whom he loved better If therefore we had such a love to God as others have to the things of this World the thoughts of them could not quite thrust out the thoughts of him But still we should be apt to write if I may so speak upon the very forehead of every earthly good God is most lovely or God is my exceeding joy the Lord is my portion O how amiable are his Courts or as an holy man who it is said could never get these words out of his mouth My God and all things Where he is there in effect are all things and where his love dwells there he will be sure to be We shall meet him every where see him in every beautiful thing and taste him before we have done in all the delightful enjoyments of this life 2. And as it comprehends in it the practice of making God present which some Masters in Divinity have said may serve instead of all other Rules for the ordering of our life aright so it contains in it likewise the very spirit of Prayer to God which all acknowledg to be not only a great part of a godly life but a great help and furtherance to us in all the rest of our Christian duty If by Prayer we understand as some have explained it the ascent or raising up of the Soul to God it is love only which continually aspires towards him and carries the heart aloft from other things to be joyned to him Or if we call it the converse of the Soul with God which are the words of Gregory Nyssen or a holy conference and discourse with the Divine Majesty as it is termed by S. Chrysostome it is manifest the love of God includes this in it for it is the nature of this passion to make us frequent the company of those whom we love Their conversation is most welcome their discourse delightful we are exceedingly desirous to impart our mind to them and especially to let them know how much we love them For which purpose it needs not alwayes the help of the tongue but can frame a language of its own and speak by the very countenance and the eyes and make use of silence instead of words to declare its inclinations According to the admirable expression of the Psalmist who setting forth the pious affections of the People to God their Deliverer saith Praise is silent for thee O God in Sion so the Hebrew hath it as your Margin tells you to Thee shall the vow be performed But let us take it simply for the desiring and requesting good things of God and then we must needs acknowledg that love being a passion full of desires cannot but comprehend in it as I said at first the very spirit of Prayer and Supplication You know how much we long for that to which we have given our hearts And therefore if they be devoted in love to God we cannot chuse but be ever breathing after more sensible apprehensions and tastes of him So much as we love him so much we shall thirst after a larger communication of his Divine Grace to us It will make us sigh for more tokens of his favour and wait for a greater power of his Holy Spirit and vehemently long to be more transformed and changed into his Image What was it but this that made David say Psal 42.1 As the Hart panteth after the Water-brooks so panteth my Soul after thee O God The chased Deer in a great Forrest and in the midst of Summer did not more long after the streames of Water than this good Man being it is likely in the Wilderness of Judah and so denyed the favour of going to the Tabernacle of God did ardently desire the happiness which there he had sometime tasted in the Divine Presence He opens his mouth and pants after this with a thirst so vehement that it makes him cry out in the following words O when shall I come and appear before God It is the heat of that Creature to whose pantings David compares the longings of his Soul which is the cause of its thirst and that being a constant desire which goes not off by continuance as many inconveniences do but rather more encreases it beares the greater resemblance to this Divine passion of love whose fervours and ardent longings are perpetual and do not abate by length of time but grow still greater and greater There is nothing so likely as this to enable us to fulfil that exhortation of the Apostle Pray without ceasing and to make us importunate and unwearied in it which are the two qualifications our Saviour requires in our devout addresses to God Luk. 18.1 Where you read a Parable of his to this end that Men ought alwayes to pray and not faint It marvelously disposes us also for the Divine favour by moving us to quit all that is inconsistent with our desires in hope of that which we pray God to bestow upon us There was a Monarch you have heard perhaps who offered his Kingdome for a Cup of cold Water in a time of extreme thirst And therefore what is it which the heat of this heavenly affection will not make us resign to God and absolutely part withall that it may obtain its Petitions and have its desires satisfied Besides it hath one wonderful power in it which nothing else can furnish us withall to make our Prayers prevalent and that is by fixing our thoughts and fastning our minds to the business which we are about For love you know doth not willingly stir from the Object to which it is devoted It is this flame which keeps our heart close to the Holy Sacrifice and will not easily suffer us to wander from the Gate of Heaven It sets us in the Presence of God it keeps our eye upon him it makes us converse attentively with him and while the power of it lasts our very hearts are tyed to him and cannot go aside from him But as soon as ever it begins to dye or decay then it is that the mind steales away and gads about the World till this flame revive again and make us fly back to the Altar of God The best Soul that is I confess may feel some loosness and distraction of spirit especially at some untoward season some ashes may dim and dull the Fire but yet this love and ardent desire will keep the greater part of our thoughts together and knit our heart so to our duty that there shall be no long nor wide breaches in it but it shall still be strong and fervent and effectual with our Heavenly Father Thus you see how wisely these two are joyned together by St. Jude v. 20. Who after he had exhorted the Faithful to Pray in the Holy Ghost immediately bids them keep themselves in the love of God There is nothing comparable to this to inspire us with devout and earnest desires And it hath an equal force also to excite us to Praise and Acknowledg our great Benefactor who gives
in the midst of our infirmities may be more acceptable to him than that complacence and joy which we feel to arise meerly from the sense that we have of our strength and abilities To be pleased in our successes is not so pleasing to God as to be patient in our Contests Nay to rejoyce and triumph in our Victories is nothing so good as to be constant and resolved notwithstanding that we are a little overcome In those spiritual consolations which we thirst after we do not always receive so much profit as we do pleasure but in the want of them if our wills be thereby more perfectly subdued to his we receive both a very great benefit and in the issue no small pleasure You have seen perhaps or you may imagine the smoak of a Potters Furnace how thick and black it is as if it would make a Picture of Hell it self Who would think that the Vessels of Clay which are baked there would not be burnt to ashes by the fury of the Fire or that at lest they would come out as black as soote by the foulness of the smoak And yet when the Fire is put out and the Vessels unfurnaced you see there is no such thing But that which was soft and yielding is become hard and strong and its complexion likewise is so much mended that a Prince need not disdain the use of some of these Cups Just thus it is with a distressed Soul when it is covered with a Cloud and wrapt in darkness and burns thereby in a great and sore displeasure against it self It is apt to think that this sure is the Gate of Hell that it is forsaken of God and shall either perish in this condition or not escape out of it without much loss But after a while when the work of God is done and the vapours are vanished and disappear it findes it self to be grown much in firmness purity and splendor and that it is made a Vessel of honour fit for the Masters use There is no loss of any thing but of its self-will Nothing is consumed but its softness and delicacy which made it loth to be toucht The like may be said of many little passions and disorderly desires to which our frail Natures are subject If we can free our selves from one inordinate passion which is a too vehement desire to be quite rid of them it might bring us little less peace than if we were and our profiting would no less appear in continuing still to do our duty of which we complain that they are so great an hinderance However there is no reason for such conclusions as those which good minds have been apt to make in a gloomy day that if God loved them he would not treat them after that manner There is rather great reason considering what hath been said to be not only patient but thankful to him in such a condition For it is not inconsistent with his care and infinite kindness to let us be obnoxious to those changes and those weaknesses too which I have mentioned but you see plainly it must be so and therefore it is best to be well pleased with these Methods of our Heavenly Father at least contented that it should be so And let me add this for a conclusion of this Discourse that God may suffer some Persons to be thus overcast with darkness and he may with-hold his gracious influences from them for the sins of their former life before they were converted which deserved he should never have afforded his grace unto them at all What are we should such Men say that we should expect to live always under the light of his countenance Alas one age of darkness is too good for us and we have reason to thank him if we be not eternally banished from his sight Why should such poor things as we think to receive every day some extraordinary tokens of his Divine favour when one good look from him is enough to oblige us as long as we live How much more reason have we to praise him that all our days are not gloomy that our Sun is not always eclipsed or rather that our life is but one long Night than to complain that a Cloud sometimes passes over us or a Mist gathers about us It is but fit that we should be hereby taught what it is to sin against God and it is well for us that we were not sent to learn it in outer darkness We are not ill dealt withall if we can learn at so cheap a rate the value of pardoning mercy but shall have cause in Heaven to praise God that we paid no dearer for it Is this all the punishment that is due for our many faults Doth he not use us very kindly if we be not quite cast out of his Presence O what a joy will it be to us to find that we are in his favour in the other World And we may be content if he please to stay for our joy till that time when we shall certainly know whether we have reason to rejoyce or no. But I shall say no more of this to you who have spent your time so innocently and vertuously that there is reason you should reap the fruit of it now in perpetual joy and satisfaction of heart from the consideration of God's goodness to you And I had wholly omitted this last Advice did not I know the weakness of humane Nature to be so great that the best disposed Souls may sometimes feel such alterations in them as may make it very necessary In which case if ever you should find your self doubt not to approach to God and say to him with all humility of spirit some such words as these A PRAYER I Acknowledg O great God the Lord of Heaven and Earth that I am not worthy of the least glimpse of thy divine favour It is sufficient that I live and behold the light of the Sun and am not banished into outer darkness And it is more than enough for so wretched a thing as I am that thou art pleased at any time of my life to bestow upon me the smallest testimony of thy love But that I live in hope to pass through all these Clouds and to behold my blessed Saviour in inconceivable splendor and rejoyce with him for ever O what a grace is it How infinitely am I indebted to Thee for such riches of mercy It ought to make me contented with any condition here and exceeding thankful to Thee that it is no worse Deal with me O merciful God even as thou pleasest so that I may but have this humble hope preserved in my heart of seeing and loving my Lord not as now darkly and dully but in the clearest light and with the most ardent love in Immortal Glory I submit to thy Infinite Wisdome under all that heaviness and listlesness of spirit wherewith I am oppressed from which I know thy Infinite Power if thou didst judg it most convenient is able
Soul therefore I say again an unmoveable belief of Christs great and precious promises and present them to your heart that it may be affected with them and value them according to their worth Then you will not be unwilling to do nor backward to suffer any thing that he would have you This will give you a great spirit and courage and joy in both You will take a great pleasure in godliness which hath such a recompense of reward Nay all the afflictions of this present time will seem inconsiderable in compare with the glory that shall be revealed Can any heart think much to abstain a while from sinful pleasures when he believes nay tastes the pleasures he shall shortly enjoy at Gods right hand Will not any covetous desires be content to be denied when you see it is for a Kingdom and a Crown of Life Of what should a Soul be ambitious beside whose desires are pitcht upon so noble a good as honour glory and immortality with Christ Who would not watch and pray unweariedly that he may come to this Celestial Rest with the People of God Can there be any higher pleasure than to lift up our mind to our heavenly Country and to think of the happiness which there expects us In what can we better spend our time than in meditating of the great love of God which hath prepared such excellent things for those that love him It is a good thing sure to give thanks unto the Lord and to sing praises unto his high and holy Name There can be no more delicious life than this which will conclude in his everlasting praises And suppose we must sometime take up a cross where is the mischief of it what should render it intolerable if we look at Jesus who for the joy that was set before him endured the Cross and despising the shame is set down at the right hand of the Throne of God From thence he stretches forth his hands to call us there his Armes are open to embrace us and there he would gladly see us Out of that glorious place he holds forth a crown of life to us saying Follow me and let none of these things dismay you Behold the Majesty wherein I am enthroned see the glory to which I am promoted Do not faint in your mind nor be weary of well-doing but press on towards the mark for the prize of the high-calling of God in me your Saviour There is nothing sure can hinder us or pull us back unless we cease to look at Jesus and turn away our Eares from hearkning to his gracious voice For do you not see what power a worldly faith hath over Mens hearts How fast one rides to take possession of an Estate of which he hears he is left the Heir How another sailes through dreadful dangers because he believes he shall arrive at a rich Country which will send him home laden with precious Commodities at the last Why should we think then the Christian Faith is less powerful or fancy that we are in truth indued with it unless our belief of the other World have the same effects Let it lay its commands upon all the powers of our Soul and engage them to do their several works Let it excite our minds and our wills and our affections and our endeavours to a constant pursuit of these Heavenly enjoyments that we may know indeed that we believe to the saveing of the Soul Look upon that faith which was built on weaker grounds and lesser evidences and darker promises See how it wrought in Abraham Isaac and Jacob and in the rest of the ancient Patriarchs whose belief of the Word of God made them forsake their own Countries quit all their Possessions when he required it live as Pilgrims and strangers in the Earth and depend meerly on the love and care of his never failing providence By faith they slighted the pleasures of Kings Courts the Honour of a Throne and the Riches of Egypt By Faith they wrought Righteousness subdued Kingdomes stopped the mouths of Lyons indured all reproaches and afflictions would not accept of deliverance and life it self that they might obtain a better Resurrection Now since the Christian Belief relies upon better Promises a clearer Revelation and stronger grounds of hope by the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead what a shame will it be if we do nothing worthy the name of Men much less of the Disciples of Christ and of the Sons of God To what cause can it be imputed but because there is no Faith in the Earth or it rests only in the brain and floats in the imagination but never descends to touch the heart and affections Bring it down then My Friend and stir up your self to a serious and affectionate belief of the life to come Spare no pains to consider and lay to heart that which is the greatest comfort of your life all the glorious things which you read of in the Gospel of Gods grace which Christ hath sealed by his blood and God confirmed by his Resurrection and hath been attested by signs and wonders of the Holy Ghost and by the Life and Death of a number of great Souls who have followed Jesus even to his Cross and declared their belief of those things by sacrificing all that was dear unto them here to win his favour in another World Look often upon their constancy upon their zeal upon their contempt of Riches and Pleasures and Life it self when it came in competition with the will of Christ for whose sake they rejoyced that they were accounted worthy to suffer especially since he had assured them their present troubles should work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory And then in imitation of them you will put on their resolution and lifting up your Eyes to Heaven will be moved to speak to this effect O blessed God how much am I beholden to thee that thou hast shewed me such things as these How much am I beholden to thee that thou hast inclined my heart to make them my choice I would not be as I was before for all the World Away you frivolous temptations you vain delights you unprofitable labours Never renew your importunities for I will not hearken I tell you I will not listen to you any more I am resolved to proceed in this holy course to the end of my days You will but make me meditate the more and pray the more and lay to heart the more the love of my God I shall but fix my Eyes the more stedfastly on that blessed place where Jesus my Saviour is at Gods right hand At his will I hold my riches my honours yea and my life also Let him dispose of them as he pleases And let it please the Lord of life and glory to accept of this most hearty oblation which I make of all I have unto him Let it please him to strengthen me in my holy resolutions to open my eyes that I
be performed at another time so they will not wait upon us and stay our leisure and that as they pass away so we know not when they will come again For May as the Proverb is comes not every Moneth and a fit opportunity lies not in every lock of Times head And if there should yet it is bald behind and we cannot call back that which is gone which may be better than will be presented to us again And if we find by experience that these occasions do excite our Souls then the observing and embracing them will be an excellent means to keep us from dulness because it is likely that God will favour us with more of them when he sees that we use those well which he hath given us already But yet you ought to be cautious that this do not prove matter of scruple and perplexity to you if you neglect an occasion when you are otherwise necessarily employed For both prudence and the forwardness of our affections and every thing else must give way to a real necessity and of two necessary things that seems to be most necessary in which we are already engaged Make therefore a short Address to God and both comfort and quicken your self after this manner when you are dull and indisposed or otherwise apt to be perplexed upon such accounts as these A PRAYER O My God whose Name is most excellent in all the Earth and ought to be celebrated with the highest and continual Praises of Men and Angels How happy are they whose minds are ever delighted in the thoughts of Thee and whose hearts constantly burn with ardent affection and devotion to Thee It is some satisfaction to think of that vehement love wherewith the Holy Spirits above perpetually acknowledg thy bounty to them to us and to all thy Creatures and to feel my self desirous if it were possible to accompany them at all times with the like affections of a most chearful and joyful heart in that Heavenly employment Accept I most humbly beseech thy Divine Goodness of these sincere desires that thou hast wrought in me Graciously accept of these pantings of my Soul after a freer and more delightful converse with Thee And pitty the great weakness and dulness of my nature which will not permit such ardours of love to continue always as by thy grace I sometimes feel in my heart towards Thee Pitty O pitty and take compassion upon me when I am so heavy as not to be able to lift up mine eyes towards Heaven or when I move so slowly and faintly as if I had no lift to serve thee in the works of piety righteousness and charity O that I may feel my spirit stirred with a greater zeal and carried with stronger desires at all other times when I am better disposed for thy service that then I may run the ways of thy Commandments when thou hast enlarged my heart And endue me likewise with prudence equal to that uprightness and integrity of heart which I hope I shall always carefully preserve That I may neither neglect any occasion of exciting and expressing a most fervent love to Thee nor dispirit my self by an indiscreet heat and forwardness to the performance of any part of my Christian duty Dispose me but to be ever serious resolved stedfast and watchful to be always well or innocently imployed and to be still going on with continued and constant motions to perfect holiness in thy fear and I shall hope by thine Infinite grace to finish my course at last with joy and to arrive at the happiness of that blessed company who as they do thy Commandments hearkning to the voice of thy Word so they are not weary in their obedience to Thee but with incessant Praises and Thanksgivings serve Thee World without end Amen V. YOU see already how necessary it is well to understand our selves and therefore lest you should think the pleasures of Religion to be other than they are it will concern you My Friend in the next place to Distinguish carefully between those consolations that are spiritual and those that are sensible For your receiving benefit by this Rule you must consider that the spirit of man being as I said joyned to a body and made a member of this World and yet belonging to another Country hath several sorts of faculties which we call its upper and lower powers whereby it converses with both With the former which are the mind understanding and will it hath entercourse with God and Invisible things and is fitted to improve all lower objects to an heavenly end with the other which we call sense imagination and sensitive appetite we can maintain acquaintance with nothing but this outward World Or rather this one Soul of Man is fitted with Capacities of such different kinds that it can hold correspondence with God and the higher World and likewise with the goods of the body in this World which is sensible to us Now such a friendship there is between the Soul and the Body by reason of their nearness and between the upper and lower faculties of the Soul if you so conceive of it by reason as I may call it of their oneness that they do mutual good offices for each other when they are able And as the Soul lends such a great part of it self to serve the Bodies necessities so the bodily spirits likewise are ready to assist the Soul in their better Moods to a freer pursuit of its own concernments in its motion towards God and the things above And more than this the pleasures of the one redound to the other what the Soul doth for the Body returning upon the mind it self and the bodily spirits likewise oft-times feeling the contentment of which the mind tasteth Hence it is that by discreet use of bodily enjoyments and due attendance to the outward Mans moderate satisfaction the spirits ofttimes are made so mild and sweet so chearful and compliant that the Mind finds them more ready and forward to accompany it in the contemplation of Diviner objects and it serves it self the more by serving the Body for a while And on the contrary part when the mind converses with Heavenly things they so powerfully touch it at certain Seasons that they make a motion there all over even as far as the very skirts of its Territories The Heart is glad the Spirits leap and dance for joy and the very blood in our Veins runs the smoother for it Now while we have this sensible delectation in the borders of our Soul by the agitation of the Animal Spirits to which the mind communicates its resentments there is no part of us but can be well content to accompany the mind in its devotions and they will not be enclined to with draw their attendance from these delightful services But on the other side if the Mind through incapacity it is like of the Body to receive them cannot impress its perceptions upon the Spirits nor make such a warmth and
by despairing to do otherwise Bless the Lord O my Soul that we are aware of this dangerous mistake And let us not despond though we have no reason to boast and glory in our resolution Was not this the condition of other of the Saints long before I was born Am I the only example of an heavy and sluggish Soul Must I be recorded the first in the Catalogue for inconstancy What helps and assistances then had they to restore themselves and to preserve them to the end which are strangers to our eares Must I dispatch a message to some Forreign Country for their Recipe's as we send for Drugs and Spices Cannot we tell without the charge of going to Hippo what Holy Austine strengthned himself withall Must we take a Pilgrimage to Rome to learn St. Hierome's Medicines Sure my Soul thou hast the same gracious Saviour the same compassionate High-Priest the same cordial promises the very same hope of the Gospel which revived and supported their hearts or if thou hast not speak that I may go and seek them Look then on thy blessed Saviour look on his holy Apostles nay look upon all those excellent Persons in the Church that have succeeded them Shall we not follow such glorious Leaders Are their Examples impossible to be imitated If they be they are not examples How can we be cold when we think of the flames of their love How can we be lazy and unwilling to do when we see how forward how vehemently desirous they were to suffer What should hinder us from going on when we have such a Multitude of Triumphant Souls before our eyes whom nothing could drive back Shall pleasures shall the incumbrance of business shall Relations and Friends yea shall dangers shall Death No I am not inchanted I am not affrighted with these words Be gone you false and deceitful pleasures How dare you perplex me you impertinent imployments No more of your importunity I charge you if you will be my Friends Welcome contempt welcome reproach welcome poverty or any other thing which will certainly bring me nearer to my God But what is it that gives you this suddain confidence How come you of a coward to grow thus couragious Of a Snail who made you thus to mount up in your thoughts like an Eagle Who will believe that thou wilt do such things I will believe it may you answer again to your self whatsoever can be objected against it Why are these called suddain thoughts which are my most deliberate resolutions Through the Lord I shall do valiantly He it is that shall tread down mine enemies under me The like discourse you may have with your self about God or any other subject You may consider not only that he is gracious and merciful but cry out O how great how great is his goodness Is there any thing thou canst name comparable to his loving-kindness What makes thee then so unwilling to go to him What 's the cause of such a diffidence and unbelief as hath deadned and dispirited thine heart Could I think that any thing would make thee fall into this stupidity Didst thou not once look upon him as the first Beauty as the joy the health and the life of our Souls Who is it that is altered and hath suffered a change He or thou Is he not the same to day yesterday and for ever Why shouldest not thou be the same too Or why shouldst thou not think that he will make thee the same again How many times is it repeated in the Book of God that his mercy endureth for ever For whom was it but such trembling Souls as thou that he proclaims himself so often to be abundant in mercy goodness and truth But must we not then believe it Is this the way to obtain his mercy by distrusting of him What a preposterous course is this How unseemly nay how unkind is it to question these gracious declarations of his love Let us be confidently perswaded he hath a greater desire than we that we should be true and faithful to him Let us rest our thoughts in this conclusion that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor heighth nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Now when you find any benefit by such expostulations and reasonings with your self hope it would do you some good if you should use the like in an humble address to God you may be furnished with several strains of devout Admiration and Pathetical Appeals to his all-seeing Majesty out of the Holy Scriptures There are Examples also of the other but expostulations with God are not to be imitated without much caution and holy fear and ought not to be commonly used It may be sufficient to conclude the foregoing Meditations with some such form of words as this A PRAYER O Lord our Lord how excellent is thy Name in all the Earth who hast set thy glory above the Heavens When I consider thy Heavens the work of thy Fingers the Moon and the Stars which thou hast ordained What is miserable man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou visitest him For thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels and hast crowned him with Glory and Honour Lord what honour is that which thou hast conferred on him in setting him now in the Person of Jesus above the Angels themselves For to which of the Angels didst thou say at any time Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And again Let all the Angels of God worship him Who in the Heaven can be compared unto the Lord Who among the mighty can be likened unto the Lord And therefore whom have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee O God thou art my God early will I seek thee My Soul thirsteth for Thee and longeth after Thee O when wilt thou come unto me There be many that say Who will shew us any good Lord lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me Show me thy self and it sufficeth Lord what wait I for Truly my hope is in Thee My Soul wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from him By thee O Lord have I been holden up from the Womb thou art he that took me out of my Mothers bowels My Praise shall be continually of Thee But who can utter the mighty acts of the Lord Who can shew forth all his praise Many O Lord my God are thy wonderful works which thou hast done and thy thoughts which are to us-ward they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee if I would declare and speak of them they are more than can be numbred O how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee which thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the Sons
far greater advantages on the other Just as you see sometimes a wild-headed and unthrifty Heir though there be no comparison between his future inheritance and a small sum of present money yet for the pleasing of a violent passion sells the reversion of an estate which after some years would make him very rich and happy So do souls that are not serious and deliberate heedlesly resign for mere trifles their apparant title to such things as are of most importance to their true and lasting felicity Though the possessions of the other world be as far beyond all our enjoyments here as this world is above nothing yet because these things here are present and because they are ever soliciting and offering themselves to us and because they entertain our desires with pleasure and because they put us to little pains to give our selves the fruition of them they are wont to prevail with sleepy and careless minds to purchase them though they part with all their interest in the other world as the price of the bargain From hence there grows a necessity of that precept of vigilance and watchfulness which our Lord Christ hath given his Souldiers lest through subtle insinuations or frequent and violent assaults this old enemy get up again and establish it self in a new and more grievous tyranny Augustus deservedly reproved the folly of Alexander who as the story goes was troubled in his mind for want of imployment after the conquest as he imagined of the whole world for he should have considered said that great Emperour that there is no less pains and wisdom requisite to keep a possession than there is to win it We must not think that we have ended our warfare when we have reduced the flesh to some terms of obedience and peace but the strongest soul will find it necessary to keep a constant guard or else that enemy whose weakness consists in our watchfulness will succeed in its indeavours to get all into its hands once more and settle it self in that throne from whence it was so happily depos'd Whensoever we grow remiss the experience of all the world tells us our souls lose as much in a week as they have been acquiring by a whole years labour To fall down is very easie and we tumble apace but we cannot climb the hill without difficulty and by little steps and slow motions we advance towards the upper world and the celestial blessedness which will cost us much patience and unwearied industry before we approach it But what will keep the Mind may you demand from this remisness what remedies can you prescribe to preserve a feeble spirit from being stupified and lull'd asleep sometimes with these gaudy Poppies these fair and soft enjoyments which appear every where and continually surround us who is able to keep a perpetual watch and never take a nap In such a long work who can chuse but be sometimes weary When I consider my own infirmity and the enemies strength my natural love to these worldly things and their restless importunity the length of my journey and my aptness to be tired and especially when I see so many seeming Champions that have been overcome so many that did run well who have grown slack or retired I am afraid may your heart say that I shall never hold out to the end and maintain the ground stedfastly on which I stand And indeed it must be confessed that the spirit is not alwayes alike able to make a valiant resistance and couragious opposition But what through the defect and disorder of the bodily instruments which it uses and what through strange occasions and unusual accidents that it meets withal to surprise it and what through the strength of some one object either of joy or grief or such like that seises mightily upon the imagination and what through its own timorousness which makes the enemy grow confident and what through the want now and then of those delectable motions of Gods good Spirit and those heavenly consolations wherewith it hath been transported it may fall into some listlesness and dulness and grow so faint that it hath but little heart to maintain its Christian warfare But yet for all this you ought not to despond nor be quite discouraged at the thoughts that you may possibly one day find your self in these unhappy circumstances You are not left without a Remedy either for the preventing of the fall of your soul into this condition or for the delivery and raising of it up should it chance to slide into it or for its safety and preservation that it may receive no harm whilst it lies therein and can for the present meet with no means to rid it self of so great a burthen This little Book comes to bring you some relief and lend you some support and aid in such a case It hath no other business but to give your soul the best assistance that mine can afford it for its security that whatsoever assault may be made upon you whatsoever weaknesses you may feel in your self and whatsoever advantage the enemy may make of them the flesh notwithstanding may never be able to draw you back again underits power but your Spirit may stand fast in its pious resolution and come off with victory and triumph at the last And let the Divine Spirit of Wisdom and Grace I humbly beseech the Father Almighty so guide my Pen that your Soul may receive no less benefit by the reading of these Papers than mine doth contentment in the writing of them and that the Good they do you may be proportionable to the Love from whence they come Amen I. AND in the first place let me advise you to bring your self into as great an acquaintance and familiarity as ever you can with unseen and spiritual things and to make your mind so sensible of them that they may seem the most real and substantial beings You easily discern how sutable this Counsel is to the foregoing discourse and you can tell your self how much of our listlesness and want of spiritual appetite proceeds from hence that these outward things press continually very hard upon us and make us feel that they have a being and a solid subsistance but the other rarely touch us with any force and so appear as if they were only in our fancy Our soul seems to us in our careless thoughts as if it were but a breath or a thin vapour But our Body we perceive to be a massy bulk of whose concerns we are therefore very apprehensive The Divine being though the cause of all others seems but like a shadow on whom our Soul having no fast hold it is no wonder that we rather catch at those things which we can grasp and feel to have some substance in them The report of immortal life and bliss in heaven comes to us like a common story of which there is some probability but no certainty and that inclines us to close so greedily with the
enjoyments of this life which make more strong impressions on our body than the other on our Spirit The glass through which we look upon this lower world makes every thing we desire appear exceeding great nay multiplies and increases it to vast dimensions but when we cast our eyes upward towards our heavenly countrey alas things appear there as if we had turn'd about the perspective so little so remote so like nothing that we can scarce discern them or retain any remembrance of them We have a kind of opinion and half perswasion concerning these inward and intellectual objects but we have a sense and full apprehension of our outward enjoyments Now though opinion may govern us and we may follow it while there are no considerable impediments to oppose it yet when any difficulty arises or something crosses our way to which we stand very much affected it will soon submit it self and leave us to our new inclinations because it is but an opinion We must confirm our souls therefore in a full belief of those spiritual things which thus differs from a bare opinion of them The one is grounded only upon probable reasons or on good reason but half considered and feebly assented unto the other upon clear and manifest evidences well digested and fully entertained So that the one leaves us weak and wavering because it leaves us half in and half out of the arms of Truth but the other makes us firm constant and unmoveable because it puts us compleatly and intirely into its embraces All those times then which are so favourable as to let your mind be free and unclog'd spend some of your retired thoughts in the company of immaterial beings and approach so near them that you even feel and handle them and remain perswaded they are no less real than those which you see and hear and touch with your outward man By which means they will infinitely more engage your affections and tie your heart unto them than any thing else can do because of the vast disproportion which every one acknowledges supposing their existence between them and all that you love in this sensible world 1. Think first of all that your Body is but the clothes and garments of your Soul and that this indeed is the man And undress your self in your own thoughts strip your self of these robes and conceive that you are only a naked Spirit This you can do and thereby you will both make your Soul think more of it self and you will likewise plainly prove it is quite distinct from your body in whose society though it live yet is not of its lineage but of another nature and original For nothing can think it self not to be since by its very thinking so it proves that it hath a being But we can quite put off all thoughts that we have this body hanging about us and the Soul can think it self to be what now it is though it look not through these eyes nor speak with this tongue nor write with these hands nor have any other thing about it but its own thoughts And therefore it is not such a thing as this Body but some better and more noble substance It is that which tells you that you have a Body If you believe it you have reason to believe withal that it self is some other being of more force and longer continuance because you can now think you have castoff your body and conceive it lying in the dust your soul still remaining as it is full of these and other such like thoughts but you can never think you have no soul because even by that conception you prove that you have and shew your self to be a thoughtful thing 2. When you have thus therefore discoursed your self into some feeling of your Soul think in the next place very seriously that whatsoever you clearly apprehend by this though it be perceived by none of your outward senses yet is no less real and certain than what you use with them Disbelieve your eyes and think that your ears bring you a false report rather than doubt of any thing which your mind doth plainly and distinctly perceive Though you cannot but yield an assent to the relation which any of your senses make you yet since the mind is the more excellent Principle and it hath a most certain existence give the greatest credit to what it affirms when none of them can afford you any evidence 3. And then you will presently find that your mind asserts nothing so strongly as the being of a God without whom it could not be Perswade your self therefore as confidently of him as you do of that which your eyes behold Though your eyes see him not as they do the Sun yet say to your self my Soul doth which gives as sound an evidence on his behalf as my eyes do for the Sun That great Light and all the rest of those Globes of Fire which I see in the Skies declare him as clearly to my mind as they do themselves to my outward Sense I cannot think of them nor of my self nor of any thing else in this great World but a Divine Being presents it self before me by whose incomparable wisdom and Almighty goodness they were at once produced and set in this beautiful and useful order in which I behold them Exhort your self therefore to look about you as often for this end as you are apt to do for other little purposes that you may see God in this goodly Temple which he hath built himself for his own glory Set your Soul in that Divine Presence which fills all things Open your eares listen to the wide World and hear as Gregory Nazianzen excellently speaks that great and admirable Preacher of his Majesty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 43. Is it possible as Athanasius well reasons to come into a great City consisting of a Multitude of Inhabitants of different sorts great and small rich an◠poor old and young Men Wome◠and Children Slaves Souldiers an◠Tradesmen and to see all things ordered so handsomely that every on◠of these though opposite in their inclinations agree and conspire together for the common good the Rich not grieving the Poor nor the strong oppressing the weak nor the young rising up against the aged Can one possibly I say behold all this and not conclude that there is a wise and powerful Governour there though we see him not by whose Authority they enjoy this happy concord Why then should we not draw the same Conclusion from the sight of this great World composed of divers contrary Beings moving several ways and to distant ends but making as good harmony alltogether as the various strings of a Lute whose sweet Musick coming to our eares proves there is some excellent Artist Orat. contra Gentes though hid from our eyes by whom they are tuned and touched Confusion is a sign of anarchy but order demonstrates a Governour 4. If then there be a God
and you feel your self a Being that can subsist and enjoy it self if he please without a Body excite in your Soul a most passionate desire to be so happy that when it quits the place of its present abode it may approach nearer to his blessed Majesty and have a clearer sight of his surpassing glory Put your self in hope also that his Divine Goodness which hath planted in you such strong inclinations and filled you with such desires will not let them want the pleasure of satisfaction Look up above and think that when your Spirit shall take its flight from hence there is some other Company to entertain it in another World whose acquaintance is far more desirable than the society of the dearest Friend we have here who perhaps as soon as he hath gained our love takes his leave of us and goes his way thither What comfort have we remaining in this and other innumerable cases but the hope of Immortality Which is the only thing that can raise our Spirit above the pleasures and the troubles too of this mortal Body This is our chiefest good on which we should set our heart This is the inheritance to which we are born as Lactantius speaks and for which we are form'd by vertue and piety the only inheritance of which we can be secure that we shall never be defeated For all this World we must leave behind us we can carry nothing away with us but an innocent and well-passed life and the hopes which accompany it He only comes to God rich and plentiful and abounding in wealth as his words are whom continence mercy patience charity and faith shall attend and conveigh into his Presence 5. To assure your self therefore of this great good on which our principal strength and comfort relies consider in the next place that your mind plainly tells you and its testimony is indubitable that God must needs be true and that whatsoever he saith ought immediately without any hesitation to be firmly believed For as he can never be deceived himself so we are sure he cannot deceive us 6. Now God hath been pleased at last to speak to us by his own dear Son as a voice from Heaven and a World of mighty deeds have testified 7. And seeing Jesus hath not only comprised in his Doctrine all the holy wisdome and all the goodness that ever was thought or spoken of since the beginning of time but hath likewise added a lively discovery of that state of good things which the heart of man naturally wishes and longs for in another World 8. And seeing in the last place God hath confirmed his exceeding great and precious promises of Eternal Life by his Resurrection from the Dead and his Ascension into Heaven and the sending of the Holy Ghost You ought to perswade your self of the truth of these invisible things and represent them so often to your mind till they seem no less real and certain than what you see with your Eyes and feel with your Hands Nay till all the pleasures and delights which the bounty of Heaven gives you in Friends or any other good things here seem but as shadowes and faint Images of the better enjoyments which you expect hereafter Those wise Men who were guided onely by the light of their own mind made no greater account of them And yet all the Philosophers of greatest fame were but little Children compared with Christian People in the knowledg of this great Point L. 1. praepar Cap. 4. as Eusebius justly glories We are not left to gather this truth as another of the Ancients speaks from the weak conjectures and imperfect reasonings of our own Lactant. L. 7. Cap. 8. but we know it from a Divine Tradition It is delivered to us by the Son of God who hath put an end to all disputes by coming from Heaven to us with the Words of Eternal Life Lay up his Words therefore most carefully in your heart let them dwell richly and plentifully in you in all wisdom and possess you at once with a mighty sense of God and of the dignity of your Soul and of Immortality and of the Joy of the Invisible World The Benefits of this Exercise are so evident that I may leave you to relate them when you have felt them It will be sufficient for me to suggest to you that the Heart must needs become by this means very cold and dead to those earthly enjoyments which were wont to bewitch and inchant it with their deceitful Pleasures If the Soul be cloathed as the Platonists fancied with as many Garments as there are Elements through which it passed as it descended into this Body and if it be so mufled in them that it doth but fumble in its thoughts and hath much ado to feel it self hereby it will be able in some measure to devest it self of those thick Blankets wherein it is wrapped and throw off those heavy coats that dangle about its heeles and incumber its motions as it sets its Feet forward to walk toward the Father of its Being It is no contemptible discourse which their Master makes concerning Felicity Plato in Phaedone which he rightly places in the contemplation and love of the Soveraign Good How that no Man can attain unto it in this Life by reason of the lumpish matter to which the Soul is fast tyed and by reason of the multitude of Worldly affairs which require our attendance yea and of the fancies and toyes that will fill our thoughts do what we can Whence he concludes that either no Man shall be happy which he thinks is very absurdly affirmed or he must arrive at his Happiness after he is dead And if when we are dead saith he the Blessed Time is come wherein we may enjoy as we would that greatest good then the nearer any Man approaches unto Death the nearer he comes within the reach of his Felicity If a Man therefore will with-draw Himself from the World if he will abstract his mind from sensible things and take his heart from bodily pleasures and turn himself into himself which they judged as the Holy Writers do a kind of Death he shall be in the beginnings of his Happiness There I know my Friend you desire to find your self and for that cause I pray you learn thus to steal out of the company of Worldly things which by hindring us from beginning our Happiness would keep us in perpetual misery Converse as often as you can with your nobler self and contract an intimate acquaintance with those divine Inhabitants which are lodged there Grow into an high esteem of that unseen Power which knows God and the Life to come which thinks and guides and gives orders desires and loves and doth all things else belonging to this Life And calling to mind continually its worth and dignity and considering for what heavenly enjoyments it was designed disdain to let it be condemned to so base a slavery as to serve the Body only
and make provision for its Lusts and Pleasures Rescue it from that thraldome and assert its liberty which is no such difficult undertaking since rightly to understand it self is sufficient for its safety and preservation And to say the truth the necessity of this Exercise is no less apparent than the benefit We had need acquaint our selves thoroughly with those Spiritual and Heavenly Beings and make them very familiar to us because these outward Objects are so near us and have gained such an interest in us that even when we are thinking of the other they will busily interpose themselves and are able in an instant to obtrude their Company though then very troublesome upon us How oft do our minds turn aside to speak with them in the midst of our Prayers How will our thoughts be discomposed at the sound of a Bell the creaking of a Door the buzzing of a Fly or some such weak and contemptible thing that affects our Senses When we are bowed down before God when our Hands and Eyes are lifted up to Heaven how doth the Memory of Yesterdays enjoyments or the fear of to Morrows troubles besides the thoughts of the present Days business start up and interrupt us we know not how or on what occasion The uneasiness of our bended Joynts the biting of a Flea the prick of a Pin some Word which we then speak any fancy that rises up by the natural motion of our Spirits will trouble our minds in our Devotion and carry us away from God It concerns us therefore very highly to work our minds into a stronger and more delightful Sense of Him and of all Spiritual enjoyments since our familiarity with the other is so intimate that the very least of them is in favour enough with us to give us an avocation from this better Company even when we are ingaged in it In order to this and all things else you know very well how necessary it is to implore the assistance of Gods grace and to beseech his Infinite Goodness that he will be pleased to represent himself more clearly than you can do unto your mind and lift it up above toward the Happiness of the other World Which you may do in some such words as these A PRAYER O God I believe that thou art and that nothing could have been without Thee who fillest all things and art every where to be seen and felt by observant minds who diligently seek Thee Vouchsafe I most humbly beseech Thee to behold a Soul that seriously aspires towards Thee and whom thou hast already filled with earnest desires to be united in Eternal love to Thee but is pulled down alas by this earthly body and in danger to sink without thy mighty aides into too great a love of these lower goods which here surround me Draw near O Father of Spirits present thy self so clearly to me and touch my mind with such a powerful sense of Thee that it may be lifted up above all earthly things and my heart may always incline towards Thee and be possessed with a constant and most ardent love of Thee Awaken in me on all occasions a lively remembrance of the worth and dignity of that Immortal Spirit which thou hast breathed into me And raise it up to as lively a belief and hope of that Eternal bliss into which Jesus our Lord is entred for us Fix my mind upon that unseen felicity and keep it in such a stedfast and delightful contemplation of it that nothing here on Earth may be able to tempt me down into an inordinate desire after it and love unto it O what glorious objects appear before me surpassing all that mine eyes behold now that my thoughts are retired a little from this outward World O what shadows do all things here seem in compare with those Heavenly enjoyments which thou presentest to me What longings do I feel excited in my heart after Thee What desires to be always with thee and to be filled still with a stronger sense of Thee O thou who art the beginner and finisher of all goood be pleased to assist my holy endeavours to withdraw my mind more and more from these sensible things that it may have a clearer sight of its Heavenly Country from whence it comes and whither it desires to return and there live for ever Preserve it thereby from the power of all temptations here and enable me to prepare it to be presented unto Thee by my Saviour adorned with that Faith Purity Patience Righteousness Mercy and such like Heavenly qualities as will dispose me for the Company of the Blessed I sigh to think O my God of the weakness of my mind which is so easily distracted and turned aside in these my addresses to Thee Pity me good Lord and knit my thoughts and affections to a closer attendance on Thee Help me to gather my mind into it self and there to enjoy thy Divine Presence with less disturbance from this outward World O that all things here may rather bring thee to my mind than carry it away from thee Dispose me so to observe the foot-steps of thy wise and mighty Goodness in all thy Creatures that I may perpetually acknowledg thee and then especially be born away far above all other things in high admiration of Thee and servent affection to Thee when I am thus prostrate in humble adoration of thy Divine Majesty And when I am so feeble as to wander after little things even while I am presenting my self before thee and offering my heart to thee Help me to long the more earnestly after that happy state wherein I shall with more steady thoughts and intire devotion give everlasting praises to Thee Amen II. NOW that you may the better preserve in your Soul these ardent desires and that they may not dye for want of continual fewel to feed and nourish them let me advise you My Friend in the next place to represent to your self as often and as sensibly as you can the incomparable greatness of that invisible happiness in the World to come In which that I may assist you as much as I am able I will direct you to such an easy way of managing your thoughts that you may pursue this counsel with no great pains and labour Justin Martyr observes in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew that therefore God laid such restraints upon that Nation and forbad them for instance the use of certain Meats the oftner to put them in mind of himself even in the most common actions of humane life and to make them remember they were under his Government and subject to his Supreme Authority which they were too prone to forget And will it not be a great shame if in these riper Ages of the World the free use that God hath given us of all things should not teach us as much as those restraints and abridgments of their liberty did them in the infancy of Divine knowledge Ill natures are taught most by their wants
may still see more of that wonderful love which he hath discovered in his Gospel and to accompany me with his grace till I arrive at his heavenly Court O let his good Spirit breath upon me and carry away my Soul in holy desires towards him Let it guide my course through this troublesome Sea wherein I am tossed Let it shine upon me and prosper my endeavours Let it bring me safely to a quiet haven in Eternal Rest and Peace These pious aspirations you may still pursue at the end of these Meditations in some such Prayer as this A PRAYER I Praise Thee I magnify thy wise and mighty Goodness O Lord who hast made this great World the Heavens and the Earth with all things contained therein to the everlasting honour of thy Name I thank Thee with all my Soul for bringing me into it and for advancing me so much above the rest of thy Creatures here below that I see the glory of thy Majesty shining every where and hear thy Name proclaimed and praised by all thy works of wonder But above all I acknowledg thy bounty with the most admiring thoughts and the devoutest affections of my heart for sending Jesus Christ upon Earth to open unto us the Kingdom of Heaven and to show us the glories of another World O the exceeding greatness of that love which gave him to dye for us and rewarded all his sufferings with a blessed Resurrection and then translated him to Heaven and appointed Him Heir of all things and setled his Throne for ever and ever on the right hand of thy Majesty on high From thence he hath sent the Holy Ghost to be witness of the fulness of his Royal Power and Love and hath shown himself sometime in Majesty and Glory above the Sun when it shineth in its strength that we might hope in thee for the like Resurrection to a glorious immortality in the Heavens No tongue can utter nor heart conceive what Honour Glory and Peace what joy and gladness of heart thou hast prepared there for those that love Thee But blessed for ever blessed be the riches of thy grace whereby I understand so much as to feel most earnest longings in my Soul after a fuller sense of that which thou hast made me taste and relish beyond all the pleasures of this Life O raise and inlarge my Spirit unto clearer more comprehensive thoughts of that supreme blessedness Thou who entertainest all thy Creatures with so much liberality who causest thy Sun to shine upon the good and the bad and the showers of Heaven to fall on the just and the unjust deny not to satisfie the pious desires of a Soul in whom thou hast excited an ardent thirst after its proper and eternal good But inlighten the eyes of my understanding that I may know more and more what is the hope of thy Heavenly calling and what the riches of the glory of thy Inheritance in the Saints and what the exceeding greatness of thy power to us-ward who believe according to the working of thy mighty power which wrought in Christ when thou raisedst him from th dead and set him at thy own righâ— hand in the heavenly places O life up my mind to that high and holy place where thou dwellest and where Jesus is inthroned and where the Angels and Saints continually behold and praise with joyful hearts the Majesty of thy glory and where our Lord hath promised all the faithful shall live and reign with him for ever Help me to climb up daily by all thy Creatures on which thou hast set such marks of thy Greatness Wisdome and Goodness to the contemplation of that Celestial Bliss And possess me with such a constant sense and desire of it that nothing here may ingage my heart which will indispose me for the happy company and society of the blessed Assist me good Lord by such Meditations as these to discern more and more the incomparable and surpassing greatness of that felicity which thy Royal bounty will bestow upon our advanced spirits and bodies in the world of rewards and recompences Affect my heart more powerfully with it and fill me with love and joy unspeakable and full of glory when I turn my eyes towards it Stir me up thereby to prepare my self with diligence and care by a lively resemblance of the Lord Jesus for the day of his appearing and to wait with patience for that blessed Hope when I shall not see as now through a Glass darkly but face to face and be made compleatly like him by seeing him as he is Enable me always to live upon this Hope and according to it that growing in all goodness by a chearful obedience to his holy commands I may be found of him in peace and be so happy as to hear at last those gracious words of his Well done good and faithful Servant enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Amen III. I Need say no more to excite one of your vertue to the frequent exercise of such Meditations as these which are no less delightful than they are useful Let me next unto this advise you to study the truest notions of God and of Religion the love of which is the way to that transcendent bliss and happiness of which I have spoken As you must believe things unseen and perswade your self thoroughly that they are so it is necessary you should inform your mind aright what they are And in particular look upon Religion as a most pleasant thing and represent it to your self with a face as fair and beautiful as you can If it seem cloudy dark and melancholy it will make you to be of the same complexion But if it have a lovely and chearful aspect it will encline you always to smile upon it The poor Norwegian whom stories tell of was afraid to touch Roses when he first saw them for fear they should burn his Fingers He much wondered to see that Trees as he thought should put forth flames and blossomes of Fire before which he held up his hands to warm himself not daring to approach any nearer But as he you may be sure was happily undeceived when he came not only to touch but likewise to smell those innocent Flowers which seemed to burn in his eyes so will it be with us when we come rightly to understand and feel the pleasure that Religion gives us which at first sight before we come acquainted with it looks as if it intended to make us Martyrs but not to crown us with any joys or contentments As the Martyr said of the real fire wherein he was covered that it seemed to him as if it were a Bed of Roses so shall we say of true Religion which we are afraid will scorch us and prove too hot for us Its flames are but the flames of love and it makes us not lye down in sorrow but in the most comfortable sense of the tender love of our dearest Lord. Think with your self therefore
when you go into your Closet and betake your self to your private retirements I am going to God my exceeding joy to my happiness to my hearts delight Welcome beloved hour which hast more of eternal life in Thee than of Time Rejoyce my Soul that thou art among Angels now and not among men Yea let my flesh be glad to become of a poor Souls Cottage the Temple of the most High God! Look upon Prayer as that which brings down Heaven to you and upon Praise and Thanksgiving as that which lifts you up to Heaven and upon Meditation as that which is the bond of the two Worlds and ties Heaven and Earth together Yea let every other good action seem a favour rather than a charge a recreation rather than a work And then for your notions of God do not look upon him as a rigid and unmerciful exactor of your labours but as a loving Father who is easily pleased and makes a most gracious allowance for your weaknesses and unavoidable impediments and is ready to forgive your many oversights and frequent neglects When we represent him to our selves as exceeding angry at every little indisposition and dulness that seises on us that very thought makes us more dull and indisposed because we imagine that we shall never be able to please him Or if we deem him though not implacable yet much in love with revenge and ready to strike upon every offence that we give him I know no readier way to render his service a most tedious task unto us because we shall go in perpetual fear of thunderbolts hanging over our heads and ready to fall down to do some mischief or other to us As we ought to have a great and scrupulous care to avoid all that is evil so we must believe when we commit a fault against our will and design that there is an Advocate with our Father who is a propitiation for our sins And when we look upon him thus as one ready to forgive that had rather do us all good than any harm and desires rather to see his commands better observed than the penalties for the breach of them inflicted this will incourage us to address our selves with a fresh chearfulness to his service and breed in our hearts a great love to him which above all other things hath a most powerful hand upon our obedience The more you heighten your love to God the more motion and activity will the heat of it give you and the more you heighten his love to you the greater flames will there arise in your heart to him Just as you see the Sun in its nearest approaches to us when its beames are directly over our heads produces a vigorous heat and life in all Creatures but when it is in the Southern Countries and looks upon us with an oblique aspect is not able to make us warm by its rayes So it is with the Divine Goodness which is the life and comfort of our hearts If we think that he looks asquint upon us and cares very little for us we shall be cold and frozen like so many dead Creatures in our affections to him but if we think his face is towards us and that his eye and the light of his countenance as the Scripture speaks is full upon us that he highly favours us and his heart is very desirous to pour down a world of blessings into us it will make our Souls leap for joy our love will spring up apace and the odors of it will be like the smell of Spices sweet both to God and to our selves We love God commonly if not always in the beginning of our friendship with him because of the good that he doth or that we think he will do to us and though afterward this breeds a strong inclination in us to love that most excellent Nature from which all good comes yet that inclination will still grow stronger by the continued thoughts of his kindness to us And therefore this belief is by all means to be nourished and preserved in our hearts especially considering that the stronger our love and inclination towards him grows by frequent reflecting upon his love and good will to us the more chearful and constant obedience shall we pay to him I have represented this so largely in another Discourse which you know very well that it may seem unnecessary to add any thing to it it here But it will not be unprofitable I am sure to recommend to you this one consideration more That the hearty love of God which naturally springs out of a stedfast and unmovable belief of his love to us is a thing so comprehensive and so powerful that it includes in it all the means which are necessary for the accomplishment of our end and contains the force of all those rules helps and furtherances which are commonly prescribed for the better observing of Gods commands Let me instance in these Five great Exercises to which you are often exhorted both in Sermons and good Books for the preserving you in his Obedience First To live as in Gods sight Secondly To pray continually Thirdly To watch Fourthly To depend on God for his assistance And Fifthly To look for his mercy to Eternal Life and plainly show you that they are all comprehended in Divine Love and cannot be separated from it For the first it is well known that this passion is not wont to let the Object on which it is fixed be absent from it but at whatsoever distance it be removed love brings it near and sets it ever before the eyes of him to whom it is dear And therefore if our hearts be full of love to God we cannot be without his Presence but shall live as in his sight Or to speak in the language of David Psal 16.8 We shall set the Lord always before us Whatsoever we do we shall think of him and consequently do it well and exactly we shall study purity of heart and the greatest clearness in our intentions because he sees us and penetrates into our secret thoughts There is no more easie observation than this that nothing makes a Man so diligent so curious so circumspect so decent and comely in all his behaviour as to be continually under the eye of one whom he loves to whom he desires every way to approve himself And it is as certain that ardent love makes a Person ever present to us and will not let us be divided from him When Phidias the famous statuary made the Image of Jupiter Olympius one of the goodliest that ever was he could not forbear but he must privately ingrave upon his little Finger the Name of one whom he dearly loved in these words PANTARCES IS FAIR 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it was not Jupiter saith Clemens Alexandrinus from whom I have this story who was fair in Phidias his eyes but the youth whom he loved The thoughts of his God could not put out of his mind the thoughts of him
us so many good things even before we desire them Do you not see how Men delight to commend extol and magnify that they love And how lavishly they are wont sometime to bestow those praises There is not any thing in this World so excellent but they will borrow a Metaphor from it wherewith to adorn their beloved They go to the precious stones and to the stars nay to the Sun it self to fetch some lustre from them for their expressions And more than this it 's usual with love as every one may observe to go beyond the nature and value of things and to make those hyperboles not uncomely which in other cases are ridiculous And as for gratitude we are all sensible that nothing is so acknowledging as love Every favour it esteems a Treasure and studies all means to express its resentments So that if it become a divine passion you may learn from King David how much it will dispose our hearts to admire and extol the perfections of God and excite us to give him thanks because he is good and his mercy endureth for ever Do but read the beginning of the 103. Psal and observe how he calls up all the faculties of his Soul to assist in this Holy Duty of praising and blessing the Name of God And then being conscious to himself of his own disability to offer him the praises that are due unto his Great and Glorious Name you may take notice how in other places he goes to all his Friends and begs of them that they would joyn in consort with him saying Psal 33.23 O love the Lord all ye his Saints and 34.3 O magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his Name together Let Israel now say Psal 118. that his Mercy endureth for ever Let the house of Aaron now say that his Mercy endureth for ever Let them now that fear the Lord say that his Mercy endureth for ever O give thanks unto the Lord for he is good for his Mercy endureth for ever And lest all these should not be able to make this joyful sound loud enough he invites all strangers to come and help them to the discharge of this debt saying Psal 100. and 117. O make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye Lands Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his Presence with singing O praise the Lord all ye Nations praise him all ye People For his merciful kindness is great towards us and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever Praise the Lord. Yea it is frequent with him to extend his entreaties to the Angels that they would lend him their help to acquit himself 103.20 and he calls Psal 148. upon all the lower Hosts of God who are in the Heavens nearer us and in the Earth also that if they can do any thing they would bear a part in his Song of Praise which he composed in honour of him And in the very conclusion of his Heavenly Book that he might say all he could he thus bespeaks the voice of all things which either by Nature or Art are framed for delight and pleasure Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. All which Observations I thought good to annex to this Discourse of the Power of Love in Prayer because when we have said all we can there is nothing so prevalent for a new favour as praising God and being heartily thankful for the benefits we have already received To which the love of God disposing us so effectually that it never thinks it can praise or acknowledg him enough it must needs obtain much of the Divine Grace for us and consequently secure our obedience to him above all other things Especially since 3. Love is ever Watchful which is another means to be joyned with Prayer to keep us from entering into temptation It always hath its light burning and its loynes girded It is ready and forward to apprehend and imbrace any occasion of serving him to whom it is engaged It is jealous of every thing which would rob it of that good which it ardently desires And therefore hath its eyes always open and by reason of its heat will not easily fall asleep nor suffer that dulness and weariness to infest it wherewith others are usually surprised I need not pursue this Argument any further it being so apparent that fervent love and affection chases away all drowsiness of Spirit and makes a Man slip no opportunity to do that which is pleasing in the eyes of God And I am the more willing to quit it because I have been so long in the former and have two other Considerations still to add 4. One of them is which I shall but briefly touch that it will breed in us a pious confidence of the succours of Gods holy Spirit in the power of which we shall be able to undertake any thing that he commands It is impossible to have any heart to do well if we have not this hope rooted in us and it is as impossible to doubt of it if we feel the love of God burning in our hearts Which is both a testimony of his Divine Power already working in us and an argument that he is as willing to do any thing further for us as we find thereby that we are to do any thing for him It doth not only widen the heart to impart but also to receive And the very same motion which carries it out towards God and towards others in sincere affection brings home large assurances that he will abundantly communicate himself to it on all occasions for the encouraging and assisting of its faithful endeavours to do his will in every thing 5. The other is this which shall put an end to this part of my discourse that it hath no less power to make us fully assured both of the blessed rewards I spoke of in the other World and of the greatness of them which are the strongest Motives to our obedience There is nothing so sharpens the sight to discern or enlarges the heart to conceive the things of God as this doth For God is love as St. John tells us and therefore he that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him Among all the goods of this World we find no where such repose and quiet as in hearty love and true friendship Nothing give us such a taste of pleasure and if the Object be worthy such satisfaction Of two it makes one so that they communicate in each others happiness And this satisfaction is wont to make them forget all other things at that instant For love is of such a nature that it endeavours to take up all the room in the heart and would leave none for any thing else that it may be intirely and wholly possessed of that which it loves And therefore when it is turned towards God and settles it self in him it must needs give us a lively sense of future bliss by uniteing our hearts and gathering up our minds as I
heat in them that they are pleased and move delightfully though it really hath no less of God in it self than it had before when they skipt for joy yet now the Body becomes like a lump of Clay and cannot endure to be drawn any longer to these Holy Duties Yea the Soul it self unless it duly consider will begin hereat to be greatly dejected and to have little list to that which gives so small contentment to it as it is an Inhabitant in Flesh and which makes its abode nothing pleasant and comfortable for the present But if in this state the Mind recollect it self and consider that for its part it doth what it did before though it doth not feel it self and perceive its power in the same manner and that it is not bound to produce these pleasurable motions in the lower man and that they are more pleasing to us than unto God it might presently have rational satisfaction and tranquillity in its own breast which is the best of all other joys and be perswaded to hold on in its course notwithstanding this seeming discouragement And if the Mind by these or such like considerations be induced to do as it was wont then I cannot see but all its performances would be both more acceptable to God and in the issue more delightful to it self For there is more strength of a Mans reason and will in them now that he wants that pleasing assistance which the Body used to afford him in the doing of them His love to God is the more fervent and unconquerable in that it will not cease its motion towards him though all things else fail it but only the force of its own inclination He is not in true understanding more weak and feeble now but a Person of greater might and courage than he was before He breaks through all difficulties and will not suffer himself to be overborn by the great load that lies upon his Spirits I said just now that the lower man finding a delectation in Gods service might be well contented with it if not desirous of those Holy Duties and so the Soul in doing them gave no great proof at such a time of the power and vigour of its own affections to them because there was no impediment or reluctance in the other party But when there is nothing but a sense of its duty to invite it and all beside begin to withdraw their consent then it is that it showes its resolution and what it can do by it self Then a man demonstrates his heart to be so set towards God and to be so much in love with him that he will please him though he cannot please half of himself in what he doth in obedience to his commands And besides by a right understanding of this that I have said there may be some way perhaps found of recovering these sensible joyes which are so grateful to us that we never think we have enough of them Either 1 by more preparing our Mind and labouring to work in it a deeper apprehension of what we go about And if the fault be there this will cure it Or 2 by gratifying our outward man with some recreations and sensible goods that it is in love withal whereby its spirits may be better cheared than they can be for the present with Divine exercises Seeing it cannot now have a good liking of that which the mind doth most desire let the mind make no scruple to comply more freely with it and entertain it with those innocent pleasures which agree best with its inclinations And if the fault lye there and arise from its lumpishness this may be a Remedy for it Or 3 by using humiliations of the Body by abstinence and fasting if through too much fulness it be indisposed or by smiting on our Breast casting down our selves on our Face if through too strong a taste of earthly joyes it be grown untractable and if the fault be partly in the mind and partly in the body it may be in this manner removed No body doubts but discreet Fasting is very profitable in some cases and for the other we find so many examples of them in the Holy Books that we cannot think they are to be despised Nay it is likely that good men found by an outwardly humbled body that the mind was more affected and apt to be humbled therewith But then remember that it is far better when the Mind affects the Body than when the Body affects the Mind and we should strive rather after that though we should not reject the help of this I will give you an instance which shall at once prove this and show withall the influence the Body hath upon the Mind Let a Man Pray or Preach in a melting tone with much action of his hands and with earnest looks and motions of his Head and the affections of the People shall be exceedingly stirred when as the very same matter and words delivered after another manner shall not half so much work upon them Nay if the Voice be but sweet and the carriage graceful though there be little action of the Body and no arts of insinuation to conjure up the affections yet the discourse which comes with these advantages shall find more favour and better entertainment with the Hearers than that which proceeds from an harsher mouth and a less plausible behaviour though otherwise it be of far greater weight and moment And so we see many People chuse to sit in the Ministers face rather than behind a Pillar or the Pulpit because they say their minds are made more attentive and their hearts more engaged thereby From all which you are satisfied how much the Soul many times is beholden to the eyes and eares and those stirrings in the blood which outward Objects create But yet you know very well also that one strong touch or stroke that the Mind gives it self by a piercing consideration is of far greater force to breed even a sensible delectation if the Body be disposed than all the commotions and agitations in the Body are to beget a rational satisfaction and contentment of mind though it be never so desirous of it And the affections you know likewise that are raised by those outward means are not half so much worth as those which the mind it self excites from the matter and not the manner of what is delivered These sensible consolations then are not to be slighted but it is far better to look after the other And if when we desire them it were as a step and help to the other they were the more to be valued and endeavoured after As the pleasant trembling and warmbling I may call it of the Spirits doth much clarify them just as the Air is purified by being shaken upon that account it is desirable for the affording our mind a freer sight of its own objects But if we love it only for the harmony and ravishing delight that is in it self then it may prove
dangerous because it is apt to take the mind off from its own proper pleasures It is to be acknowledged that when the Spirits are refined by gentle agitations the Soul sits in the Body like to the Eye in a clear Sun-shine day But if at such a time it gaze meerly on this light and do not make use of it to look upon other objects it loses by its advantages and for an eye full of light le ts go an heart full of joy and pure contentment And besides this it is to be considered that we may be easily cheated by these sensible delectations and therefore they are not to be desired so much as the other wherein there is not so much danger of being cozened Many warm Souls think themselves very Religious because they are moved at a Sermon or can weep in their Prayers whereas they remain as cold as a stone and as dry as a rotten stick to all good works They are covetous peevish proud and censorious and yet these ill qualities do not trouble them as long as they feel those pleasing motions which tickle them into a belief that they are beloved of God though they be no better And on the other side many good Souls imagine that they have more of God in them at such times when they find such melting affections in their hearts than they have at others when they are without them whereby they set a lighter esteem upon far greater testimonies of Gods love which then they need not want such as Humility Patience Denial of our own wills and resignation to his good will and pleasure Upon this account many Papists that have left our communion are wont wretchedly to deceive and abuse themselves who profess that they find their hearts more stirred before a Crucifix and the Image of the blessed Virgin and with Prayers which they hear in an unknown Language than they were while they attended on the Divine Service of our Church where they knew or might have known as much of God and our Lord Jesus Christ and all spiritual things as they can do now Alas they consider not how much the fancy is taken with Pictures and Bodily Gestures and all things of Novelty without any preceding consideration of the mind or any consent of the will before demanded These may be but natural motions such as are common to us with brute Creatures which are raised by outward objects and not by our selves And as a drop of sweet phlegme that trickles down upon a Mans Palate in a slumber makes him think he swallows honey or is glutted with sweet meats So many times do drowsy and inconsiderate Souls dream that they are full of the joys of God and satiated with Divine Pleasures when they are but mocked with those natural delights which agreeable Objects stroke them withall while their fancies are awake and their minds are asleep Let us attend therefore My Friend to the giving all satisfaction to our inward man and seriously comply with our noblest desires of pleasing God by doing his will in every thing And if we can likewise give contentment thereby to all about us well and good but if that be not possible let us not think we are the worse because we cannot since we are not the better if we can And seeing variety is so grateful to our weakness you may try what passions you can excite in your heart by this short address to God which I shall add at the end of this particular to many others which you are acquainted withall advising you still to be satisfied and well pleased in the doing of what you ought though it prove not so delightful to you as you desire A PRAYER O Great God What an happiness is this that I should be beloved of Thee who art the Lord of all things What contentment what joy what gladness of heart ought I to conceive in the thoughts of thy surpassing love to me and how willingly how chearfully ought I to do thy will that I may be more beloved of Thee Thy love is wonderful and unsearchable we have nothing in us whereby to take a measure of it It is beyond our understanding and hath exceeded all our desires and what have we larger than these I must turn my thoughts therefore into admiration and stand amazed at thy marvellous love who hast done such things for such poor and inconsiderable Creatures as we are Thou hast sent thy Son to be our Servant and he hath laid down his Life for our Redemption and he is alive again and exalted in Heaven to give us hope of thy endless love in life Immortal and glorious O how short is my understanding of all this O how weak are my thoughts now that I reflect upon it And my affections alas how short do they fall of my thoughts and how soon do they vanish and expire I can only cry out What is man that thou art so mindful of him Lord what are all the Sons of men that thou makest such account of them And when I have said this I have said nothing but that I know not what to say or what to think of thy love But it is part of the love which I admire that thou wilt accept of such as we have of our little thoughts and feeble desires and weak endeavours when they proceed from true love and sincere affection to thy service That O Lord I most heartily profess Truly I am thy Servant I am thy Servant and resolve for ever to continue in faithful and absolute obedience to all thy holy and good Commandements I am willing to be and to do what thou pleasest And I refuse nothing O that I knew how to attain that happiness which may make thy service alwayes pleasing to me Support me howsoever I most earnestly beseech thee with thy Almighty Grace that I may not be disheartned in my duty by any dulness or indisposition that seises on me but persevere in well doing with an humble trust and confidence that I shall never forsake Thee nor be forsaken of Thee Preserve me from vain elation of mind and false opinion of thy favour when I feel my self transported with extraordinary delight in thy service and from all dejection of spirit and unjust suspicions of thy anger and displeasure when I find less delight and complacence in the sincere and careful performance of all the duty which I owe thee Fix me in such a stedfast and immoveable love to justice mercy soberness and godliness that serving Thee constantly in these with an equal and quiet mind I may have an unshaken belief of thy immutable love to me in all the alterations and changes which I feel in my self in this life and an undoubted hope of a better condition in the life to come through thy inconceiveable mercies in Christ Jesus the righteous Amen Amen VI. BUT that your mind may not grow quite dull when your bodily spirits begin to sink and to be flat and listless Observe
My Friend what it was that first begat devotion and lively affections in you towards God and Goodness for that will be most effectual to continue them It is an ordinary Maxime in Physick that we are nourished out of the same things of which we consist Liquid things agree best with a Child while its Flesh is soft and but newly come from swimming in its Mothers Womb. Every Lamb runs to the Ewe that yean'd it and layes hold of her teates which are near the place where it lately lay And so may we hope to suck both most sweetness and most proper sustenance from those truths which first affected our hearts and wherein we have been wont to find the greatest rellish It is observable that Iron which naturally moves towards the Load-stone when it hath once saluted it and hath been received into its embraces is more possessed with a magnetick love and grows more sensible of its attractions and more desirous of an union with it than it was before that touch which made it feel how it could awaken and enliven it Even just so it is with our hearts which when they feel the kind influence and invigorating power of any thing upon them are the more disposed to receive the touches and impressions of it again and naturally open themselves and wish for it with greater passion than they did before they had that acquaintance with it If it was the loveliness and beauty then of the Divine Nature and Perfections which first awakened your Heart think of that and turn your eyes towards it for it is not at all withered or decayed How doth a fair Image sometimes slip through a Mans eyes into his heart and ingrave it self so deeply there that it is past his power to rase it out And will not a sense of God and the light of his countenance if it shine upon us leave such a lasting remembrance of it in our Souls that we shall like him and love him longer than a Day And if the first glance of him be so surprising and make us that we cannot easily forget how amiable he is O how infinitely more affecting will a serious and constant contemplation of him prove If a little ray from his face that glided into our hearts we know not how was so striking and glorious how shall we be inamoured when we stedfastly and on purpose fix our minds and affection on Him desiring to be better acquainted with his Excellencies It is impossible but you should find your heart more powerfully stirred toward Him when you consider likewise that you can never discover all of him but new beauties will every Day present themselves and shine upon you while you feelingly converse with him You will not endure your self if you should love him the less because he admits of your love and every day appears more lovely and desirable But it was a sense of his love to you perhaps which is far more common that begat in you the affection of love to him Then there cannot be a more delightful subject for your thoughts nor can Religion commend it self by any thing more than this that it is love begot by love And there is nothing surer than that you shall be constant and unwearied in your duty if Gods mercies and kindnesses can affect your heart for they are constantly and unweariedly poured forth upon you The new ones you enjoy daily are so many that you may know by them the old ones are innumerable You can turn your eyes no way but you see your self incircled with them and hear something calling for your love All his works declare not only the excellence of his Nature but his goodness likewise and bounty towards you For every one of them doth you some office of love They all wait upon you at the command of your Heavenly Father and they would instantly deny their Service did not he continue it by the Word of his Power He must be blind and never saw the Sun who sees not God and his goodness every where What beauties doth not that great Luminary create What fruits and flowers doth it not produce What Liquors doth it not generate How doth it cherish all Creatures How doth it fill your eyes and eares and all your Senses with its Heavenly influences And how many of those good things which you behold by its light hath God bestowed on you for your portion Rather than not love some higher Being one would be tempted to fall down and worship this The poor Persians of old knowing nothing more glorious had their hearts wounded with the Raies of the Sun and the light and warmth of its beames seemed so admirable that they adored and loved it as their God Shall not we then love him most heartily who made that and all things else who hath opened to us also another World as I have told you by our Lord Jesus far more beautiful and glorious than this to make us love him You can never want matter to feed your thoughts and to recreate your mind with delightful Meditations and your heart with Heavenly affections when his goodness is so largely diffused beyond the bounds of all things visible Or if when you would meditate on his innumerable favours you find that your thoughts stand still and will not stir or that they go backward and start aside to something else Your heart will even then burst forth into admiration and great expressions of love to think that his goodness should be so great to us who can scarce thank him for it or consider it But suppose it was a sense of sin and the evil of it which most startled your mind when you began to be Religious then every thing you see every thing you can think of will help to aggravate it And the more you heighten its malignity and represent to your self its formidable nature or reflect only on its baseness and disingenuity together with its pride and arrogance the more you will unavoidably be roused out of the sin of slumber and stupidity Or if it was the promise of Heaven and the belief of immortal life that I may name no more inducements which first invited you to od that is a thing so vast that your desires and hopes of enjoying it will not let you be weary of thinking of it Immortal Life What a good is that will you say to your self On what should I fix my eyes so much and with so much pleasure as on that blessedness Who would lose his Portion in Immortal Life for all the dying pleasures and possessions of this World though he could be sure to enjoy them to the end of his days Immortal Life I am not yet awake sure or else the very Name of it would make my Heart leap and quicken this dull and sluggish Spirit to the most earnest and chearful pursuit of it in all the exercises of Christian godliness What should make me move so heavily in the ways of God unless it be that
I forget to look continually towards this Immortal Life And what is that should make me forget it How come I to lose that sense and let go my hopes of Immortal Life O wonderful Love O patient goodness which still waits and attends upon me to remind my Soul of its everlasting bliss May I after so long a time of sleep and such forgetfulness be favoured with a sight of it Will my love and free obedience be yet accepted Awake awake then all the hidden powers of my Soul rise up and call him blessed Who can with-hold his heart from devoting it self affectionately to him With what pleasures can I entertain my self comparable to those which grow out of the hope of Immortal Life Or what service can be unpleasant which is undertaken for so great an happiness The thoughts of it make my Soul light and aërial even under the burden of this Body I feel it drawing me up above from whence when I look down upon all the men of this lower World how do they appear but as so many little Ants busily creeping on a Mole-hill while I sit upon the holy Hill of God O that my mind could dwell there Or since I cannot reach so high a felicity it may never descend from thence but with a lively remembrance of the joys of that Celestial Hope which may bear me up above all the petty temptations of this World For what is it that I labour and toil with such restless thoughts and desires For what am I troubled and discontented Can any thing make him absolutely unhappy who hopes to live for ever with God No I will rejoyce in my Lord always again I say I will rejoyce I will bear at least even all my dulness and listlesness to my duty with a quiet and composed mind in hope one day to be more full of life Here my Pen is very forward and would be running on further than my design will allow And therefore I must restrain it and abbreviate also the remaining Counsels having been so long in some of the foregoing lest instead of a little Book to carry about with you and refresh you I should send you a tedious Volume that will quite tire you Let me only annex before I leave this a Prayer to God which relates to what hath been now said and with which you are not unacquainted A PRAYER O Most Holy and blessed for ever more Who art the most excellent Nature the Perfection of beauty happy in thy self alone and needest not the Company of any of thy Creatures to make thee happier than thou art It is we poor beggarly things that stand in need of thy continued grace and love who art the Father of our spirits the only hope and stay of our hearts the joy and comfort of our life that filling and satisfying good in whom alone our desires can meet with perfect rest and repose The most glorious of all the Heavenly Host can find no higher pleasures than those of loving and praising and obeying thee whose Ministers they are and delight to be in executing the commands of thy holy will in every thing For thy will is guided by the best and most excellent reason and is so propense we see to goodness benignity and charity that all its commands must needs be reasonable and good too and intend the greatest kindness to those that are obedient to them Every Creature in Heaven and Earth and under the Earth and in the Sea obeys thy Almighty Word declaring thee to be as good as thou art great Rev. 5.13 and giving not only glory and power but blessing and honour unto thy Divine Majesty and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Yea that blessed Son of thy love when he came into the World freely chose to do thy will and not his own saying I delight to do thy will O my God yea thy Law is within my heart Psal XL. 7. What is there then in Heaven or Earth that I can wish but to be united in hearty devout and chearful affection together with my dearest Saviour and all the Saints and Heavenly Host to that most holy will of thine by a free and constant obedience to it It is infinitely fit and desirable I am sure that we above all the rest of thy Creatures should take a perfect contentment and pleasure in serving thee who hast not only gratified all our senses with great and delightful variety of good things in this World but also sent thy Son from Heaven to entertain our Spirits with joyful hopes of having our weak and short obedience here rewarded with great and endless pleasures at thy right hand in the World to come Lord what is man that thou shouldest have such a regard unto him And what hearts have we if after all thy grace we should delight in any thing more than thee or be weary and faint in our minds while we are doing thy blessed will O how deeply should we have been indebted to thee if thou hadst only admitted us to the happiness of knowing and loving thee and complying with thy good will while we dwell in this body But that thou shouldest design when we expire to recompense the meer discharge of our duty here with the continued happiness of being with thee and enjoying thee for ever is an expression of thy bounty that exceeds all our wonder and admiration If a full sense of this thy stupendious goodness should now possess our spirits they would grow I believe too big and large for our bodies and bursting forth in passionate love would make their way into Eternity which only is wide and long enough to admire and love and praise thee in But be pleased O Lord of love in thy infinite goodness to give me at present such a true and lively feeling of it as may make me think of nothing so much or with so much delight and satisfaction of heart and as may inflame me with such a fervent love unto thee that it may melt and dissolve my will into thine and consume all my corrupt desires and abate at least the chilness and indifference of my spirit and offer me up a whole burnt Sacrifice to thee my God And then stay I most humbly beseech thee for the fulness of my love and praises and joyful acknowledgments till I come to that happy liberty of having nothing else to do but to love and thank and magnifie thy Name for ever and ever It is my daily and repeated desire according as our Lord hath taught us that thy will may be done in Earth as it is in Heaven to which both now and ever I say most heartily Amen O purge and refine my nature to such a degree of vertue and goodness that I may at least delight to do thy will as those heavenly Creatures do O that those little little acts of Piety and Charity which I am able to exercise in this World may never want this complacence in the performance of them
which is the only thing that can give any value to them It is a shame that I should groan or go heavily under the sweet the easie and gentle Yoke of my most loving Saviour none of whose Commandments are grievous but all his wayes pleasantness and his pathes peace But there is nothing more frightful than to think that I have at any time opposed his will and thrown off the light burden of obedience which he layeth on me I adore thy pardoning mercy and wait on thee likewise for power from above to save me from reproaching his Religion by so much as any unwillingness to obey him I implore thy Divine Inspirations to preserve in my heart that delightful sense of Thee which may render it no less my contentment than my duty to follow Jesus in his humility and condescension of spirit in his meekness and patience in his kindness and tenderness in his holiness and purity in his love to thee and to all man-kind in doing good and suffering evil in resolved denyal of my own will when contrary to thine and in every thing giving thanks to thee O Father of Mercies which is thy will concerning us in Christ Jesus To whom be Glory for ever and ever Amen VII AND having thus poured forth your Soul to God you may feel your self sometimes so mightily moved that your heart runs out with much pleasure in abundance of pious thoughts and holy affections which you are not wont to find at other times And then My Friend let me tell you it would be of singular use if you would set down those extraordinary thoughts and passionate effusions of your Soul which you feel in your greater enlargements These are as so many Records which you have to show of the Spirits prevalency and triumph over the dull flesh They are the flights of your Soul whereby you see to what it aspires and how great and happy it may be when God pleases They are the tokens of Gods love whereby he would indear himself to your heart And you may look upon them as if they were Golden Chains let down from Heaven to draw and attract you thither and bind you fast but willingly to your duty It is great pity to throw away such sweet flowers after once smelling of them to lay by such good thoughts as we do a common Book after the first reading I would wish you to find some safe repository for them and to lay up carefully such expressions of your mind in Meditation or Prayer as are most lively and affecting and to fetch them out for your use when any dulness or straitness shall oppress you As a good Student when he reads a Book though he may let pass the most of it which he knew before yet remarks and preserves in his Notes the choicest parts in which he finds great strength of reason or sharpness of wit or may be any ways useful to him in his design so would I have you mark those passages in your converse with God and Divine things which have in them some fulness of sense some liveliness of conceit some elevation of mind and are so much beyond the ordinary strain of thinking as if they were some beam of light darted from an higher hand or the utmost endeavour of the Soul to be with God When you find I say your conceptions so fit and proper that you seem to behold the bare face of truth when some thing smites your heart with such a force of reason that you are constrained to yield or when such an holy breath comes into you that your Soul swells and grows too big for your body let them be noted as carefully as the Moneth and the Day was by your Parents which brought you into the World or as you remember the happy time when God bestowed some singular blessing on you which made this World a more comfortable place than otherwise you should have found it Examples you know are wont to move us much and therefore of what power may we suppose it to be when we can propound our selves for an Example to us This Copy as I may call it of our selves besides that it will make us blush at another time to see how unlike we are to our selves will also excite us to recover the same countenance and aspect that once we had and make some colour come into our Faces and warmth into our Spirits when we are pale and cold in the service of God It will remember us likewise of the pleasurable motions that were then in our hearts and remembrance is the way to call them back again It will furnish us also with some matter for our thoughts when they are barren and can bring forth nothing For though reading of some good Book in this case may be very advantageous to us yet nothing can more assist us than a Book of our own making the births as I may term them of our own mind Both because they best sute with our notions and can soon find the place where they lay before and because they will remember us also of Gods grace and goodness to us so that either shame or love or hope will make us strain to do the same again or to excel our selves When no thoughts will stir within we must call for some helps without to move us and what is there that will so easily enter as that which was once within us before Nothing sure can better fit us than that which our own Souls have cut out and shaped for themselves As a Chymist therefore that is drawing out the more retired spirits of things if he grows faint in his work takes a drop or two of his own extracts to bring his Soul back again so should we do when our liveliness begins to forsake us and our Soul complains of its weak and fainting Fits We must pour in some of those thoughts which we have formerly drawn out of our hearts which are as it were the quintessence of our Souls and the very spirits of our Devotion that they may recall the life that is flying away And tell me I beseech you what a reviving it is but to think that we once had such thoughts in our mind What a Cordial is it to the languishing Soul to feed as I may say upon its own Honey and taste of its own sweetness How greedily will it embrace and how gladly will it smile upon the Children of its own Womb How pleasant will it be but to hope that it may become fruitful again as well as it was before to behold the Picture of what it may be as well as of what it hath been in former times Save therefore some of these and let them not all be spilt as they distill from your Soul Lay them up in store considering the time may come when your Soul will be glad to have them restored to it and will receive them as so many drops of Balm Keep them by you as you do some precious
so likewise doth it more pierce a sinners heart to hear God say as you read in the Prophets Why will you dye Wilt thou not be made clean When shall it once be Shall I not visit for these things saith the Lord Shall not my Soul be avenged on such a Nation as this than barely to tell him that there is no reason a Man should destroy himself and that He is very desirous of his good and that it is high time also a sinner should amend and if he will not that He cannot suffer it but will certainly punish such continued contempt of his forbearance And therefore you need not doubt but your Soul will sooner open to you at such knocks as these and more speedily bring forth its conceptions and passions by the Midwifry as I may call it of such like questions and arguings with your self than by any other way whereby you endeavour to help its delivery Let me present you with an example of such a discourse sutable to the drift and design of this Treatise O my Soul may you or I say are we now to learn that there is a God Dost thou know nothing but what thine Eyes see and thy Hands feel and thy Pallate tasteth Strange that thou shouldst so forget to look into thy self And must I be ever demonstrating to thee that thou art not of this earth but a parcel of another World What Dost thou not call God thy Father Is it not him thou seekest With him wouldst thou not live for ever Say wouldst thou not Is not this thy earnest desire Speak and tell me if thou art not of this mind Need I use so many words to extort from thee this confession O how dull art thou if thou dost not yet understand the difference between his favour and all the Kingdomes of this Earth And is it possible thy memory should be so perfidious as to have no remaining sense of the incomparable happiness thou hast sometime seen he is preparing for thee Where hast thou been What hast thou been doing What is become of all those holy thoughts and of that blessed Hope of immortal life which was so lately the joy of thy heart Is that happiness grown less or is it less certain than it was that thou art grown so cold so listless and indifferent Let me hear thee speak what thou thinkest of it Is it true or is it not Do we Dream or is it a certain Report which comes to our Eares when Jesus tells us he will give Eternal Life to them that obey him What answer dost thou return Would a man take all the World in exchange for his Portion in such a bliss Shall our present satisfaction here be dearer to us than our future repose and fulness of joy in the presence of the Lord What did I say Satisfaction Alas how far are we all from that The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the Ear filled with hearing Who hath bewitched thee then to think of seeking thy happiness here Is there so much as room for thy choice whom thou wilt love and to whom thou wilt cleave as thy chiefest good Doth not necessity carry thee to God and to the eternal World if thou meanest to have satisfaction O how glad am I to find that there is thy heart What a pleasure is it to love thy God and to hope thou art beloved of him Dost thou not hold every thing for thy enemy which would rob thee of such a Pleasure But alas how long shall I find thee full of these apprehensions Canst thou assure me how many days this sense will abide with thee O how suddenly may I feel thee altered and become a sensless thing How treacherous wast thou lately how false to thy own resolutions Would one think thee a rational being when thou so forgattest thy greatest interest Was it thou who then didst govern me or some brutish soul that came for a time and officiated in thy stead How often hast thou told me of a World of Enemies that watch for our ruine and yet how negligent and supine art thou as if we had none Need I remember thee how long ago it is since thou didst yield and submit thy self to the weakest of them Thou knowest very well that on such a day thou wert very angry but canst thou tell me for what On another day would I could say but one day thou wast lazy Were thine Enemies then all asleep At another time a slight occasion made thee omit a good duty O at what a small rate art thou willing to part with thy peace Can one trust any more such a silly and fickle thing as thou art Can one rely on any of thy promises How wilt thou be able to hold out in such a long contest as we are engaged to maintain how wilt thou be patient to the end Such a dull and lazy Soul as thou art so timorous so inconstant so easily abused so soon pusht down with every occurrence what hopes can one have of it By this vehement inveighing against your self it is possible your Heart may be much awakened even in its most listless moods to some generous resolution and it may answer it self after this sort Sad things are here objected against me or if that be too mild a word why did not I say insufferable things Much sloth idleness impatience I wish thou couldst tell me all I am accused of and alas my present dulness assures me it is too true O that I could deny it without any fear of a terrible rebuke But must I therefore be so cast down as to be discouraged Can he that hath done ill never be so happy as to be able to do well again May I not hope so much as that I may be chidden into better behaviour Where is the doom passed that I shall never amend Show me that it is impossible or else I will not despair of it True it is I need a great deal of patience but where should I begin to practise it but upon my self Is it not fit to attend and wait till I can grow better Many enemies indeed I have but shall I become an enemy to my self also and shall I imagine that I have no Friend I have been inconstant and peevish and discontented and a lover of the World c. But must I therefore be always so No Therefore I will not be so always It is confessed my indeavours have been careless and lazy What should I do therefore but be more vigilant and industrious I have faln sometimes but is it wisdome therefore to lye still Do you call this good reasoning Is there any sense in such a conclusion Rather I will take more heed to my self and walk with greater care What though I have given back in some assaults May not a Man recover his courage and behave himself more valiantly O the folly of humane Nature that we should undo our selves at every turn first by doing amiss and then
of men What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me I will delight my self in thy Commandments which I have loved My Hands also will I lift up to thy Commandments which I have loved and I will meditate in thy Statutes O how I love thy Law it shall be my Meditation every day How sweet are thy words unto my taste yea sweeter than Honey to my mouth Through thy Precepts I get understanding therefore I hate every false way Do I not hate them O Lord that hate thee and am I not grieved with those that rise up against thee I hate them with perfect hatred I count them mine enemies Search me O God and know my heart try me and know my thoughts And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Teach me thy way O Lord I will walk in thy truth unite my heart to fear thy Name So will I praise thee O Lord my God with all my heart and I will glorifie thy Name for evermore Amen IX AND that you may be the more humbly confident both of Gods continued goodness and your own fidelity and the more fit likewise for pious Meditations labour I intreat you as much as ever you can to maintain a constant chearfulness of spirit and lightsomness of heart Without this it will be always night with you or but a cold Winters day and as you will have no list either for meditation or any other employment so you will be apt to live in perpetual suspicion of God and of your Friends and of your self Melancholy is a dull lumpish humour which makes us of a frozen disposition and a Leaden temper It inclines us not only to think worse of our selves than we are but to do worse than otherwise we should It represents those things as exceeding difficult which may be done with ease and those as impossible which have in them any considerable difficulty It benums and stupifies our Souls and will let us feel nothing but it self It quite dispirits us and will not suffer us to do any thing because it imagines we cannot stir It shows us to our selves in an ugly Glass and then no wonder we look amiss upon all things else Some things it makes to appear bigger than they are and then all the rest appear less And having conceived them otherways than they are it nourishes the conceit till we believe it real As under the weight of some sluggish matter in the blood a man sometimes fancies his Arms are as big as Posts and then his Hands seem as heavy as a Pig of Lead and he thinks he is unable to lift them up to his Head so it is with our minds when they are oppressed with the burden of a sad and melancholy humour It makes all our duty seem very great and our strength to be none at all All impediments it renders as big as Mountains but our selves not of force enough to remove a straw It first binds up all the powers of the Soul and then will not let them be unloosed It makes us very fearful of that which it perswades us we cannot avoid And it afflicts us for that which yet it makes us fancy we cannot do In an heat it pushes us forward but suddenly it cools and says we cannot go If it catch fire it makes us wild and when it hath spent that flame it leaves us sots and fools It pricks us forward sometimes to an enterprize but it self is the shackles and fetters that will not let us move This heaviness you must take heed of and give no indulgence to it For it is the worm of the mind as one of the Antients expresses it which eateth up its Parent that brought it forth Contrary to the nature of other births it pleases us much when we bring it forth but proves a miserable torment to us as soon as it is born Melancholy musings I mean are at first a very delightful entertainment to the mind but they grow in a little time to be a very troublesome brood They are a dangerous maze in which a Man may easily lose himself and from whence he cannot without much difficulty get forth Honey is not sweet to a feaverish man nor are the sweetest truths acceptable to the sad Clogs are not a greater impediment to the Feet than this humour to the motions of the Soul The eyes are not more darkned with some kind of fumes and vapours than the understanding is with its black imaginations The Ayr is not more poysoned when it is charged with a thick and stinking mist than the mind is offensive to it self and others when it is buried in its Clouds And as the Sun when it looks through a Fog seems as if it were all bloody So do the fairest objects even God himself appear in a dismal and horrid shape when these sullen exhalations gather about us Labour then continually to disperse them and blow them away by such means as you find by experience to be most available to that purpose For chearfulness causes the Soul to breath in a pure Air and to dwell in a wholsome and sweet inclosure It makes our work seem easie and difficulties seem little and God seem good and so our strength seem great and irresistable It inlightens the mind it incourages the heart it adds wings to the affections and therefore he that forbids it to our Souls keeps out the welcomest Guest and the best Friend that Nature hath It misbeseems none but the wicked in whom it is commonly a light mirth and a foolish jollity As you see fine ornaments and curious dresses set off an handsome Face though they render those who are ugly more ill-favoured So doth chearfulness exceedingly become good Souls though in bad men it be most ridiculous For which cause it is neither unmeet to use any helps that Nature affords us to acquire it nor to call in the assistance of innocent arts and pretty inventions to invite it to keep us company Socrates blushed not to be found at Boyes-play with his Children The wise and solemn Cato sometimes stooped to be a little frollick The great Scipio thought it not unbecoming his triumphal body as Seneca calls it to use grave dances and trip about a Room in decent measures Some devout men indeed have pronounced of such like pastimes as Physicians do of Mushromes that the best ordered are worth nothing but they did not mean sure to decry all those pleasures which of themselves are indifferent and which the intention alone can render good as well as evil You ought not to refuse any ingenious or harmless recreations which you find will cherish or refresh your spirit though by Souls of a dark complexion they be deemed fooleries It is too great a burden to impose on your self such restraints as not to dare so much as laugh for fear of giving occasion of suspicion to the weak or of slander to the wicked But since
you In brief This is an holy Feast where our Lord not only makes you good chear for the present but renews your decayed strength and begets in you a greater liveliness for the future One great end of the institution of publique Feasts among all Nations in the World was for the maintaining of unity love and friendship among the People that lived under the same Laws and for the recreating of those who were tired with their constant labours And it is the design we likewise see of our private Feasts which are times of ease and refreshment for our neighbours and preserve also good will among them according to that of Ben Syra a famous Person among the Jews Spread the Table and contention ceases We are all good Friends at a Feast Upon which account Plato was of Opinion that their Gods themselves in much pitty to Man-kind whose life is full of labour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Lib. 2. de Leg. did appoint those Festival times for them that they might have a little relaxation and be incouraged by those publique joyes to proceed without any murmuring in their several imployments We are very sure that God hath instituted by his particular command this Holy Feast like to which none ever was and which we may celebrate as oft as we please upon the Body and Blood of his dear Son Whereby a great love sure will be begot in our hearts to him and his service whose guests we are and at whose cost the entertainment is made meerly out of his extraordinary grace and royal favour towards us This sure will be a singular refreshment and restorative to our spirits when we grow weary and almost spent in the work of our Lord. The sweetness of this will be like Wine to the Heart or like Marrow and Fatness to the Bones It will stir us up when we are listless and comfort us when we are sad and put life into us when we are dead and make us not only able but willing to be Religious being both our pleasure and our food Seneca speaking of times of relaxation and rest from labours saith he knew some great Men L. de tranq animi who once a Moneth would give themselves a Day of play and others that every Day would allow some Hours wherein they would not so much as write a Letter or meddle with any thing that had the show of business If we in like manner did though not every Day yet every Moneth take this sweet repast if out of love to Christ and consideration of our own necessities we did lay aside all other thoughts and give up our selves to those delightful Meditations which here present themselves unto us it would ease us of many cares and troubles and make us more chearfully do the will of God at other times and dispose us to attend the whole business of Religion as the pleasure rather than the labour of our life But if you be cast into a place where you have not the opportunity so frequently to celebrate the remembrance of Christ's death by receiving the outward and visible signs and pledges of his Divine Grace then you may the oftner communicate with him spiritually in your own heart and represent his dying love as lively as you can to it in your retired thoughts Beseeching him to accept of your unfeigned desires to make him your publick acknowledgments and to joyn with all those pious Souls which are then met together throughout the Christian World to show forth his praise and to offer up themselves in holy love to him and to our blessed Redeemer Christ Jesus For which purpose I would advise you to make use of all such Meditations Prayers and Thanksgivings as are wont to attend those Solemnities altering only those words which relate to your actual receiving at the Table of the Lord. The profit of such a frequent remembrance of our Lord one way or other will be exceeding great for the securing your duty and the making all those Counsels which I have given you the more effectual It will put you in mind of the worth and dignity of your Soul for which Christ hath done and suffered so much and on whom he bestows such precious tokens of his love It will quicken your love to him which is the life of Religion You shall taste how sweet it is beyond all comparison to be Religious whereby we have such hope in God There you shall be remembred how gainful it is to be good beyond all the purchases of this World for Christ imparts himself to you and all his benefits There you pray with the greatest devotion and offer up Spiritual Sacrifices and you represent also the Sacrifice of Christ to prevail for blessings for you And there you are most likely to have the most plentiful communications of God's Holy Spirit to you and to feel your Heart dilated in the largest affection unto Him There you confirm your promises to God and he seales his to you You cannot there be of another judgment if you would than this that since Christ dyed to give you life you ought not henceforth to live to your self but unto him which dyed for you and rose again This I make no doubt is one reason why those promises wherein Men stand engaged to God are no better performed because they do not frequently repeat this holy action in the exercise of which they find their hearts at present fully resolved for God and goodness This is the cause that they waver again and all their Promises and Vows wherein they bind themselves fall off like cords of vanity Whereas did they upon all occasions communicate with our Saviour they would find their resolutions grow so strong and stedfast that no temptation would be able to break them They would be like Bands of Iron or Chains rather of Gold that would hold them for ever to their duty You have heard I believe the story of Mithridates who by often use of the Antidote which he invented so fortified his Spirits that they resisted the force of all Poyson Insomuch that when to avoid the Roman slavery he would have dispatched himself by a strong venemous draught he was not able to effect it Such a soveraign vertue you will find in the frequent devout receiving of the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood It will secure the life of your Soul confirm your strength arm you against the bitings of the old Serpent and make it in a manner impossible for you to be impoisoned by any naughty affections But I have writ so much on this Subject in other Books already that I need not say any more of it here You find I hope those Treatises useful to the stirring up Devotion and to the making a Soul more forward and unwearied in Gods service And there likewise you may meet with a particular Prayer for Love to the Holy Communion wherefore let me proceed without any stop to the next Advice XIII IF
greatest repute in his faculty to look after their health and administer Medicines to them Just thus it is in the case of our Souls it is too much presumption and careless confidence to rely upon our own counsel alone in the setlement of our everlasting estate or in the Cure of those Disorders and Distempers in our mind which threaten danger we ought to take good advice and for fear of mistake have the judgement of some more skilful Person to secure us as well as our own And indeed from hence you may learn what account God makes of your Soul and how highly it ought to be valued by your self for the safety of which He hath made such careful and plentiful provision Having next to the gift of his Son and of the Holy-Ghost setled an order of men to minister unto Souls to look after them and see that they do not perish for want of instruction or good advice As he would have our Saviour lay down his life for them so he hath thereby made him a most compassionate High-Priest and preferred him to a Kingdome which is nothing else but an Office Power and Authority to take care of Souls and do them good continually By vertue of which he hath committed Authority unto others in a perpetual succession that they should watch for Mens souls as the Apostle to the Hebrews speaks declaring to them their own worth and his love ingrafting that Word in them which is able to save them calling them to repentance establishing them in the Faith incouraging their Progress in vertue ordering their goings feeding them with his blessed Body and Blood absolving them from their sins assisting them in their last agony that they may finish their course with joy This is the effect of a peculiar kindness to Souls He hath not dealt so with our Bodies for we never heard of a Company of Men appointed by God to invent pleasures and contrive ways for the feasting of our Senses There are none separated and set apart by him to teach the World how to get riches and improve their Estates and fill their Coffers But all the wisdom of Heaven is employed to other purposes having ordained Men to teach us how to live above those things and to replenish our minds with his knowledg and our wills with his love This he hath made their constant function and perpetual employment to the Worlds end And therefore be not slack to use their Ministry nor doubt of the blessing of God upon it But have so much love to your Soul as to apply your self to them for assistance who are particularly concerned to give it and so much love to God as to be confident he will make those means successful which he hath particularly ordained for your good A PRAYER I Adore Thee O Lord the Father of Mercies who hast designed Mankind to the greatest felicity in everlasting Life And hast not left us in pursuance of it to the uncertain guesses of our own Mind but sent thy dear Son into the World both to assure us of that happiness and to direct us by his holy Doctrine and Example how we may attain it Blessed be the tender mercy of our God whereby the Son of Righteousness hath visited us from on high to give light to them that sate in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace Great is thy love O Lord which after he had left the World sent his Apostles and other Ministers of thy Word to be the Messengers of Reconciliation and Peace the Leaders and Conducters of Souls the Stewards of thy Mysteries and the Guides unto Blessedness Great is thy love which to this day continueth a merciful care over Souls in providing a succession of faithful Pastors and Instructors to teach us our duty to reduce us when we go astray to resolve us when we doubt to help us when we are weak or weary and by their counsels admonitions and comforts to bring our Souls back again safe to Thee the Father of Spirits I see O Lord how dear and precious our Souls are in thy sight for which our Saviour hath done and suffered so much and imployeth still the care and pains of so many Persons to take the charge and oversight of them and guide them unto their Rest My Soul blesses Thee and all that is within me praises thy holy Name as for all other thy Benefits so for the many good Instructors I have met withall the many good Lessons I have been taught and the pious Counsels and Advices I have received I thank thee for putting me into the Hands of such Friendly and skilful Guides and that I have never hitherto wanted some to conduct me in all the dangerous and troublesome passages of my Life Be pleased still to favour me with the continuance of the like happiness enduing me with wisdome to chuse and grace to follow such a person who may on all occasions clearly inlighten my understanding settle my doubts confirm my resolutions quicken my endeavours direct my zeal keep all my passions in order and secure my goings in thy paths That so I may neither miss my way nor proceed with irregular motions nor be discouraged in it but hold an even steady and constant course in well doing till they to whom thou hast committed the care of me deliver me up in peace and safety into the hands of the great Shepheard and Bishop of our Souls Christ Jesus To whom be Glory and Dominion for ever Amen XIV BUT when you are in your best moods and think your self furthest off from danger it will be good to exercise an Holy Fear and Jealousie over your self least you should give way to any thing which may make you grow worse Remember how false and treacherous the conquered Enemy is and therefore it ought to be narrowly watcht Though it promise fair Remember that you must not trust it without a constant Guard And mark the least beginings of an evil for fear if they be slighted as small faults they draw you into a greater Though we must not be dejected for our little irregularities yet we must not pass them over neither without a serious observance If a Father laugh or smile when he chides a wanton Child it is so far from being a check to his follies that it doth the more embolden him to play those idle tricks for which he is reproved And so it is to be feared we shall find our selves disposed if we be not in good earnest displeased at our selves for any thing that borders upon Vice and do not reprove our selves seriously for making too much use of our liberty We may be in danger by this mildness and gentleness to take the boldness to proceed to further transgressions But I may seem to forget to whom I write and considering what a great quantity you have of this fear I had need give it a large dash of some other mixture least it turn
Heaven expecting also a blessed Resurrection And if you say that in this state of dulness that I am speaking of a Soul is fit to think of nothing this thing will tell you how it alarms the heart and makes it muster up its thoughts and collect its scattered Forces that it may be in a readiness to receive the approaches of Death and its assault upon us And the thoughts of it at such a time are the more natural and easie because there is nothing more like to Death than this unactive and sluggish temper when the Soul seems as if it were buried in the Body and intombed already in this Vault of Flesh And it would be very easy to show how much every one of the foregoing counsels would be improved by our frequent conversation on all occasions with our Graves It would excite our minds to enquire after another World and make us very desirous to find it out It would raise our esteem of the great love of God who hath given us such assurance of a never dying life It would carry away our thoughts from this Earth as not the place of our setled abode It would presently send them above and bid them see the pleasures which we do but imagine here in their full growth and perfection of joy and happiness there O how delightful would Religion and Vertue be unto us which is the only thing we can carry away with us How curious should we be to judg aright that Death may not be the first thing that shall undeceive us How would it open our heart as I said to pour out it self in devout affections to God and what a comfort would these be to us if the records of them were spread before us at our dying hour This is so far from being an enemy to chearfulness that it is a forcible reason why we should freely enjoy all that God hath given us because we must shortly leave it Our Friends also we shall therefore be enclined to embrace more ardently and do them the more good and covet their company because we have not long to stay with them For when I said the thoughts of Death are apt to restrain our too forward desires I did not mean that it checks or abates our love to our Friends No Love is strong as Death and hard or unyielding as the Grave the Coals thereof are Coals of Fire a most vehement flame as Solomon speaks VIII Cant. 6. It burns that is like the Fire on the Altar for in the Hebrew the last words are the Flame of God which came down from Heaven and never went out Nothing can conquer it no not Death which conquers all Flesh That can only teach us not to place our chief contentment in any thing here no not in the best good in this World though never so dear unto us because it may shortly leave us only its shaddow the image of it in our memory which putting us in mind of our forepast pleasures will make us so much the more sad if we have not hope to find that good improved by its departure from us in another World And is not the use of a Friend then most visible when we think of our departure by whom as I said in one of the former Discourses we shall still remain with those whom we leave behind But what Friend is there like to our blessed Lord whose love we shall the oftner remember by commemorating his Death if we think of our own We cannot chuse but be excited to prepare our selves thereby for an happy and chearful dissolution And why should we not trust God with all we have for a little time whom we must shortly intrust with Soul and Body to all Eternity But I list not to prolong this Discourse with such collections as these which I will leave to your own thoughts with this Prayer wherewith you may awaken your mind when you find it necessary A PRAYER THou art worthy O Lord of all Praise Glory and Honour by whose Omnipotent Will and for whose pleasure all things in Heaven and Earth were created and by whose indulgent Providence they are continually maintained and preserved They shall perish but thou shalt endure yea all of them shall wax old like a Garment 102. Psal 26.73.26 as a Vesture shalt thou change them and they shall be changed But thou art the same and thy Years shall have no end I prostrate my self before Thee in an humble sense that I am but sinful dust and ashes who have nothing to glory in neither riches nor strength nor wisdome but only this O how happy is it for me that I know thee the ever living God the Rock of Ages the only solid foundation of our comfort and joy who when my Flesh and my Heart faileth wilt be the strength of my Heart and my Portion for ever I am now presenting my Soul and Body to Thee in perfect health but cannot tell where I shall be the next moment or whether I shall live to breath out the desires of my Soul once more unto Thee For in thy hand is the breath of our Nostrils and when thou pleasest we are turned to destruction We dwell in Houses of Clay whose foundation is in the dust and they are daily crumbling and mouldering away so that we know not how soon they will vanish and be seen no more O how serious should the thoughts of this make me in all my addresses unto Thee How dead to all the sinful enjoyments of this World How holy and pure How heavenly minded and spiritual How ready to do good and to communicate to others those things which I must shortly leave How diligent to assure my self thereby of better enjoyments to make friends in Heaven that when I go hence I may be received into everlasting Habitations I see O Lord now that I think of my departure how unprofitable my too many cares are for the things of this life How vain my eager desires after unnecessary riches and honours how trifling all my pleasures and that there is no solid happiness but in thy love and a pious hope of immortality O my God be so good to me as to turn my thoughts frequently toward my latter end and to fix in my mind a lively sense of the uncertainty of my being and the fickleness of all things belonging to it That since I must shortly leave them all even my dearest Friends and Kindred and this body too which must be turned into corruption I may most zealously endeavour to secure thy love and friendship in a better life by the constant chearful and earnest exercise of all godliness and vertue while I tarry here Help me to be as humble and lowly as the dust to which I am going to bury all anger hatred and enmities since we must needs dye 2 Sam. 14.14 and be as Water spilt upon the Ground which cannot be gathered up again to discharge my mind of all superfluous cares and
may speak wholly unto it It participates with that supreme good to which it is united It carries in it self a great deal of the life of God it is a part of Heaven and the business of the other World But besides the solace which is inseparable from it there is this remarkable property in the passion of love that it strangely disposes us to believe all the kind expressions of our friends and makes us easily receive whatever they say for certain truth Upon which account the love of God will incline us above all other things to entertain every thing that he shall communicate of his mind unto us And there is nothing so great nothing so magnificent declared in the Gospel of his Grace but he that loves God will presently believe it and lay it up in his heart as a singular expression of his divine favour For he feels by the power and force of this affection in his own heart what God is enclined to do for those whom he loves and takes delight in though it seem incredible to other Men. And therefore as it doth not pose his belief who loves God when he hears that the Word was made Flesh for the good of men that the fulness of the God-head dwelt bodily in Jesus that he dyed for sinners and lay'd down his life for the Redemption of Enemies So the Resurrection of Christ from the dead his Ascension to Heaven the exaltation of our Nature in his Person at Gods right hand the Glory and Majesty in which he is said to shine there and in which we are told we shall at last appear together with him are no riddles nor incredible things to him No Love sees him there preparing a place for us making all ready for the joyful Marriage to be celebrated in his glorious Kingdome coming in the Clouds of Heaven to call us up thither and to advance all his Subjects to reign as so many Kings together with him This makes a man presently understand how God should design to reward our poor endeavours those services to which we stand obliged though but weakly performed with an everlasting inheritance How he should compensate our present sufferings which are but for a moment and not worthy to be named with a far more exceeding Eternal weight of Glory Hyperbole's go down easily with this Mans Faith He can believe beyond them all and see what is far beyond that far more exceeding Eternal weight of Glory as the Apostles words import 2 Cor. 4.17 He is assured the love of Heaven will enkindle a new life in our dead ashes He beholds it sublimating this earth to an Heavenly state And can well conceive this thick Clay shining as the Sun and made like to the glorious Body of Christ This Soul also as pure as the light saluting its new born Body and possessed with a mighty love rejoycing for ever in Gods bounteous kindness to it All this it sees nay feels being already filled as St. Paul speaks with all the fulness of God For it feeling First what a vast difference there is between it self now and what it was before when it was pent up in scant and narrow affection to these petty goods here below makes no doubt there may be as wide a difference between what it shall be hereafter and what it is now It presently concludes that the same powerful goodness which roused up and called forth its sleepy thoughts and drowsie desires towards it self can still further awaken and raise all its faculties to a more quick and lively sense or call forth some hidden power and vertue in the Soul which hath as yet no more appeared than those motions which now it feeles did before it was touched by his Almighty hand And Secondly finding its own nature by this touch of the Divine Love made so free and benign so abundant and overflowing in kind affection to others so open-hearted and gracious it concludes that the Almighty goodness not only can but will do more for it and confidently expects to be lifted up to an higher state of bliss proportionable to the superabundant kindness of that most excellent Nature which hath produced already such good inclinations in it It is impossible for a Man to be under the power of love to feel the huge force of its flames to perceive of what a spreading and communicative Nature it is and not conceive very magnificently of the bounty of God and have a faith in him as large and capacious as his love Love God therefore My Friend as much as ever you can with the greatest passion and most ardent affection and you shall find Heaven coming apace into you and taste the good things of the promised World to come You shall not only guess at your future state and make conjectures about it but in some measure know and feel the all-filling joy of our Lord and possess that quiet tranquillity and peace which passeth all understanding For this Divine love is the right sense whereby Heavenly things are apprehended It is that which fits the mind rightly to understand and the will firmly to believe those great and transcendent things which the Scripture reports as the portion of the Saints in light It gives us a sight of things as much differing from all other which we have meerly by dry reasoning and which we spin out by thoughtful Discourses as the sight of a great beauty before our Eyes differs from the description of it which we read in a Book or as the warmth of fire on the hearth doth from that we see in a Picture which cannot loosen and inliven our stark and benummed Joynts And if you would love God I have told you the ready way to it which is by preserving in your mind a constant and lively sense of his infinite love and good will already expressed to you for this will naturally and easily produce a reciprocal love to him and that will make you look for more of his mercy even to Eternal Life This you understand so well that I shall not say a word to you more about it but proceed to the next when I have left a few words with you to say to God A PRAYER O God how great is thy love how excellent is thy loving kindness towards us thy unworthy Creatures To whom thou takest such pleasure in communicating thy blessings that thou dost not stay till we ask them of thee but pourest them down plentifully before and beyond all our desires O the inconceivable depth of that love from whence thy Son Jesus was sent to dwell among us who hath done so much for us that he hath left us nothing to do but to consider and lay to heart thy love which hath so marvelously abounded towards us For all things I know are easie and pleasant to those that love Thee Great Peace have they that love thy Law and nothing shall offend them O possess this heart which opens it self to thy gracious influences
with such a mighty love to thee as may set Thee alway before me and carry forth my Soul in ardent desires after thee and fill me with an humble confidence in thee and make me watchful active and zealous in my duty and never suffer me to distrust thy pitty and indulgence when I unwillingly offend thee and assure me of thy kind intentions in all the cross accidents of this life which are most offensive to me I doubt not O Lord of a power from above continually to attend me now that I feel thy love so strong and powerful in me I believe thou wilt do more for me both here and eternally than heart can conceive O how great things hast thou laid up for those that fear thee O the heighth of that joy which thou hast set before us to encourage us in our Christian race O the comfort of those gracious words which promise us after our short pains and trouble here a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory How pleasant is it to wait for thy Son Jesus from Heaven to give a Crown of righteousness to me and to all those that love his appearing Preserve I beseech thee this holy love and faith most fresh and lively in my heart to my great increase in all the fruits of righteousness which are by Christ Jesus unto thy glory and praise Maintain in me such chearful thoughts of thee that Religion may be my delight as much as it is my duty and I may alway approach unto Thee with a joyful heart being glad to leave the company of all other things to go to thee my God my exceeding joy Reconcile me so perfectly to every other part of my Christian duty that all the actions of an holy life may be but so many motions of hearty love to thee and I may so feel the ease and satisfaction of all well doing as to love and delight the more in thee whose wayes are wayes of pleasantness and all whose paths are Peace I am sensible of the uncertainty of all things else but only of thy love which will inspire me I hope to behave my self worthy of the greatness of it in every state and condition of life O that in prosperity I may think I have an opportunity to show how much I love Thee above the World by exercising humility heavenly-mindedness charity temperance and purity and in adversity how much I love thee more than my self by expressing all patience meekness forgiveness of others chearful submission to Thee and confidence in Thee with thankfulness for all thy past and remaining mercies Be they always acknowledged and never forgotten by me For which end I again consecrate my Soul to be thy holy Temple wherein may dwell continually pious and religious thoughts devout Meditations of Thee and remembrance of thy loving kindness intire love to Thee sending up perpetual Hymnes of Praise and Thanksgiving together with the constant sacrifice of an humble and obedient heart That so I may be filled with the comfort and joy of the Holy Ghost at present and hereafter be admitted into the fellowship of Saints and Angels with them to rejoyce and praise Thee in fulness of love World without end Amen IV. BUT as I would have you exceedingly in love with Religion so I must advise you not to charge your self with too many or too long exercises of Devotion For Honey it self will cloy us and a perpetual scent of Roses may become offensive to us Observe therefore what you can do with ease and a pleasantness of Spirit And when you find your self to be free and forward then you may be the longer and more enlarged in your Devotions But when you are very heavy and straitned then it is not fit to tire your spirits and drag them along with you whither they have no strength to accompany you nor any disposition to comply with your desires Our Body is such a beast and sometimes so dull and restife that if we spur it on to a faster pace it not only quite tires but will have no list to travel any more Whereas if we bait it a while and suffer it to take some repast and give it some rest it will go along with us to the end of our Journey When our spirits are dull already we make them more dull by our restless importunity to do as we would have them As a Child you may have observed when he cannot think of his Lesson the more his Teacher chides and calls upon him the more blockishly he stands and the further it is beat out of his memory so it is very frequently with the natural spirits of every one of us They are so oppressed and stupid at certain seasons that if we labour to set them in motion it doth but dispose them the more to stand stock-still But if we let them alone and for that time leave them they will be like the same Child who in a short time comes to himself and is able to say his Lesson perfectly They will go whither we would have them and perhaps run before us We must do then with our selves as one that is weak and going up an high and steep Hill When he feels his Legs begin to fail him and complain that they are weary he rests a while and sits him down to recruit himself And it will not be long before he hear his mind calling on him to try if he hath not gathered some new strength with which he marches a little further according as it will carry him And if he hath any cordial spirits in his Pocket a little taste of them may much revive him in this languishing condition Yea the pleasant prospect of the Fields round about him and the various Objects that gratefully entertain his eyes if he cast them on every side will be a fit divertisement for his mind to turn it from thinking of his weariness Thus I say My Friend it is adviseable for you to do rest your self a while and make a pause when you perceive your spirits begin to flag Break your Devotions into little parts and take not the Journey you have set your self all at once When your mind tels you that now you are better able or prompts you to try your strength then up again and go forward And between whiles turn your mind aside to something or other that is wont to please you much Think of some good Friend of the many fair accommodations that God hath afforded you of the pleasant Meadows as I may call them and the still Waters by which he leads you or betake your self to some Divine promise and take a taste of the love of God contained therein which is as a Cordial to chear and refresh the Spirits or run to the extract or quintessence that you have drawn as I shall direct you anon out of former Meditations and some of these its possible may make you quite forget that you were faint and weary And truly for the most
of immoderate love of dying things to enjoy them innocently and chearfully to do good with them heartily and to envy no Man's greater prosperity to suffer evil and to take the loss of them patiently to admire that mercy which still prolongs so frail a life as mine is and especially to admire the gracious terms of thy holy Gospel which for our short labours or sufferings here hath promised us the reward of an endless life in a better place Dispose me likewise to be willing to leave this World and to be always in a readiness for my departure that I may never be surprised with sudden Death nor obey thy summons with an heavy heart but freely resign my spirit unto Thee who gavest it O how much do I desire the continuance of these holy thoughts and inclinations that so I may have such a love to this world as is consistent with my hope of Heaven and be so busied in earthly affairs that my heart may be there where my treasure is and be tyed to my friends in such affection that we may not be eternally divorced And the nearer I draw to that eternal World O that I may be the more pure and separated from all worldly mixtures and the clearer sight and prospect I may have of my happiness and attain the greater assurance of thy love and be the fuller of joy in hope of thy glory Pitty my present weakness increase my strength help me not only to resist but to overcome all temptations enable me to discharge the duties of my several relations prepare me for all varieties of conditions that in prosperity I may not forget Thee nor imagine in adversity that thou forgettest me but in all I may be the same and have the same thoughts of thee love to thee and delight in Thee till I come to an unchangeable goodness and happiness with the Lord Jesus Amen XVI BUT if you be so much discomposed at any time that you cannot get your thoughts close to this business nor find any relief in any of the foregoing counsels I must then in the last place send you to a never failing remedy which is to Exercise a great deal of patience towards your self I am so well assured of your goodness and that my judgment is not herein blinded by my affection to you that I dare conclude with this Advice Be content to be dull sometime and able to do nothing as you would and yet do not think the worse of your self for it But if it do stir up any suspicions in your mind of you do not know what fault yet never bluster at your self but with a calm and gentle spirit suffer this distemper Look upon your self as sick and think that it is not good now to stir any humours And therefore strive not too much neither with your self do not distrust this counsel when you are thus melancholy for that will but cast you more into it You will be the sooner eased if you do as well as you can and add not a greater load to your spirit by your own fretful thoughts at this untoward indisposition You must consider that our Bodies being a part of this World will be obnoxious to those changes which are in things adjacent to them And that your Soul being united to your Body cannot but feel its vicissitudes Just as when the House smoaks the Inhabitant is offended unless he can step out of Doors Consider also that the same work is not required of a weak and of a stronger Person The Nemalim and the Gemalim as the Jews speaks must not be alike loaded that is the Ants cannot carry such a Burden as the Camels You must thank God it is no worse with you and that you have not quite forgot Him Thank him I say that you have any use of patience and that you are not under an absolute stupidity Remember likewise that it will be better with you As long as there is the same Sun in Heaven the Clouds will be dispersed and we shall have fair days as well as foul and as long as our Lord lives and changes not there will be a brighter season and we shall be warm as well as cold Think likewise how unworthy the best of us is to live always under the Sun-beames And that as there are many Countrys more North 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gland who in the depth of our Winter are in a long and dismal Night so there are many Souls who are in a colder case and more remote from the Sun of righteousness than yours is But however think that after you have done what you can it is the will of God that you should be as you are And if this dulness please him it need not displease you Remember also that he is not perfect in patience who can bear with others but not with himself And again that there is good reason you should bear with your self because accidentally this dulness will breed a greater activity when you come out of it Both out of justice that you may make some recompence for that drowsiness and out of gratitude to him by whose goodness you were delivered from it For Nature you know instructs us to be very kind to those who have helpt us ou◠of a very great distress and it is not easie to blot their readiness to relieve us out of our memories And besides it is manifest there are some kinds of dulness and indisposition which arise from the meer necessity of Nature With which we can no more reasonably quarrel than we do because it rains or snows when we would have it fair weather Can it be expected for instance that a Woman with Child should be so vigorous as she was wont She must be content perhaps to spend that time in vomiting which once she did in praying It must not put her to pain in this case that she cannot read or think so long or with so much delight or with such clearness of understanding as formerly she could but she must comply with her condition and considering no more can be done in such circumstances believe that God requires no more There is as much reason to be troubled because she hath not Wings to fly or cannot walk now as fast up her stairs as when she had no burden as to chide her self that she cannot be so earnest so long so chearful as formerly in the performance of Holy Duties There are many cases like to this in which there is no more caution necessary but to see that too much care of our ease and indulgence to our present infirmity which must at such a time be liberally allowed do not tempt us to be negligent in that which it is in our power to perform We may often retire to God in shorter thoughts and affectionate longings and pantings after him and thereby keeping our hearts in a glowing temper we may prevent that chilness and laziness which otherwise might creep upon us and make us imagine our selves less
able than we are And particularly I would advise you on such occasions to lift up your Soul frequently to God in earnest desires beseeching Him to preserve you from cheating your self and that he would help you to discern clearly when it is the flattery and when it is the meer weakness of Flesh and Blood that hinders you from doing as you were wont When you cast a glance I say towards Heaven and send up a sigh thither now and then as you are able let this be one of your desires that God would be so gracious as to give you to feel plainly when meer necessity requires your attendance on your Body and when it calls for more than it needs For he loves that in every thing we should make known our requests to Him and will certainly some way or other satisfie your mind in such concernments And when you have used the best judgment you have and can procure together with your Prayers about them then I hope you will be chearful and let your thoughts trouble you no more Or if a thought should happen to start up and strike your mind telling you that you are lazy yet believe I beseech you your more deliberate and not these suddain conclusions There is one case I know of this kind wherein though it be certain that it is impossible for us to do as we were wont and that we are not hindred by any fault in our will but by the meer indisposition of nature yet it may be hard sometime to avoid dejected and complaining thoughts upon this account It is in sickness when the Mind necessarily languishes with the Body You may chance then to imagine that some sin or other is the cause of this Correction and so you have drawn this disability upon your self for which you cannot now be humbled as you desire But I hope My Friend that you take such an exact view of your life that sickness will not let you see any fault that was not visible to you before And I know you to be wiser than to torment your self with a fancy that there is some sin lurking in you though you cannot find it out But if any thing should discover it self to you which was not so evident before let me beseech you not to pass any hard censure upon your self But to remember that this hath been bewailed whensoever you lamented the general infirmity of your nature and that now perhaps it is represented to you more ugly than it doth deserve or if it be not yet it is sufficient only to beg of God to accept your hearty confession and your promise of amendment when you are able and to desire your spiritual guide to be the witness of your sincere resolution and to give you absolution and his blessing and so rest satisfied But there may be another reason likewise assigned of our heaviness at certain seasons which I have noâ— yet named and that is the withholding in a great measure of thaâ— strength and power which was upon us from the Holy-Ghost to raise and elevate us to an high pitch of love activity and joy in well doing For as the help of that doth lift us up above our selves so when it much abates we are apt to fall as much below our selves and to be surprised with sadness and dejection of spirit to see our selves so strangely changed And this may be denyed us for several causes either because we have not improved it so well as we might or because our Lord sees that our Nature cannot bear always such extraordinary motions or that he may make us more sensible of his favours and raise their price and value in our esteem or that he may try our strength as a Mother le ts go her hold of the Child to make it feel its Feet or that he may thereby bow our wills more absolutely to his and break our self-love which desires nothing but pleasure or that he may prove whether we will love him for himself and not for the delicate entertainments which he gives us or for some such cause unknown to you and me and every body else And shall we not yield submission quietly to a thing for which there may be so many reasons and those not at all to our prejudice but to our profit Let me say a few words concerning the two last things mentioned and show you that if our Patience be exercised upon those accounts it will prove very beneficial to our Souls I cannot say as some have done that we ought not to desire goodness for our own good but meerly because it is pleasing to God No this seems to me a very absurd doctrine and utterly impossible that we should separate these two Piety and our own good We cannot so much as desire to be good but we shall feel a satisfaction in it For the very Name of good carries a respect in it to something in us to which it is agreeable and convenient We do not mean when we bid you love God for himself that you should not therein love your self and seek your own contentment for you cannot chuse but be pleased in the love of God and vertue But this I may affirm with safety that there may be sometimes too much of self-love in our vehement desires after the extraordinary pleasures and joyes of piety and that if we could be content after we used due diligence with our driness and barrenness of spirit with our dulness and want of vigour nay with our frailties and faults too meerly out of submission to God and because he thinks not fit to give us the pleasure of being wholly without them it would be highly acceptable to him and no less advantageous to us If in all things I mean we could rest satisfied that God's will is done though ours be denyed if we could forbear to prosecute our own will even in those matters and desire him to give us as much Life and Spirit and chearfulness and joy as he pleases we should be so far from offending him that he would take it for a very grateful piece of service to him This is not to teach any remisness in your desires and endeavours but it supposes you do your best and only advises you that if notwithstanding you cannot be as you would you do not let your spirit fall into any impatience or fretfulness For this is to prefer God's pleasure above your own It is a subjection of your will to his in those points wherein you are most desirous to have it gratified It is an unusual instance of resignation to him which declares there is nothing so dear to you but you are willing to quit it so you may but do well and be accepted with Him And here remember these two things First that our solid comfort doth not depend upon doing every thing so readily easily and delightfully as we would but in accomplishing Gods will however it be done And 2dly That Humility Patience and Submission to God