it is the Gospel means by temperance by enquiring 1. What is the end it aims at in enjoyning this Duty 2. By what words it describes and expresses it 3. The examples of our Saviour and his followers in this point Likewise the motives it adds and the method it prescribes will serve to clear up its intention to us The great end St Paul suggests to me 1 Cor. 9.25 Every man who striveth for the Mastery is temperate in all things intimating that the means are then proper when they are suited and fitted for the attainment of their end and by the allusion implying that the end of our Temperance is a striving for the Mastery that is a Conquest over the World and the body for the Gospel represents the World and the Flesh as those enemies against which the Christian is to be engag'd in a continual warfare and tells us that the lusts and pleasures of them do War against the Soul Religion being nothing else but the Love of God and heavenly things the Gospel endeavours all that it can to wean us from all fondness for or delight in the world and the flesh it being impossible to serve two such contrary interests By a clear consequence from all this I conclude that we are to endure hardship as good Souldiers of Jesus Christ that we are to abstain from fleshly lusts as strangers and pilgrims in plainer words that that abstinence from sensual pleasures which renders the body tame and governable serviceable to the soul and chearful in the exercise of Religion which doth enfranchise the mind of men from its captivity to sense which doth establish its dominion over the brutish part so that the man lives the life of faith and not of sense is disengag'd from the World and so ready to depart is that Temperance which the Gospel of Christ requires and by consequence on the other hand that that indulgence to worldly pleasures which tends to pamper and enrage the body to awaken our passions for this present state to endear and recommend the World to us to make the minds of men soft and feeble heavy and sensual to make our temper delicate and wanton unable to suffer and froward if our appetite be not satisfied is flatly contradictory to the Temperance of the Gospel of Christ This is a Rule which if well consider'd and conscientiously applyed to every particular will sufficiently conduct man in the paths of this great duty and answer all scruples concerning the enjoyment of pleasures whether they be real or phantastick ones For is any man such a stranger to himself that he doth not understand the working of his own soul that he cannot give an account of the passions which he feels nor know by what methods he is betray'd into the Love of the World and a decay of his Religion Doth not every man feel what kind of eating and drinking clogs the soul and emboldens the body what kind of sights or dalliance doth dart the poison of lust and ambition into our very souls Or what doth thaw and melt us and make us Love and hate delight or grieve hope and fear like the Children not of Light but of the World certainly unless a man will impose upon himself he must needs discern the birth and growth of his own Passions and discover the methods by which he doth insensibly degenerate into a loose or cold or senceless Spirit 2. This Temperance is in general express'd in Holy Writ by Mortification and Holyness the former imports such a change in the body as flattens and deads its appetites for the World I am crucified to the World and the World is crucified to me The latter imports an excellent and Godlike nature a transformation of mans into a spiritual a frame as man in this imperfect State is capable of arriving at And certainly men thus qualified can not place their delight in the sensual enjoyments of this life how innocent soever they might be the World hath nothing agreeable to souls of this Heavenly nature nor nothing worthy of them Temperance in the particular branches of it is call'd Purity Sobriety Abstinence Modesty c. all which are to be interpreted according to the method of the Spirit in a sense which doth not onely restrain the outward Acts but also the inward passions of man in a sense which doth not onely forbid the commission of gross sins but also all tendencies towards them in the body and in the soul Conformable to this Doctrine were 3. The lifes and examples of the Holy Jesus and his followers tho' peradventure it would not be altogether errational to suppose that the extraordinary measures of the Divine Spirit in his immediate Disciples and their conversation with the blessed Jesus and afterwards the fresh memory of all his Power and Glory might render a corporal discipline the less necessary I will not deny but that our blessed Master did often accept of entertainments nor did I ever design to forbid any such thing on particular occasions which may warrant them but it is easie to observe how course and plain and sparing his constant Diet with his Disciples was how frequent in his fastings and his watchings he was As for his Disciples after his departure their lives were but a constant warfare and the World and the flesh their enemies they Liv'd like strangers and Pilgrims upon earth and their pleasures were altogether Spiritual and Holy These were the paths that they trod towards conquest and a glorious Crown and I can easily conceive how their Life was fill'd with such spiritual ravishments how they long'd for the appearance of Christ and how they left the World with such glorious assurances as that I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith all which may have regard not only to his sufferings but also to his conflict with the flesh too henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that Day and not to me onely but unto them also that Love his appearance But how that softeness of conversation that full and luxurious feeding and drinking that garishness and wantonness of dress that sloth and lazyness of Spirit which is so universal in the world can become the life of a Souldier of Christ I am not wise nor lucky enough to comprehend But I can now easily discern from whence it proceeds that Religion seems so unpleasant a thing and that men are so unwilling to depart hence into another life it is because we are such imperfect Christians and we live sensually It will therefore behove us to lay to heart the great motives by which the Gospel engages us to this duty as 1. The nature of our present State in this World the poor soul lives in a treacherous body and a tempting World both which conspire its ruin and therefore it must be upon its watch upon its guard it is not a time
thou hast done in all Meekness and Charity and Faith and Hope that I may be fitted for those Mansions thou art gone before to prepare for me Amen Amen SECT IV. Cantaining the fourth Motive to Holiness i. e. the Consideration of the vanity of all those things which tempt us to sin A Man who should have seriously laid to heart the strength and importance of these Motives to Holiness which I have considered would be apt to think that nothing less than some unimaginable temptation or some unavoidable necessity in the contrivance of our natures could provoke men to cast off all these Obligations and break thorough all these obstructions that he might sin and die but on the quite contraty which doth strangely reproach the folly of the sinner 1. Those things which are the allurements to fin have little or no temptation in them 2. Sin it self is a silly base thing And 3. Man hath strength enough offer'd to enable him to avoid it 1. The first I shall have occasion to consider fully in the third part of this Treatise and thither I refer the Reader only by the way we must take notice there is no more sttess to be laid upon this Argument than it will bear and that this Argument hath still respect to the joys and punishments of another life the sensual satisfactions of Man are very little and trifling compar'd with the pleasures of Heaven and it can never be worth a mans while to be damn'd for them yet sure if there were no life to come it would behove every man to be content with and make the most of this nor do I at all doubt but that men may manage their lusts so as that they may not be able to infer Reason enough to relinquish them from any influence they have upon their interest or if any one should think it necessary to purchase a pleasure by the shortning of his life or the lessening of his Estate I cannot see why he may not have reason on his side for a short life and a merry one and my mind to me a Kingdom is would upon the former supposition be a wise Proverb for upon this supposition the pleasure of the mind would be very narrow and faint and the checks of Conscience would be none or insignificant But as the case stands now though there be pleasure in sin and deceitfulness in lust granted in Scripture to abandon the hopes of Heaven for some carnal pleasures upon Earth is like Esau to sell his Birth-right for a Mess of Pottage and on the other hand to renounce all present enjoyments for the sake of Heaven is like Peter to forsake a worn Fisher-boat and broken Nets a troubled Lake and uncertain Hopes for the assurance of a Crown and Kingdom which is surely very reasonable And now I pass on to the second thing and fifth Section SECT V. Containing a fifth Motive to Holiness from the Nature of Vertue and Vice IN 1 Ep. Jo. 1. this is set down as the great Message which Christ came to acquaint the world with that God is light and in him is no darkness at all and therefore they who walk in the light have fellowship with him and they that walk in darkness have none where it is plain that S. John founded the necessity of Holiness in the Divine Nature because God is holy therefore he must first renounce his own Nature e're he can establish any other contrary Laws or love or hate on any other condition than Holiness and sin This being so I think the best way to discover the Nature of Vertue and Vice is to consider how the one renders us like God and the other unlike him The Account we have of the Nature of God is that he is a Spirit of Eternal Life Infinite Power Wisdom Goodness Justice and Truth these are the chief of his Attributes and such as Reason it self acknowledges to be the highest perfections and excellencies imaginable If Holiness therefore tend to implant and improve some resemblances of them in men and Vice to efface and extinguish them it will easily appear how the one makes us like God and the other unlike him 1 God is a Spirit it is true that Vertue and Vice do not change the substances of things and make Spirit Flesh or Flesh Spirit yet because they do so wonderfully transform things by instilling new qualities and so altering the operations of beings they are in Scripture said to do so Thus because Vertue raises and refines the Soul frees it from those Fogs which a sensual dotage casts about it scatters a new light upon it and mortifies those affections which reign in the body and render it more obedient to the mind so that the man lives the life of Faith as becomes a wise and an immortal being therefore it is said in the Language of the Holy Ghost to have render'd him a spiritual man and on the other side because sin doth stupifie and sensualize the mind imbolden and pamper the body so that the soul seems to have chang'd its nature into flesh and relishes nothing of those pleasures which are properly spiritual but is wholly taken up with those enjoyments which are the proper and natural entertainments of flesh and blood not a Spirit therefore sin is said to have rendred the man a natural man 2. Eternal Life is the second Attribute of God Life in man is either of the Body or Soul as to the former Temperance Imployment and a chearful spirit are the great Preservatives of Health and the best supports of such crazy beings as our bodies are Religion injoyns the two former for no man can be holy without being temperate and imploid at least in doing good and it contributes very effectually to the later i. e. chearfulness of spirit by begetting in us a peaceful Conscience a resign'd mind and glorious hopes but sin shortens our hasty days by exposing us to diseases violence the Law and by the ill influence which a distemper'd mind hath upon the body as to the Soul Righteousness is the life of it it is the nourishment and pleasure the freedom and the security of it but sin is the death and plague of it non est vivere sed valere vita it is not the meer existing but the welfare and happiness of a being which is its life and if so how can a soul which is sick of passions daily tortur'd and distracted by an ill Conscience be said to live Besides sin doth impair the faculties o'recast the light and fetter the powers of the mind so that it neither understands nor wills nor commands as it ought to do it is rendred a poor sickly despicable being and therefore the sinner is said to be dead in trespasses and sins or at least because the Metaphor is not to be press'd too far as appears from the Text following if it hath any life it is as imperfect as that of a Lethargick drowsie body all 's a thick night
Horizon and expect the breaking forth of the Sun of Righteousness Sometimes in my Contemplation I die and strip my self of all and bid farewel to my dearest friends and my fancy wraps my body in its winding sheet and wafts my Soul to God and I enter as far as I can into Heaven and I dwell there and so the taste of another world like the eating of Manna makes my Palat too nice for the Garlick and Onyons of Egypt 3. The great Motives of the Gospel whereby we are incourag'd to despise worldly pleasures are 1. The Love of God manifested in his loving us and in the sending his own Son into the world for our sakes that we might be the Sons of God whence the Apostles every where infer That the love of God should constrain us to obey him as dear Children and Sons of the most High God and consequently not to walk as those who know not God in the lusts of the flesh and the fashions of the world but being renewed in the spirit of our minds to please him in holiness and purity and the inexpressible Love of the Blessed Jesus dying for us on the Cross will not suffer us to be guilty of such a baseness as to betray him at the sollicitation of a Sensual Lust and that blessed Spirit of Love which dwells in the Children of Obedience is quench'd and griev'd by carnal lusts and therefore they must deny all impurity that the Lord may delight to live amongst them Nothing will seem difficult to us if we but consider these things the Majesty of God and the vanity of man the height of his love and imperfection of mans obedience 2. Our own Exeellency We are the Temple of the Holy Spirit we are the Children of the living God the Children of Light the Purchase of the Blood of Christ the Delight of God and the care of Angels and shall we wallow in bruitish lusts like those who have no knowledge no hopes 3. Our rewards here joy and peace and hope do constantly dwell in that Soul which works Righteousness and continues in patience and well doing and can any of the fulsom pleasures of the body be compar'd to the calm and transport of a holy Soul and yet these are but imperfect dawnings of an Eternal Day there are things laid up for those who love God which the heart cannot conceive nor the tongue express and these precious promises must needs inable us to live above the corruption which is in the world through lust So that now though the pleasures which Christians are commanded to renounce were very full and satisfactory yet the love of God who injoyns this Abstinence the love of Jesus who suffer'd for us and the love of that Spirit which is tender'd in the Gospel to purifie our minds and fill them with delight and pleasure would render our compliance with these Commands very reasonable and easie and if we add the consideration of the peace and satisfaction which flow from an entire Mortification and the glorious promises which are annex'd to it it will be almost impossible to resist the united force of such powerful Arguments and how much more if we consider 4. The emptiness and vanity of all those pleasures by which the sinner is insnar'd The world hath nothing in it which is truly great and satisfactory it s most exquisite entertainments are strangely empty mixt and alloy'd and fleeting 1. Empty Every mans practice is a daily confession of this for how taking soever a pleasure may appear in fancy and prospect yet 't is common that men soon disrelish what they enjoy and disdain what they possess and if men daily change and contrive new pleasures is it not a plain confession of being dissatisfied with the old And what shall the poor Epicure do if Enjoyment it self prove fatal is it not an evident proof that the choice is foolish the object empty the faculties weak and the world a Cheat It were easie to prove this if I should run oâ—e particulars What is Greatness it is so much nothing I know not what it is it is a slippery height it is a glorious slavery a pretty Pageantry and fantastick formality What is Wealth this should not be reckon'd as an enjoyment 't is but the mean to one what is Lust but an outragious ferment of the blood a sudden mutiny of spirits it is a sudden blaze that flashes and then dies the delicacy and flavour of Meats and Drinks is scarcely perceptible to most it is so much nothing gaity of attire is the pleasure only of Children and of Fools it is an imaginary prettiness But the truth on 't is pleasure here below is not to be measur'd by the weight and substance of the Objects but by the quickness and strength of Fancy or Imagination for 't is with Men as 't is with Children 't is not the rattle or the toy but 't is the silliness of the fancy which creates the pleasure and therefore I 'le consider this a little If the Imagination be childish nice and fond it frames and creates Art and delicacy in the object and begets passions tender impotent and warm possession now one would fancy would certainly make one thus qualified happy but the mischief on 't is these are the characters only of a raw unexperienc'd sinner who admires what he never tryed like a man come into a new world the strangeness only begets the wonder success will make him unhappy when he hath tryed all objects he will find all but vanity for as soon as Experience hath defeated him of the Imagination it robs him of the pleasure too and a weather-beaten sinner derives his temptation only at last from custom and he sins not so much because 't is pleasant as because he is us'd to do so This is the whole state of the case Imagination and Fancy is the pleasure not enjoyment and that cannot last without this nor with it but besides there is such an uneasiness accompanies a violent desire of any thing that it more than punisheth the pretty pleasures which Fancy frames hear a man essaying to discover what he feels and he 'll express his passion by flames and feavers wounds and diseases pleasing smarts and killing pleasures so sick are they of their passions and languish of their desires and die of enjoyment 't is in all pleasures as in those of eating and drinking the painful appetites of hunger and thirst fore-run them and feeding and drinking extinguish the appetite and pleasure too This is the case of those who pretend to the greatest gallantry and wit in the choice and contrivance of their sins what shall we think of those who drudge for bafer metals and more dreggy course vices the toilsom pleasures of gluttony and drunkenness of pride and covetousness the malicious pleasures of frowardness faction and disobedience Surely these are worse than vanity the Soul of man must be light and airy and silly and unballasted e're it can
fill'd with joy and peace through believing or if I abound with hope through the power of the Holy Ghost I can think of that shine of Glory with which I shall be once invested and then suffer these Rags with patience till my Nuptials come and my new Suits be made I can love this contempt and poverty because it shall make my Crown more weighty and my being more glorious What is it O my Soul for which I complain what is it that I have lost Estate Reputation It is affirm'd by the Spirit of God concerning all sensual pleasures in general That they war against the Soul 1 Pet. 2.11 in particular concerning wealth How hardly shall a rich man enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 19.23 concerning vain-glory and how can they believe who receive the praise of men c. Am I then so much troubled because my difficulties in the way to Heaven are diminished my Chains grown lighter and mine Enemies fewer because my tyes to or dependances on the world are few and consequently my distractions in and diversions from holy duties are the fewer I have no fears no cares no contrivances no jealousies because I have no concern in it How near Heaven am I grown who am thus remov'd from Earth And being in this condition I am not expos'd to the changes of the world I have nothing wherein ill fortune can attacque or wound me This state is not so contemptible which is thus full of peace wherein I may possess my self and need not spend the greater portions of my life in things which fame or greatness requires of me not inclination or choice The Prayer LOrd teach me to form my Opinions according to the light of thy Gospel to guard my Soul against all the impressions of the World and Flesh to mortifie the inbred Inclinations of my Body to Lust and to fix my mind so upon the things that are not seen that when ever vain fears assault me from without they may find the House guarded by the strongest Man Amen Amen SECT II. Of Real Evils whereof some are unavoidable others only common to this life THere are some Evils so natural and constant Appendages to this state of Mortality and Imperfection that unless men can cease to think them Evils they cannot be happy For example a Friend dies or proves false c. or I am to die my self i. e. things happen in their natural course and as I ought to expect them I may as well quarrel with God that he did not create me an Angel and that my first Station was not in the Courts of Heaven Now though it be true that an Evil is not the less an Evil because it is incurable or unavoidable or yet universal I must from hence infer that the wise man ought to be better provided and confirm'd against such and that he gains no small step towards happiness who can divest these Evils of their affrighting shapes which the man shall in a great measure do who shall expect nothing more in this state than what is proper to it and then can no more be aggriev'd at Death Chance Folly c. than at the imperfection of our intellectual capacities the meanness of our natural inclinations and the frailties of our bodies for those other are the effects of these and yet no man thinks himself miserable because he doth not understand as much as God does because being flesh and blood he doth not will as Nobly as Angels and why should he think it amiss or hard that being mortal any thing should die or being imprudent or passionate any thing should act so It is highly reasonable that he who Created us out of nothing should Create us as he pleas'd for he who was not bound to do any thing cannot be blam'd for doing so much But Christianity rests not here it provides a Remedy for all these Evils 1. By the discovery of the Souls Immortality of the Bodies Resurrection and of glorious Rewards which shall Crown those who suffer contentedly and patiently 2. By the discovery of Objects fitted for the affections of an Immortal Soul noble and great enough to fill the biggest capacities and most inlarg'd desires such are God and Jesus Christ and the glories of another life which are unalterable and unchangeable so that the happiness and pleasure of a Christian Soul depends not upon these uncertain things below but upon those things which are above 3. Since these misfortunes are such as are unavoidable in this life they can be no temptation to sin because we cannot avoid them by sinning and they who endeavour to drown their sense of worldly afflictions by an indulgence in any sins do worse than those who kill themselves to get rid of some uneasie passion the very Remedy is the worst of mischiefs But to proceed as to pains which are common to though not unavoidable in this life I cannot chuse but see there are a sort of men who suffer bravely and yet I must confess they suffer and though they are patient cease not to be miserable these are the only things which I could ever think so unhappy as to deserve my pity and yet it will not be reasonable to sin for the avoiding such sufferings as these for though Religion cannot remove all sense and pain and passion for then this world would be a Heaven and the Scripture is plain that no affliction for the present is joyous and if they were not Fiery Tryals they would be no temptations yet it supplies all the ease and comfort which such a state is capable of and such as is enough to make it supportable Therefore I first premise these two Propositions 1. That no temptation befals us but what is common to men That a whole Cloud of Witnesses is gone before us in the severest and bloudiest paths and therefore that there is no state which is not supportable by Divine Assistance and may not be pass'd thorough without such an ill demeanour as may forfeit our everlasting happiness 2. That there is no condition so miserable but it is capable of some mixture of comforts let us for an example in matter of fact regard the Apostle of our Lord 2 Cor. 6. In affliction in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments in tumults in labours in watchings in fastings and yet the Cloud had a bright as well as dark side for v. 10. Though dying yet behold we live though chasten'd yet not kill'd though sorrowful yet alway rejoycing though having nothing yet possessing all things Now it matters not I confess as to entire happiness whether Scale of sorrow or comfort outweighs because to entire happiness it is requir'd that both parts of us as well Body as Soul enjoy good yet it will become a wise man to get as much ease as he can and when the Sun is set not to despise a Candle And this proves thus much that no man can be necessitated to sin since a man can
satisfaction before all the world unless I could chose to be miserable and delight to be unhappy 3. This very Consideration supposing the uncertainty of another World would yet strongly engage me to the service of Religion for all it aims at is to banish sin out of the world which is the source and Original of all the troubles that disquiet the mind for 1. Sin in its very Essence is nothing else but disordered distempered passions affections foolish and preposterous in their choice or wild and extravagant in their proportion which our own experience sufficiently convinces us to be painful and uneasie 2. It engages us in desperate hazards wearies us with daily toils and often buries us in the ruins we bring upon our selves and lastly it fills our hearts with distrust and fear and shame for we shall never be able to perswade our selves fully that there is no difference between good and evil that there is no God or none that concerns himself at the Actions of this life and if we cannot we can never rid our selves of the pangs and stings of a trembling Soul we shall never be able to establish a peace and calm in our bosomes and so injoy our Pleasure with a clear and uninterrupted freedome But if we could perswade ourselves into the utmost height of Atheism yet still we shall be under these two strange inconveniences 1. That a life of Sin will be still irregular and disorderly and therefore troublesome 2. That we shall have dismantled our Souls of their greatest strengths disarm'd them of that Faith which only can support them under th' afflictions of this present Life Not to mention that after all the sad Stories of another Life will not be strait way nonsense because we think them so they will continue at leastwise disputable and who would but a desperate-Sot commit his Soul to such a venture Sect. 2. 4. But when I consider that the immortality of the Soul is a perswasion which generally obtain'd in the Heathen world That the more wise and virtuous any of 'em were the more deeply were they possess'd by the belief and hopes of it that the reasons Plato Cicero c. founded this assertion in deriv'd from the nature of the Soul its operations its little affinity to any visible matter its resemblance of the Deity c. have rendred it so highly probable that it hath shed a very powerfull influence upon the Lives of many 5. But especially and above all when I consider that the Holy Scripture whose Divine Authority is clear'd by as strong evidences as any matter of that nature is capable of assures me that this Soul whether in its own nature immortal or no I 'le not now examine shall not perish in the Dissolution of this Earthly Tabernacle as Eccles 12.7 Then shall the Dust return to the Earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God who gave it and Mat. 10.28 Fear not them which kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul The Soul it seems is not liable to the injuries of a Disease or the violence commited on the Body but doth subsist when the Body is dissolv'd into its dust When I consider all this I can never so far renounce my Reason and harden my self against all the tenderness and passion I have for my self as to be content that this Soul should be lost in that other State provided I be fortunate and successeful in this for what satisfaction can I then reap from a patrimony or purchase wide as the world it self in a state wherein I shall be depriv'd of all means and opportunity of enjoyment What can the Wealth or Power or Beauty of the World signifie to me when the Body which is the proper instrument of earthly pleasure shall lie stark dead and cold in the Grave shall have no passions no appetites nor can all the Rhetorick or wanton charms on Earth awaken in it one languishing desire or one imperfect act of Life and as to the Soul it must dwell in the Mansions of a new world far far remote from this wherein every thing will be strange wonderful unalterable and eternal But I must pursue this thought a little further and not stopping in the contemplation of the uselessness of the World after the Souls departure from it go on to consider the Soul in its intermediate state between Death and the Resurrection that I may know the utmost if I can that the loss of a Soul imports and here I would suppose my self surprised in the midst of gavety and pleasures of Love and Honour by a violent inexorable disease I resign up my dear objects and my dotage together I am torn from my possessions and my hopes and when the storm hath burst the Cable and shatter'd the Hulk of this frail Bark the Body it casts my Soul that is all that remains of me upon an unknown strand naked and poor and desolate without interests or friends or hopes it must dwell in the dismal blackness of eternal night and Melancholly rackt by despair and guilt scourg'd by shame and rage tortur'd with envy and vexation stab'd by regret and repentance not a calm and soft but a tempestuous and painful one then like some sick body which rowles and tumbles for an easie posture rather out of an inability to suffer pain than any hope of finding rest it sometimes languishes and looks back upon the world vanisht like a dream and repeats ineffective wishes for the Body but it shall return to its dear wealth and beauty no more for ever Sometimes like Dives in the flames it looks towards that Region where Light and holy Souls do dwell but the unpassable gulph of the Almighty's Decree cuts off all hopes of that so that that Light onely augments its envy and despair and Heaven it self adds misery to the wretched Souls hell This is the natural and unavoydable state of a wretched Soul dislodg'd from the body despair and rage and shame and guilt and fear and grief and anguish gnaw and devour the miserable creature and for ever must encrease Blessed God! need there any chains to sink it lower than its own weight hath done Needs there any other darkness cover that Soul which such a cloud of sorrows hath benighted Tell me no more of pleasures these thoughts are enough to make me tremble and grow pale at the approach of a temptation rather than my Soul should dwell in such a state a thousand years may shame and poverty be my portion in this life may the hatred of powerful enemies or what is worse the scorn of my dearest friends persue me may my Body be but a Scene of Diseases and so incapable of the least gust of pleasure and more than this may an awakened tender Conscience every moment flash Death and Hell into my face or if there be any thing worse let me suffer it so it but preserve my Soul from Sin here and from that inexpressible
nearly related to us but then 1. The measure of this provision must be our necessities not wantonness for if we refuse relief to the poor on this pretence that we cannot support our vanity and gaiety and their poverty together undoubtedly we shall perish under the guilt of uncharitableness 2. The present time not the vain fears of the future must determine this necessity for if we deny an alms out of our present plenty upon an idle fear of future want it is so far from being a just excuse that it is a double crime distrust in God as well as hard heartedness to our Brother contradictory to Faith as well as Charity I will answer to the Second pretence by degrees and therefore 1. Suppose the worth or worthlesness or what 's more unworthiness of the distress'd person be only doubtful and suspected then certainly it is not agreeable to Charity to give up a Brother to ruine upon a vain surmise we are not to dispute their deserts but to regard their wants I 'me sure this is the safest side Charity may be mistaken but shall never be unrewarded we are herein I think to imitate that Wisdome and Goodness which dispenses th' Alms of our Heavenly Father he hath no doubt on 't particular favours as well as a particular kindness for the good and holy but as he is the God of all so those his benefits which all stand in absolute need of are common to all but 2. Suppose the distress'd person be really as Evil as Needy unless I am sure that my Charity will feed his vices I cannot tell tho' God hath pleas'd to pass a sentence of affliction upon him whether he hath appointed me to be the Executioner of it by withholding that aid which may reprieve his life how know I but that in those moments I lend him he may return to himself and to his God nay more whether my Charity may not be a motive to reduce him and happy I if I may so cheaply bestow a double life of body and of soul if I may so easily retrieve a soul my Saviour died for and whilst I give an alms in some sence bestow a Heaven too But if those I relieve should be the Children of my Father the fellow heirs of Salvation how happy an opportunity is light into my hands of obliging those who are so dear to Heaven whose interest is so powerful with the God I worship Yet Lastly in general whatever the occasion be whatever the persons blest be the hour wherein I have an opportunity to evidence my Love to God and to part with something for the sake of my dear Saviour Blest be the hour wherein I can lay out the very superfluities of my trifling stock for a Mansion in Heaven for an abode in everlasting bliss where in I can honestly buy the Prayers of the poor i. e. it may be the intercession of the blessed spirit for me however they are prayers which are very seldome insignificant for if God hears when they curse in bitterness of Spirit when certainly 't is his goodness not their piety which makes their Prayers heard how much more shall his goodness invite him to hear when they bless in the cheerfulness and refreshment of their soul Lastly how comfortable will my reflexions on my Charity be at the hour of Death and in the day of Judgement for be it with an humble reverence spoken tho in imitation of my Saviour how will that Jesus whom I have fed when hungry cloath'd when nak'd visited and comforted when sick and imprison'd ever give me up to an Eternity of flames 3. But yet this is not the whole of the object of our Charity there are whose souls are poor diseas'd and destress'd as well as their bodies and can an ulcer'd Leg or withered Arm deserve my pity more than a leprous soul can I chuse but melt and soften at a sight which speaks a present and boades a future misery is the eternal welfare of my Brother grown so contemptible in my fight that I 'le not spend an hour or word to ensure it Alass how then dwells the same spirit in me which was in Christ Jesus Well then I will go and visit sick souls I will prescribe and presse and Watch and Court and if I see them profligate beyond the hopes of recovery I 'le recommend them as I do departing friends in Prayers and Tears to God and whatever the success prove to them it will be kind and favourable to me Angels will offer up the incense of my Prayers and bottle up my Tears as well as those spent on my own sins and my God will multiply and encrease my Talents when he sees that I spend them well and the World will Love me and the very wicked will praise and justifie my God for these effects of his good spirit Sect. 2. But nature it self seems to encline us to these Acts of Charity as far as they concern the Relief of the necessitous the comfort of the afflicted and Ministry to souls nor can we share in humanity but that we must pertake of some degrees of and aptnesses to Christianity the most difficult part of Charity is still behind i.e. the forgiving injuries or more the returning good for evil and yet if we will be the followers of our blessed Saviour the Children of our Heavenly Father This is it that we must labour after that our souls may be so exalted and heavenly so good and holy that they may not be easily ruffled into peevishness and frowardness much less rankle into a settled malice and a resolv'd revenge but that they may be all calm and smoothness all Love and sweetness Then indeed we may think our selves the Children of God when we can look upon injuries done us with the mildness which arises from a sense of our own frailties with a meekness which is grounded upon our own worthlesness with a compos'dness of midn which remits all to an Almighty and wise God and with a compassion which the consideration of their folly and sin doth awaken in us when we can have the Charity to believe a just cause of mens actions conceal'd tho we can discover none or if the malice be as plain and evident as the wrong then if we can pray for those who curse us honour and Love those who treat us with despight and scorn if we can support the interest and buoy up the reputation of those who have us'd us shamefully and ungratefully after we have Lov'd and after we have serv'd them if we can do this then indeed the spirit of the Gospel a Spirit of Peace and Love abides in us And that I may arrive at this perfection I reason thus with my self 'T is true he hath wrong'd me but unless it were for conquering wrongs what need have I of Christian patience Where is the meekness of the Christian spirit if I am hurried away by the same passion with an Heathen and Infidel I
not true Faith it is as broad as long for not to dispute whether in the place mention'd the reasons of unfruitfulness was in the seed or in the ground whether it be true Faith or not I 'me sure it is not saving Faith so that the Rule given us whereby to discern and judge of our state is a very plain and easie one viz. He that overcometh the World is born of God If it should be further inquir'd how a man shall know whether he overcomes the World tho he may with as much sense ask me how he shall know what he loves and hates what he shuns and persues the answer is very plain his Servants ye are to whom you obey So that the whole State of this question may be in few words reduc'd to this no man can be a stranger to his own actions nor to the operations of his own soul what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him which words if I have any logick contain two things 1. That a man knowes his own mind or if he do not then 2. That no man else can therefore since a man knows his own actions and his own affections what he doth and out of what principles he doth it he cannot chuse but know who it is he obeyes but if his Life be so various so made up of vice and virtue and the flesh and spirit be so evenly pois'd that which hath the preheminence whom he obeyes be a matter very doubtful and disputable to himself then whether he shall be saved or no must remain to himself and much more to all others God alone excepted equally doubtful and I can guess at no other expedient for him if he hath a mind to rid himself of this scruple than entirely to compleat his conquest over sin and to shake off that empire over sin which it seems to me hath been too long and deeply settled and established and to go on from one degree of grace unto another till he arrives at Perfection which is the only method to obtain that full assurance of hope mention'd Heb 6 11. With which I intend now to close this first part of my discourse of the Nature of Christianity because tho it be not a particular grace it is a particular state and therefore deserves a particular consideration and tho we be not oblig'd to it upon pain of Damnation yet we are invited and encourag'd to it by several glorious motives and enforcements as shall presently appear and therefore it is a Gospel duty by Perfection in the sense I now consider it the Gospel implies a State of Grace arriv'd at its full maturity and strength grown into Nature and consummated into a vigorous and delightful habit it being in this as in all other qualities they grow up into habit and nature that is Perfection by degrees According to this the Gospel describes this State by Manhood and a perfect Stature and calls our procedure to it growing encreasing and going on so that perfection is nothing else but Faith Love Temperance and Humility in their greatest lustre and strength The effect of this State is that the Life be not onely constant firm even and like it self but also pleasant and delightful too not only that the man abstain from evil and do good but that also he do both with desire and earnestness of spirit with ease and with delight not onely that he do good but what is in its kind most so This is a State which is attainable in this Life for the Gospel calls and invites men to it and if any deny it it is because they frame to themselves another kind of notion of perfection than the Gospel delivers us which requires of Man no other perfection than such as is suitable to his Nature and the assistances promis'd by God and to this present State never as much as dreaming that perfection is the same thing in man as in an Angel and what ever men may talk it doth not reckon the unavoidable imperfections and frailties of men for sins at leastwise such as can hinder man from being denominated perfect witness the whole First Epistle of St. John The motives to this duty may be compriz'd under Four heads all deriv'd from the nature of the State it self Perfection is a State 1. More pleasing to God 2. Of greater security 3. Of greater pleasure 4. Entitled to greater glory in the Life to come 1. More pleasing to God if God Loves holiness which no body can doubt then every degree of holiness is a new charm and what is most Holy is most lovely and if so every one that professes to Love God must be oblig'd to aim at perfection because he cannot but be oblig'd to please God as much as he can and he that doth not may justly suspect his conformity to the divine precepts to be rather policy than Religion and to proceed from a desire of his own safety rather than the Glory and pleasure of God unless a spiritual prudence shall restrain him from attempts or vowes of more Heroical instances of obedience for Reasons which Religion may approve of in which case it will be alwayes necessary to observe this caution that his choice of a better good do not proceed from any desire of gratifying the body or from want of Love to God and holiness 2. Perfection is a state of greater security the more strong Faith and Love grow the more faint and flat are all temptations that beset us a soul which is devout and rais'd is not easily lur'd down by any of the flatteries of lust the soul being long accustomed to rule and the body to obey the soul being us'd to spiritual delights and the body being now perfectly crucified the man is become a quite different being from what he was and therefore that World which did before take him hath now no grace nor allurement in it I am crucified to the World and the World is crucified to me This State is call'd in Scripture Wisdom and Knowledge and Strength which doth intimate to us that that World which did before gain upon us only by our blindness and our weakness can now no longer prevail besides this the more like God we grow the more dear are we to him and become the more near and peculiar charge of Heaven which St. Paul Heb. 6 9.10 alledges for a reason why he was perswaded better things of them than Apostacy and things that accompany Salvation that is perseverance because God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of Love c. 3. It is a State of greater pleasure a State of Peace and Rest from sin for the Man having establish'd an entire conquest over himself is not frequently alarm'd by the lusts of the body because it is crucified the soul being rais'd and Heavenly is now too much exalted to be reach'd by the blasts of every temptation 2. It is the nature of a habit
this present State would be good and even pleasure and interest would not peradventure be the same thing then that now for the soul would not challenge so distinct a consideration or provision as now for it would not be onely lawful but wise for it to become sensual and worldly and so the same pleasure and interest would minister to the happiness of both Body and Soul But now that we are assur'd that we are to live to all Eternity and that every action of ours hath an influence on that other life we must needs conclude that every action is good or bad wise or foolish as it serves or hinders our happiness in that State to come that this motive may have its full force it will behove every man to take as lively a survey as he can of the joys and miseries of another Life And 1. Of Heaven It must be confest that to be able to speak properly of Heaven we have need like St. Paul to be rapt up into it for the richest fancy would be but flat and barren in its framing any resemblance of the joyes and glory of that place they are unconceiveable Heaven is like the God of it there is no searching of him out unto perfection but yet there is enough of him manifested to prove him to us strangely aimable and therefore I 'le consider what is manifested to us of Heaven 1. The place 2. The persons for the objects they will fall in with these which constitute the happiness of Heaven 1. As to the Place Heaven it is the sacred abode of God and Angels and therefore it must as much exceed this World as they do us for no doubt on 't the wise Architect of all things made each Pallace proper and fit for the entertainment of that family it was to receive and indeed it appears to be a place fit for the Favorits of God to live in for Heaven is a place of everlasting life and everlasting happiness Heaven is the end and consummation of all things all things will there be in their highest perfection which they are capable of we are now the rough draught of what the great Artificer intends us imagine to what glory we may be rais'd we once were dirt and clay see now what comely glorious beings yet we are to be refin'd much more above what we are now than flesh and blood is above dirt and clay what difference there is between Time and Eternity between corruption and incorruption so much we differ in our existence and essence now from what we shall be afterwards for mortality must be swallowed up of immortality and corruption of incorruption If Heaven be a state wherein all things are consummated an end which hath none beyond it then I infer 1. That there will be nothing more for us either to hope or fear all will be full of quiet and peace no passions there but Love and Joy and Wonder there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain Rev. 21. 2. Having obtain'd our end we shall have no further need of means there will be nothing which is to be done meerly for the sake of something else as here below the covetous man suffers hardship and the toil of constant business not because he loves trouble but because he would be rich the Religious man offers violence to his own body not because it is actually pleasant to do so but because it is in order to a greater good therefore there being nothing of this to be done in Heaven all the business and imployment of that Life will be delight and pleasure hence it is every where in Scripture describ'd as a State of Peace and Rest and Joy and Pleasure 2. As to the Persons I a poor creature of this World below I who have felt the troubles of this mortal State been tortur'd by the passions of Flesh and Bloud Fears and Cares Despairs and Hopes even I am going to a Heaven where none of these can enter where I shall be made happy with those enjoyments which make God and Angels so I shall be made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels in Heaven how far above them in my happiness for what a value will the experience of this World make me set upon the joyes of another the sense and memory of misery will make my Heaven double I consider that in that Life to come we shall have Soul and Bodies tho not such as we have now our Souls will be strangely rais'd and refin'd in their nature and endow'd with strange measures of knowledge this compar'd to the other Life being like Childhood to Manhood 1 Cor. 13.9 10 11 12. We know in part but when that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away when I was a Child I spake as a Child I understood as a Child I thought as a Child but when I became a Man I put away Childish things for now we see tborough a glass darkly but then face to face now I know in part but then shall I know even as also I am known I am not willing to infer what kind of measures of knowledge this Text imports to determine how well we shall be vers'd in the Philosophy of Grace and Nature and the World above how experienc'd we shall be in the Annals and History of this Life and the other 't is enough to say as the Text doth that what we do see we shall see plainly not darkly and what can we see in another Life but God c. How rich a pleasure this will be only ingenious and excellent spirits are capable of fancying all may be able to guess that it will be a most unspeakable pleasure because knowledge is one of the Excellencies of God and Angels and the delight of the wiser part of Mankind As for the Souls Affections they will surely be settled on God or whatever other objects there may be subordinate they will be such as will become so pure and holy a Being for the Appetite of each Being flows from the Constitution and Nature of it it now indeed derives mean and degenerous inclinations from its communion with the Body whose contrivance is proper for the state it lives in But then the Body will be rais'd a spiritual glorified Body which is to be understood in opposition to a carnal natural one 1 Cor. 15. a Body proper to be an Inhabitant of such a place and to be a suitable companion to such a Soul fit to comply with its desires and in some measure sure to partake of its joyes which I may place as the first ingredient of the happiness of the Body in that Life to come i.e. As it here grieves and joyes in the pain or pleasure of the Soul so there it will much more if the satisfaction of the Soul now do by a happy influence impart health and chearfulness and pleasure to the body it will
and steep about it Hence is the address of the Spirit Awake thou that sleepest and arise from the dead c. Eph. 5.4 3. Power is the third Attribute of God Religion promotes even this in us by inspiring the mind with courage and by the addition of strength conjoyn'd to it Innocence makes a man bold as a Lyon it makes one dare and hope well Religion is a confederacy with th' Almighty and he becomes the good mans strength Ps 18.1 19.4 it creates an awe and reverence for him amongst men and it makes him approach as near to self-sufficiency as the state of a Creature will let him he is independent on the world and hath not half the hopes nor fears nor cares that the wicked man hath for this man hath an ill Conscience and is therefore timerous he that fears not God dreads every thing besides he hath many passions that are to be gratified and therefore he is very dependent on the world he lives ill and therefore is the scorn of Man and the hate of God 4. Wisdom The fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom and therefore this is easily prov'd for Religion is nothing else but the knowledge of the most Excellent Truths the contemplation of the most glorious Objects and the hope of the most ravishing Pleasures and the practice of such Duties as are most serviceable to our happiness and to our peace our health our honour our prosperity and our eternal welfare but sin on the other hand besots and infatuates the man it makes him passionate and foolish consult ill and execute worse he is blind to the most glorious Truths and hath no taste or relish of those glorious Objects of another world and he lives as if he were in love with ruine and though he see death and confess it in the way he is spurr'd on by his passions and dares not shun it he covets meer trifles vanishing fading pleasures meer apparitions and dreams of happiness and he flies from real and substantial delights and satisfactions that would never have an end he trembles where no fear is and yet is steeled and senseless against Almighty Vengeance and if this be not to be foolish I know not what is The fifth and last now is Goodness by which I mean kindness and serviceableness to others this Religion so far advances that each man is so far Christian as he is thus good this goodness or love is the meer substance of the Gospel so that where ever the Spirit of Christianity hath planted it self the man is not only just but good and kind he doth not only put off revenge and frowardness and hard-heartedness but he puts on the contrary Vertues Meekness Tenderness Charity his goods and life are not too dear a price to pay for the welfare of a Brother but sin on the quite contrary arms man against another and sows nothing but dissention and ruine amongst mankind injustice cruelty rapin murther covetousness hard-heartedness are the Characters which constitute a sinner Justice and Truth are as Essential parts of Holiness as Goodness and therefore need not be spoken to Thus you see how Vertue and Holiness perfect and exalt the man how it makes him more spiritual gives him power life wisdom goodness allies him to the Angels and makes him like God but sin defaces all those Excellencies makes him a meer heap of Rubbish and Ruines a silly empty Creature that the Spirit might well say of such Rev. 3.17 That they are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked And who can now look upon sin as a little harmless indifferent thing He that should rob the ambitious man of his Honour the covetous of his Wealth the vain person of his trifling gaity should be thought to have committed an unpardonable offence against them and yet sure power and wisdom and goodness are things of far greater Excellency than wealth or honour or gaity they are the Attributes of God the things that make him God and when he pleases to communicate and impart to his Creatures some tho slender proportions of these what can be a more fatal Enemy to the Creature than that sin which spoils and rifles him of these he that should stab the body and through as many gashes as those of Caesar in the Senate let out the imprison'd Soul commits no murther like that of sin which quenches in man the spiritual life and robs him of Eternity O my Soul doth every intemperate draught every sensual pleasure quench the light and damp the spirit within me and yet shall I still go on Is it so inconsiderable a loss to change from Spirit into Flesh Doth all my sinful passions for this world Ambition Covetousness Dotage c. deface all Power Wisdom and Goodness in me and make me weak and wicked impotent and foolish and yet shall I still go on to dote Is it so little desirable to be like God Is it so inconsiderable a change like the unhappy Angels to fall from light to darkness forgive me O my God I now begin to see a horrour in my sins I see its poysonous nature and the mighty wounds it gives and I will shun it hereafter more than Death and Ruine more than the Sword the Plague or Famine for I am well convinc'd that there is nothing so excellent as Spiritual Life Peace Power Wisdom and Goodness and nothing can wound or blast these but sin And if secondly Life and Goodness Power and Wisdom are such excellent things how dear must they be to God and how contradictory to his Will must be all those Methods which men take to deface them and this he hath sufficiently taught in that he hath thought it worthy the Incarnation Life and Passion of his own Son to root out and banish iniquity and transgression from the Earth being things contradictory to his Nature and to his Design too in the Creation From all this you see that Holiness is agreeable to the Divine Nature sin is contradictory to it and by consequence that he who works Righteousness is born of God and he who commits sin is of the Devil and that it is as necessary to be really holy as it is to be in the favour of God for he cannot love the unholy unless he can renounce his own Nature The Prayer O Thou God who art light and in whom there is no darkness at all a holy and pure Spirit how infinitely are the sons of men oblig'd to thee that thou hast givee them Immortal Spirits and dost travel by thy Word and Spirit to form and fashion them into thy glorious Image to make them share in thy Perfections that they may do so in thy Happiness too O grant that I may hunger and thirst after Righteousness that I may labour day and night to water and improve those Resemblances of thy Divine Perfections which thou hast imparted to me by thy Spirit that so I may through Christ increase in favour with God and Man
with or the frequent sins to which the lusts of it have betraid us will discern Reason enough to invite him to this Duty either in order to our Mortification and our future security or as an act of Affliction and Revenge for our past faults Therefore 2. Who ever totally neglects this Duty upon pretence of the ill effects it hath upon either Body or Mind ought well to be assur'd that the uneasiness of the one or other be not the effect of a wanton and carnal Mind rather than of the temper of the Body and that his Body will admit of no degrees of this Duty otherwise he is oblig'd according to his capacity 3. To Fasting must be joyn'd Alms and Prayer and Vain-glory must be separated from it without the former it is insignificant with the latter it is a sin But if any just Reasons disable any man to give Alms or to devote the day intirely to Spiritual Exercise I cannot yet think but that Fasting may be us'd as an act of Affliction provided it be consecrated to God by a holy intention at least The Prayer GLorious God I see in what a world I live and what a Body this Soul of mine doth dwell in how little kindles those Lusts which blast the Innocence of my Soul and destroy my peace I remember how often I have behav'd my self unbeseeming a Child of God only to gratifie the inclinations of an ungovernable Body Enable me therefore so to mortifie and subdue it that I may enjoy an entire peace and conquest so to humble and afflict it that my revenge may testifie the sorrow I feel for my misdemeanours and accept thou my sorrow to the attonement of my sins thorough the Blood of Christ Amen The Conclusion I Am now earnestly to beseech the Reader to reflect seriously upon this whole Discourse and consider whether the Christian Religion be not a System of most glorious delightful and important Truths whether any Principles can raise Man to such an entire Conquest o're the world and himself whether Holiness doth not transform him into a great and a glorious thing whether any knowledge can create in him so perfect a peace and so undisturb'd a joy whether there be any thing besides Religion can make a man spurn fawning pleasures and out-brave his fears whether there be any thing which would turn the world into so much Paradise and secure our peace and interest on such unshaken bottoms and lead on the whole Train of a publique or a private life in such a safe and pleasant method What then Art thou fond of ruin or hath damnation any charm in it that thou wilt still resolve to persevere in such a manifold contradiction to the Laws of the blessed Jesus Wilt thou suffer thy soul to be miserable here through those numerous lusts which are the incessant torments of it and canst thou think of abandoning all the hopes of a glorious immortality Or dost thou indeed look upon the Gospel of Christ as cunningly devised Fables and readest these kind of arguings as only wise and politique harangues Surely so much Holiness confirm'd by so many miracles must needs witness its divine authority and if thou wouldst but trie thy self the practice of it thou wouldst feel its divine principle in the Life and the joyes of the Spirit But I am perswaded the greater part of mankind cannot choose but indespight of Inclination acknowledge the truth of the Gospel and the Excellency of virtue and confess that their vices are the effect not of their choice but weakness Blessed God! What account then will these men give of their Disobedience at that day when Christ shall come to render the vengeance to all who have not obeyed his Gospel when they shall be put in mind of the prevalent motives made use of to endear Holiness to them and of the mighty assistance of the Divine Spirit which was offer'd them towards enabling 'em to live well when they shall see as a perfect Refutation of all such excuses so many millions I hope of blessed Saints who tho liable to the same Passion and encompass'd by the same Temptations did yet conquer all and enter'd into Life thorough the Strait-gate But if this little Treatise should light into the hands of a perfect Atheist or at least of one who laughs at every particular Sect of Religion to such a one I address these last lines and I beseech him to allow them so much Consideration as he would to any other thing which pretended to so much concernment and importance 1. If there be a God Nature seems to dictate that he is a Rewarder of those that seek him and forgets not the Wise and Virtuous neither in Life nor Death and Men as wise and rational Creatures are his peculiar Off-spring and more nearly related to him and on this Argument Socrates in his Apology founded his hopes of another life an argument much of a kin to that of our Saviour God is the God of Abraham the God of Isaac the God of Jacob now God is not the God of the dead but of the living at the smartness and clearness of which arguing the people were astonish'd And If there be another Life Virtue and Goodness must needs be the proper qualities to recommend and endear us to the God who presides in that other World for I can never fancy a Bruitish and irrational Deity If there be no God which is impossible it is a thing impossible to be prov'd and therefore an Atheist can never possess his Soul in any Rest and Peace and besides if there be none the belief and practice of this Religion of Christianity as I 'le make appear presently can do no man any harm and what madness then is it not to take the safest side in a mat-ter of this dear concernment 2. In behalf of Christianity in perticular I beseech such a one to consider That if those Miracles and Proofs of Divine Authority which the Gospel relates were true and real then the matter is beyond dispute If they were not I would fain see some probable account how Christianity could so generally obtain in despight of all the disadvantages it was to encounterâ— having neither interest nor pleasure nor force to countenance it against the establish'd Superstitions and Vices of the Age. That it concern'd them of Judea which was the Scene of our Saviours Actions to have given the world a manifest account of the Imposture and so have provided for the security of Judaisme which was subverted by it that the wisest and most religious Sects amongst both Jew and Gentile were quickly swallowed up into Christianity That those early dayes were the most fit for a confutation of the Proofs on which Christianity is bottom'd as being most nearly conjoyn'd to the times of our Saviours and his Apostles actions and therefore capable of being easily inform'd and yet we find no such thing done which must needs suppose the world either monstruously ignorant or
Practical Christianity Or an Account of the HOLINESSE WHICH THE Gospel Enjoyns WITH The MOTIVES to it AND THE REMEDIES it proposes AGAINST TEMPTATIONS With a Prayer concluding each distinct Head Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambethanis 23. Decemb. 1676. GEO. HOOPER LONDON Printed by S. and B. G. for R. Pawlet at the Sign of the Bible in Chancery-lane 1677. TO THE READER Reader I Have endeavour'd in this following Discourse to endear Holiness to the Love and Practice of Mankind which is a design neither so trifling nor criminal as to stand in need of an excuse But because a very worthy design may miscarry in the contrivance and method of its prosecution therefore I think my self oblig'd to give you some account of that which is thus I have endeavour'd to represenâ— Religion in its true and natural Character purified from the sensual Freedomes which some and the frantick and conceited Whimsies which others deform it by I have propos'd the glorious Motives to Holiness and the powerful Remedies against Temptation which it contains I have perform'd this as near as I could in an easie Method and familiar Stile I have not intermixt either Fancy or Passion which seems to me too light and garish a dress for Divine thoughts but writ them in as natural a plainness and Majesty as I could give them hoping all from the conquering power and influence of clear truth and therefore it will be necessary to him who shall design any advantage to himself from this Treatise to read it deliberately and allow each sentence a proper Consideration for being forc'd to crowd many Truths into a narrow compass I have wove the matter a little closser and chose a conciser Stile than otherwise I should have done and therefore do not expect to be betray'd by me into a wise Love of Religion at unawares or to be heated into a Romantick Passion for Vertue the former is impossible and the latter of little use but if you bring an honest and attentive mind I hope you may find something in this Discourse which may be of very important service to your Soul And besides this I had one inducement more to the Publication of this Treatise that is I am sufficiently assur'd that no kind of Discourses contribute more to the peace and welfare of Church and State than those practical ones which aim at implanting a real goodness in the minds of men for the want of this goodness is it which hath betraid us into Errors so numerous and so fatal to the publique Peace and Charity and to the very vitals of Religion for if our minds were possess'd with that Charity and Meekness and true Zeal for the Divine Glory which becomes Christians we should consider more calmly and see more clearly and act more sincerely we should discern a more manifest contradiction to Religion in those unnatural Feuds which are carried on by so much passion in such irreligious methods and made use of to such unchristian purposes than in any thing which is the subject of our contests and we should follow after peace by a compliance if not to all yet to all we could and then I am confident we should soon put an end if not to our Mistakes yet to our Divisions If I have contributed my endeavours to this in my degree and capacity I hope for pardon at least here and am assur'd of a Reward hereafter Farewell ERRATA PAge 15. l. 26. after all which add gives us an excellent notion of God and. p. 48. l. 11. r. Thee or four l. 13. r. Faith Love Temperance and Humility p. 98. l. 2. r. his happiness or glory p 102. l. 14. r. unkind p. 123. before the prayer adde Sect. 3. As to the means of attaining Temperance I refer my Reader to the Section of Fasting p. 138. l. 14. for better r. lesser p. 164. l. 11. for word r. world p. 223. l. 9. for are of r. use p. 249. l. 23. r. or universal yet THE CONTENTS PART I. Chap. 1. THe great Motive to Religion 1. The Salvation of the Soul Chap. 2. Of the Nature of Christianity in general in relation to Faith pag. 13 Chap. 3. Of Christianity with respect to practice in general p. 29 Chap. 4. Of Christianity with respect to practice in particular Of Faith 65 Of the Love of God 82 Of the Love of our Neighbour 91 Of Temperance 112 Of Humility 124 Of Perfection 133 PART II. OF the Motives to Holiness contain'd in the Gospel Of the Reward and punishment in another Life 152 The Second Motive the Consideration of Divine Nature 172 The Third the Consideration of Jesus Christ 179 The Fourth the Vanity of Temptations 193 The Fifth the Nature of Virtue and Vice 195 The Sixth the assistance of the Divine Spirit 206 The Seventh the Nature of the Gospel Covenant 207 PART III. OF Temptations to Sin Of Pleasure 220 Of Pain 241 Of some particular Methods by which we are betraid into Sin 265 Of the Instruments of Holiness the Sacraments Prayer and Fasting 280 The Conclusion 296 Practical Christianity CHAP. I. Shewing the necessity of being Religious because the Salvation of our Souls depends on it Sect. 1. 1. WHat is a Man profited saith our Blessed Saviour Mat. 16.26 if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own Soul That I have in this state I am now in a Soul as well as a Body whose interest concerns me is a truth my own sence sufficiently discovers for I feel Joyes and Sorrows which do not make their abode in the Organs of the Body but in the inmost recesses of the Mind pains and pleasures which Sence is too gross and heavy to pertake of as the peace or trouble of Conscience in the Reflexion upon good or evil Actions the delight or vexation of the mind in the contemplation of or a fruitless inquiry after excellent and important Truths 2. And since I have such a Soul capable of Happiness or Misery it naturally follows that it were sottish and unreasonable to lose this Soul for the gain of the whole World For my Soul is I my self and if That be miserable I must needs be so outward circumstances of Fortune may give the World occasion to think me happy but they can never make me so Shall I call my self happy if Discontent and Sorrow eat out the life and spirit of my Soul if lusts and passions riot and mutiny in my bosome if my sins scatter an uneasie shame all o're me and my guilt apales and frights me what avails it me that my Rooms are stately my tables full my attendanrs numerous and my attire gawdy if all this while my very Being pines and languishes away These indeed are rich and pleasant things but I nevertheless am poor and miserable Man Therefore I conclude that whatever this thing be I call a Soul tho it were a perishing dying thing and would not out-live the Body yet it were my wisdome and interest to prefer its content and
state of torments afterward And yet all this while I have taken no notice of those additional sufferings which Divine Vengeance will no doubt inflict upon the Soul nor of the nature of the Soul the exaltedness of whose Essence heightens and sharpens the pain for the more delicate the Being the more subtle its perception and the more exquisite the torment Sect. 3. There is a third State wherein misery swels to the highest marke it can possibly when the Body being rais'd again shall follow the Fate of the Soul and both shall be condemn'd to inextinguishable flames O Hell where only the Enemies of God and Goodness dwell where wretched men undergo all that sullying the Divine Glory and trampling on the blood of Christ can merit But I have reserv'd a place for a further survey of this state I am sufficiently convinc'd that the gaining of the whole World cannot recompence the loss of my Soul since its loss implies all this and more for what would I take to be miserable or rather what would I take to be eternally so is it a rational question if I lose my self what can be gain to me the world peradventure will continue amiable many ages after I am gone but what is that to me And if to gain the whole world at so dear a price be so ill a Bargain how fatal a purchase should I make who am like to gain so little being none of the worlds greatest Favourites My Soul is not so cheap yet that I can set it at so low a rate as a few hundreds a year I am as immortal as any Monarch in Christendome and my pretensions to the Almighties favour may grow equal to that of any of the Sons of men and I should be a Profligate and Reprobate a Brute indeed if I should abandon my poor Soul to Misery and renounce the interest I have in the God of Heaven and Earth for I know not what Let who will therefore sweat and toil for wealth and greatness I have but this one business to do to insure this dear dear Soul of mine in its voyage to eternity let who will gain the Reputation of a wise man by a clearer fore-sight and thriftier management of affairs by an unwearied Attendance and insinuating applications I shall think my self wise enough if I can but be sav'd and great enough if I enjoy but the Smiles of Heaven Let who will applaud themselves for the contempt of intrigue and sullen business whilst they thaw and dissolve in soft and delicate pleasures or waste and spend themselves in course and toilsome Lusts If I may enjoy the pleasure of a manly rational life spent in a constant course of Religion and virtue without Superstition or frowardness of a mind unharass'd by desires and fears of a peaceful assur'd conscience of the contemplation of glorious Truths and the hopes of a blessed immortality I shall envy none the happiness of the most luscious pleasure or kindest fortune the World affords A Prayer reflecting on the precedent Discourse BLessed God give me grace to prefer the interest of my Soul to the World and Flesh the things eternal to the things temporal that amidst the pleasures of Prosperity and Peace and the flatteries of Reputation I may not forget to think what will be the condition of my future State and that amidst the troubles which besiege this mortal Life I may be supported by the blessed hopes of a better world that the confident belief of the Souls immortality may render me industrious to lay up a good foundation for the time to come so that when I shall have put off this Tabernacle of clay I may be cloath'd with a building of God not made with hands eternal in the Heavens all this I beg through Jesus Christ our Lord. CHAP. II. Of the Nature of Christianity Sect. 1. CHristianity may be considered either in Relation to Faith or Practice I will first consider the Christian Faith and that in the most practical manner I can In my Creed I have regard to three things especially 1. To the use and end of Faith which is certainly to guide and influence our lives 2. To the peace of my own Breast And 3. To the preservation of Charity My Reason for the first is evident of it self for the two later is this Tho I may doubt whether I believe aright all that is necessary to my eternal salvation and yet that doubt not prove injurious to my happiness at the last day because I did both believe aright and live conformably to it and the scruple arose only from the Disputes and Contests of men and the weakness of my own understanding not from any iniquity of my will yet this doubt will disquiet and disturb my repose damp my cheerfulness and vigour and may peradventure unsettle my faith and end if not in Atheism in coldness and indifferency And tho 2. I may believe Another in a damnable Errour when he is not without prejudice to my own Soul because I may make this judgement in the Simplicity of my heart by the best light and Rule I have yet peradventure this opinion may improve it self insensibly upon my affections to a very ill consequence and invite me to an uncharitable and unfriendly deportment 1. If I consider the Christian Faith with regard to the great end of it Holyness I observe that the Gospel contains two great things the Knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ This is Life eternal Joh. 17.3 To know thee the onely true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent This knowledge contains in it all the Obligations imaginable to a Holy Life and secures the hopes and comforts of Christians upon an unmovable foundation and this knowledge agrees perfectly with the Nature and Ends of Religion 1. First With the Nature of Religion Religion is nothing else but the true and spiritual worship of the only true God who is a Spirit Now all the worship we are capable of paying him consists either in the Affections of the Soul or Actions of the Body so that that Belief or Knowledge which tends to render these proper and acceptable to God is directly conformable to the Nature of Religion The Gospel therefore hath discovered God to us 1. One infinite in Wisedom Power Holyness Goodness c. And secondly as he stands more particularly related to us in the Work of Creation Providence Redemption All this put together proves him to be God and to be Ours it evinces his Excellency and his Supremacy it represents him infinitely Lovely and Adorable in himself and entitles him to all the service and affection which Dominion Love and Munificence can lay a just claim to all which is enforcement enough which is the use of Faith to our Duty when we are acquainted with it Which that we might be and that we might have assistance to enable us to performe it and that there might be a Provision made for the pardon of our errors God in
Religion is in its essence an inward and spiritual Holiness outward actions can be considered but two wayes either as the means and instruments or else as the fruits and effects of Holiness and both ways a sober temperate Life as to the general course of it is indispensably necessary tho I cannot here deny but that there must be an allowance made for the variety of Tempers and the different strengths of grace c. proportionable to each mans different case Having thus given an Account of the nature of the Holiness which the Gospel requires I come 2. To shew that it tends to promote Gods Glory and Mans Happiness 1. Gods Glory 1. Though a right understanding be wholly necessary to yet it self is no part of Divine worship it is not meer knowledge or belief of a truth but Love and Fear and Obedience by which we honour God and devote our selves to him there is no where more light of knowledge Heaven excepted than in those Regions of darkness where the most impious Spirits dwell but no body will say that they there worship God 't is true an understanding illuminated is certainly a beautiful thing but then if it be joyn'd to an unsanctified will the Man in the whole is the most deform'd and loathsome thing imaginable for he is made up of two the most disproportionable and contradictory things as if he were formed as the Poet fancies men growing out of the slime of the Deluge the upper parts enlivened flesh and bloud the lower mud and clay the light of the understanding enhaunces the guilt of malice and degeneracy in the Will for to see God and not love and obey him is strangely malicious but if his beauty be not ador'd by things that have no eyes to see it 't is not to be wondred at If you had been blind then had you had no sin 2. The Heavens saith the Psalmist declare the glory of God c. Their brightness and vastness whilst they engage our wonder invite us to the contemplation of the Power and Infiniteness and Majesty of their Architect so Holy and Good men declare his glory too for being renewed after his Image in Holiness and righteousness they represent to the World an imperfect draught of some of the glorious attributes 〈◊〉 God they worship thus as the power of Miracles imported to the Apostles forc'd the Beholders to glorifie God who had given such gifts unto men so too Christ exhorts his Disciples to let their Light shine before men that when they see those good works they may glorifie God who is in Heaven induc'd by the loveliness of that Goodness deriv'd from him as the other were by his power 3. It is Goodness by which we own a God and acknowledge him to be ours Divine worship is the confession of our meanness and his Majesty and conformity to his Laws is the fullest proof we can give of our Allegiance and his Supremacy and therefore they who live irreligiously let 'em pretend to believe and think what they will are said to be without God in the world and to deny him in their works 4. Holiness or Goodness is really Divine worship and therefore it is in Scripture defin'd to be Religion and Wisdome and Knowledge To know God this is Wisdom and to depart from evil this is understanding To do Justice to releive the Poor and Needy is not this to know God saith the Lord pure Religion and undefiled is this to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction and to keep ones self unspotted from the world more plainly what is worship but the cleaving to God with purity and earnestness of Affections acting in conformity to his Law as those Affections shall invite and inable us and this is the very same thing with Holiness So that it is plain that Holiness and Goodness contribute to Gods Glory the two only wayes we are only capable of glorifying him that is by our own particular worship and by the influence our example hath upon others § 2. It is most serviceable to the Happiness of Man here and hereafter 1. Here. 1. All the advantage of peacefu Governments friendly Neighborhood I comfortable and closer unions and pleasant Retirements depend on and arise from Goodness But suppose the World planted with Covetousness instead of Justice Pride instead of Meekness Cruelty instead of Compassion Revenge and Malice instead of Mildness and Charity falshood and lying instead of Constancy and Truth c. and imagine if you can whether all Societies would not be torn into as many Factions as there are cross interests and opposite passions whether any Commerce could be just and smooth any tie lasting and delightful whether it were possible to find security or pleasure either in a private or a publick Life 2. It is Holiness which best secures a mans inward peace guards and arms him against those impressions which outward temptations make prescribes bounds to our Desires scatters our Fears confirms our Hopes raises our Affections to things of true and lasting Excellency that is in few words it not only settles our peace by establishing the empire of the mind over the inferiour Appetites but also provides for our pleasure by filling the mind with spiritual Joyes and Peace and Hope 2. Hereafter 3. Goodness is wholly necessary 1. To recommend us to the Love of God whose infinite purity and excellency cannot approve of any thing that is sinful and unholy This is the Message that we have received of him that God is Light c. Where you see that the Law is founded in his Nature hath an intrinsick resemblance to his own Holiness and by consequence he can neither alter it nor dispence with its Observation 2. To qualifie us for Heaven for it is Goodness which weans the Soul from all fondness for the Body and the World and possesses it with an intense Love of God and Holiness which two things do first capacitate it for that world wherein God and holy Spirits dwell and Secondly recommend it to greater degrees of Glory and Happyness in it Besides all this the Scripture speaks This Doctrine in express terms the grace of God which hath appear'd unto all men teacheth us c. This was the great business of our Saviours Life he was still instructing men in the doctrine of the Kingdome that is Godliness Righteousness and Sobriety His Miracles did confirm the Divinity of his Person and this too was carefully secur'd to gain authority to his Doctrine I will conclude this Chapter with the absurdity of the contrary Doctrine Of what use would the Gospel be in relation either to God's Glory or Mans happiness if it were onely to be believ'd and not obeyed To what purpose is light come into the world if men may still love darkness to what purpose did the Son who lay in the bosome of the Father reveal him more gloriously to us if knowing him as God it be yet lawful for us not to glorifie him
my self only in proportion to what I share of thee for I know this is the Standard by which God now value me and will hereafter judge me If this be the end of Religion onely to implant goodness and charity amongst us to make us holy and like God and kind and beneficial one to another what is it that the World hates it for I may say concerning those who persecute Christianity as St. Peter did of those who Crucified its Author I wot that through ignorance ye did it Act. 3 17. Surely it is because you do not discern its beauty that you do not Love it If any retir'd life promote the end I have mention'd as well as an Active once I would not be thought to condemne it The Prayer O God the Heaven and Earth are full of thy goodness the faculties of our souls and the senses of our bodies are all imploy'd in the contemplation and enjoyment of it O make us who worship thee to imitate thee too that we may be thy children indeed make our souls delight to do goood and imprint in us such tender and compassionate Bowels towards one another as our dear Lord and Master had towards us Amen Amen blessed Jesus CHAP. IV. Of Chrictian practice in particular HAving consider'd the Nature of Christianity in respect to practice in the general I am now to speak of it more particularly but not pretending to give an account of every single virtue I will dwell upon Three Which contain the substance of the Christian duty i.e. Faith Love and Humility I will not apologize for the unphilosophical placing of Faith amongst practical duties the following discourse will clear the reason of it I place humility in the last place not because there is not an humility which is precedent to and disposes men for the reception of faith but because I look upon that humility which is consequent to and caus'd by it and which must always accompany it to render it acceptable in a more peculiar and proper sense an Evangelical grace 1. Of Faith When I read the glorious Achievements of a true Faith Heb. 11. That it subdued Kingdomes wrought Righteousness obtained promises c. and in one word supported men under the greatest miseries and arm'd them against the most taking pleasures of this World I cannot sufficiently wonder that a fuller and clearer discovery of a Heaven confirm'd to us by the strongest evidences i. e. the demonstration of the Spirit and of Power should have so weak an influence upon us Christians we take no more pains for Heaven than if we did not believe there were such a place and we have the same cares and fears in respect of the things present which Heathens and Infidels have so that tho' we talk much of Faith we make little or no use at all of it Therefore least any man delude and fool himself with a perswasion of being endowed with that Faith which he hath not I 'le give such an account of it as agrees with the Gospel of the Kingdom as suits with and serves the necessities of mankind and the end and Aims of God Faith saith the blessed Apostle is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen the substance or presence the evidence or Proof 't is not a slight transient glance drowsie imperfect assent a staggering wavering opinion but 't is a lively representation an affective vision a full perswasion of the glorious truths of the Gospel when the Objects are so fully and clearly evident that they not onely convince but take us too it is having the mind enlightn'd and so looking upon things with the eys of Angels and judging by the light of the blessed Spirit It is not only to see that the things invisible are but to see them in some measure such as they are Eternity as Eternity and Heaven as Heaven that is a state of truely great and glorious happiness on this account the things present may have a different face and aspect when regarded by the eyes of Faith and when of Sense for sense stops in the things themselves and regards their usefulness to the pleasure or profit of this present life but Faith carries its sight forward and compares the things which are seen with those hoped for the things temporal with those eternal and then all below appears but meer vanity This whole account of Faith we may find in the 13 verse of Heb. 11. These all died in Faith and what it is to dye or live in Faith the following words explain not having reciev'd the promises i.e. the accomplishment of them but having seen them a far off i. e. by divine Revelation were perswaded of them and embraced them and the natural consequence of this was and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth Now Faith is unalterable as to its essence but its objects may vary they may be more or fewer clearer or darker according to the Nature of divine revelation Heb. 1.1 its evidence may be fuller or weaker but still it must be such as may suffice to convince man of the Divine authority of the Revelation As to the Christian Faith 2. Its objects are the whole Gospeâ—â— of Christ God the Father such as he is reveal'd by the Son God the Son incarnate crucified c. The Rewards and punishments contain'd in it and all in order to engage us to an entire obedience to its holy and righteous Precepts By Faith I see that God who is invisible who tho he dwels in Heaven doth yet humble himself to behold all that is done upon Earth nor doth he only behold but govern all things too And whilst I contemplate his Wisedom Power Truth Goodness Holiness Justice c. manifested to me in the Gospel I adore and worship him I love and fear him I call on and relie upon him I endeavour to walk before him and be perfect I know nothing like him and therefore I desire nothing beside him or equal to him in Heaven or in Earth By Faith I see the Son of God abandoning the bosome and the Glory of his Father descending upon Earth and assuming the form of a Servant that by his doctrine and example he might propagate Righteousness and holiness in the world I trace him thorough all the Stages of his sufferings and travel till I behold him fasten'd to the Cross and bleeding out his meek and holy Soul at those painful wounds the nails had made and all this for my sins and the sins of the whole World and then with what a strange mixture of Passions that sight fills me with grief and shame and yet with love and hope too How I am amaz'd to see what indignation a holy God hath discover'd against Sin and how my heart bleeds to think that my sins have treated thus despitefully and cruelly my dear Lord and Master and with what a melting passion and vigorous resolutions of a fervent industrious service and an everlasting zeal
bearing our selves in hand that we do nevertheless Love God because we do prefer him in our thoughts above all things and because we will not do what will displease him for the former of these may be an unavoidable consequence of a clear understanding and the latter of an innate Self-love which may be able to restrain us from the Commission of those sins which we believe will do us an unspeakable mischief These do well in their place and are presuppos'd to the love of God for no man can love God unless he know him nor will any man make any distinction of Good and Evil i. e. lovely or hateful by consequence unless he love himself but yet these are apparently distinguishable from and can stand separately and alone without the love of God and therefore let none deceive themselves for To love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our Soul and with all our strength and with all our mind is something more than to entertain an honourable opinion of him or to avoid affronting him because he is able to punish us the Scripture expresses this love by Delight and Joy by Desire and Longing Hungring Thirsting Seeking and the like and more fully if we love God above all things our hearts will be where our Treasure is our affections will be fasten'd on things above and our Conversation will be in Heaven because our God is there Now we cannot converse with Heaven but by Faith and Hope Meditation and Prayer c. And therefore it must follow that they who love God must be industrious to improve these Graces and be frequent in the exercise of these Duties as the Means and Instruments of enjoyment And 2 If we love God we shall hunger and thirst after Righteousness and Holiness which beautifies the Souls and renders us like God and therefore amiable in his eyes and we shall delight in all those good and virtuous actions which are the proofs of an inflam'd affection and indear us to God he that loves him keeps his Commandments and we shall hate nothing so mortally as sin because it stains and sullies the beauty of our Souls distastes the God we love and interrupts our peace and joy and extinguishes our hopes and if this be the frame and habit of our Souls towards God then because we cannot love or serve two such contrary Masters as God and the World therefore 3. These temporal things which are seen will appear very cheap and inconsiderable to us and our concern for them will be so cold and indifferent that no change which betides them no imaginary excellency that is in them will be able to raise our Passions to distract our thoughts to abate our diligence to divide our affections and overthrow our Faith for the love of God the prospect of a more glorious life will have disarm'd the Glory Beauty and Wealth of this World of all their Charm and Temptation and if so how can we then be led captive by what we do not in the least admire How can we be afflicted at the loss of what we do not value or Why can we not be calmly divided from what our affections have renounc'd already Vain World adieu I am above either thy Menaces or Flatteries I fear nothing because I am at peace with the God I love and I despise thy guilded dreams because the love of my God swallows up all my desires and I am content to have no portion but him alone How my Heart pants after thy Courts O God the Holy of Holies the Heaven of Heavens where I shall for ever behold thy face and Reign in the Kingdom of my blessed Saviour for ever and ever Now with St. Paul I long to be set at liberty to be dissolved from this body and to be with Christ nor should I willingly stay longer here on Earth but in Obedience to thy holy Will and a design of spending this life in doing Service to thy glory and in expressions of my love in Longings and Watchings and Sufferings c. And when I consider this merhinks my Life 's too short and I shall go to Heaven too soon and I could wish my Sun would stand still a little that I might do and suffer something for my Lord before I go to enter into his joy and to receive a Crown It is true these are heights of Love which all do not tho it were to be wished all could attain to for we have need of sanctified passions to enable us to do our duty with delight and vigour But none are from the want of such degrees of Ardour to conclude themselves either wholly void of the Love of God or deserted by him for God is a Being infinitely above our conceptions and that of him which we do conceive as Power Wisedom and Goodness tho amiable yet are spiritual and not the objects of sense and therefore do not move us with the same violence that sensible things do whence it is easie to conclude that our love of God is of a different nature from that we pay the creature 't is a more spiritual affection mixt with Adoration 't is an awful desire of pleasing and enjoying him not alwayes terminating in so vehement and sensible a passion as visible objects beget in us and therefore the safest way is to judge of our state not by transports but by the firmness of our Resolutions and by the constancy and cheerfulness of our Obedience But because as there is a more peculiar presence of God as I humbly conceive evident by Scripture so by consequence there may be a withdrawing and retirement of that presence therefore when I find my understanding dim and clouded or distracted and shaken with suggestions to unbelief my desires lukewarm and groveling my Devotion faint and drowsie and my communion without gust and relish I am weary of my self and I have no rest by reason of thy absence O blessed Lord. Then first I lay before me my Life and review my Actions which are late and fresh in memory since this ill temper hath seiz'd me and examine what it is hath displeas'd my God and if I find the accursed thing that drove away a holy God I cast my self down before him and abhor and renounce it But secondly if sin do not appear to me to be the cause of this indisposition and listlessness then perhaps I have not been as watchful and industrious to improve my Graces as I should or if this be not it perhaps 't is but an alteration in my body that clogs and benights this Soul and then I groan at the miseries of my Pilgrimage and bemoan the infelicities of my Nature but if none of these appear the cause Then thirdly I rest humbly patient waiting till God please to return to his resting place it were Pride and Sawciness in me to expect my Heaven here to be impatient unless I live alwayes in extasies caus'd by the divine pretence I will meekly
set my self to my duty and submit to his blessed Will whether he think fit to Crown my Cup with over-flowing joy and to reward my labour by inward transports or not And is it not fit I should thus Love my God whatever there be which can take and endear a rational and excellent spirit is to be found in him all the notions I can possibly frame to my self of a spiritual perfection and Beauty I conceive united in him Goodness Wisdome Power Truth Constancy are the Characters by which the Gospel discovers him to us and these have unspeakable charms upon all ingenious minds and they are intelligible enough to any that will consider them it is true he is a spirit and so incomprehensible to us in his essence and therefore I cannot frame to my self an Image for my Love as one friend doth of another but the time will come when I shall be spiritual enough to see him as I am seen and then my delight and Love will be proportionable in some measure to his beauty and perfection in the mean time my Reason as well as the Gospel assures me that he is infinitely aimable tho that beauty be now a Light that is inaccessible But besides this that great Character of Love and Mercy manifested in its most excellent lustre in the Gospel is enough to endear him to us He is not now our Father only upon the account of Creation and Providence because he hath made us fed and cloathed us these are Common and trivial mercies compar'd to the obligations of the Gospel i. e. the Redeeming us from our evil conversation by the blood of Chriâ—â— and the power of his Spirit into that holiness which is his own Image and resemblance the designing us for the joys and pleasures of his own Heaven his readiness to pardon our transgressions his care employ'd upon us against temptations his delight in us c. If the World could shew us such evidences of Love or could assure us of such an Eternity if it could tell us as the Serpent did Eve eat and ye shall be as God then indeed there were temptation in it but till it does there 's none really Besides these two considerations of the aimableness of the divine nature in himself his goodness to us including his infinite power too there is but one thing more which can be a proper motive to engage our affections that is that such an object be lasting and this is the great prerogative of God alone that he never changes nor dies he will for ever be what he is now most perfect and most gracious The Prayer O Glorious God it is the sole excellence of my Nature that I am capable of loving thee and it is my glorious priviledge that thou art pleas'd to suffer and admit of the addresses of my Soul in this only I am a kin to Angels In those talents which serve only to the end of a corporal life I am out done by Brutes O therefore give me grace to dwel as often as I can in the divine contemplations of thy nature to look forward to that glory which thy bounty hath reveal'd and promis'd me to consider by what methods of infinite Love thou dost prepare me for it and let all this make me love thee above all things and desire to know nothing but Thee my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and him crucified Amen Amen 2. The Second part of Charity is the Love of our Neighbour of which now Charity is in short the Love of our Brethren or a kind of Brotherly affection one towards another the Rule and Standard by which we are to examine and regulate this Habit is that love we bear Ourselves or that which Christ bore us that is that it be unfeigned constant and out of no other design but their happyness The Apostle 1. Cor. 13. taking Charity in a most comprehensive sense as it animates all other graces and influences all our actions which relate to our Neighbour doth thus divinely describe it 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 rejoyceth not in iniquity or wrong but rejoyceth in the truth faithfulness or fair dealing beareth all things or rather covereth or concealeth i. e. others Error believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things But now to reduce all to fewer heads and to consider Charity in a closser sense it contains two things 1. The doing good to and 2. Forgiving one another The things which are capable of receiving any benefit by our Charity are our Neighbours Reputation Body Soul and therefore 1. Charity secures mans credit by denouncing a Hell to the Slanderer and Whisperer and Evil speaker c. This Charity obligeth us not to give way to weak surmises but to be forward to believe the best in favour and excuse of an Error not to proclaim anothers faults though true and real unless the discovery may serve a better end than the concealment which is that thinkest no evil beareth all things that believeth all things in the Apostle and if it forbid these sins much more those blacker of open Slanders and private whispers Nor doth this Charity oblige us only not to wrong our Neighbours credit but as far as we can not to suffer it to be wrong'd to protect and generously rescue their Reputations from the jaws of the Persecutor to awe and check the Slanderer by the Majesty of an holy Anger into shame and Confusion for otherwise we become accessary to those slanders we entertain and give ear to If we consider that to blast a mans Reputation is to render him the Scorn and Hate of others and a Burden to himself it cannot be that we should be willing to heap such killing mischiefs upon the Head of one we Love and Charity is suppos'd to love all 2. Charity ministers to the Body of our Neighbour if we will act like men possess'd by that Charity which suits with the Spirit of the Gospel our Hearts and Hands must be alwayes open to our Brothers necessities our Souls must delight to do good and to be kind And if we are not able to redress their grievances or relieve their pressures by our wealth or interest we must ease them by our compassion comfort 'em by holy advice and succour them by our Prayers ' All that profess Christianity believe this a Duty and yet how great and numerous are the sufferings of the needy and distressed and more great and numerous are the luxuries and the wantonnesses of the Rich but it happens thus all acknowledge the duty but shift it off by two pretences 1. Their own inability 2. The demerit or unworthiness of the needy person In answer to the first pretence it must be confess'd that it is not only Lawful but our duty to make provision first for our selves and those who are more
look for my reward from God not man and therefore I am not at all concern'd that he doth not requite my kindness by gratitude in his behaviour I am the Disciple of Christ who laid down his life for his enemies and the Child of that God who is kind even to Rebels and sinners and why should I think it enough to divide my kindnesses only amongst my friends I am press'd by the Conscience of a duty and I do not so much mind an injury as in what manner I am oblig'd to receive it least I transgress as much by impatience as mine enemy hath done by injustice I love my own peace and rest and would not be disorder'd and breed a storm and tempest in my bosome for why should I be so foolish as to transform another mans sin into my punishment and lastly I am now upon my journey and am hastening toward my Heaven and I would not be stopp'd and detain'd in my way much less turn'd out of it by the silliness and impertinency of a trifling sinner And besides all this I consider that these men who wrong me tho thus kind and unjust they are yet my brethren the workmanship of my Fathers hands the purchase of my dear Lord and Masters blood partakers of the same promise and salvation unless they receive the Grace of God in vain and how can I do any thing to them but pray for 'em and bless them Yet after all being still but mortal but flesh and blood some little aptnesnesses to impatience and revenge may remain in me and therefore if at any time my blood begin to Chafe my Choler boil my Spirits chill with envy or mutiny with despight I retire from the provoking object to my God and am not at rest till I have laid the evil spirit till I have stifled the sin in its first throws and pangs I bemoan my unhappy nature and blush at my own weaknesses and strive and meditate and read and pray till my Tears refresh me and my repentance ease me and upon this sometimes I find an extroardinary calm and lightsomeness ensue such as I fancy that of a demoniack when the ill spirit was cast out or of one suddenly cur'd of a disease by th' Almightiness of our Saviours word sometimes I continue a little heavy and oppress'd as when the ill spirit went out yet so as to rend the man and then not leaving off but in ejaculations repeating my instances to God I betake my self to something which may divert my thoughts and deceive my pain Secondly In the survey of my daily Deportment which I make each night I drag forth the Crime into the awful preence of an holy God and there araigning it of all the mischiefs it hath done me of all the troubles it hath given me and laying before my self seriously and devoutly all the obligations I have to the practice of the contrary virtue I condemn it with an holy indignation I cover my self with shame and sorrow and renew most solemn resolutions against it and earnestly beg of God his assistance against his and mine enemy This is a method which will undoubtedly lead us to a most certain conquest for it doth naturally tend to soften and calm the mind to possess it with greater degrees of meekness and deeper aversions for causeless wrath and it sets the soul upon its Watch and Guard so that it cannot be frequently surpriz'd into passion and lastly it engages the Divine Spirit in the quarrel which sure is no impotent assistance And therefore I cannot for my life reconcile this deportment each night with a repeated frowardness and peevishness each day much less with anger digested into a sullen hatred such I am afraid do not strive and therefore they do not conquer they neglect the means God prescribes them and therefore he doth not vouchsafe to relieve them either they do not at all examine and repent in the presence of God or else they do it transiently and perfunctorily or else they Love the sin and therefore conceal and shelter it or else they are fond and partial to themselves and therefore cover and excuse it and any of these falts is enough to undo them Having taken this survey of Charity it is now time in the last place to consider by what powerful motives the Gospel obligeth us to this duty 1. The first may be taken from the nature of Charity it self it is remarkable that St. Paul 1 Cor. 13. Designing to prove the excellence of Charity above any other spiritual gifts thought it enough to describe it for no body can know what it is and not presently discern how useful and serviceable it is to the happiness of mankind the pleasures of the Rich and comforts of the Poor the safety of Government the peace of Families and the delight of Friendships are all built up upon it Next Charity fails not but abides for ever ver 8. of this same Chap. It is a vertue that constitutes a part of Heaven and helps to make up the enjoyments of that state of most perfect bliss and certainly if we could but imitate the virtue and perfections of Heaven we should in the same degrees and proportion pertake of its happiness too and that which is one of the great ingredients of the pleasure of the other World would if practic'd be no small addition to that of this These being the glorious consequents of Charity it is but natural and reasonable that we should love it as we do our selves and persue it with the same eagerness we do our pleasure our happiness 2. From the nature of God who hath sufficiently manifested himself to the world in all his works to be Love God is Love Of which what more amazing instance can we have in him than his giving his Son to die for us and pardoning us freely thorough his blood and in his Son than in offering up himself for us And because uncharitableness bears such a contradiction to his Nature he therefore resolves that no such monstrous and ill-natur'd Creature shall enter into Heaven and hath frequently assur'd us that our deportment towards one another shall be the Standard and measure of his towards us If ye forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will also forgive you but if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive you your trespasses Mat. 6.14 15. The natural influences deducible from hence are that he who loves God must love his Neighbour also because he cannot be the Child of God nor acceptable to him without sharing of that blessed affection which God hath for the world and tho the provocation of a Neighbour may have very justly incens'd him into hatred and desire of revenge yet he cannot refuse his pardon to the requests of a God who hath done so much for him and of Jesus who hath died for him And Secondly if we cannot be pardon'd our selves unless we pardon others it seems our own necessities
as well as theirs engages us to Charity for we are become both Criminals and Judges at once and whilst we forgive others we are merciful to ourselves and whilst we revenge and hate others we are cruel and barbarous to ourselves 3. The Gospel establisheth a closer Relation between mankind than that of Nature by the communion of the same Faith the same Spirit the same Sacrament whereof one is but a holy league of Charity and so in one word we are incorporated and become all but members of the same body and therefore as in Joseph nature prevail'd above the sense of wrongs and remembring not that they were his enemies but that they were his Brethren he fell upon their necks and kissed them and wept through joy and tenderness towards those Brethren who without the least softness or relenting had expos'd him if not to a certain death to banishment and slavery so must we Christians remembring by what ties we are fastened and united no more harm or hate one another than we would our own limbs our own Bodies 4. The Gospel convinces us of the meanness and worthlesseness of all things here below not only of Wealth but even of Reputation and Life too of the Body the Soul 's secur'd beyond the reach of man and so makes it both the easier task to part with them in the service of Religion and not so easie to ground the subject of a quarrel on them 5. It annexes precious promises to the performance of this duty i. e. an assurance of Reward in this Life and in the other of happiness in overflowing measures By this time it is easie to discern 1. What kind of thing true Charity is How sweet and gentle how kind and meek a temper it is how beneficial to mankind how delightsome to our selves and how like God and acceptable to him it makes us 2. What a Stress God layes upon this duty how dear a value he hath for it that Charity is the very Life and Soul of Religion and that to be a Christian without Charity is an unnatural contradiction And therefore It cannot choose but raise my wonder to observe thar there are a sort of people who tho' they do no harm do no good neither who study nothing but their proper interest and pleasure and so if just which is the most are far from Charitable and yet they hope to be sav'd Much more am I amaz'd to observe that there are another sort who are meer Lyons in their families Bears and Wolves in the Neighbourhood and it may be worst in the State who are bad Neighbours worse Husbands and Masters worse Subjects and yet they call themselves Christians which is for men who are not fit to live on earth to hope for Heaven And yet I still wonder more when I observe that there is another sort of men who are great Devotionists long and sometimes passionate too in their prayers unless the passion be meerly threatical which is not a settled affection but the meer sally of a sudden heat severe and grave in their outward deportment and huge zealots for this or that cause or particular doctrine and yet they are froward and peevish sower and sullen and censorious and covetous and proud and insosolent and disobedient and yet these men are so far from calling into question their Salvation that they count themselves spiritual and the especial Favourits of God despising the rest of mandkind as carnal moral blind things by what means they arrive at this dangerous state I will not now examine but I will beseech all such to lay to heart these general truths that he who Loves his God must Love his neighbour too he that prayes must do good and communicate too he that is devout and zealous must be meek and humble and charitable and obedient too or else their Religion is unnatural their devotion a meer humour or melancholly or any thing but holiness they are so far from being Christians that they want some degrees of humanity to perfect them into Men. The Prayer O Most gracious and Merciful God enlighten my understanding that I may know thee and discern the loveliness and beauty of all thine attributes especially thy goodness towards the Sons of Men and shed forth thy spirit of Love in my heart that I may seek thee and delight in thee and make it my business to contemplate and to serve thee And may the example of thy Mercy toward Mankind and me in particular and the example of my blessed Saviour laying down his life for his enemies enkindle in me such a true affection towards my neighbour that I may Love him as my self or as Christ Loved me that I may walk as the blessed Jesas did in abundance of kindnesses and meeknesses and patience and in all instances of a Heavenly Charity and so may at last enter into that Heaven which is the eternal abode of peace and Love Amen Amen blessed Lord. Sect. 3. Of Temperance By Temperance is meant such an abstinence from the pleasure of the body as the Gospel requires and therefore I will enquire 1. What rules of Temperance it prescribes us 2. What motives to the duty it makes use of and 3. What method it enjoyns for the attainment of this grace 1. Of the Rules of Temperance The common Rule and Standard which most have made use of to conduct men in eating and drinking c. is the end of those Acts that is the health and strength the welfare of the body but I have great reason to dislike of this Rule for if extended any further than to eating and drinking it is apparently false and I hope none will affirm that all those pleasures which are not inconsistent with the welfare of the body are therefore not inconsistent with Religion being applyed to eating and drinking c. in a strict and close sense it layes a snare for mens consciences and must reduce all to the meer necessities of Nature and so many enjoyments which are innocent enough nay sometimes upon some emergences necessary will be utterly sinful and Religion will be made a meer burden and mens minds be fill'd with endless scruples if taken in as wide a sence as some men I see understand it it opens a gap to sensuality and unchristian freedomes for I do not question but that any man without prejudice to the happiness of his body may be guilty of intemperance in that notion that I have of it that is any man may eat or drink to the enraging of his lust to the softening and sensualizing of his mind c. without the hazard of a Fever or a head ach On these accounts I cannot but look upon this Rule as very useless and improper if not dangerous for a Christian and a proper rule of nature only in such a state which hath no prospect of another life and therefore I think my self oblig'd to inquire in the Gospel for better I think then we shall easily find what
for mirth and pleasure and feasting when the enemy hath seiz'd the outworks and entred into the very Subburbs the soul is striving for the Mastery and is it sense to arm its enemy and feed it into a fierce and brutish courage by indulging to those enjoyments which are the food and fuel to its lusts every sensual pleasure it indulges to the body is a plain giving ground before the face of its enemy 2. The reward of this spiritual conquest which is fullness of pleasures in the life to come an Eternity of bliss and happiness and how rational is it to prefer Eternity to a moment and that exceeding weight of glory and unspeakable unconceiveable pleasure to the dreams and mockeries of this imperfect State even in this present life we think it becomes our wisdome to renounce trifling pleasures out of the prospect of greater what a Discipline of severities did those contenders in the Grecian games run through out of the hopes of honour and applause from whence St. Paul excellently argues if they did this for a corruptible Crown a Crown of Leaves how much more should the Christian for an incorruptible one 3. The example of a whole Cloud of witnesses gone to Heaven before us who press'd in thorough this narrow way and strait gate but especially the consideration of a crucified Saviour for what have we to do who have taken up the Cross of Christ with rioting and drunkenness with Chambering and wantonness What resemblance is there between his Crown of Thorns his Scourging his Agony c. and the security and sloth the gaiety and vanity of a sensual life for shame let those who profess Christianity do something which may become men who have taken up the Banner of the Cross 4. The great advantage and pleasure of the State of Mortification 1. The Soul enjoys a more entire peace a more absolute empire and is not alarm'd by the daily mutinies of rebellious lusts 2. It is become a fit Temple for the Spirit of purity to dwell in for the Spirit of glory and of God to rest upon and the consequence of this will be abundance of inward pleasure of peace and joy and hope 5. The uncertainty of the time of our Saviours appearance to judgement and who that hath a grain of sense would be surpriz'd by that day at unawares who would be overtaken by the Judge of the World in surfieting and drunkenness or any other of the sinful pleasures of this Life The Prayer O Thou God who art a holy and a pure Spirit sanctifie me in Spirit Soul and Body that I may offer up my self unto thee a holy living and acceptable sacrifice Enable me to fight the good fight of Faith to take up the banner of the Cross against the World the Flesh and the Devil to imitate my holy Saviour and his blessed Apostles that having subdued the Flesh and conquer'd the World I may enjoy a more entire peace and pleasure in my life and may at last depart with the greater chearfulness and triumph out of it and receive from my blessed Saviour an incorruptible Crown Amen Amen blessed Jesus Sect. 4. Of Humility This is the Ornament and Guard of all our Graces that which sets off and illustrates all our excellencies and keeps us upon our Watch to secure them it is both the foundation and perfection of all virtue even holiness and goodness without it would be unacceptable to God and therefore it is well worth your consideration in the next place Humility is a mean opinion or rather the true knowledge of our selves a sober contemplation of our infirmities and a real perswasion of our imperfection which is St. Pauls sobriety of Spirit or humility of mind contrary to the being puff'd up The sense of this shedding it self upon the will renders men modest in their desires and humble in their deportment which is that other part of humility whereby a man is enabled to reject praise and honour and to debase himself to the meanest offices thus the blessed Jesus sought not his own honour and he came not to be ministred unto but to minister There are three things which are liable to be made the grounds of pride the gifts of Grace of Nature and of Fortune but the humble man in respect of the gifts of Grace looks not upon what he hath attain'd but what is still before he payes his sacrifice of honour not to that earthen vessel which contains the treasure but to the God from whose fulness it is deriv'd he dwells not upon the pleasing spectacle of his good Actions but mostly on the catalogue of his frailties and his sins and therefore rests himself on the mercy of God thorough the blood of Christ and from fresh repentances he takes up fresh resolutions and Spirits every Day As to the gifts of Fortune the World is too much a trifle in the sight of an enlighten'd understanding to raise in a good man any esteem or Love of it and if so a man can never prize himself for the possession of what he slights nor be proud of what he despises As to the gifts of Nature he must value them as they are the gifts of God but he considers withal that they are but common ones and are but the imperfect ornaments of this imperfect State which must be done away when we come into a better and withal he reflects often upon his blemishes and imperfections his follies and miscarriages and considering how poor miserable and comfortless a thing he should have been if abandon'd to the conduct of Nature he layes his mouth in the dust and at once admires the bounty and Goodness of God and confesses his own vanity 2. The fruit of this humility is an entire subjection resignation of ones self to God meekness and patience towards man a calm and tranquillity in ones own bosome for as to God considering him as infinitely Glorious and himself intirely dependent of him the humble man composes himself to believe all he reveals to obey what he commands to trust in him to attend the Decrees and the leisure of Heaven to suffer meekly and enjoy modestly As to himself out of the conscience of how little he deserves he is neither ambitious of wealth nor honour but he is thankful for the past satisfied with the present and neither impatient for nor distrustful of the future And out of a sense of his own indisposition to good and the weakness of his own strength he blesses God for the grace he hath receiv'd and tho he stands he takes heed least he fall As to his Neighbour out of the distrust of his own abilities the sense of his own infirmities or else taught by the example of his great Master who took upon himself the form of a Servant the humble man is more forward to obey than to command to believe than to dispute he is slow to speak swift to hear not fond of opinions but desirous to be enlighten'd by
God and inform'd by man and therefore on all these accounts an humble Man can never be enthusiastical obstinate or seditious for he can never arrive at that height of Spiritual pride as to conceit himself the onely favourite of Heaven and fit for extroardinary illuminations nor at that height of carnal pride as to be a buisie body a stiff asserter of his own humour or judg of his superiours on earth and so think himself more fit to Reign than to suffer In one word Humilities whole deportment is sweet and gentle its very zeal is modest its reprehension soft and timerous its Prayers awful its reflections mournful and its hopes of Heaven softly growing it is neither severe nor peevish obstinate nor hasty bold nor selfish insolent nor querulous it can suffer its wounds to be prov'd and search'd and kisses the hand whilest it loaths the filth it doth not insult o're anothers errours nor excuse its own nay rather its modesty conceals its beauties and blushes at the discovery of its own excellencies it never prostitutes to beg praises nay if it accidentally meet them it is rather burden'd and oppress'd than puff'd up by them I will then account my self to have attain'd to some degree of this grace when I can possess my soul at rest when I delight in the milk of Gods word more than its heights and entricacies in obedience more than disputes and fancies when I can receive evil from the hand of God as well as good when I can sacrifice my own will to the caprice of a Superiour the obstinacy of an inferiour or the humour of an equal when I can suffer wrongfully and yet meekly when I can look upon the glories and the power of this World and contentedly say I am not born for these I am not call'd to the enjoyment of these but of the Cross here and Glory hereafter I am to tread in the steps of my dear Lord and Master and nothing shall make me have any other designs than those he had and when I have done all this and am assur'd that I love and serve my God I relie onely upon the merits and sufferings of my Saviour for Salvation and a Crown This duty of Humility is the most useful and the most difficult in Christianity the most useful for it recommends us to God indears us to men and establishes a Peace and calm in our own bosomes the most difficult for it is to renounce what is most near and dear to us our interest and pleasures our reputation nay our very selves our understanding will and affections There are two mighty motives wich are most insisted on by the holy Spirit the one is that Humility is the way to the increase of Grace here and to greater measures of Glory hereafter God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted the other is the example of our Saviour who tho so great as to be the Son of God and to think it no Robbery to be equal to God so innocent that he had no guilt upo him none could accuse him of sin so dignified as to be Prophet Priest and King did yet debase himself to the meanest services on purpose that he might leave his Disciples a pattern to imitate tho he were adorn'd by all that might give him a just claim to Honour as Birth Virtue and the Dignity of the most illustrious functions yet he was as much the humblest as he was the greatest as much the most meek as the most innocent of the Sons of Men and if he our Lord and Master stoopt so low what can we who are at that vast distance beneath him do or suffer that is capable of disparaging us Besides these considerations it will be very useful towards implanting humility in us to know God and our selves his Dayes are without Beginning or Ending his perfections have no bounds he is Independent and immutable he is his own Heaven and his own happiness but we are dust and the Sons of Corruption born yesterday and we shall dye to morrow our bodies heavy sluggish crafie beings of a few spans long our souls are blind and ambitious passionate froward jealous inconstant foolish things those are the seat or abode of numerous pains and diseases These of as numerous and as painful passions the World we live in is a meer phantasm and cheat that first invites and then deludes our appetites for enjoyment it self is but a dying itch and the mockery of a waking dream the time past reflects our sins and follies the present is troubled with regret and desires and vexations and the future will be what the present now is for when all is nothing what can be the end of our hopes and cares but disappointment And all this consider'd is not God most fit to Govern and we to obey he to be exalted and we to be humbled but why do I compare Man to God! let us compare him but to the Angels of God and how inconceiveably more excellent is their being and their state than ours how wise and knowing how refin'd and pure their substances we see but thorough a Cloud and are clad with an earthy body they dwell in the Circles of Glory in the Sun-shine of the Almighty's presence and in a numerous Choire of the most pleasant and delightful company We in long Nights and cold Winters and barren Soils and lonesome-shades tir'd with sullen toilsome business and dull insipid conversation and only wait for the approaching day and the rendevouz of blessed Spirits in Heaven Lord what is Man The Prayer O Thou God who resistest the Proud and givest grace to the Humble possess me with a meek and humble Spirit teach me to tread in the steps of my blessed Saviour to serve and Minister to obey and suffer teach me to know Thee my God and my self that the sence of thy incomprehensible glory and my meanness may level all my foolish conceits of my self and cloath me with humility through Jesus Christ our Lord. O my God make me resign'd and obedient to thee Subject to my Superiours modest towards my equals and meek to my Inferiours make me to despise the praise and honour of man being content with the conscience of doing good make me see the imperfections of my best actions and relye upon thy mercy for Salvation thorough the blood of Christ that my Soul may here find rest and hereafter Glory Amen Amen Blessed Jesus Sect. 5. Of Perfection It is an opinion generally receiv'd that the least degree of true Faith will save the soul but I hope men mean such a degree of it as overcomes the World and subdues the Flesh for otherwise I should very much question whether it be not that seed which becometh unfruitful thorough the cares of the World and deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things Mar. 4.19 If they say that that Faith which doth not overcome the World and the Flesh is
dark chamber and mark how thou must lie in thy bed of sickness and of Death consider how all thy hopes and comforts all thy designs and purposes as far as they concern this world must vanish like a dream and think what need thou wilt then stand in of all the strength and comfort which Reason and Religion the Ministry and Prayers of thy Spiritual guide and Friend and the Conscience of a well spent Life can furnish thee with then thou wilt need a strong Faith and a vigorous Love and an entire Humility to enable thee to bear thy agonies patiently and part with the world chearfully and meet thy God compos'dly 4. Do not indulge thy self in the Enjoyment of the utmost liberty which is consistent with Innocence vice borders very closely upon vertue he that will not be burnt must not approach so nigh the fire as to be sing'd besides such freedomes do insensibly instill sensuality into the soul at leastwise if so thick an aire do not sully the soul it is too gross and mixt to whiten and clear it 5. Catch at every opportunity of a holy discourse and learn to raise from every thing a heavenly thought and to mannage every Accident to some spiritual purpose embrace all examples of an Excellent vertue and search after all occasions of doing good declining by all the Arts of prudence and Religion what ever either company or discourse whatever either sight or entertainement may soften thy temper thaw thy Resolutions discompose thy calm or alay thy heavenly mindedness or endear the world to thee sin steals in thorough the eye or ear c. dressed up in Beauty Mirth Luxury c. but it wounds whilst it delights and it stains where it touches and it captives what it once possesses 6. Be sure that thy Religion be plac'd in substantial and weighty things not fancyful and conceited for example 1. As to matters of Faith make it thy business to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent the riches of divine Love and the merit of Christs sacrifice and do not mispend thy time nor weary and disturb thy Soul with Curiosities and vain disputes which usually grow out of interest and pride or an impertinent and trifling spirit 2. As to practice let thy Religion be made up of Fundamental Duties not conceits or will worship of Charity and Humility Obedience Mortification and Purity pure Religion and undefiled is this to visit the Fatherless and the Widowes and to keep ones selfe unspotted from the world Religion is not a devout whimsey a sullen Austerity or a blind and giddy passion but all that promotes the Honor of God the good of Mankind and the peace of our own Souls The Prayer O Most glorious and Eternal God guide me I beseech thee in the paths of Holyness I am the purchase of thy Sons blood I have known the truth of thy glorious Gospel and receiv'd the earnest of thy Love thy Holy Spirit O grant that I may not receive thy Grace in vain that I may not suffer wreck in the sight of my Haven But assist me by the might of thy Spirit in the inward Man to perfect Holyness in the fear of God to go on to the full assurance of Hope mortifying each day more and more the outward man and growing in all godliness and vertue and every thing that is praise worthy that so the nearer I approach Eternity the fitter for it I may be that my state here being a state of spiritual delight and pleasure each day may give fresh vigour to my Devotion so that I may not faint till I enter into the Joyes of my Master and receive a Crown Amen Amen Holy Jesus I have consider'd 1. Our Obligation to Religion upon the account of our own Souls which can neither be happy in this Life nor that to come without it 2. The Nature and Substance of that Religion we profess as it regards either Belief or Practice from all which it appears that the Christian Philosophy is nothing else but a Systeme of most exalted Holyness such as may become Men who are design'd for another life it remains now 3. To consider by what powerful motives the Gospel engages us to duties which are so far above our natural state and strengths Practical Christianity Part II. CHAP. I. Of the Motives which the Gospel proposes to Holiness THe Motives by which the Gospel obliges us to Holiness are 1. The Reward of Vertue and Punishment of Vice in another World 2. The Consideration of the Divine Nature 3. The Consideration of the whole History of our Saviour 4. The consideration of the vanity of all those things which are the temptations to sin 5. The nature of virtue and of vice 6. The assistance of the Divine spirit and 7. The consideration of the nature of the Gospel Covenant which leaves a place for Repentance 1. Of the first Motive Upon what account Life and Immortality is said to be brought to light thorough the Gospel I 'le not determine but it is certain that the Gospel shews us how Death is abolish'd and how Life and Immortality may be attain'd 2 that it hath manifested this to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews and that 3. The Discovery of it is in full and clear words laid down in almost every Page of it The Wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment and the Righteous into Life eternal Mat. 25. and Ro. 2.5 there is a day mention'd which is call'd The Day of the Revelation of the righteous judgement of God because he will then render to every man according to his Deeds to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for Glory and honour and immortality eternal Life but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile but glory honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first and also to the Gentile This being so to sin must needs be so silly and weak a thing no man of common sense would be guilty of for can any man of reason be at a loss in such a choice as this whether he will live eternally or die whether he will be happy for ever or for a moment upon supposal that sin could make me live one happy moment 'T is true if there were no prospect of another Life no account to be taken in another world the case would be much alter'd for the Law of our nature being I humbly conceive nothing else but the Law or Dictates of Reason and the business of Reason being in this respect at least only to distinguish between good and evil our Reason would talk to us at another rate because it would proceed by different principles good and evil would then peradventure be different things for whatever would make for the pleasure and interest of
there much more do so because being rais'd spiritual it seems to me that it will be knit in a closser union and be more capable of those influences but besides this 2. It will have pleasures agreeable and natural to it self which it will reap 1. From the glory and perfection it possesses which will be one peculiar to it self and of a different nature from that of the Soul thus in our Saviour on the Mount from whose transfiguration we may receive a little light they were two different things which made up the beauty of his mind and of his body Wisdome Love Holiness c. were the charmes and graces of his Soul but light and glory and proportion the Majesty and Beauty of his body and since this body will be in its nature distinct from the soul for though spiritual it will not be intelligent therefore too it will have objects fit to entertain it what those objects will be that I 'le not endeavour to discover the Scripture doth in the general tell us that the place it self will be fill'd with a mighty glory that our conversation will be strangely delightfull that there are things prepar'd for us which are not therefore God himself which the eye hath not seen c. if that place be to be understood of the entertainments of another life but least any should mistake me I doe not in the least dream of any gross pleasure not the pleasure of the glorified body will be as spiritual a the body and no more from all that I have said I infer 1. That the joy and pleasure of the Life to come is most perfect and Excellent for the more excellent the being the more delicat and refin'd its pleasure or else there could be no difference between the happiness of an Angel that 's ravisht with the enjoyment of Heaven and an Hog that fattens in is stie and grunts at a full meal and if so how unconceiveably great will our pleasures be in that State wherein the worse and meaner part of us our very bodies shall be spiritual and incorruptible 2. That there is no reason that we should be the less mov'd and captiv'd by the promises of such pleasures in another life because they are pourtrayed to us in such an excellence and lustre as doth rather dazle and amaze than take and please us for tho now we are as far beneath them as we are at a distance from them yet then our natures will be made equal to them and when we stand upon the same level with Angels what makes up their Heaven will constitute ours too And now what can man fancy more than this that our natures should be rais'd to the highest perfection they are capable of and be entertain'd by the most glorious objects imaginable there is only one thing more to be added that this State be Eternal that we not only have all which our hearts can desire but also that we have all this for ever and ever and this is one property of Heaven too the things which are seen are Temporal the things which are not seen are Eternal now Eternity is a duration that never passes a stream of time which still glides on and yet never runs quite away a day that never sets in any Cloud or night a State of Life which shall never grow old by time nor decay by age a pleasure which will alwayes delight and never surfeit us a meeting of the dearest friends never to part again O my God how unconceiveable is the Glory thou dost design me for I cannot comprehend what I am going to be and what can be the influence of all this but that I should count all the advantages of this present Life dung and dross in comparison of the happiness of the Life to come that I should count all the afflictions of this present life not worthy to be put in the balance against the glory that is to be reveal'd how is it almost possible for me to resist the charms of such a Heaven or not to despise this World who have the prospect of such a one to come I need but cast an eye of Faith upon the joyes of Heaven and it will be enough to confront and baffle all the allurements of flesh and blood and all the gawdy nothings of this fading World one thought a day of Heaven will raise me so far above all the fears and troubles which distract and disquiet this present State that I could sit with unconcernment and see all my hopes and interests lost and shipwrackt on the billowes of an inconstant Word whilest I knew that my Heaven my Eternity were sure nay death it self would be the onely thing on this side Heaven which would be an object fit for my desires and wishes what is it then can tempt a man to sin who is thus arm'd who is proof against the flatteries or menaces of the World against the soft addresses of a Wanton or the impatiences and querulency of a weak tender body what conflict if possible can be difficult which is to be thus rewarded who can faint or languish in his race who hath his eye fixt upon such a Crown The Prayer O Most glorious God strengthen my Faith in the belief of the invisible things of another World that it may inable me to conquer this imprint in my Soul such a lively Image of that future State as may make me run with patience and chearfulness the race which is set before me O let me not chuse my portion in this Life Let me not exchange the Crown and Glories of Eternity for the pomp and vanity of this Life Let me not forfeit the pleasure and peace of that State of bliss for the dull momentary Lusts of this mortal earthly State but let me who have this hope purifie my self Let me make it my business to be doing thy Will for which way can I so advantagiously lay out my time and strength as for an infinite reward O my God let these considerations prevail with me to Live so that when I come to dye I may have nothing to do but to receive a Crown Amen Amen Blessed Jesus Of Hell Now tho a meer exile from this Heaven were Hell enough and there needed no flames nor darkness to make that State miserable for that there should be an eternal day whose light should never shine on me that there should be full tides of pleasures which I should never taste of this is Hell enough Yet besides all this there are real and endless torments to be inflicted upon all impenitent sinners when Christ shall come to take vengance on all them who know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ The place is a Lake of Fire and Brimstone of flame and darkness which together with a worm that never dies imports the excess of that torment which shall produce weeping and wailing and gnashing of Teeth The Company is the Devil and his Angels the fearful
implanted in the heart hath to these it is call'd the Divine Nature and the Image of God and it is highly reasonable that the worship should be suitable to the God it is paid to and therefore the Rule and Standard of Holiness is the Divine Nature and nothing else the beauty of Holiness and the deformity of sin is not to be deriv'd at least primarily from the conveniency or inconvenieney of the one or other in this present life but from a tendency to imprint or efface this Divine Image in us This is the way of our Saviour's and his Apostles arguing from the Divine Nature to our Duty thus because God is a Spirit therefore he is to be worshipp'd in Spirit and in Truth because he is pure therefore they must purifie themselves who approach him because he is holy therefore his worshippers must be holy too and because he is love therefore they who abide in him must abide in love all his Children must imitate the perfections of the Divine Nature Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect From hence it is easie to discover why the God of Heaven hath such an Everlasting Quarrel against sin and why he delights so much in Holiness and Righteousness Sin embases the man and depraves the spirit which is in him into a sensual natural man and sets him at the farthest distance from and contradiction to God but Holiness is a reflexion of his own Beauty and Excellency it is the exalting man into a spiritual and heavenly Nature This is a plain account of the Nature of Holiness and Sin how the one is so lovely and the other so ugly how the one is so dangerous and the other so advantagious 2. The knowledge of the Divine Nature convinces us of the reasonableness of serving God There can be but two reasons for service either 1. An Obligation to the person we serve and then our service is either Duty or Gratitude or else 2. A regard to our own interest or pleasure In the knowledge of the Divine Nature we shall find all these Obligations to his services If we consider God as that Principle in whom we live and move and have our being Act. 17.28 or as one who doth us good gives us rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness Act. 14.17 What can be more reasonable than that we should be thankful to him but if we consider him further as Redeeming us by the Blood of his Son instructing us by the Light of his Gospel assisting us by the Power of his Spirit and adopting us into the hopes of an Incorruptible Crown what can be more reasonable than that we should devote our selves to his service and offer up our selves a holy living and acceptable Sacrifice to him If we consider him as our Creator and the Lord of Heaven and Earth what can be more reasonable than that we his Creatures should obey his Laws If we have regard to our own Interest all our present enjoyments and future hopes depend upon him to be guided by Infinite Wisdom to be protected by Infinite Power to be blest by him who is above all things and can make us as happy as he pleases are things which a wise love of our selves would make us earnestly desire As for pleasure besides that which flows from the perswasion of all these advantages which accrue to us from his service and besides the peace and true freedom which Devotion gains us there is a strange pleasure in the contemplation of the most Excellent Being in whom is united all that is any way taking with a Rational and Immortal Soul 3. This knowledge of God will confirm us in a firm perswasion of the reward of Vertue and punishment of Vice for whilst it discovers sin so exceeding hateful not only upon the account of its contradiction to the Divine Nature but also its base ingratitude and folly and discovers the Excellency and Loveliness of Holiness it doth at the same time manifest the reason why God who is a holy God doth incourage the one by such glorious promises and deter us from the other by such amazing threats for whether we consider him in himself the purity of his own nature makes him love goodness and hate vice and how contemptible were either his love or hate if happiness be not the effect of one and misery of the other or if you consider him as the Governour of this world it is inconsistent with his Majesty to suffer the violation of his Laws without punishing the bold Offender So that now there 's nothing further necessary to work this perswasion in us but that 1. We should be perswaded that neither our good nor evil actions can be conceal'd from him And 2. That he is arm'd with sufficient power to bless and reward the righteous and avenge himself of the sinner and both these Truths we learn from his infinite Knowledge and infinite Power both which we are abundantly taught in the Gospel of Christ to belong to God God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell Mat. 10.28 And this God thus knowing and thus powerful without any respect of persons judgeth according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.17 All this now amounts to thus much that Vertue and Vice are not indifferent things but that the one is most lovely the other most loathsom to God therefore the one is most fatal and the other most benificial to its Votaries for there is an infinitely glorious Being who is most deeply concern'd and every way able to poure forth blessings on the righteous and vengeance on the sinner The Prayer O Glorious God let my knowledge of thy Nature teach me to deny all iniquity and to be holy as thou art holy Let thy goodness make me love thee and thy Power and Justice make me fear thee and let both wing my Devotion and clog and damp my Lusts Let thy Truth and thy Power beget in me a perfect affiance in thee Let thy Wisdom and thy Love perswade me to submit quietly to thy Will that I may walk before an Almighty God and be perfect and so may enter into thy joys in the life to come thorough Jesus Christ our Lord. SECT III. Of the third Motive to Holiness i.e. the Consideration of the whole History of the Son of God Jesus Christ OUr Lord and Saviour may be consider'd either in his Life his Death or Glory beginning in his Resurrection the knowledge of him in each of these is a strong ingagement to Holiness and a determent from Vice 1. In his Life and here we may look upon him with reference to his Doctrine or Example both which conspire in this one aim to implant Holyness in the world and to root out sin for look upon him with reference to his
that thou hast secured our happiness by the Revelation of glorious truths by the encouragement of precious promises and by the sanction of wise Laws Grant most gracious God that I may be daily conversant in thy most glorious Gospel to this End that the pleasures of the world and the flesh may not ensnare and entangle me but that I may be enabled through thy word and Spirit to live above the corruptions of Lust to possess my vessel in purity and honour and to enjoy thy blessings moderately and thankfully that I may at last be received into an Eternity of Rest and Peace and Joy thorough Jesus Christ my Lord. CHAP. II. Of Pain consider'd as a Temptation to Sin BY Pain I mean every thing which is troublesome All troubles may be reduc'd under two Heads Imaginary and Real ones by Real I mean such as do actually injure the mind or bodies of men by Imaginary I mean such as could have no influence at all upon men but through the assistance of prejudice or fancy I 'le begin with the latter and in speaking to both I must premise this that I will not bring home every Argument by a close Application for then this very Head would swell into a vast proportion but content my self with proving That there is no pain which can be a just warrant for sin because the Gospel hath provided such Remedies as may render it supportable and such Rewards as may countervail all our sufferings There is no Temptation which befals us but what is common to men and God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able the strengths he allows us but will with the Temptation make a way to escape that we may be able to bear it There are many things which are not really harsh and unsufferable in themselves but they become such because it is the custom of the world to think them so For example a shallow Fortune but sufficient for the necessary comforts of life an inglorious solitude or privacy the Opinions of others concerning us these things have no real influence either upon mind or body they cannot make the Soul less rational nor the body less healthy a man may be happy here and go to Heaven afterwards without much fame or wealth that all the misery that is deriv'd from these things depends upon Opinion is plain because some have made that Poverty retirement and contempt their choice which is such a Bug-bear to others and so the same thing which is ones affliction becomes anothers pleasure So that it is plain fancy gives us the wound not the things themselves or else if misery were an inseparable Companion to the things themselves it were impossible that Content should ever sojourn in Cells or Cottages or ever be a stranger to Wealth and Honour Of this sort of troubles are all those other passions which are inkindled in us by the impressions of things from without for even Beauty Grandure Gaity c. though in their own nature innocent things are sharpen'd and arm'd by our fancies with trouble and danger to our repose Now though it be true that as the cold or heat of Climates are things innocent enough to bodies inur'd to them and yet are fatal to others so here though all temptations of the world are in themselves harmless things yet 't is plain that upon Beings so dispos'd and temper'd as ours are they make dangerous impressions Therefore in the Gospel of Christ the remedies prescrib'd by him do all tend to the removal of these ill dispositions and the reforming our false Opinions and the suppressing our inclinations As 1. Our first care must be to frame our Opinions of things by the Rule of Faith and to root out all false Notions of things to this end the holy Gospel doth every where insinuate the emptiness the transitoriness the uncertainty of all things here below the Excellency of Holiness and Righteousness and the little tendency which the things of the world have to promote it And lastly the Weight and Eternity of happiness in another world all which contribute to our happiness as they arm us against the impressions of outward objects by possessing us with a contempt of them and with desires far greater and nobler and contradictory to those other 2. The Gospel of Christ injoyns us to shun and fly temptations all that we can we are to block up all the Avenues by which the world may make its approaches the lustful must not gaze upon Beauty nor the ambitious on greatness c. and because sin usually gains by Parley we are carefully to shun the least appearance of evil not to entertain thoughts c. 3. We are to labour earnestly to mortifie all the lusts of the Body by Fasting and Watching and Prayer and a constant temperance incourag'd to it by the example of our Lord and a whole Cloud of Witnesses gone to Heaven before us and the promise of rewards annexed to the careful performance of and unwearied perseverance in these duties And 4. The assistance of the mighty Spirit of God and a certain Victory is promis'd to him who thus contends and unless men will willingly deprive themselves of such an Auxiliary by not contending or not begging him of Christ or grieving him it is not to be doubted but we shall obtain him and together with him sufficient strength and glory honour and immortality will be the end of our warfare These are the Means these are the Motives this is the Assistance which our blessed Jesus hath prescribed and offer'd us by which we may be inabled to live above those miseries which they are intangled in who obey not his Gospel and defeat those Airy Apparitions which would fright us into sin Therefore in whatever condition I am I will still ask what would my blessed Saviour have done or said or thought in this case what opinion of or value for this or that thing or condition hath God and I shall soon find that no condition can make me truly miserable but that wherein I cannot love God I cannot pray or cannot do good For if I can I am both great and happy If a man love me Joh. 14.23 my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Happy abode what can my Soul desire more I cannot think my self mean who am his Favorite nor can I be poor who possess that God whose presence makes up Heaven My God how happy should I be could I be content to make thee alone my Portion but because I cannot be content to be poor and contemptible because I seek my comforts from without because I am not at leisure to entertain thee only therefore thou dost not dwell so ravishingly with me But I will seek thee more diligently hereafter vain world adieu I have Nobler hopes than thou canst feed and I shall have comforts thou canst not rob me of How can I be miserable if I be
a new and repeated Engagement of our selves to the service of Christ to an obedience to his Laws and a Renunciation of those Enemies of the Christian the World the Flesh and the Devil From all this it is easie to infer 3. That it is a strong Fence and Antidote against Temptations for these fresh impressions of our Saviours love the new strengths of Divine Grace the vigour of a new and solemn Ingagement to Obedience fill the Soul with a holy zeal against sin and with a glorious contempt of sensual pleasures The Prayer ANd now O my God what should make me so prodigally venturous of my own safety as to neglect the frequent use of this holy Sacrament Have I not need frequently to examine my self Are not thy Graces apt to wither and decay unless thus water'd and refresh'd Doth not my converse with the World and my communication with Flesh and Blood render it necessary for me to renew my resolutions against them as often as I can or is there not a holy delight in the exercise of all this that surpasses all the pleasures of a sensual life and is it not a Sacrifice that my Lord and Saviour is highly pleas'd with and is it not reasonable that I should oblige him who died for me with this frequent acknowledgment of his infinite love evidenc'd in his death Pardon me O my God that I have been so ungrateful to thee so sensless of my own welfare and advantage for the time to come I will delight in this holy Communion I will often offer up my self a Sacrifice to thee and profess my Faith in a Crucified Saviour and there beg thy assistance and conduct through the difficult paths of this present life And O my God accept thou of my addresses and praises thorough thine infinite Mercies and the Blood of Christ Amen Of Prayer PRayer may be consider'd under those three Heads I before mention'd And 1. As a part of Holiness It is an acknowledgment of God's being our God a confession of his Majesty and our meanness being a solemn Adoration and Worship of him 't is a Sacrifice of praise to him 't is an act of Humiliation and of Repentance and of Faith and Reliance upon him And from hence we may infer what preparation of the Soul is necessary to a right discharge of this Duty that extempore Addresses are the most improper and the most unwelcom to God for these are at best but imagin'd to raise those passions or dispositions in the Soul which ought to be presuppos'd in it before-hand to the rendring of our Prayers acceptable for we draw near in prayer to offer up a Sacrifice which we had prepar'd before And we may secondly conclude that what ever the gifts of Prayer be the Spirit of Prayer is that which doth dispose and prepare the mind by such qualities as are fit to exert the acts I nam'd before and I am apt to think that a Soul which thus prepar'd and fixing it self in the immediate presence of God dwells with an inward devotion upon those acts of Adoration and Praise Humiliation and Faith without expressing these actings of the mind in words I speak of private prayer doth in S. Pauls sense Rom. 8.26 pray by the Spirit and consequently in publick those prayers are most spiritual which share most of this preparation 2. As an Instrument of Holiness it doth exercise all our graces and refresh and improve them by exercising the breathings of the Divine Spirit which is in an extraordinary manner assistant in this holy exercise fill the minds of men with joy and peace and hope which confirms them in their Christian Warfare and makes them disrelish all the pleasures of a sinful life Lastly Prayer hath extraordinary promises annext to it of receiving whatsoever we ask with Faith Mat. 7.7 Ask and it shall be given to you 3. It is an Antidote against Temptation for it possesses the Soul with an Awe of the Divine Majesty with a sense of his unspeakable love and with a horrour against sin whilst we enumerate his benefits and our sins with all their aggravating circumstances And certainly no man can be so sensless as to repeat those sins which he did just now bemoan and abhor renounce and resolve against before God nor will it be easie for him to fall who comes forth forewarn'd and arm'd to encounter a Temptation Lastly Prayer convinces a man of the loveliness and happiness of a holy life for he finds that his peace and reliance grows up or decays together with his Vertue If I did pray earnestly and often how humble how holy how heavenly and exalted would my Soul be with what glorious Notions of the Divine Majesty what dreadful apprehensions of sin what an unquenchable thirst of Holiness what fears and jealousies of the World and Flesh would my Spirit be possess'd by and what a mighty influence would all this have upon my Conversation how humbly how warily how fervently should I walk But when I do not pray often or with this care and preparation how lazy and careless is my life how dim and imperfect my conceptions how stat and tastless my relish of spiritual things how doth a worldly sensual temper grow and increase upon me and the Divine Life within droop and languish The Prayer O Therefore my God give me grace to be frequent and fervent in Prayer assist me by thy Spirit to dress and prepare my Soul for this more solemn approach to thee and then I shall experience this to be the high way of Commerce with Heaven I shall feel the wind blowing upon the Garden of my heart and the Spices flowing forth I shall feel the Spirit fanning that spark of holy life it kindled into a flame and I shall feel my self transported and ascending up above this vain world and all the allurements of it O therefore grant me O my God thy holy Spirit that I may pray with understanding and fervency with a prepar'd and a devout Soul that my prayer may not be the sacrifice of Fools and turn'd into sin but an acceptable Sacrifice to thee an Instrument of Holiness and a Guard against sin enabling us to fight the good fight of Faith that I may receive an Everlasting Crown and all for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen I should now add something concerning Fasting which the Universal practice of the Church besides our Saviours Rules prescrib'd to it do plainly suppose to be a Duty of Christianity but yet such a one as is a Free-will offering and so dependent of various circumstances that the practice of it cannot be fixt by particular Rules and therefore as I did on purpose omit speaking to it when I had a fair offer under that Head the means to obtaining Temperance consider'd as a habit in the mind so now I 'le only consider it very briefly 1. Who ever shall consider the constant practice of the devoutest men the Nature of this Body we are cloathed
stupid and senseless not only of their secular but eternal interest the former is utterly false and the latter absurd therefore it is more than probable no such confutation could beform'd That the Wisdome and Majesty the Purity and Holyness the Misteries and Prophesies of it are so many tracks of Divine Glory which bespeak God its Author it being very improbable that e're the Devil should be so set against himself as to promote that Holiness which is so contradictory to his nature and tho he should have blended it with speculative errors that cannot be thought a mischief able to satisfie him for all the good it hath done in the world nor would such a design savour enough of the malice of Hell for surely God will never make a good man eternally miserable for a speculalative Error into which his Humility and Resignation to God and such strong probabilities not to say more betray'd him But suppose against all Reason that it were Fictitious what can any man suffer by the belief of these Principles certainly they tend to make us like God and there is no article which reflects any disparagement upon the Divine Nature but discovers it to the World in the greatest and the loveliest characters and therefore unavoidably if any Religion than this will secure our future Life As to the present if our Life be clouded and o'recast by afflictions these Principles alone can support us under them because these only are substantial grounds of courage or content if our Life be calm and fair no man injoyes it with a more constant and untroubled satisfaction than the Religious for Religion only crowns our outward prosperities with a firm peace and content within And yet all the clamour rais'd against Religion is this that it enviously intrenches upon the pleasures of Nature and wheadles us out of the possession of present pleasures by the deceitful promises of future In answer I would fain know of any the most fortunate Epicure for I confess I have never been lucky enough to discover any such state whether there be any enjoyment rich as Fancy and ravishing as Dotage if there be of what constancy and unmixt purity it is for if it be not fixt and steady then a constant chearful Life as free from uneasie fears desires and troubles and repentances as from the taste of such luscious Meals is surely to be preferr'd before a few fortunate minutes of a Life in the general disorder'd and troubl'd or whether accounts being stated rightly we may not safely conclude that there is no such thing as such an enjoyment much less any permanent state of it and then I may easily defend Religion as to this point for then it is but reasonable that our desires should be calm and temperate and that we should sit down content with such easie and obvious pleasures as suit this state of imperfection and child-hood and if so what harm can Christianity do men as God expostulates with his People Testifie against me wherein have I wronged thee It doth not forbid us to like but dote it doth not forbid us to enjoy the World but it forbids us to equal it with Heaven And when it hath once fixt the limits of worldly happiness aright it is so far from driving us out of the reach of it that it is the onely path to it we sail within those Sea marks which if we slight we dash on Rocks and Sands for Answer me Are the Faculties of our Soul rendred more uncapable of Happiness because cultivated and improv'd imploy'd to useful and ingenious purposes not lost on trifles are our Senses less subtle and judicious because the Body is preserv'd in an entire and vigorous health by temperance and imployment and content of mind As to the Objects of our affections Is a Good Estate less useful or less creditable by being spent temperately and Charitably Is Greatness the less firm or the less glorious because its Basis is Vertue Is a Beauty the less taking because innocent and vertuous of all the pleasures of humane Life I have alwayes thought Friendship the dearest and certainly sense as well as wit true courage and honor and constancy the product of Religion as well as the Accomplishments of Nature and gentile Education must go to make it perfect and delightful when any are endear'd by a generous goodness by an innocent and undefigning passion by a combination of vertues and a confederacy of rational delights and glorious hopes I am confident no debauch'd mind can ever fancy any thing so charming and romantick and if this be the case if this be all that Religion doth that is if it be onely a wise method to happiness fet on foot by the goodness and contriv'd by the Wisdome of God I cannot discover any just ground of quarrel against it I cannot see how the sinner can get clear off from these Arguments remember then 't is a disingenious kind of confidence to return only raillery for answer to Arguments and to think a loud laughter a sufficient confutation of important truths Be not deceived God will not be mocked a day is coming when the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open when God will argue his own cause in a flaming vengeance and then what a miserable Tragedy will thy Mirth and Pleasure the Sinner and his World end in What astonishment and dread will seize upon every Soul which hath hardened it self against the Gospel of Christ how miserably fool'd and cheated will all the gay and jolly Sinners find themselves But glory honour and peace will be the portion of every one who worketh righteousness The Prayer O Thou holy Spirit of God thou divine principle of a divine life remove all blindness hardness and impenitence from off the hearts of all those who read the truths of the Gospel of Christ and grant that they may receive the word of Christ with an entire humility and pure Affections and bring forth the fruit of it in their Conversation that when the winds blow and the rain descends and the floods beat they may be like houses built upon a rock and stand unshaken in the great day of Judgement Amen Amen FINIS A Catalogue of Books printed for and sold by Robert Pawlet at the Sign of the Bible in Chancery Lane near Fleetstreet VIllare Anglicanum or a view of all Towns Villages c. In England and Wales alphabetically composed so that naming any Town or place you may readily find in what Shire Hundred Rape Wapenstake it is in Also the number of Bishopwricks Counties under their several jurisdictions and the Shire Towns Boroughs and Parishes in each County by the appointment of the eminent Sir Henry Spelman Kt. The Nuns Complaint against the Friers being the Charge given in the Court of France by the Nuns of St. Katharines near Province against the Father Fryers their Confessors shewing their abuses in their allowance of undecent Books and Love-letters and marriages of the Fryers and