lost their understanding but like to that Great Example set by Christ for imitation here and salvation hereafter SECT III. That in purifying our selves principall care is to be taken of the puritie of our Faith and of the affections of the Inward Man not neglecting outward severities 1. FAith is not only by the Reformed very often but sometimes by the Unreformed also of great note compared to and call'd an Hand But if this hand of Faith be all on the taking side and little on the giving both which are properties equally of the spirituall hand then is it verie defective For the Philosopher termed the hand of the Bodie the Organ of Organs or Instrument of all other Instruments usefull to us and such is Faith to our spirituall life and actions given us to work the work of God with If therefore it be only extended to receive Christ and justification by him to the quietation of the sollicitous and troubled Conscience and not to prepare the way by diligent and dutifull actions our faith being first unfaithfull to God will in the end also prove treacherous to our own Souls And that Instrument which is blunt or ill framed in it selfe is very apt to marr the work intended Without a good Pen a man how expert soever cannot make a good letter and much lesse write a fair hand And not only an hereticall Faith subverting the true Faith but an Orthodox and sound yet barren credulous presumptuous unactive impatient of both good and evill fond contumacious turbulent or unnecessary querulous and quarrelsome being entertained and rested on drawes neerer to perdition than salvation how flattering soever it may appear to the owner of it 2. And on the other side blinde zeal and violence rather than zeal going about to reforme the Soule with an unreformed or unsanctified Faith doe oftentimes expose the Bodie and Soule to unprofitable and dangerous injuries perhaps upon a mistake of perfection commended to us in the Holy Gospell For instance If a man should put out his own Eyes lest they should or because they had misled him or to the end he might become a better Philosopher as they write of some Philosophers and it is said of Didymus the Alexandrian otherwise an holy Christian given to contemplation or if a man should mutilate himselfe because he would not be chosen a Bishop of which Antiquitie gives us instances or to prevent or to revenge acts of unlawfull Lusts should destroy what Nature hath ordained or in fine should having fallen into any great and shamefull sin think to make propitiation for the same by laying violent hands upon himselfe all this must be imputed rather to want than abundance of Faith and to impenitence accumulating sin unto sin till the Soule sinks under the weight which by true Faith might have been removed or lightened 2. The inordinate passions therefore of the minde are to be the task of every good Christian and the purging or chastizing of the irregular appetites and casting out of doors and so purging the Temple of God as Nehemiah did the profane Stuffe of Tobiah the Samaritan out of the Chambers of the House of the Lord polluted thereby Severall Inmates there are which either creep in for entertainment or perhaps plead prescription which must be dislodged or there will in a short time be found no room for the Master of the House himselfe to reside in or rule over the Soule To wash the outside of the Bouls Platters and Cups is not amisse for it is required of every man not only to be religious but to appear so lest he comes under the condemnation of those who are ashamed of Christ his Doctrine and holie Discipline but to content our selves with that pittance of performance is to rank our selves with the Pharisees and Hypocrites condemned by Christ Oh that there were such an heart in them was the wish of God himselfe to his peculiar people the Israelites Deuteron 5. 19. when they promised fair and spake well concerning obedience which God requires But not the obedience of the tongue which without the heart ends only in aery Complements absurdly used towards men and ridiculously towards God when the heart is far from him And far is that heart and must needs be so from God which is unclean and unclean it must needs be which entertains such a Rabble of lusts which like drunken Companions in Taverns or Alehouses quarrel notoriously one with another but agree to foul the Room with their Pipes Pots Glasses Liquor and perhaps with their own vomit and other evacuations The sober man seeing this disorder and hearing such noise and havock sayes I would not be bound to dwell there if I might have never so much And can we think that Gods pure and piercing Eye beholding such distempers of the Spirit and disorders which the lusts of the flesh make in the Soule and the uncleannesse contracted thereby can or will condescend to take up his habitation there Into a malicious Soule wisdome shall not enter nor dwell in the bodie which is subject to sin Wisdome 1. 4. For all sin consisteth of two things contrary to Wisdome and to God the Fountaine of Wisdome Folly and Foulnesse which cannot consist with the Spirit of Holinesse and the true Wisdome which cometh from above and is first pure and then peaceable c. 3. If it were therefore only because God so frequently so earnestly so pressingly requires inward Puritie Puritie of intention and understanding which qualifie exceedingly actions otherwise irregular and faulty Puritie of affections freed from smuttie delectations and cleer and sincere and fixed and fervent towards the best Objects and that upon the best Grounds and Motives Gods service and honour who well advised would not apply himselfe to so noble and necessary a task as the searching and trying his heart and casting out thence whatever may corâ—upt the rest of his exteriour services and offend the eyes of his heavenly Father though not scandalous to man. 4. And this may be another Motive to interiour holinesse the powerfull influence the inward temper and disposition of the minde hath upon all exteriour actions whether good or evill For according to the Regencie of the minde is the obedience of the outward man as our most wife and holie Master Christ informes us saying Mark 7. 21. From within out of the heart of men proceed evill thoughts adulteries fornications murders thefts covetousnesse wickednesse deceit lasciviousnesse an evill eye blasphemie pride foolishnesse All these evill things come from within and defile the man. All sin defiles but principally and in the first place the inward man and thence as from a bitter or corrupt Fountain-head unsound and impure actions doe flow Or as we see in Clocks and Watches the Hand outward pointing to the hour goes true or false according to the Spring and inward frame of them so our externall practices are right just and holy or on the contrarie false and depraved according to the
which the Masters of Jewish morality noted and wisely disswaded all to turne their Faces from Amorous Romances and Lascivious Poetrye are to be reduced to this caution And that eye cannot be accounted innocent which coming into a Shop of Rarities and great varieties looketh not so much nor demandeth what it doth want but seeketh for somewhat which when it beginneth first to see it beginneth allso to want and desire and to want it because it desireth it and not desire it because it wanteth it Excellent therefore is that counsell of Ecclesiasticus Chap. 9. v. 5. 7. against both these and their fellowes and that when there were no Monks nor Friers in the world upon whome we would cast such severe counsells as their prosession leads them to Gaze not on a Maid that thou fall not by those things that are precious in her Look not round about thee in the streets of the City neither wander thou in the solitarie places thereof But our Saviours Evangelicall counsell exceeds this Matth. 5. If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out It is better for thee to c. Nature as Lactantius observes to preserve the eye a very tender and precious part hath fenced it with hairs on the lids as so many Speares which at the approach of the least Enemy to it being but lightly touched give notice to shut it presently for its securitye But it hath not provided such meanes to defend the eye from morall objects which are ever in readinesse to offend it but that is the speciall gift of God and should be the Christian prudence of every true Believer 3. And the like circumspection is necessary to be had about the Ear another most profitable yea necessarie Sense and no lesse passionate than the other 'T is incredible even to them that are overcome and captivated by dishonest Speeches lewd Books obscene Poetry what a change and that for the worst aptly tempered sounds and melodious Voices have upon a man. They deject him and make him moody and heavie they inflame and lighten him make him brisk and wanton make him full of talk and ridiculous motions and finally insnare and draw him to humour the notes in his actions good or bad Cease my Son therefore saith Solomon to hear the instruction that causeth to erre from the words of knowledge whether Poeticall or Prosaicall For when the forme of words the eloquence of the Tongue and gracefulnesse of speaking are the gift of God the matter clothed and adorned and adapted to the eare by them may be of the Devills devising and sent before him to fowl the room of the Soule for him and his unclean Spirits to dwell there For as the Good Spirit of Wisdome will not enter into a body given to sin no more will or can the evill Spirit enter into a Soule or bodie not fitted for his turne by impure cogitations and devices Turne therefore saith Solomon Proverbs 14. 7. from the presence of a foolish man when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge Which knowledge is there used for wise and profitable talke opposed commonly to foolishnesse which in Scripture signifies as much as Sin. And in so advising he doth implye the next and right way to avoid not only certain single acts of corrupt communication but even the inclination and desire of impure matter imbibed by word or writing For it is true in morall things as well as naturall that the understanding is made all things according to the impression made by the object as Philosophers teach being formable into any shape So according to divinity is it true that according to the pure and chast subject we choose to meditate on and converse with or the light obscene and frothy is the inward Sense affected not only actually or transiently but habitually and permanently So that in accustoming a mans selfe to immodest and immorall acts or businesses the minde is so tainted that all Diviner things become unsavourie and irksome In like manner to the palate of the Soule accustomed to spirituall pure and chast Discourses and reading the pleasureablenesse of vain idle and foolish Subjects and especially obscene becomes alltogether extinguished an irksomenesse succeeding in its place 4. And there being such neer relation as we have partly seen between the Ear and the Tongue as there is between a Fiddle-stick and Fiddle to strike it as it pleaseth the same doctrine of Sanctitie reacheth unto the due regiment of the one as well as of the other but more especiall care and custodie seem to be due to this than that For as much as the Tongue is an active part and Organ to evill but the Ear passive chiefly And sometimes it so falls out that a man must whether he will or no hear what is leud vain riotous wanton unclean and prophane but no man is constrained to use his Tongue so indiscreetly and wickedly he hath it more in his power than he hath his Eares and therefore he is the more obliged to make a good use of the one than he can of the other And as some have observed Nature by fencing it double with Teeth and Lips least it should trespasse upon God and our Neighbours teaches us with what good advice and moderation we are to use it For in trueth generally it so demeaneth it selfe that few can give that a good word which is the great instrument of Speech And seldome is it better employed than when it accuses it selfe and commends taciturnity and silence What can be said of it or any thing else more bitterly or truely than what St. James writeth of it Chap. 3. The Tongue is an unruly evill full of deadly Poison Therewith blesse we God even the Father and therewith curse we men which are made after the Image of God. And Solomon saith Prov. 21. Death and Life are in the power of the Tongue meaning that by a Lying slandering perjurious profane and unclean Tongue we hasten Death to others so that our own damnation at the same time lingreth not thereby Christ telling us Matth. 12. 36 38. that For every evill word that men speak they shall give an account at the day of judgement For By thy words thou shalt be justified and by thy words thou shalt be condemned So that the Tongue or sting of the Adder is not so poisonous and pernicious as the evill tongue of Man. For that doth not sting or hurt the user but this doth verifying what is said of wicked men Pssalm 6. 4 8. They shall make their own tongues to fall on themselves All that see them shall flee away viz. as from the face and sting of a Viper And if we would judge of the ill Tongue as we doe of Persons of worth from their Extraction we shall find how low and base an originall it hath from St. James Chap. 3. The Tongue is a little member boasting great things the Tongue is a fire a world of iniquity it defileth the whole body
is requisite that we should not rest in the opinion we have of our selves which is commonly biassed by selfe-conceit selfe-love selfe-interest all quite contrary to that great Dutie of Selfe-deniall but that we should be so true and just to our own Soules as like righteous Judges to keep one Ear for what others judge of us and impartially to give a sentence upon our selves accordingly and not slie to that base and bold subterfuge of nonplus'd and shamelesse persons I care not I care not For though Malice and ill-will may instigate some one or two and upon speciall occasion to false accusations and slanders yet if the opinion be of more and those not so prejudiced and constant and lasting in vain doe men proclaim their integrity and innocencie for such judgement of others is much more to be trusted than our own 7. Sixthly Appearance of Evill and Hypocrisie reverst as I may so speak when men seem by outward carriage to be worse than in trueth they are is allso carefully to be avoided not onely because of the sin of scandalizing our Brethren and causing an erroneous judgement and uncharitable to be entertained but because it very often happens that men fall really into that sin which they at first onely seemed to committ Therefore it is St. Pauls Rule Philip. 2. 4. Look not every man on his own things but every man allso on the things of others not by curiositie and censoriousnesse but Charitie and conscienti ous walking without offence to others and if possible to prevent sin in others as well as our selves 8. Lastly Every man should have Charitie towards his Brother but no man is to demean himselfe so as to stand in need of the charitable judgement of others For he that doth so is certainly uncharitable in the first place and being really guiltie within himselfe is most wickedly unjust in demanding that another should be so charitable as not to think so of him though there be use of Charitie even where Crimes are past defence or excuses but for men to live conscious to themselves of unrighteousness towards God and justice towards men and then because there may want notorious convictions to demand of Censurers to judge charitably is in effect to require that others should be religious and they may be wicked under the protection of others Pietie and Charitie A Prayer for Puritie of Spirit O Lord God who is like unto thee amongst the Gods Who is like unto thee glorious in holinesse fearfull in praises doing wonders And what greater wonder is there than of sons of Men we should be called the Sons of God and of Children of wrath heirs of the Kingdome of God of lost sheep be brought back to the great Shepheard of our Soules of prodigall and fugitive Sons be brought home and embraced by thee our heavenly Father making us as well as requiring us to be holy as thou art holy raising us from the death of sin to the life of Righteousnesse given us by the Spirit of Grace which worketh in us by the meanes of Grace ordained by thee to that great end Let that Spirit be never wanting in me let that Grace never be received by me in vain whereby I may be sensible of my unworthinesse and insufficiencie to any thing that is good and at least to have an hunger and thirst after righteousnesse that I may in thy due time be satisfied and in the mean time grow and increase in this desire and this desire proceed to action and this action to such perfection as to overcome and mortifie all worldly lusts and Carnall affections purifying my selfe as he is pure and taking greater content and pleasure in casting off than ever I did in taking on me the burden of sin and in purging away all my old sin than ever I did in contracting those spots and blemishes which have too much and too long defiled that pure Spirit thou once gavest me and defaced that beautifull Image thou once stampedst on me And let the pleasure of Repenting be greater to me than that of offending ever was to me though alas it was too great Lord nothing is impossible to thee who canst bring light out of darknesse and strength out of weaknesse and out of stones raise up Children unto Abraham and to thy selfe and out of the ruines of Religion in me raise up a Temple fit for thy holy Spirit to dwell in Descend into possesse and dwell in my heart by faith and love of thee which may purge out the old leaven and make me a new lump and quench all fleshly Concupiscences which have or may raign over me or rage in me For this corruptible bodie presseth down my minde musing on high and heavenly things and the weight of sin so easily besetteth me that I cannot run the Race which is set before me and the stain of sin pollutes my best actions Wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this bodie of death from this bondage of corruption Thy grace I know O Lord is sufficient for me and thy Son mighty to save and that his Office is to save his people from their sins from their sins I say as well as from the punishment of sin Let that Day-star at length arise in my heart and enlighten and warm my minde with love of thee and let that breath of new life be inspired into me enliven my dead bodie and re unite and animate my drie bones and excite me with new vigour to the perfourming thy holy will that so the life I now live may be by the faith of the Son of God and being poor in spirit as he was I may be pure in spirit as he allso was for theirs is the Kingdome of God even the Kingdome of Grace here and the Kingdome of Glory hereafter whither O mercifull God and Father in thy due time bring me for thy blessed Sons sake Jesus Christ my Saviour Amen The Third Part. Treating of the UNITIVE WAY OF THE Devout Soule with God. SECT I. Of the Nature of true Vnion with God and Mysticall Theologie and of the Abuses and due Vse thereof 1. SUCH due preparation being made towards Spirituall Life in laying aside every sin so easily besetting us the remainder of our Christian Race towards God and our Union with him are more easily attained which Union is by Saint John called our fellowship with the Father and the Son 1 John 1. 3. And this is it which vulgarly is called allso Perfection Perfection being here used for Justification by faith in Christ and Christ dwelling in us and such a measure of assurance of Gods grace and favour which are competible to our Militant state in this life and incline God to the acceptation of us to a future inheritance of Immortalitie and Glorie And to this it is not absolutely necessarie that no blemish imperfection or infirmity should be incident but that none such should be found which either of it selfe should tend to corruption
the Earth the motions of the Air and temper differing from ours and the unusuall formes of Beasts and such like Rarities doe beget an inclination in the minde to be present on the place Likewise Relations of Battles wise Stratagems Valiant and bold Actions in others inflame the spirit to an imitation In like manner he who converses much with Religion its strange and preternaturall Notions the sublime Speeches and heroicall Actions of Saints and Martyrs and especially the admirable designe and Providence of God in Lost mans Redemption and Restitution perfourmed by Christ cannot choose but finde and feel a disposition in himselfe answering the impressions made in his minde of them where it is not notoriously pester'd with earthly and vitious Habits prepossessing it which by the foresaid prescriptions of the Purgative Exercise must be first discharged before any such transformation as we speake of can be hoped for For no man can attain to any savourinesse or complacencie in any faculty whatever untill by frequent practice he becomes a competent Master of such Science or Art. So that Saint Paul exceeding in these Exercises himselfe and thereupon experimenting the admirable effects of them in the vehement zeal for Gods glorie ending in Raptures and Visions Celestiall commends the same Methode to his Son Timothy 1 Epist 4. 8. in these words Till I come give attendance to Reading to Exhortation to Doctrine which are easily applicable to such an attendance whereupon Christ with his blessed Spirit may enter into the Soule to its Illumination Purgation and Conjunction with him 5. And though all the Scriptures being given of God are profitable for Instruction and Edification yet as the glorie of the Celestiall Bodies differ in degrees so some Lights in Gods Word produce both greater light and heat in men than others doe Whereupon it is expedient that choice be there made allso of such as may be more effectuall upon a man not excluding inferiour points as uselesse but insisting upon such as are more honourable and weighty and fruitfull to be meditated on 6. And to give some assistance here to the weaker in directions and instances of subjects proper for Meditation not intending to limit any strictly to what I here offer What if we should distribute the Great Work of God in restoring and renewing or recreating the world brought into ruine and confusion by the fall of Man into as many dayes as it pleased him to take for creating and forming of the naturall and Visible world at the first And thus beginning on Munday to consider and meditate on the miserable Chaos of confusion into which all the world was reduced by Mans Apostacie from and the severall branches of the sinne committed thereby against God with the aggravations of guilt pertaining thereunto And how God entertained within himselfe thoughts of reconciliation with Man so undone and to determine or decree the same by his Sons becoming Man and undertaking the great Work of Mediation If on Tuesday a man should observe seriously and contemplate of the execution of this Decree by Covenanting a second time with Adam in behalfe of himselfe and Posteritie this true and proper Covenant of Grace and the foundation thereof in promising the Messias as a Mediatour and Redeemer and the exceeding love of God in giving his Onely Son to be Incarnate to that end Thirdly If on Wednesday we should meditate how upon this Day God created light out of darknesse and the light sprang up to the Righteous a Light of Hope and Life and of help by which we perfourme all spirituall Offices and workes as we doe our naturall workes by the light of the Sun dayly And if the observation be true and the reason of the Jew given to the Gentile Philosopher Why the Sun fails not to shine little or much every Wednesday viz. because it was made on that Day and so shining celebrates its own Nativitie much greater reason is there that we should celebrate the praise of Gods mercy shining in the face of Jesus Christ to us If on Thursday we should more particularly observe the severall Raies of the glorious Body of Grace falling upon us here on earth and how that he who hath given his Son thus to us will and doth with him give us all things so that the fat and the sweet and the plentie of the creatures ordained to mans use are derived to him by Christ through whome as he made the Worlds he administers and governs and disposes all things in an admirable order and Harmonie filling even the naturall mans heart with food and gladnesse which ought to appear and utter it selfe in outward acts of gratitude and service rising up from thence to the valuation more serious and high of the spirituall Blessings whereby he satisfieth the hungrie and thirstie Soule after Righteousnesse and the graces of the Gospell conducting to the glorie of God. And on Friday how ample noble and patheticall Meditations may be had on the sufferings and death of Christ for the sins of the whole world and the satisfying of Gods wrath due to man in extremitie by the tearing of his Flesh and the shedding his Blood even to the death of the Crosse for us so fullfilling all Righteousnesse And how reasonable just and righteous a thing it is for all true Christians to suffer for him and themselves all such hardships of Abstinences Continences Selfe-denialls and bodily punishments to be made like unto Christ and more capable of the fruits and effects of his Intercession and Redemption Sixthly On Saturday to consider the Rest of Christ in the Grave having finished the severall workes of our Redemption as God did that Day the workes of Creation resting from them And that we allso should rest from such workes of Nature corrupt which may be called properly Ours and so fit our selves to live and die as that the next Day which we call Sunday we may be fitted for a blessed and joyfull Resurrection And being then raised from the death of sin unto the life of Righteousnesse we may keep a perpetuall Jubilee of Holinesse and Happinesse elevating our mindes in the contemplation of the Power of God the glorie of Christ raised from the dead ascended up into Heaven ever to make intercession for us labouring here under severall conflicts untill we allso reign together with him Which future state may well deserve the best and highest of our thoughts as that where the imperfecter union of faith and love we can attain here shall receive its absolute and most perfect consummation hereafter 7. But untill that fullnesse of time or time of fullnesse shall come the minde of man is wonderfully helped and exalted by the exercise of the contemplation of God in his beautie and goodnesse which is oftentimes very effectuall upon men for the quietation and fixing of the unsetled minde in great peace and tranquillitie from the molestations of this world though at the same time there be found no small sollicitude how to
Christ in the first place and derived unto his faithfull members from him the head mentioned by the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 11. such as Quick understanding Wisdome Counsell Might or Fortitude Knowledge and the fear of the Lord and if there be any others distinct from these into which quarrell I will not now enter surely they are the speciall gifts of God given unto man for his instruction direction guidance and assistance in the affairs of his soule SECT VII Of Illumination reflexive whereby a Christian soule comes to the knowledge of its selfe in its Spirituall state 1. BY the Book of Nature a man attains to many rare and usefull things and especially of God and by common revelation in holy Scriptures may the mysteries of God and Godlinesse be made known unto him all which may be said to be necessary and usefull but scarce otherwise than as they lead him to the knowledge of himselfe and the state of his soule towards God to which a twofold Revelation is required The first common to all Christians declaring the Doctrine of Faith and rules of holy Life principles of well believing and doing But the second we are taught to be more necessary than the first that is such a knowledge or rather sense of a mans particular and inward man which tends to a censuring and condemning himselfe or a peaceable and comfortable perswasion of such a state of Grace and Gods favour as ends in immortall Blisse 2. And as our Saviour Christ saith What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soule So may we say What will it profit a Christian to know the whole world and to be ignorant of his own soule For to know the Heavens themselves and their nature and number and various motions is no heavenly knowledge And to know God himselfe by extraordinary speculations is no Godly knowledge of it selfe but the knowledge of a mans selfe in the particular relations he hath to God and Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world and of himselfe especially For this knowledge God seems to reserve to himselfe to be communicated at his pleasure For as Christ himselfe teaches us Matth. 11. 27. No man knoweth the Son but the Father and no man knoweth the Father save the Son and he to whom soever the Son will reveale him it may no lesse truly be said No man knoweth himselfe in his Religious or Spirituall capacities but he to whom God hath revealed himselfe For this kinde of knowledge a man is as averse to as he is prone to naturall knowledge by industrious speculation For who desires to finde an hole or spot in his own Coat Yea who can patiently be told of any blemish in his Face that his Nose is too bigge and that his Eyes are too little or that his Face is pimpled and high colour'd or that his Mouth is too wide or that one Leg is shorter than another or such like imperfections of nature or deformities And the minde and soule being more neer unto us and valued by us than our visible parts much more troubled are we when any defect is in them noted For as it is observed that Nature hath made all men handsome enough in their own opinion as to their outward person so hath it made all men wise enough vertuous enough and holy enough And though a current principle of Religion teaches many men sometimes and upon some occasions in a manner to acknowledge their weaknesses and imperfections yet if another affirms the like things of them they are much molested and offended conceiving some ill will or spite to be the cause of such censures And men doe naturally but jest with themselves to others when they undervalue themselves in hopes and expectation that such as hear them will take an occasion from thence to refute them by the return of praises and commendations of their worth for that very thing in which they disparaged themselves more than recompensing such defects 3. Religion then and that not in Books but written in the tables of the Heart and affecting rather than advising can alone sufficiently imprint in a man the knowledge of himselfe towards God to which notwithstanding a good preparation is made by Gods Word untill the Grace of God and Illumination truly supernaturall shall open more fully the eyes of the understanding as Saint Paul speaks to a more perfect sense of a mans selfe by the consideration of these Five things What we were not What we were What we are What we ought to be and What we certainly shall be hereafter 4. By what we were not I mean that once we were not at all which Divine Revelation hath only infallibly taught us and determined above the Philosophie of some and against the Philosophie of others And once it was that not so much as in the loyns of Nature man was to be found as all we at present may be said to have been in the loyns of Adam before we appeared in the world For Adam himselfe was no where amongst naturall causes to be found in the most slender being of all untill God had produced him absolutely nothing of it selfe producing only nothing and being worse than that vile lump of earth out of which man was shaped all these things concurring to humble man upon the review of his base extraction by his Mothers side and being no better by his Fathers side God Creatour of all things than other ugly and odious creatures in his eye but much the worse as the masse of humane flesh being leaven'd with the vain cogitations of the minde and inordinate concupiscences and affectations corrupted himselfe above other creatures and by that contagion infecting him With what great blushing and confusion then should we reflect upon our frustrating Gods designe and order which being to be exemplarie in vertue and obedience to God unto other inferiour Creatures have render'd them more vile and disorderly And which is more lamentable as it is most shamefull in the state degencrate into which man is fallen by his free frailty for man to be more puffed up and fansie to himselfe an Empire even while he is tyrannized over by the rebells of his own brest this is that which requires his severest examination and judicature of him and not as the common manner is with modester Christians to shuffle up accounts between God and the soule others taking little notice of one way or other their past perfections or present imperfections and to confesse we are all to blame we have all sinned and are fallen short of the glorie of God and that we generally carrie about us a bodie full of spirituall infirmities and subject to failings and falls But these things touch us not more particularly or that besides the confused masse of sin acknowledged to dwell in us we have some proper and speciall passions or addictions to sin this we either cannot discerne in our selves or through selfe-conceitednesse naturall to all
and deformities and finde the smart of our sores there is little probabilitie we should be sollicitous so far about our selves as to seek for redresse and remedie for the same but having attained this that which followes in the mentioned words of the Apostle viz. perfecting holinesse in the fear of the Lord may happily succeed And this advantage by the same words is put into our hands towards so great and good work as to learne the generall division of our sins and impurities to be removed and that some sins have the resemblance of a spirituall nature and others of a fleshly For according to the diverse constitution of Man consisting of Soule and Bodie whereby he partaketh both of the nature of Spirits and Beast so are his inclinations sometimes transporting him to the excesses of Evill Spirits and sometimes sinking him down towards brutish lusts but which are insinuated unto us by St. James Chap. 3. 15. thus writing This wisdome descendeth not from above but is earthly sensuall and devillish Whereby we understand that some sins and especially they of the minde of man are really devillish as having the Devill as well for their Authour as Actour viz. Envyings Gloryings Strife Lying instanced in by St. James a little before and some others of the like nature And on the other side Hatred Murthers Violences offered to others Intemperance Incontinence and slothfulnesse and such like are such which senfuall appetites dispose us unto and we have in common with beasts prone to them Yet to the shame of Man may it be spoken beasts many times governed by their senses being not so great offenders thereby as men directed to higher and better things both by Reason and Religion or Faith. For in trueth there is a fourfold restraint appointed by God for the keeping us within due compasse of living First our very Senses not made by evill customes more brutish than naturally they are doe certifie by a naturall reluctancie when we exced due measure in the use of sensible pleasures And a greater light and check to such exorbitances does our Reason give us not bribed by corruption to give false reports and dictates But the Light and Rules of Faith are yet more clear full and perfect to direction and sanctification but the life and Crown of all is the Grace of God bringing the will of man into subjection and obedience Most of which we shall here speak briefly to SECT II. Of the Office and Power of Faith in purging the Soule from sinfull defilements 1. FAith as we have shewed is by descent of heavenly extraction It is the gift of God and not owing originally to the will or election of man And it is given as an Instrument to work the work of God And this it doth well applyed and improved by the Illumination alreadie spoken of and discoveries of Gods Will and our Dutie in a clearer and fuller manner than otherwise we could attain to But this is not all this is not the greatest or chiefest part of its Power and vertue but that which impells and enables us too to doe the Will of God For as Christ our Lord and Master saies He sent me into the world to bear witnesse unto the trueth and that not by affirmation only but by exemplarie holinesse consummated in dying for the trueth so should every good Christian by doing and dying if need be testifie to the trueth 2. And surely great is the influence true and strong Faith hath to that end according to St. John 1 Ep. 5. 4. telling us This is our victory even our faith so termed because it is the principall meanes whereby we become Conquerors of Gods and our own Enemies which St. Paul 2 Cor. 10. 4. calls the pulling down of strong holds and of every thing that exalteth it selfe against God as all sinfull lusts doe and bringing it into the subjection of Christ For here is verified what Christ foretold in the Gospell A mans enemies shall be they of his own house A militant Christian never being free from intestine jars and warrings of the Law of his members against the Law of his minde and faith So that if we listen to any suggestions or lean on any other aid but what our Faith furnishes us withall we are lyable to fail and fall in our contentions For as Christ said to the Father of the Demoniacall Son. Mark 9. All things are possible to him that believeth So shall we see on the contrary all things are impossible to him that disbelieveth it being said of Christ himselfe Mark 16. 5. He could doe there viz. in his own Country no mighty works because of their unbelief as if unbelief in man had tied Gods hands and disabled him who is ever omnipotent to act accordingly though we must understand the words of Scripture not absolutely but according to the ordinary course of Gods proceeding towards man who must not expect that God will obtrude his blessings upon him contemning him as did these his Countrymen who astonished at the Wisdome and Doctrine of Christ carped at his Relations and Education and meannesse of his Person and Parentage believing with prejudice reproveable by their senses that Christ could not doe that they saw him doe and therefore refused to bring forth to him their sick and impotent so that he could not doe many mighty workes there And the case is the same in spirituall mortifications and cures of the distempered soule To him that believeth all things are possible but unbelief makes possible things impossible and easie things most difficult For Faith not doing its office of declaring to the ignorant minde the nature of God an implacable Enemie to sin and the nature of sin an intolerable Enemie to God man must needs be carried away by that false naturall light that he hath after those pleasing objects that seem rather than are good to him And again He whose faith is firme is also operative as well as intuitive and so far influenced and excited by it that he cannot choose but he must act according to his judgement perswasion and principle of life 3. For what was that which moved Moses to forsake Egypt and bid adieu to the Courtly pleasures of it and to suffer affliction with the people of God and to esteem the very reproach of Christ greater riches than the Treasures of Egypt but that as the Scripture tells us He by his faith saw him that was invisible and by his faith had respect unto the recompence of the reward He by faith both believed aright in God and by the same loved what appeared to him most noble and desireable Which held not good then only but is of perpetuall truth as is that of our Saviour Christ also According to thy faith so be it unto thee So it is and so it ever will be unto Christian Soules If a man believes truely but does not fully his faith is impotent in its hands and feet and can profit very little to the main
ornaments of Nature which if they be not accurate enough recourse is had commonly to Artifices imitating and excelling Nature But with God lovely are the Eyes swelled with weeping the moistened and blurred Face the drooping Head neglected Attire pale Countenance and dejected not daring so much as to lift it selfe up to Heaven sackclothes on the Body instead of Silks and gorgeous Apparell and ashes on the Head and halfe-formed language directed to God through confusion of minde and oppression of spirits under the sense of sin and offences committed against God. This is the thing God is most in love with this is the Image methinks I could worship above any other representation and by mediation of which I should hope to have greater acceptance with God than by the intercession of the most eminent and renowned Saint in Heaven For if Saints can help and befriend us seeking to them they cannot prevail for us before God but as we repent but certainly Repentance may prevail with God without them Though thou wash thee with nitre Jerem. 2. 22 23. and takest much sope yet thine iniquitie is marked before me saith the Lord. How canst thou say I am not polluted But Take to you words of Repentance and turne to the Lord say unto him take away all iniquitie and receive us graciously c. and you shall be saved from your sins Offer to God all the Beasts of the Field and the Sheep upon a thousand Hills yea take the fruit of thy Bodie and offer it and them all as a sacrifice of expiation to Almighty God for the sin of your Soule and it shall not be received but the sacrifice of a broken spirit and contrite heart O Lord thou wilt not despise And what should I mention in this case the treasures of Princes of no account with God in comparison of Repentance to finde favour before him or to cleanse us 2. Who is there then that should be affraid of Repentance which removes all consternations and fears Who is there that should be ashamed of the deformities of Repentance so beautifull in the eyes of God or the basenesse of it so exalted and honoured by God 'T is true At first she will walke with him by crooked wayes Ecclesiasticus 4. and bring fear and dread upon him and torment him with her discipline untill she may trust his soule and trye him by her lawes then will she return the strait way unto him and comfort him and shew him her secrets For what can be more easie or equall or comfortable than what St. John saith 1 Ep. 1. 8 9. If we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the trueth is not in us But if we confesse our sins he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse 3. But all this while though the danger be not so common or great as the contrary undervaluing and neglecting Repentance caution is here to be used while we thus applaud and magnifie Repentance and the power of it lest we ascribe too much unto it For here may Repentance curing the distempers and purifying the pollutions of the Soule say with the Apostle Saint Peter Acts 3. healing the impotent man Not by our own power or holinesse have we made this man to walk But by the power and institvtion of God is the great cure wrought by it upon the Soules of the penitent For what is Repentance of it selfe Even as vile and contemptible a thing as it appears to be as course and uncomely as unhappie and unfortunate and unprofitable to such great ends as it seems What can a melanchollie look contribute to the cleering Gods countenance towards a Sinner Or what can a wounded heart conduce to the healing of the diseases of the Soule What satisfaction for the wrong done to God can wringing of hands beating the Brest sackcloth and ashes severe Penances liberall Almes very commendable in such cases avail to recompence the injuries done to God our Neigbbour or our own Soules How is it possible these things should restore innocency to the Person or integrity and puritie No surely But God seeing man plunged into debt with him in ten thousand Talents and having nothing to pay so condescendeth to the necessities and extremities of his miserable and forlorne Creatures as to raise up one Mighty to save poor in Spirit and rich in Mercies and Merits which he extended to the relief of us lying under guilt and Gods heavie displeasure but yet not so absolutely and inconditionately but we should concurre by our endeavours to put efficacie actually into the generall meanes ordained by God to our restauration and reconciliation amongst which none is more prevalent with the Father of Free Grace and Mercies than Repentance and that quicken'd and enlivened by such adjuncts and fruits mentioned For who shall except against God if he pleases that so many Cyphers of our penitent actions and humiliations shall stand for round Numbers tending towards the payment of our debts Baptisme by naturall water is but a poor and beggerly Element of it selfe to wash away originall Sin but God may and hath elevated it to a noble and Divine Effect So the baptisme of Repentance is altogether insufficient to such high Ends as washing the Soule but by Gods Institution it becomes thereunto effectuall to a miracle 4. Whatever therefore may be pretended of free Grace on Gods part and feared of superstition on mans part in disciplining the Soule by outward austerities such as afflicting the body to bring iâ— under subjection to the minde and rebating fleshly concupiscences and motions towards Sin Watchings Fastings Confessions to God and man Prayers forgiving others that have offended us Almes and such like Christian acts and exercises as inconsistent with Christs full satisfaction upon the Crosse it is more inconsistent with the Goodnesse and Grace of God to oppose these and may in like manner tend to the abolition of that small pretence to Repentance and Prayers yea Faith it selfe remaining with such selfe-securing Scruplers The power indeed of Faith and Repentance is in a manner infinite through Gods Power and Grace influencing them but God workes rather by his own prescription than according to our imagination and fond Faith naked of such a proper retinue as is mentioned It is abundantly sufficient to all ingenuous mindes and throughly repenting that God will admitt them to the benefit of Repentance upon the use of it in deepest manner and with all its circumstances and therefore for men to speak evill of that way and to studie for excuses from severer practices and to declaim against them as derogatorie to Christs merits may provoke God to denie that grace of acceptance which in many cases he granteth unto Penitents For God hath wisely and justly hid from every mans Eyes the precise and particular termes of our reconciliation with him neither hath he declared precisely all the qualities and circumstances of that humiliation upon which
the fomenter of it and the necessity pretended when men say I cannot endure this I am not able to bear that What flesh can suffer this all is to be imputed to choice and not constraint of nature As if his nature were one thing and he another or the furious habit and stock of Passion treasured up against a day or occasion of raging by frequent lesser acts as they say proverbially Light gains make heavie Purses were not the effect of his own will and so consequently the effects of such evill habits imputable to his will allso 4. It is disputed amongst the curious and Learned how Fire can afflict or torment evill Spirits that being materiall and these incorporeall And what place of torment there is wherein Fire rules and so rages To which some have replyed that the Fire wherewith the Devill and his Angells are tormented they carry about them it being by the just Judgement of God so inseparably fixed to them that every one carries about him his particular Hell. I have often likened the angry Mans evill temper and state to this sort of torment For he carries this fierinesse allwayes about him and is allwayes plagued with it himselfe and lessens as it were his own torment by scattering sparkes whereby as Saint James saith the course of Nature is set on fire being a right bred Son of the Leviathan of whome Job thus writerh Chap. 41. 19. Out of his mouth goe burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out Out of his nostrills goeth smoak as out of a seething Pot or Caldron His breath kindleth coals and a flame goeth out of his mouth For so allso the Angry man fumes and fomes and flames setting all into a combustion where he hath to doe and acteth his part and which is most strange and Lamentable this rage spareth not the authour or subject of it but oftentimes hastens Death by Apoplexies as that famous instance given us by Munster in his Geographie of Matthias King of Hungarie who having on a Palme-sunday received a Message from the King of France that pleased him much being at Dinner called for his Figgs to be brought and understanding that his Servant had eaten them became so enraged as to fall into an Apoplexie which bereaved him of his speech grunting only like a Beast for that Day and dying the next 4. When therefore men are angry as they say for nothing as angry Soules wanting matter of quarrelling will create it When men are out of measure offended for a reall but light cause as the too hard clapping to of a Door or a Servants letting fall of a Trencher while he waits upon his daintyear'd Lady at the Table or offends others in some such frivolous wayes who would have it an argument of their greatnesse to have no command of their Appetites any more than of their Passions When men shall be too frequent in their cholerick humour imagining that nothing can doe well without that Engine which mars all then may they well be assured they are much out of the way themselves having lost the command of themselves and in no likelihood to govern others as behoveth them For Saint James tells us The wrath of man worketh not the Will of God meaning that God seldome prospereth that with a good successe which Choler principally setteth on foot For this were for God to blesse Vices Yea where it is the Will of God that a thing should be done as Vice in its severall kindes reproved by such especially whose place and office it is so to doe yet if zeal be transported into Anger so that it appeares to be the effect of Choler rather than Conscience or it seems to be an enmity against the Person rather than his offence men arme themselves with obstinacie against such attempts of reducing or correcting them And daily Anger is no better than daily Physick to move drye and slow bodies seldome used it may doe good but constantly hath no power over them For it will then too justly be suspected what is commonly too apparent that men greedily catch at occasions to be offended not out of ill will to the Vice or faults committed nor out of good will to the offender to be amended but to satiate their humour and please themselves in their proper and dear Vice many divers times being really lesse displeased at the crime committed than they are pleased with the opportunity offered of exercising their angrie facultie 5. Be instructed then and perswaded true Christian Soule in what becomes thee in this Case Wilt thou entertain such a Guest within thee which will turne thee I mean the best part of thee thy Reason and Religion out of doors Or wilt thou torment thy selfe most dangerously to afflict others Seest thou not from whence wrath proceeds Seest thou not whither it tends namely to put thee beside thy selfe as a temporarie madnesse or drye Drunkennesse to prey upon the very Vitalls to precipitate thy latter end to have no content but what is found in Hell by tormenting and being tormented to open a door to divers mischiefs publick and private personall and sociall For if that be true which upon experience the Auncient Hermite delivers for such That a man cannot live Chastly as he ought that is given to Anger nor subdue Lust till he be master of this how many sins doth this one expose him unto seeing that the unnaturall heat which lurketh in the Angrie man is indifferent to the forming of other sins as well as that 6. Consider with thy selfe how frail thou art thy selfe and apt to offend and that sometimes unfortunately and unwillingly and doe not allwayes interpret the errours or failings of others as purposed much lesse anticipate by rash conjecture that to be done which perhaps was not done nor intended to the end thou mayest indulge to thy selfe the wonted pleasure of fretting and storming without cause and so with shame thou beest constrain'd to muster up thy Forces and glory what thou wouldst have done upon occasion but art fain to withdraw as upon a false Alarm yet least thou shouldst be up for nothing shouldst fall fowl one way or other before Choler will be quiet upon the undeserving 7. It is no good ground of wrath against another that thou being wiser than another shouldst either deride or rage against the folly of him but a true Christian should consider that he whoe suffers men to be borne and live with crooked limbes or bodily parts doth permitt some crooked Soules to abide in bodies and therefore should rather pittie and endeavour to rectifye them than to expose them to shame or insult over them thereby contracting the like perversenesse to that condemned by them We that are strong saith the Apostle Rom. 15. ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves especially by displeasing others and God especially 8. And the better to crush the Viper of Anger in us stinging all that come nere us we must note
suffereth long and is kinde Charitie envieth not Chartie vaunteth not it selfe is not puffed up Doth not behave it selfe unseemly Rejoyceth not in iniquitie but rejoyceth in the trueth Beareth all things endureth all things Which whosoever so doeth cannot envie nor seek nor desire the evill of another nor rejoice at any evill befalling any other as if thereby some good had befallen him which is the guise of Envie Wherefore O Lord who knowest that all our doings without Charitie are nothing worth pour into my heart that most excellent gift of Charitie the proper Antidote against this Poison of Envie hatred and malice and the very soule of all Christian Graces and the Earnest of and key to Glorie and that fire of unquenchable blessednesse contrarie to that unquenchable fire of Hell where the Devill and his Angells are tormented that fo for his fake and through his Spirit who loved us and gave himselfe for us I may with faithfull servent and never failing Charitie love thee who hast first loved me and in thee and for thee all as they belong to Thee through Jesus Christ Amen SECT XIV Of the Capitall Sin Covetousnesse 1. I Have sometimes doubted and wondered how the excessive Declamations found in humane Authours and the sharpest Censures found in Holy Writ can be true of severall Vices as if more than one were worst of all For sometimes Pride is the originall of all Evill and sometimes Covetousnesse is said to be the Root of all Evill as 1 Tim. 6. 10. And than which nothing can be said more severely against any Sin the Apostle adviseth concerning Covetousnesse Ephes 5. 3. Let it not be once named amongst you as becometh Saints For what indeed can worse become Saints whose conversation is in Heaven than to fall flat upon the earth and like Moles to work in it And There is not a more wicked thing than a covetous man saith Ecclesiasticus 10. 2. But comparing the Diseases of the Soule with the distempers of the Body some satisfaction may be given of such exaggerating formes of Speech For as the Maladies of naturall Bodies cannot so well be estimated from their kindes as from the degree of affecting and the danger from the part so affected so is it with the evills of the Soule For a Pin thrust into one part may be more mortall than a Sword run through another And oft-times the pain of the Tooth is lesse tolerable than the Gout in Feet or Joints and a lighter distemper at the Heart more dangerous than a Cancer in the outward parts And thus may Pride be the chief and worst of sinnes of a spirituall nature and Covetousnesse may be the root of all Evill tending to bodily and brutish pleasure though it taketh the least sensible pleasure of any but only treasures up materialls for all other Vices and impells to monstrous desires and actions For gaping and hungry as the unsatiable Grave and dilating its stomach as Hell it fetches from thence allso hellish appetites contriveth plotts to catch its unjust prey or most unjustly hoardeth up and detaineth what perhaps not unjustly was acquired Or if at any time it letteth goe abroad part of its Magazine it is as Garrisons send out Parties to bring in more spoil by pilling and robbing the Country that is by Usurie and extortion or Money lent most disadvantageously to the borrower 3. Certain old Stories doe commonly passe of some Caves Hills or holes of the Earth wherein are great Treasures of Gold and Silver and precious Stones but so that they are kept by Dragons or evill Spirits from being carried out and become usefull to men Very true is this of Wealth in the possession of Covetous Persons There it is to be found but thence it may not be taken by any meanes For 't is kept by Evill Spirits so close that the pretended owner himselfe scarce durst touch it For as Solomon saith What good is there to the owner of them saving the beholding of them with the eyes Ecclesiast 5. v. 11. And yet this is not all but ver 13. There is a sore evill which I have seen under the Sun Riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt A double damage generally happening to the Amassers of Wealth One to the wicked treasurer of it while the more he hath the more he wants and the more he possesseth the lesse he enjoyeth And therefore very aptly in our English Tongue we call a Covetous Person a Miserable Person as most unhappie of all men And it proveth a sore evill to him for whome it is so gathered the Posterity of the Covetous Person scattering with like though contrary pleasure as the Father gathered and by prodigious Prodigality hasting to the Grave and so to Hell for spending as his Predecessour for sparing And the Evill Spirit that stopt the course of due spending now on a suddain drawes up the Sluce and drowns the Country with Vice and Vanity managed for a short season by Money But to begin the torment of the Covetous in this life he is told by trueth it selfe Prov. 28. 8. He that by Vsury and unjust gain encreaseth his substance he shall gather for him that will pitty the poor a thing which he dreadeth most of all who so hoardeth 4. But another Reason may be given why St. Paul calleth Covetousnesse the root of all Evill taking here Evill for Punishment and future Torments For I am of opinion that Covetousnesse sends more grist to the Devills Mill and finds more Fewell for to maintain Hell-fire than any other Sin infidelity perhaps excepted For very many great Sinners in the dayes of their youth and Vanity drawing towards the end of their lives have seriously and savingly repented changed their mindes and manners finding thereupon the effect of Gods bountifull Promises and Goodnesse But Covetousnesse like an inveterate Cancer in the Flesh the older it is the more it proceeds and consumes the Bodie and Soule Seldome doe men repent of their parsimonie and basenesse in their youth but often of their profusenesse and licentiousnesse And not so seldome as it were to be wished so rashly retreat from their former Errours that they run into the contrary Vice of Covetousnesse from which very few returne But the old Sinner thinks he makes God some recompence for his former Vices and doubts not but he repents notably if he declaims against young mens and his own expences in foolish Fashions in riotous Companie in costly Dames of the worst rank and such like miscarriages of youth and sees not that another Sin is to be repented of and his base sparing shall but adde to his punishment for base spending Here comes in a Mock-gravity Sobrietie Temperance Continence zeal against all sins but that he is lately wedded to and embraces as fondly as any he did formerly to the apparent hazard of his Soule mistaking change of sins for Repentance and Reformation of Life Whereas the Rule and Power of true Repentance for
never been free from temptation nor rested satisfied in the servilitie of the Sin. But for any man to connive at lesser failings in him in this kinde as but wandring thoughts affected admiration of Beauties evill intentions and inward concupiscences without execution and much more actions impure is to be overcome and loose all unlesse renewed by Repentance again 7. Neither ought a man to intermitt acts of austerities as Cold Hunger and severe treatments outward of the flesh because sometimes evill events quite contrarie to his expectation have happened to him the reason whereof may be better omitted than enquired into yet most certain it is that constant subjugation as St. Paul speakes 1 Corinth 9. 27. or bringing the bodie into subjection is usefull to that end by the judgement and experience of the most famous Saints in the Church contrary to the vain and absurd Doctrines of modern Directers who doe exhort to the principall work without the proper meanes and so magnifie the Grace of God as necessarie and sufficient alone to effect this as if it could not consist with it or might not better be hoped for by such diligence and circumspection used And when they can no longer deny this fall to reviling them as if they were inseparable from Superstition and opinion of Meriting with the like folly For what a miserable shuffling and evasion is that and plain injustice to lay the blame and defects of Persons upon the dutie performed by them No doubt therefore the universall Churches judgement and practice is much to be preferred before the opinion of moderne and private Apologists for illimited use of sensuall gratifications and opposers of Bodily exercises and disciplining of the Appetites even to the denying of things not in themselves unlawfull as conducing to Chastitie Though the subjecting of the inward affections and lusts is more noble more necessarie more desireable as that to which the other should tend and in which end It was the course Saint Hierom writeth he took with himselfe when he found his flesh to rebell against his spirit in the desert of Bethleem upon an apprehension of a beautifull Ladie he had seen at Rome and began to desire He cast himselfe into the Briars as Gideon used the men of Penuel and Succoth Judges 8. 7. 16. who withstood him and taught his flesh better obedience The like to which writeth Gregory of Saint Benedict Dialog Lib. 2. that he threw himselfe amongst Thornes to turne his light cogitations another way 8. And agreeable to this is that universall Instrument of all Gifts and Graces descending to us from above Prayer and the firme perswasion that from thence and by that not neglecting other meanes Chastitie may be obtained according to the Rule and experience of the wise Man Ecclesiasticus 8. 21. thus writing Neverthelesse when I perceived I could not otherwise obtain her Wisdome or as some render it Undefilednesse mentioned before except God gave her me and that was a point of Wisdome allso to know whose gift she was I pray'd unto the Lord and besought him with my whole heart 9. Thirdly It is very requisite to avoid vain and vile communication which Saint Paul ratifying the opinion of the Gentile Poet assures us begets evill manners And therefore advises farther Ephes 4. 29. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth And by the same Rule should a man let no corrupt communication enter into his eares and suffer no light obscene Books or Sonnets or objects of any Creatures tending that way to draw his eye to them For all these like the Estriches Egges covered perhaps for a time in the Sand untill the warm Sun shall ripen and enliven them will quicken in the minde of man in the heat of temptation or perhaps will of themselves break forth into a temptation and receive consummation according to the Doctrine of Saint James Chap. 1. A man is drawn away thus and enticed Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death And in avoiding evill Books and directly obscene let more especiall care be had of such Good Books of Moderne Casuists who under pretence of perfecter information of Confessour and Penitent abound with curious enquiries into all the secrets of Nature and sinfull concupiscences exposing them to the view and imaginations of the Reader and exciting of unclean Passions For all these sensible insinuations of unlawfull Lusts yea acts Lawfull to them that use them in a regular way become Images in the minde which the natural man turnes to upon occasion and falls down before worshipping them and idolizing them to his shame and fall 10. Fourthly Let it be consider'd what honour God doth to the chast Soule and Body in that he esteems them as his own Temple Christ and looks upon them as his own Members in especiall manner And on the contrary how ill he taketh transgressings in this kinde Know ye not that ye are the Temple of the Holy Ghost and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you If any man defiles the Temple of God him shall God destroy for the Temple of God is holy which Temple ye are 1 Corinth 3. 16 17. And in another place with what indignation doth the same Saint Paul 1 Cor. 6. 15. argue against such affronts offered to Christ himselfe by such practices as these Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot What Monster of confounded Kinds did ever match this Prodigious mixture whereby Christ and an Harlot Christ and a Fornicatour are made one No wonder then that the Scripture assures us Ephes 5. 5. that No Whoremonger or unclean person hath any inheritance in the Kingdome of God and of Christ And sufficeth not this to quench the flames of lust in us and to repent throughly for it 11. Last of all Consider we what a concatenation of other Vices is found too often in this one and the reason will be apparent why it is accounted a Mother-sin For though Harlots are seldome fruitfull the sin of Whoredome is We hear much spoken of simple Fornication as minutely peccant in the opinion of divers But doth not that beget basenesse of Spirit and as Saint Austin saith lownesse of understanding nothing casting down the wit of man more from its top and Tower than such inordinate love of Women Nothing makeing a man more contemptible and ridiculous than that known Vice. But that is not all For from hence comes wasting of Estates as the History of the Prodigall cleerly proveth Hence allso proceeds Quarrelling and Duelling as it is amongst Dogs when they follow a Bitch that runs proud And Murders follow them and too often to avoid the shame of the world is destroyed with murdering Potions or Pills the fruit of the wombe before it ripens and which is worse are not sensible of that more heinous sin in covering sin
shall begin to beat the Men-servants and Maidens and to eat and to drink and to be drunken the Lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour when he is not aware and will cut him in sunder and will appoint him his portion with Vnbelievers And the wise Servant will not say within himselfe My Lord deferreth his coming understanding this to be spoken only of the coming of Christ at the last and generall Judgement but of his particular Domes-day when his life shall be called for by God and his own beloved sin of excesse shall snatch his Soule from his wretched bodie for indulging it How many Tragicall Instances doth our Age afford of such who have been confounded in their own sin and perished in this pleasure I shall need to name none of yesterday or of this Nation I would it were not notorious But two most eminent and mighty Potentates I may mention I hope without offence and not without sense or some effect Alexander the Great his Friends and Flatterers write that he died of Poison given him at Babylon but others more severe tellers of Trueth write that Wine was that Poison excessively taken and that Drunkennesse kill'd him as may be seen in Seneca Epist 58. And who so great a Man in his dayes and so victorious as Attilas who after his many Conquests not being able to overcome his Appetite of Wine was overcome by it to that degree one day that he was taken so ill the next night that he voided blood at his Mouth and so died choaked with it As Munster tells us in his Cosmographie Let these things then sink into our hearts and have such influence upon our lives and manners as to prevent such disorders and miscarriages And let all they whose faith is dim-sighted or weak as to have no power over them in declaring to them and convincing them of the defilements of their Soules contracted by these excesses and shamefull spewings on their own glorie as the Prophet Habakkuk aptly expresses it Chap. 2. 16. be taught at length and convinced by their senses and common experience what a stain to their Name what a wound to their Bodie they bring from which they can never be purged or of which cured but by Tears of timely Repentance and the happie change of due Renovation both which will be so much the more difficult by how much they are more deferred SECT XVII Of Slothfullnesse the last Capitall Sin. 1. SLothfulnesse and affected dulnesse of Minde and lazinesse of Bodie is not denied to be a Sin by any but to many seems so modest innocent and harmlesse that they wonder why it should be ranked amongst the most dangerous and deadly But as we before observed Sins are not to be estimated from their intrinsick or absolute evill only but allso from the tayle they draw after them and the brood issuing from them And thus Slothfullnesse may be inferiour in consequentiall mischiefs to none For this numnesse of minde and indisposition of bodie to act extendeth it selfe equally to both capacities viz. Naturall and Divine or Religious it being seldome known that he whose minde is dull'd by indulging to ease is active any wayes in Religion And in trueth so notorious is it that Divines treat of it onely or chiefly as to Religion which it corrupteth if not totally destroyeth 2. For as Labour and honest industry seems to be the first Vertue insinuated in Scripture and appointed to Man so may the Vice of Sloth be the very first of practicall Errours supposing that Pride was the first of Mentall Vices For we read Genesis Chap. 2. that there was at first no man to till the ground v. 5. and we read v. 8. That God made man so soon as he had made Eden and put him therein surely not to be idle lest the Earth should be idle too so that Action was a Vertue of Paradise And so it was afterward when man turned out from thence was to make a Vertue of necessity and work to keep him from adding sin unto sin and calamitie unto calamitie For as Chrysostome well observes it was an act of Goodnesse in God to turne fallen man out of Paradise to the wide world and a blessing to him to curse the Land so that without hard labour he could not well subsist For if when Man was master of so much Reason and owner of so much Grace given him of God he fell into temptations and from thence into sin who can imagine but destitute in great measure of such aids and abilities he should riot unmeasurably living in ease plenty spontaneous and unactive rest odious and dangerous 3. And therefore though my purpose be to oppose Sloth as it relates to Religion the Connexion being so neer and strait between diligence in humane and divine Affairs it is necessarie to declare the sinfullnesse and odiousnesse and to correct the pravitie of the first before we can expect any good event in the latter For a soft heavie temper is the originall of both and a sicklenesse and wearinesse in doing any thing long or of difficultie but a certain spiritlesse loying and lying still or as the saying is Wandering up and down to see who does nothing and help them untill all meanes used to gratifie flesh and blood and none sufficing idlenesse proves more tedious and tiresome than labour to others And none groan under the burden and heat and length of the day by labouring so much as the slothfull and idle person doth under void time and emptie hours And none brings more distempers upon his bodie by working nor so many as the Sluggard by doing nothing 4. But doe I say or suppose that a man awake and well in his witts and limbes can rest in the Negative doing nothing it is hard to be believed The Devill will not suffer his Soule to be as Aristotles Understanding of Infants Rasa Tabula a smooth and eaven Table or as white Paper in which nothing is writ but is capable of any stamp or impression it pleases the stander by to make in it but he will write his minde in it speedily This is saith Cassian Collat. 10. the judgement of the Monastique Fathers of old in Egypt that the industrious Monk is tempted with one Devill but the idle with innumerable So that as the same Author there allso tells it was the custome of Abbot Paul to avoid idlenesse to burne those effects of his labours which were more than sufficient to bring in a bare livelihood that he might never want work or become idle 5. And this he might learn of Saint Paul Rom. 12. 11. who teaches us the dependence secular labour in an honest way hath upon Religion and on the contrary saying Not slothfull in businesse fervent in spirit serving the Lord. Diligence here in businesse is set before Fervour in Spirit and in the service of God intimating the usefulnesse of bodily labour in disposing to
of the soule or spirit of man which was variously canvased by the wise men of this world without resolution satisfactorie and that he and not naturall generation was the true cause thereof and that Christ and his Father worketh hitherto and he worketh John 5. 17. 7. Seventhly we learne from holy Writ concerning the government of the World that God leadeth not such a sedentarie and carelesse life as some Philosophers imagined after the manner of many Great Men who build fair and stately Houses and furnish them richly but so leave them to fall to decay and the things therein to be lost and spoiled neither doth he trouble his head or vex his heart as some men doe about the management of their Houses and Lands but by a mean way of sufficient protection and providence disposes all things even Good and Evill so wisely and harmoniously that no molestation is given to himselfe nor any damage to the Universe it selfe though innumerable changes are constantly wrought to the detriment of some particulars there and the like advantage to other things not before noted So that what for its time lay hid and contemptible is raised as it were out of the dust and exalted to greatnesse and splendour and for a season having so continued by the same all-disposing hand relapses into its ancient obscurity and this by a perpetuall vicissitude which some times an Age or two declareth some times not many Centuries of years And by the same Faith we according to St. Peter's Doctrine 2 Ep. 3. 7. understand that as the heavens and earth were formed and stood out of the waters so the heavens and the earth which are now by the same word are kept in store reserved unto fire against the day of Judgement 8. By Faith likewise we know that the fine and admirable Masterpiece of God himselfe Man created in the foresaid perfection and being in great honour and happinesse through his own folly as did the Angels before him fell from his stedfastnesse into blindesse povertie and generall miserie of bodie and minde contracting thereby disorder of affections inward and diseases and death outward the seeds of all which he transmitted to his posterity and is that Originall sinne all are infected and infested with This the Learning of this world could hardly or not at all instruct us in but is the office of our faith to inform us From whence also we can only give account of the many and strange exorbitances of our minde and the severall infirmities distempers and pains of our bodie before our reason comes to that ripenesse as to entitle us to the guilt of erroneous actions or free election of Good and Evill 9. Neither could humane learning or books of the greatest Philosophers informe us how tied and bound in the chain of our sins and fallen into the depth of common destruction we should recover our losses and repair our breaches neither could we our selves devise any more than we could really desire to evade the evils we were surrounded with But that light from above which enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world sheweth that God out of the Abysse of his Counsells and freenesse of his Grace and Love towards Mankinde first determined the redemption of him and when the fullnesse of time was come actually sent his Son into the world in the likenesse of sinfull flesh to condemn sin in the flesh Rom. 8. 3. Galat. 4. 4. 10. And this Salvation was ratified to man soon after his fall God entring then into a new Covenant with man to the re-enstating him into his favour and restoring him to the blessed hopes of salvation eternall upon Evangelicall faith and obedience answerable thereunto And that these termes of this Covenant may as well as ought be performed on mans part though not upon his own strength is a materiall point of our faith and a prime motive to our obedience For were it not that man bounden thus to God might come up to that degree of perfection as to be judged by God to have performed what is necessary to obtaining the promises made by God no wise man would trouble himselfe to begin such an impossible work and no faithfull man or true believer could be sure of his salvation as is often taught we may and ought to be but rather every man may be sure of his damnation knowing thar he can in no wayes doe that upon which his salvation depends 11. Furthermore It is necessary to salvation as the Athanasian Creed tells us that we believe rightly the Incarnation of out Lord Jesus Christ who by taking flesh of the Virgin Mary his Mother unto the divine nature became an apt and sufficient Mediatour between God and Man and Administratour of the New Covenant made between God and Man. 12. And this administration was wrought two wayes principally First by the divine doctrine and knowledge revealed unto the world delivered by himselfe and his elect servants to that end inspired extraordinarily and contained in the severall Books of the New Testament Secondly by his Passion and death upon the Crosse as a Lamb of God offered for the sins of the whole world in which God rested satisfied and became appeased and Believers had accesse to the throne of Grace and became accepted in the beloved 13. But to the effectuall application of so glorious a benifit as this is somewhat more required of all true Believers than a Faith passive it being necessarie that first we should use the meanes ordained by God to that great end before we can have any sound hope of attaining the same And supposing faith preceding the summe of what remains and to which other duties may be reduc'd may be three fold 1. The use of the Sacrament of Baptisme instituted as a laver of regeneration and a forme of initiation into the Covenant without which we are of the number of Infidells and aliens from the Common wealth of Israel and without hope of salvation and in our sins and naturall blindnesse which hereby was so cured that the newly baptised were said in Scripture to be illuminated or enlightened Heb. 6. 4. Hebr. 10. 32. 2. And unto this comes in as an Auxiliary improving and perfecting the low beginnings of those once initiated to an high degree of holinesse and comfort The Sacrament of the Lords Supper ordained by Christ to the ratification of our Covenant entered into with God and the memorie of Christs passion and death upon the Crosse for us and our being more strictly and intimately united to Christ as shall hereafter be more fullie declared 3. A third most necessary and effectuall meanes of applying Christs merits to us is that excellent gift of God as the Scripture termes it Acts 5. 31. Acts 11. 18. Repentance of which with the concomitants of it likewise we may speak farther hereafter 14. Of the Resurrection likewise of the bodie and the reuniting of the soule unto it and upon such restauration the receiving of the proper
reward of Good and Evill done now in the body is another article of our faith not demonstrable by the wisdome of this world but discerned by Revelation 15. To this likewise appertains the knowledge which Faith teacheth us of the Second coming of Christ in glorie and Justice to be the Great Judge of Quick and Dead bringing his reward with him so that they who have done good shall goe into life eternall and they that have done evill into everlasting fire 16. Lastly as the nerve and bond of our Faith we are by Gods Holy Word taught assuredly that God hath two Cities or Societies in this world of his own Constitution and not framed by the will or power of Man. The one is that Civill Government wherein God hath set his Delegates to maintain order and unitie by the due administration of Justice to whom men are to be subject as the Ministers of God sent to those ends The other is the Church of Christ or companie of true Believers of whom Christ is the supreme Head From whom the whole bodie fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplyeth according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the bodie unto the edifying it selfe in love Ephes 4. 16. And it being impossible that Faith it selfe should subsist long the Church being dissolved and it not being possible the Church should not be dissolved where there is no order of Superiour and Inferiour nor possible that such order should be preserved without subjection and obedience the Catholique Church is to be believed to be holy and obeyed as our Guide and Governour and so is every particular Church managed by lawfully succeeding Pastours to be reverenced and obeyed untill such time that they or it be convicted of some grosse errour and defection from Christ and not only till all exceptions made against them be resolved to our mindes So that enviously and proudly to oppose that Hierarchy instituted by Christ or the precepts delivered by them for the conservation of the Bodie in faith and worship of God is to resist God and not man and to make themselves obnoxious for officiousnesse without authority received of God to shame and perdition 5. And this Abstract of knowledge given us by God in his Revealed Word I held very requisite to premise as the grounds of our Christian faith and as so many instances of his singular favour to his Elect ones in discovering unto them such mysteries as the Princes of this world were and are ignorant of and we might walke worthy of such light given us And to these of a speculative nature might we adde those of the practicall order whereby God doth teach us above the doctrines of men not only not to commit such things which are dishonest unjust unreasonable filthy and the like but not so much as to desire them and that inward concupiscence of evill is a sin condemned by God however tolerated by humane Lawes either because they doe not actually break the peace of the Common-wealth or because such close iniquities cannot come under the cognizance of humane judicature But God searcheth the heart and tryeth the reins and judges the inward motions of the soule as our faith tells us The summe of which knowledge is given us by St. Paul Rom. 7. 7. when as learned as he was he tells us I had not known lust except the Law had said Thou shalt not covet So that from hence we may discerne the truth of what David saith Psal 19. 7. The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule The Testimonie of the Lord is sure making wise the simple And again v. 8. The Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes And what David saith there and elsewhere Solomon in his Book of Proverbs more fully confirmeth and especially in the first Chapter as in the beginning giving us the Subject of the ensuing Treatise To know wisdome and instruction To perceive words of understanding to receive the instruction of wisdome justice and judgement and equitie To give subtilty to the simple to the young man knowledge and discretion So foolish are they and ignorant who out of mistaken greatnesse and Gallantry and presumption of knowledge falsely so called are prone to despise the Revelations of Allmighty God and establish their own imaginations serviceable to their Lusts and scandalous manners falling thereby under the just censure of the wisest of Men Prov. 1. 7. Fools despise wisdome and instruction the reason whereof is because it is their enemie in the unrighteous and unreasonable courses they choose to themselves verifying what our Saviour Christ saith John 9. 41. of the haughty Pharisees If ye were blinde i. e. through unaffected and involuntarie ignorance ye should have no sin but now ye say We see therefore your sin remaineth SECT V. Of the Grace and Act of Faith leading to Illumination and of the difficulties and means of believing 1. NOW we proceed to the second sense of Faith mentioned before and that is the Grace or Gift or both by which we believe or the next disposition of the minde towards Illumination For as it is in nature so likewise is it in the case of Religion To him that is naturally blinde and discerneth nothing exteriour objects are in themselves as visible as they are to him who hath the perfect use of his eyes and seeth all things duly offered to his sight but the indisposition of the organe hindereth the exercise of the same So we finde that what is presented alike to all mens understanding and faith hath not the like effect upon men to apprehend or believe what is spiritually discerned 2. One reason whereof may well be that which our Catechisme directed by Gods holy Word assures us of viz. that we were borne in sin of which state blindnesse is a principall part So that as it seemed an incredible thing to the Jewes John the 9th that Christ should open the eyes of him that was borne blinde may it seem one of the greatest difficulties to us that being so naturally ignorant and averse to spirituall things we should be cured of so great a maladie But the resolution of this doubt is given us by Christ himselfe in the same Chapter v. 39. saying For judgement am I come into this world that they who see not might see and that they who see might be blinde Christ therefore calleth himself the light of the world John 5. 8. yea and more than so John 1. 9. according to the testimonie given of him by John the Baptist He was the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world that is all men that come into the world and are enlightened by him only they are enlightened 3. And when it so falls out that men are not the better for the light offered to them and shining before them a reason thereof is to be fetched from themselves and the depravation of their own will and