heavenly Country from whence it came and whither it desires to return that so having my Eye always fixt on that blessed recompence of reward I may live above this World and in despight of all its Terrors and Allurements persevere to the end in a steady and even Course of Obedience And now O Lord since thou hast been graciously pleas'd to inspire my Mind with these delightful Thoughts of thee and to enlarge my Heart with such sweet Transports of Love to thee grant I beseech thee that they may not only please but better me that they may lift me up above all the Temptations of this World and revive my Strength and quicken my Endeavours and compose my distrustful Heart into a stedfast Dependence upon thee that so I may be fruitful in all good works and my heart may be establisht unblameable in holiness before thee unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Amen Amen After you have used one or more of the foregoing Prayers according as they suit with the present Temper of your Mind take a short view of your Defects and Imperfections and especially of those that cleave most to your Nature and briefly represent to your Mind the intrinsick Evil and Vileness of them and how they clog your Religion blemish your Nature and obstruct your Happiness and then conclude with the following Prayer for Growth in Grace O God who art the most excellent Nature the Perfection of all Beauty and the Fountain of all Graces who doest infallibly understand what is best to be chosen and invariably chuse by the best and purest Reason look down I beseech thee upon me thy poor defective Creature who am ashamed of my self to see how unlike thee I am how I am laden with Imperfections and how after all my religious Endeavours my Nature is still vitiated with unreasonable Lusts and Affections how much Vanity and Impertinence there yet remains in my Mind how much Perverseness in my Will how much spiritual and carnal Iniquity in my Affections and Appetites Lord I have been long a contending with this corrupt Nature and yet upon all Occasions I find my self too too prone to be Wo is me even my fairest Graces have their Spots and Blemishes my purest Dispositions their sinful Intermixtures and my best Works their Flaws and Imperfections O my God have pity upon me who here lie sighing at thy Feet under a miserable diseased Nature and as thou hast begun the blessed Cure in me so for Christ his sake I beseech thee to compleat it that being intirely recovered and raised up unto newness of Life I may in the perfect Health and Vigour of my Soul serve and glorifie thee for ever For which end I beseech thee confirm me more and more in the Belief of those immortal Pleasures beyond the Grave which thou hast treasur'd up for those that love and obey thee that by the strength of a lively Faith and vigorous Hope my Soul may be rais'd above this World and learn to despise and trample upon all its gilded Vanities whensoever they present themselves either to allure or to terrifie me from pursuing the heavenly Enjoyments Excite in me such a vehement Thirst after those Rivers of Pleasures above as may every day render me more cool and indifferent towards earthly things more contented and satisfied under all the Events and Issues of thy Providence and more active and vigorous in my heavenly Calling And I beseech thee to inspire me with such clear and lively Apprehensions of thy essential Beauties and Perfections and of thy bountiful Love and boundless Benevolence to all thy Creatures as may every day more and more raise and improve my Love to thee that this being the great Spring and Principle of all my Actions may continually excite me to a chearful Obedience to thy Will and a vigorous Imitation of thy Perfections O cause me to love thee for thy self and Religion for thee and the Instruments of Religion in order to thy Glory and my own Happiness that so founding my Content upon thee and the blessed Interests of a virtuous Life I may grow in Grace and be rich in good Works and go on with a satisfied and triumphant Spirit from Imperfection to Strength from Acts to Habits and from Habits to Confirmation in Grace and may be still more and more confirmed in all the heavenly Graces till they are finally consummated into everlasting Glory And when by thy Grace and Assistance I have perfectly conquered the corrupt Nature within and the Temptations without me and am arrived into the State of everlasting Triumph I will lay all my Victories at thy Feet and with Palms in my hand and Halelujahs on my lips celebrate thy praises to Eternity Hear me O my God in this and whatever else thou knowest to be needful for me even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose Name and Words I further pray Our Father c. FINIS Plat. Phaed. pag. 398. Ibid. Pag. 386. Paedag. l. 2. c. 1. pag. 141. Ibid. Pag. 139. * Dr. Stillingfleets Origines Dr. Patricks Translation of Grotius Sir Charles Wolsely * Here make a particular Confession of all those sinful Courses you have lived in together with all their aggravating Circumstances of Impudence Obstinacy and Ingratitude c. * When you renew your Vow in the Sacrament add * Here name the sinful Act you have committed * Here name the particular Infirmities that stick closest to your Nature
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