to follow their Vertues But I may rather wonder with what face men can speak against those who neglect the observance of these Dayes when they themselves are the chiefest cause of it or the best colour for it They dishonour all holy rites and bring a reproach upon holy times and if it had not been for such as them those dayes might have been in more credit even with those who now despise them What do we see say those scrupulous persons but riot and luxury at such seasons All places are full of vomit and men seem to be celebrating the Feast of Ceres and Bacchus i. e. of Bread and Wine of some heathenish drunken belly-god They fancy there is no restraint layd upon their appetite if they do but strictly forbear their ordinary labours They are like some bad Christians in the old times who made no doubt of being drunk so they did but take off their cups as they sate on the Martyrs Tombs It is easie indeed for these objectors to see something else They might behold some devout people who frequent the Worship of God and rejoyce most in remembring their Saviour and his great Grace in sending those that Preached the Gospel to the World But the number of the other are so great who never regard such things that by looking on them they are tempted to take no notice of all the rest The Taverns are fuller by far then our Churches and the Theatre is more frequented then the House of God And therefore it is for such as you to set your selves a work to take away this objection which they will not take away themselves Do you satisfie them that these dayes are no necessary cause of doing evil by your own example of doing good Leave their Argument no force at all for it is in your power to do it and let them see that the marriage between these Festivals and Profaneness is not so legitimate but they may be divorced Deprive them of this colour and leave their peevishness so naked that it may be exposed to the view of all Or if they have taken a real offence remove it out of their way and let all that they alledg have a full confutation in your holy life Answer them by your behaviour that there is no need to take away these dayes for you can take away all the wickedness and leave them still remaining Let them see that you can rest from your labours and yet not spend your whole time in sport and play Let them find the Bible or some good book in your hand oftner then they do the Cards Let your Spirit rejoyce in God your Saviour more then your body doth in meat and drink Feed your soul upon the Heavenly mysteries of our Religion and do not live as if the Saints were only good Purveyors for our Kitchins So will you both bring these dayes into esteem with others and your self into greater favour with God And I beseech you desire all you know that they would not sleight such admonitions as these I give you But that for the Honour of our Lord for the credit of his Church who hath appointed these solemnities for the love of their own souls who are intended to receive the benefit of them they would behave themselves soberly and religiously at such seasons That so the Church may not be forced to do with these as it hath done with the Feasts of Love and other rites used by the Apostles themselves i. e. abolish and banish them because of mens obstinate abuse of them For it is a very absurd thing as one of the ancient Guides saith to study to honour the Martyrs with too much fulness who we know pleased God by fasting and abstinence It is a prosperous way of doing honour to our Saviour by pampering and pleasing our selves who it is known did honour his Father by denying himself and despising all the pleasures of the flesh Therefore exhort every one to feast themselves with an holy fear Let them make Feasts of Charity and doing good to their poor neighbours Let them be Feasts of Love to make us friends one with another Feasts of the Spirit to put us in mind of the joyes of the Lord and the eternal Supper of the Lamb. And now I think I may have leave to conclude my directions having put you into the hands of better Guides then my self the sum whereof is briefly this Let your principal design ever be to knit your heart to the Love of Jesus and the ardent desire of being with him at Jerusalem Let this be your great business to set your Soul directly towards the place where he is and to stir up in it such longings as these O that I were with Jesus when shall I come to Jesus And since he is the Way to himself there is nothing more needful for the accomplishing your desire then to propose him before your eyes for your imitation As for Prayer Meditation and such like things they are to be designed to this end that your Love to him may be inflamed your Desire after him increased and your Resolution of doing his will and treading in his steps be made unmoveable Whatsoever therefore you find proper to advance that Love that Desire that Resolution be it Praying or Reading Discoursing or Solitude Walking or Reposing your self Visiting of others or Keeping at home make use of it for the time that your Soul rellishes it and as long as it quickens your Desire and indeavour of enjoying the love of Jesus and the blessed sight of him at Jerusalem But when any of these shall prove irksome to you be not troubled at it but try for that time some of the rest which may be then more useful because more pleasant to you And when any of those Enemies I have mentioned shall disturb your peace beat them off as soon as you can but be not troubled because they do not presently yield provided you do not yield to them neither And if after a Victory they rally in the same manner again be not affrighted at that neither as if now they had greater courage but endeavour only to beat them as before and by obtaining a new Victory to show that it is your courage which is increased And do not think you shall be in danger to lose the Victory over them if you suffer your Bow sometimes to be unbent Do not think a Pilgrim must be so severe as never to recreate himself in the way he goes By perpetual Watchings and labours your enemies may undo you as well as by any other means Take but heed that you fall not into their Quarters when you divert your self and let but your pleasures still lye in your way and you need not fear to make use of them Remember the Example of the Saints of God and stir up your self to imitate their zeal and their discretion both together And rest assured my Friend that this good Desire thus cherished thus augmented and
might be so greedy of these things as to mind them more than their duty and for that cause it is best to take them away that they may be sensible there are other matters of greater moment and necessity But if none of these dangers should be supposed will we not give God leave to exercise our Faith and Love and make a tryal of the sincerity and strength of those Graces in what way he pleases He would know perchance whether we will build our confidence upon himself and upon his Promises rather than on sense and whether we will follow after him upon the same account though we have no present sensible attractive And who can take it ill that he makes such a proof of us seeing we do it every day our selves to others whose friendship we value not if they court us only when we are bestowing gifts and benefits upon them But if you think that this deprivation of Joy is a punishment for some fault which you have committed and that it is a token he hath sent you a bill of divorce and separated you from him you are much to blame in suffering your Soul to make such a rash conclusion Perhaps you have deserved to be chid for some fault but will you presently fancy that your Father intends to disinherit you Is it his manner to forsake and run away from us when we chance to stumble and not rather to come and lift us up and bid us take more heed to our selves I never thought he loved us so little and me thinks it ill comports with the notion of a Father to represent him so severe It is very necessary indeed that you should weigh your faults and confess them sorrowfully and mend them speedily but I can never think it is pleasing to him that you should be so dismaid at them and afflicted for them as to imagine he will cast you off and never look upon you more No I believe rather he esteems this a greater dis-service to him then the very fault it self because it keeps us from mending what is amiss and makes us so feeble that we are apt to offend in some kind or other again To say nothing of the dishonour it is to his Goodness and the great scandal it gives to others who will be loath to enter into the service of that Master whom they think it impossible to please But then if under the pretence of humbling your self you shall make a sin that is no bigger than a grain of Mustard-seed as great as an Elephant I beseech you what service do you therein do your Lord And yet this stone many are apt to stumble at and that so oft that in time they fancy a great sin there where indeed one can find none at all Do you think our Saviour will conne you any thanks for aggravating your offences to this heigth or accusing your self when there is no guilt Is there nothing for him to pardon unless you make some faults or bring him a great mountain to cover and hide with his love Let me tell you my dear Brother that this is a part of your mistakes and a cause that you and Joy are no better acquainted You imagine that you have done Nothing and complain of such dulness as if you had stood still ever since I saw you when as you have made a very fair progress and in some things you see have overtaken my self And then on the contrary you groan under the sense of an heavy guilt when as you did but neglect a Free-will offering and was kept from a duty to which you had then no tye but what you received from your own hands You are apt I see to overwork your soul and to impose too great burdens upon its back Which when you are not so well able to bear as sometimes you find your self you are apt to think it a great fault if you take some ease when as in truth it is your duty then to omit those tasks you have injoyn'd your self that you may not neglect those duties which are required by our Saviour Come come my friend if these things be all that trouble you my life for yours you shall do well enough Let but my advice be followed though at first it should be with unwillingness and take my word you shall fare the better for it in your after-course And first I must not have you lay more loads upon your self then Christ hath done nor oblige your self without the liberty of a dispensation to so many hours of Prayer and Reading every day Let it suffice to do what you can all other things being duly considered that require your attendance Next I must forbid you to make so much haste to perfection A soft pace goes far Do not tire your spirits by your speed but go on so fairly and leisurely that you may hold out And then likewise let me not hear any more that you exhaust your natural strength and weary your very body with much Fasting unseasonable abstinence long prayers or such like things which had better be let alone than procure so much mischief as I have seen them do And remember I beseech you that Lesson which I think was taught you before this journey That you bind not your self alwayes to one way of Prayer or Meditation nor confine your soul to one exercise only at the hours of retirement but chuse that which shall like you best and wherein you can proceed with the greatest freedom and delight Besides I perceive you have forgot another of my Lessons which was to make use of some innocent Recreations and harmless pastimes as you went along And therefore what I did but then advise let me now enjoyn that you give your self sometimes a little divertisement from more serious employments And truly if you should say as I know some do that it is not for want of these Joyes that you complain but because you can neither understand nor tast the goodness of Divine truths this last advice is one of the most useful that I can give you for the remedying of that melancholly dulness All that I shall add is only this that you would have patience and you shall see the good temper wherein you were return of it self as it went away without your consent Indeed said the Pilgrim who all this time had been very silent I am very sensible that I have lost a great many of your good counsels or else I should not have been so bad as here you find me And I take it for a singular favour that Jesus hath done me in sending you again thither to rub up my memory and to fasten those things in my mind which hung there too loose before I must not forget likewise to acknowledge my new obligations to you from whom I have now received not only so large but so plain and familiar an answer to my doubt And truly you do very prudently and charitably to lay your commands upon me to
prayers and longing after thee Shall it expire in cryes and tears which it pours out for thy mercy O where are thy Bowels what are become of thine antient loving-kindnesses Are they all forfeited by one offence against thee O my God I cannot think so hardly of thee I begin to live me thinks because thou permittest these adresses to thee It inspires me with some hopes to find these holy breathings in me It rejoyces me much that I feel thee drawing my very heart after thee O take it I beseech thee take it quite away from me unto thy self Shape it after thine own heart and make it such as thou canst imbrace Create in me a clean heart O God and renew in me a right spirit Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit He was proceeding in the words of that Penitential Psalm being once got into it but that a flood of tears stopt the passage of his words and sighs and groans supplyed their place In which having vented himself a while it fell out that the tyde of his passion being a little faln and his sighs growing something silent he should hear the voyce of another person that was drowned before in his lowder cryes which invited him first to listen and then to cast his eyes as wet as they were that way from whence it came to his ears And so turning his head a little aside who should he espy in this Oratory but the Good man from whom he had taken his first Directions who being himself also a Traveller to Jerusalem called in at this place to refresh himself and to take such a repast as the bounty of Heaven was wont here to provide He searce knew at the first whether he might believe his eyes or no and when he had satis fied himself that it was no dream he was still in some doubt whether he should rise from his knees and go to salute him Two passions he felt strugling in him at the same point of time the one transported him to the Father with whom he already fancied himself and the other held him where he was that he might make an end of his prayers to God But finding at last that his spirits began to fail him and that he knew not well what to add at present to his former Devotions withall hoping that God had sent his Director at this happy moment to teach him to pray better he went without any further deliberation and threw himself into the arms of the Father as soon as he saw that he was at leisure to receive him The good old man was as much surprized with the strangeness of this accident as the Pilgrim could be But when all other passions had spent themselves which use to be moved on such unexpected occasions they left Joy in the sole possession of his heart which could not but stay there a great while having so many causes to excite it It was no small pleasure to see his son as he could not but esteem him after so long absence Friends never part with so much sadness but they meet again with as great a Joy But then to meet him when he thought not of it and to meet him in so good a place and to find him so far advanced in his way to Jerusalem and also to hear him so fervently desire to be carried further these things made his Joy exceed and boil up to a greater height I will not recite what he said unto him and indeed it was not much because the young Pilgrim though wonderfully enlivened by the fight of the Father yet could not so disguise his soul but that it left some deadness in his countenance The Joyes and pleasing Raptures into which he was cast at this interview were not so bright but that there remained some clouds upon his face which could not be dispelled by them This made the Good man very abruptly to break off his speech as soon as he had entred into it and it abated also a little of his satisfaction when he saw by the paleness of his cheeks and the dulness of his eyes that all was not well with him Yet there was no need to ask what he ailed for he had no sooner told the Father what Joy he conceived in his presence but he was ready to unbosome the grief of his heart to him thinking to find some ease both by discharging his soul into that breast and â—â—â—eceiving it back again better informed in all its concernments Many things he related to him but above the rest I remember he insisted upon his present dulness and the loss of those Joyes that were wont to attend him which he had no means left to recover unless he was now sent by God to restore them And all the time of his speech on this argument he lookt so sorrowfully that it would have moved an heart most void of compassion to behold him His words likewise were all uttered with mournful accents and not without the addition of some tears though he endeavoured as much as he could to restrain them lest they should hinder all his mind from coming forth Which when he had sighed out with a great deal of passion it was not possible so to repress them but that all concluded in a plentiful showre At the end of which he being very silent the Father thus addressed his speech to him And is this all you have to say against your self Then you may wipe your eyes and look more chearfully for you are not so ill as I see you imagine You are more affraid than hurt and unless you will be your own tormentor there is nothing appears that can disturb your repose Did you not write me word that you received much satisfaction in this very case by a Letter that I happily sent unto you Did not my Instructions before your setting out bid you expect some cloudy weather in your Travels I thought you would have under stood by those discourses that we must not expect alwayes the same joyes and consolations in such a variety of tempers as we now suffer nor the same vigour and activity of spirit while we are so fast chained to this 〈◊〉 as our present state will have us Did I not bid you also say perpetually I am nought I have nought c. and did you not find this a most effectual spell to drive away all these black and dismal thoughts Why then did you think your self worthy at all times to enjoy these pleasures Why did you not abase your self at the feet of your Saviour and confess to him that these are too great favours to be indulged constantly to us on this side of our resting-place If there be any way to have them it is this not to expect them and acknowledge that we do not deserve them Nay in those submissions and devolutions of our selves before our Lord
for Peace which lyes between both and which ought alwayes to be fought for by the vanquished and desired by the victorious they nothing care unless they may have it on their own terms and conditions If you intend then to have our company you must throw away this stubborn stiff and resolute disposition which makes men lose Peace for little or nothing A yielding compliant and gentle nature is the great friend of Peace and the only soil wherein it will grow For the preparing of which soil there is nothing so necessary as Humility It is Pride generally that makes men so obstinate and pertinacious A conceit of themselves makes them fondly imagine that every body must submit to them and they to none This therefore is as great an enemy to our happy agreement as any the world hath It obstructs all passages to it it makes a man stand upon punctilio's and formalities as if they were of equal consideration to Peace and Unity It preferrs the least trifle which supports its Grandeur before the greatest Blessings that Heaven can bestow It makes men endlesly wrangle when all that they can say signifies nothing but that they have no mind to yield You are better skilled than I it is to be presumed in the History of ancient times And you cannot well chuse but remember something of a contest between the Athenians and King Philip about an Isle that he had taken from them and had a mind to restore But then you cannot also but call to mind how learnedly one of their proud Orators advised them that if the words of the Treaty did import that he gave it to them they should refuse it He would rather have them lose that which they could not get than not have it by way of surrender restitution to them Was not this a strange foolery What was it else but to prize the vanity of a word before the solidity of the thing as one hath observed on that Story To stand upon a fancy and shadow of Honour when a real interest was concerned But such is the nature of Pride which thinks it self disgraced if you pluck an hair out of its head and takes it self to be undone if it lose but a word Pride would have it so and that will be obeyed though men suffer soundly for it And are not most of the Controversies that divide the world about matters of the like high moment Are they not in great part a scuffling about syllables and a fighting with shadows and Idols of our own Imagination Is there not very hot bickerings about hard phrases And is it not thought enough to make a man be killed if he do not believe a barbarous word Consider whether your weapons are not like to be ingaged in these doughty quarrels Whether you have not sharpened them to serve in the cause of words I doubt those that I see you arm'd withall are provided to protect Cob-webs and to defend the idle dreams and phantasms of Sophisters But is not the World in a sad case in the mean time Is it not very strange that it should be so much at leisure They know very well sure how to live and how to dye or else they would find themselves something else to do It seems God hath not told them enough to employ them and so they invent words out of their own brain about which to fight eternally Away for shame with this Vanity and Pride Away with this conceitedness which hath thus embroiled the whole Earth and seeks to draw Heaven into the Contention too If you would have us joyn with you in any thing it must be in our prayers that God would give men such a right sense of themselves that they may become humble and lowly in heart To this we will say Amen both for our selves and all others We will beg this day and night that he would incline mens hearts to peace by inclining them to yield one to another That he would bestow upon them a soft and gentle disposition of mind That he would mollifie their hardness and smoothe the roughness and severity of their spirits That all may be willing to quit their particular desires for the General Good That Self-denyal may have as great a place in all mens hearts as it hath in our Religion And that all who call themselves after the name of Christ may learn of their Master who was meek and lowly in heart who did not cry neither was his voice heard in the street who did not quench the smoaking Flax nor break the bruised Reed Who did bear with the infirmities of those that followed him and is now such an High Priest as can have compassion on the ignorant and them that are out of the way Of these things we can be infallibly assured and if you have mind to be as confident of other matters which we think either doubtful or false trouble not the World with it and we will not trouble you nor envy to you the height of your illumination CAP. XXXV A Discourse with some Pilgrims that were going to Loretto the Holy Land or such like places How much such persons are abused and cheated The judgment of St. Gregory Nyssen of these Pilgrimages The Priviledges which Rome boasts of above all other places And what a Market is there held continually for Pardons Of which a Lease may be bought of many thousand years for a small matter WHen the two Champions for so they esteemed themselves saw that there was no ground to be won of these men they thought it best to quit the field especially since the night was coming on a pace to part them They made therefore but a short return to what had been objected to them and then both sides expressing all the kindness that might be towards each other and promising to live in Charity they took their several courses And as for our two friends they did but rid themselves of this company to make room for a new For having bequeathed their wearied bones to rest in such a bed as they could get betimes the next morning they met with a cluster of Pilgrims as they called themselves in a very poor habit and much weather-beaten who were got together under a tree relating their several Pilgrimages which either they intended or had already performed To this company they were very desirous to joyn themselves a while and it being admitted they found one of them telling how holy a place Mount Sinai was which he was going to visit with great devotion And I said another shall go your way for there is a Vow upon me to go and see the Oak of Mamre under which Abraham entertained the Angels But first said a third let us go to Jerusalem whither I am bound to see the sanctified places which our Saviours feet have trod The place where he made the Pater noster and where the Apostles made the Creed The Olive tree also still standing hard by the house of Annas
be too greedy of so innocent a pleasure but yet he fancied sometimes that he was and that nothing else pleased him but only the society of this person Who now therefore thought himself concerned to have a more then ordinary care of his Patient because he had made him sick or at least been an occasion of his present disease And so quick he was in his Applications that it could scarce be called by that name but by the Vertue of his remedies was rather turned into a cure of other distempers which had some root within him It is not strange said the Old man that I should creep so far into your heart if you do but consider how wide we open our breasts to those things which are of great use and advantage to us There was no other cause but this that made men Deifie certain Creatures which they found to be very high benefactors unto them Have you never heard any body call the Sun a Visible God And what was it I beseech you that procured him so many adorers but the sense that men had of the benefit of his fires which enamoured them of his beauty and inflamed their love to the height of Devotion to him Wonder not then at your self that you perceive such a fervour in your soul to me your poor friend whom you esteem though alas unworthy of such a name to be no less then your Treasure This will justifie an high degree of affection towards me And there is no danger I 'le warrant you of proving an Idolatrous Lover if you will but let me shew you how easily you may make me become what you call me and improve this Affection so as to be a very great gainer by it But first I must reveal to you this secret which you have not hitherto discovered that of this affection I my self have a larger share then yet hath appeared yea to your own person I have not been so cold as you may perhaps imagine And yet I am so far from thinking my self the worse for what I feel of it that I take my self to be much the better and would not for all the world have a less portion of it then I perceive you find in your own heart Now that you may not think I make use of Rhetoricall figures and launch out a great deal beyond the truth let me beg so much of your patience who as you confess have imployed much of mine till I relate what benefit I have found by loving you For then I hope you will think it possible for your self to reap the same and not be troubled for the excess of love you bear to me since thereby you receive no greater hurt then to become capable of enjoying a more exceeding advantage And God being the Chiefest Good the highest object of our Understandings the satisfaction of our Wills the Centre of all rational desires what greater commendation can there be of Friendship than that it is apt to bring our Souls into a fuller possession of this Beeing who is the cause of all other and of all happiness Will you not confess that it is a thing of great Use and great Value which shall indear him unto you who is of more use and worth then the Sun or all the World Now if you can give any credit to me you may be assured that my Friendship with you hath taught me not only that God is Love but what it is to love God better then any thing else perhaps could have done And what is this Love but as you have often heard the whole Duty of man all that God requires of us that we may enjoy eternal felicity with him This if I can demonstrate I suppose you will no longer complain of an excess of this excellent affection which may so easily be converted without much Art or contrivance into one so Divine that that God himself will love it very much And if you would know by what Chymistry it was that I turned this Baser affection as you are apt to call it into that which is so noble and sublime it will be a matter of no difficulty to make you understand it for there was no longer operation in it then this I used to observe what it was that my love caused me to do to you and that I concluded was farr more due to God And so it taught me 1. To think often of him and to keep him in Mind for this I found a necessary effect of the Friendship I have with you If there be something in your Idea that is grateful to me which makes me to hugg it so much and carry it about with me then there must needs be a great deal more in that Idea I have of God who ought therefore ever to bear me company and to go along with me as my Joy where ever it be that my occasions lead me And so 2. I learnt by loving you to take a delight in conversing with him and to embrace or rather seek all opportunities of frequenting his company And then 3. For I must not stay to enlarge these things into long discourses but leave that for your work I was instructed hereby to desire his acquaintance more to thirst after an intimate familiarity with him and to be more perfectly united to him 4. To be highly pleased also in him was another fruit of this Amity To rest so satisfied in his enjoyment as to want nothing to compleat my contentment And 5. To study withal how to be pleasing to him or rather to be able without any study by a meer likeness of Nature to do all things agreeably to his mind For I must take so much liberty by the way as to tell you that there is no anxious labour in love nor any carefulness to find what is grateful to our Beloved but we have a natural inclination to do just as they would have us From hence 6. I proceeded to like well of whatsoever He doth and to be pleased with all his Providences For we alwayes feel our selves inclined to find no fault with our Friends to interpret every thing to the best sense and rather to excuse that which is ill then think that they can do it And 7. To receive all his kindnesses with a singularly great gratitude as proceeding only from the goodness of his own nature and not from any desert of mine 8. To keep in Memory also his Benefits and to think of them as I would of the tokens of your love which I could not but look upon when I did not see you And 9. as for his Holy word which one of the Antient Guides used to call the Epistle of God to man I cannot but read it as I do your Letters with a great deal of pleasure and transport And 10. Likewise I read it over and overagain as I am wont to do your Letters not being content with a single pleasure not thinking that I can espy all your affection at once that breathes
sayes and Faces are but a Gallery of Pictures and Talk but a Tinkling Cymbal where there is no love Nay so natural is this to us and withall so sweet that I believe there is no man in the World who for all the wealth in it would be bound to love no body and to be beloved of none He was going on to some further discourses on this subject when the other cryed out Hold do not wholly impoverish this argument but leave something for me to say who am abundantly satisfied that there is nothing comparable to this which hath been the cause of my trouble I will never blame my self more for exceeding too much in this sort of love I plainly see that Mediocrity which every where else is counted a Vertue doth here become a Vice I am more then converted by your excellent discourse I must turn Proselyte to him who said That he would have the Affection of Friends appear rather a Passion then a Vertue That Friendship hath nothing more excellent in it then excess and that it doth rather offend in the Moderation then in its Violence and extremity And here he began to invent all the Praises he could of Friendship which he called The top and perfection of Love the Soul of the World the Spirit of Nature the bond of Society the marriage and happy union of agreeing minds the life and joy of mankind the relief of our sorrows the Physitian of all our secret griefs our Buckler in all assaults our Oracle in our doubts the Governor and Tutor of a prosperous condition the Comforter of a declining fortune without which the greatest happiness would be irksome to us and in whose company the greatest affliction cannot make us miserable He reflected also very happily on this that it was one of the last things that Jesus himself did in this world to make a Friendship between two great persons his blessed Mother and his beloved Disciple These he remembred our Lord would have to live together like Mother and Son which he thought imported such a dearness between them as would justifie the height of his affection And then he cryed out Thou O Divine Love art the nature of God the life of Angels the employment of Heaven By knowing thee I know what it is that I owe to God and I now also know Jerusalem better where they exercise the Noblest Friendships I will never fear thee any more for I see thou wilt secure my duty to God and it will be strange if my Neighbours be not better for thee who art alwayes instigating me to do good What though I be chained more to one person then another you need not think O sons of men that I shall thereby become less charitable to you For my love finding here a continual employment and constant exercise for it self I am the more disposed and ready when occasion serves to express it to you all My retirements cannot work its decay but in the greatest privacy this friendship keeps any rust from growing over it and preserves it pure and bright for the use of others too I love you all wheresoever you dwell on the face of the whole earth I stretch out my hands to you from one Pole to the other wishing I could do you good And though I cannot reach you every one yet my love gives me the comfort of this assurance that God is with you who as he hath a greater love so a greater ability to help you all But his Guide who was better acquainted with his duty then himself thought it best to bring him out of this Rapture because he saw that he would immerse himself too far in the pleasure of this contemplation and likewise thought it was not safe to gratifie themselves with too much of this Honey at once He prayed him therefore to lay aside this discourse a while and to divert himself with the observation of some of those flowers and plants wherewith they saw the earth strewed as they went along For sure said he these were not made for us to tread upon nor only to feed our eyes with their grateful Variety or to bring a sweet odor to our Noses but there is a more internal beauty in them for our minds to prey upon did we but let them penetrate beyond the surface of these things into their hidden properties You are a Christian it is confessed but doth that make you cease to be a Man You read the Gospel of our Saviour but must that give a discharge to all our rational inquiries into the Book of Nature Doth the new Creation intend to destroy the old Or because we behold God in the face of Christ must we look upon him no where else No such matter there is a more antient obligation upon you to study the Works of God of which you ought to quit your self while you study his Word It is an honour to the School of Christ when his Disciples are skill'd in all Wisdom He is such a Master as would not have us know other things the less but the more by knowing him And so they began to pry into many curiosities which several of the Creatures they met withall presented to them not without a great astonishment at that infinite understanding that was the Contriver of them And having once tasted of this kind of Learning he often wished that it was in his power to understand more of his own Body of the motions of the Sun Moon and other Stars with many things besides in this great Fabrick wherein he knew God had hid great treasures of Wisdom and ingraven a fair Image of himself Yea he conceived the whole World sometimes a great Temple and himself one of the Priests that God had placed therein to offer up the Praises of all the Creatures and acknowledge his Wisdom his Power his Goodness which are conspicuous in the frame of them And though he could acquire but a very small knowledge of some of them yet it was a great pleasure to see that there were many more intelligent Priests then himself and more acquainted with Natures Mysteries who rendred to God continually better Praises and called upon all his works in all places of his Dominion to bless his Holy name CAP. XXXVII How after this the Pilgrim fell into a conceit that he did not profit in Vertue and how his Guide rid him of it That we must not make too much haste to perfection but go leisurely in our way How afterward he feared that he should never hold out to the end of his journey Of the confident zeal which some men are possessed withall A beginning of a new discourse about Faith AND now would you think after he had gone thus farr that he should be troubled with such an odd fancy as this That he did not profit at all in Vertue Yet so it was that one day he seriously told his Friend He could not perceive that he had done any thing worthy of himself or
I should ever have had an occasion to answer such a question as that you propose for sure you never discerned that I had a mind to be separated from you And truly I never discerned any such thing in my self nor have you given me cause to be less your Friend then heretofore unless it be by this unfriendly jealousie which as I told you a little while ago I thought you would never have entertained And since I see it proceeds rather from an ill opinion of your self then any you have of me I recall that word and pray you to believe that you are as dear unto me as ever that is my friend And what I pray you is the office of a friend if not to relieve the wants of those he loves and to bear those burdens with them which they are not able to carry alone If they themselves therefore by reason of any heaviness of Spirit prove the burden that he must sustain He will not complain of it It is their unhappiness he knows both that they are so heavy and are in danger they think to be a load to him and He will not let them be more unhappy by becoming heavy himself and groaning under that easie weight which they lay upon him Easie I call it because it is a pleasure to do any kindness for our friends and the pleasure encreases proportionably to the pains that we take in doing of it You shall hear the Judgement of a Philospher in this case if you please and of one that loved ease more then any of his fellows Though a wise man he thought might be content with himself yet notwithstanding he granted that his happiness would be greater with a friend Of such a companion he cannot but be desirous if it be for no other end but to exercise his amity and that so great a vertue may not remain without use He doth not chuse a friend saith Epicurus himself to have some to assist him when he is sick or to succour him if he be in prison or such necessities But contrary wise that he may have one whom he may help and comfort in the like distresses For he hath an evil intention that only respects himself when he makes Friendship And so shall he end his friendship as he begun the same He that hath purchased himself a friend to the intent that he may be succoured by him in prison will take his flight as soon as he feels that he is released of his bonds Both the chains shall be knockt off together those of his prison and those of his friendship These are the friendships which we vulgarly call Temporary being made only to serve a turn He that is made a friend for profit sake shall please as long as he may be profitable and so they who are in felicity see themselves inviron'd with a multitude of these followers But where the distressed dwell there is nothing but solitude For such manner of friends alwayes avoid those places where they may be proved It is necessary that the beginning and the end have a correspondence He that hath begun to be a friend because it is expedient he that hath thought there is a gain in friendship beside it self may well be suborn'd against the same by the appearance and offers of a greater gain For what cause then do I entertain a friend To the end I may have one for whom I may dye whom I may accompany in banishment and for whose life and preservation I may expose my self to any danger For the other which only regards profit and makes account of that which may turn to its own commodity it is rather a Traffique then Friendship Certain it is that Friendship hath in some sort a similitude and likeness to the affection of Lovers Whose scope is neither gain nor greatness nor glory but despising all other considerations love it self inkindles in them a desire of the beloved form under hopes of a mutual and reciprocal amity Thus he Unless you will number me then among those Summer friends which he speaks of or think that friendship in me is feebler then it was in Pagans you must not hold me any longer in suspition And indeed if you did but know how great a favour you do me in letting me know your griefs and making me the Witness of your Conscience and relying upon me for advice and thereby giving me an opportunity to serve you the best I can you would presently throw away all these Imaginations which the enemy of Souls and of Friendship would instill into you For my part I did not so lightly and in sport receive you into my conduct as that any difficulty or a multitude of them should make my employment tedious to me Nay how can it be irksome when you your self acknowledge that the labours of Love are all pleasure and carry their own rewards in them You may think perhaps that love grows old as well as all other things and that time works its decay and renders it feeble and weak Thus Attalus was wont to say that it is far more pleasant to make a friend then to have one As it is more agreeable to a Painters fancy to draw his lines then to have finished the picture After he hath painted indeed he possesses the fruit of his Art but he took pleasure in the Art it self when he painted Just as the youth of our children is more fruitful to us but their infancy is more sweet But assure your self I do not live by any of these Maxims Friendship is like Wine the older it is the better It grows more pure by age its spirits are more disingaged and it warms the heart more powerfully then when it was but new and green Nay your friendship is more pleasant too whatsoever you may think now that it is grown then it was in its childhood I enjoy the remembrance of those pleasures and have some new ones besides just as a Painter thinks on his Art when he beholds the piece that he hath brought to perfection I beseech you then if you have any love to me that you will not call in question mine to you And if all this will not satisfie you let me intreat you for the Love of our Lord that you will ask him whether I do not love you I know he is so much a friend to Truth and unto Love too not to say to you and me that he will do me the favour to perswade you that I do And therefore let not the Evil one who loves nothing less then our Friendship sow this jealousie in your heart that I grow weary of you But be confident that as our Lord loves you so he imparts true love to me and that if the armes of these two can do any thing you shall be carried safe to Jerusalem And now since I have told you my very heart let me know I pray what further doubt it is that troubles yours It cannot be so great sure that
I should not find a remedy for it and you need not fear that it will procure me too great a trouble since it is become as you see one of my chief pleasures to ease you of your troubles It must be so indeed said the Pilgrim if you have any pleasure at all For I live as if I had nothing else to do but to find some new occasion to perplex my self that I may be disintangled by you You think that I am advanced a great way toward Jerusalem and truly I hope that I am gone further then I lately thought my self But alas I am nothing so strong so steady much less so wise as you seem sometimes to imagine A little thing you see shakes me and there are lesser matters that you have not yet been privy to that put my thoughts into confusion The very puff of a confident mans breath doth indanger to make me reel And though I understand my self very well in those things wherein you have instructed me yet the meer zeal and earnestness wherewith some persons assault me when there is no reason in what they say is apt to make me suspect and distrust my self nay to fall into a trembling lest all should not be well with me This you will say is a small matter and not worthy to be called a trouble and truly I am glad and thank God for your sake that it is no more yet when I give you an instance of it you will think I had some cause to complain as I did though not so much as my words in the late passion wherein I was might import Your discourse of Faith and Confidence in God for which I am obliged unto you revived at first the memory of my weakness instead of giving me strength and made me think with my self Alas I have made it a Question whether I have any Faith or no. For to tell you the truth I met lately with an acquaintance of mine when you were absent about some business who would needs perswade me that I was drawn away and was no true Believer because I described Faith unto him in that manner as you had taught me I told him that I was heartily perswaded that Jesus was the Son of God and that he had taught us all his Will and that he having dyed for our sins did by the same death confirm unto us great and precious promises and that he lives and raigns in Heaven for ever and that he will give eternal life to all that obey him and that hereupon I was become obedient to his voice and quitting all present enjoyments was willing to follow him to the death And yet after all this he mis-called my Perswasion by a word which I think he did not understand saying that I was indued only with an Historical Faith which would not save me I explained that word as well as I could and told him that a belief of the History of the Gospel of all that is related there when it produces obedience to the Laws of it was Saving Faith But he smiled at my ignorance as he esteemed it and told me that the Faith which justifies and so saves us was only a recumbency on Christ an application of his merits to my Soul with a number of such like phrases the obscurity or lameness or danger of which though I represented to him yet would he not yield a jot nor cease to importune me that I would take heed of the danger of unbelief And indeed I knowing him to be a good man himself and he affirming that all godly men of a long time had been of his mind and using such confidence and vehemence in his words and sometimes thundring also so terribly in my ears the danger wherein my Soul was I must confess such was my weakness that I trembled a little though I knew no cause and was afraid that I had been mis-lead out of the company of so many Believers as he told me of This hath been a double trouble to me sometimes to think that I should be afraid without reason and sometimes suspecting that there may be reason in what he saith and my eyes so blinded that I cannot see it Now I have opened my heart to you very freely and I pray be not angry that I should doubt either of your fidelity or of your ability in the instructions you long since gave me There is no cause for this Petition said the Good Father I am willing you should hear what every body saith for then you will see the difference It is better a great deal that you should doubt than that you should blindly resign up your self to all my dictates I am none of those that love to be believed because I say it nor that raise the sound of my voice to gain an advantage of them whose modesty will not let them be so loud I will leave that priviledge to such men as are in need of it having nothing else to serve them to some of whom I doubt your acquaintance is made a Proselyte Lord Bacon For there are a company of men in the World as hath been noted long since by a Wise man who love the salutation of Rabbi or Master and that not in Ceremony or Complement but in an inward Authority which they seek over mens minds in drawing them to depend upon their Opinions and to look for knowledge only at their lips It is not the Lord Bishops as he speaks but these men that are the Successors of Diotrephes the great Lovers of preheminence They will be Lords over mens Faith and overawe them into a belief of all that they preach None may dissent from their assertions unless he be content to bear the brand of an Vnbeliever It is all one to forsake the Gospel and to forsake their Opinions You leave Christ if you leave them and the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints is solely in their keeping That which makes them the more usurp upon others is that they have the hap to light upon such natures who readily receive that which is confidently spoken and stifly maintain that which once they have embraced Such are men of younger years and superficial understandings that are carried away with partial respect of persons or with the enticing appearance of godly names and pretences There being few as he observes who follow the things themselves more than the names of the things and most the names of the Masters Nay most do side themselves with these Masters before they know their right hand from their left And they skip from meer Ignorance to a violent Prejudice from knowing nothing to an Opinion that they know all things or at least to a confidence that they are not mistaken in what they know This strong prejudice is rarely overcome for the honourable names of Sincerity singleness of heart godliness and the glory of free grace being put in the front and marching before their Doctrines they can never be touched by
as much nobleness in the handsome acknowledgement of a kindness as there is in the conferring of that which deserves such acknowledgement But besides all this let me ask you a Question for I am resolved to ferret this scruple out of the bottom of your heart should you not love me unless I had done you benefits Tell me the truth is there any great dearness think you created in peoples hearts towards each other by this means For my part I have often found the observation true that the remembrance of benefits wears out of mens minds as grief doth out of the heart of afflicted persons from which every moment steals a part Time hath power over the one as well as the other and it diminishes the affection which is the fruit of favours as it doth the sorrow which is produced by losses and calamities Nay so little power have benefits to make a friend that they sometimes make a foe There are some men the more they owe the more they hate A little debt makes a man a debtor but a great one makes him an enemy What is it then that produces a durable Friendship Nothing sure but worth and desert together with the agreeableness of a person to our humour and his resemblance to our disposition The impression which these make can never be blotted out Time which wipes away the remembrance of benefits can never efface the sense of worth and merit We alwayes carry in our minds the amiable perfections and accomplished qualities of worthy persons We alwayes think of those who have touched our inclinations by their agreeable nature And I appeal to you whether you could refuse me your Love though you were not so much beholden to me as you now acknowledge And whether all the kindnesses in the world would produce a Friendship with me if you saw not something else to woe your affection No no my Friend it is Gratitude not Friendship which is the proper effect of benefits They ought to dispose us to suitable returns and an hearty acknowledgement but they cannot oblige us to entertain him for a Friend who is bountiful toward us They may possibly make our Friendship grow but they cannot beget it They may give it some nourishment but they cannot produce and bring it forth It depends upon an higher cause it owes its Original to some nobler thing to that from whence all benefits and good offices ought to come I mean a great love and a sincere affection which if deserts be not wanting is more powerful to move than all the gifts in the world and is able without them all to tye us fast to a worthy person Be so just then to your self and to me as to think that I am your Friend though you do not bestow those benefits on me which you desire since they can serve only as I said to make me thankful but not your Friend I esteem you very highly for your self and upon the account of your own proper worth which I am sure doth put me into the next disposition to be your Friend And since you have added to your own desert a very great Love to me that cannot but compleat it and make me perfectly yours This Love alone hath been thought sufficient to make a Friend and indeed is more powerful than any benefits According to that of Hecaton Wouldst thou know how to get a Friend I will shew thee and thou shalt use neither Medicament Herb or Inchantment to produce the affection thou desirest If thou wilt be beloved Love When Vertue then and it have made a league and shews it self in a subject whose qualities also are worthy to be embraced its force must needs be irresistible and leave us no power to withstand its desires The poor Pilgrim remained astonished a while at the kindness of this discourse And finding himself overwhelmed with the weight of such Love was fain to strive very much to recover a power of making this short reply unto it I am utterly ignorant said he what worth it is that you ascribe to me which hath brought me into your good esteem and obtained me the noble title of your Friend I see that I please you but I know not what it is that should give you that pleasure I find my self very happy but what hath advanced me to this felicity I cannot define And truly since it is your will to have me so I will not be too busie and curious in examining the causes of my good fortune nor will I seek to lessen my worth lest in so doing I should upbraid you with a bad foundation of your Love No I will rather think I am worth something than render your judgement nothing worth I will think of my self as you would have me that you may not seem to be mistaken There is nothing else can make me of any value unless it be that I had the wit to judge of the deservings of such a person as your self It is a mark they say of some sufficiency to be able to discern an able person from a flashy wit It is a note I have heard of great wisdom to chuse an excellent Friend By this I am told a man is known to others and I have little else whereby to know my self This is the chiefest thing that makes me see I am not so unfortunate as I thought I perceive I am worthy of some esteem because I had the judgement to set such an esteem upon your self For I must needs confess that though your favours could have imposed a greater necessity upon me of loving than you will allow yet I feel that I am not beholden to them for my Inclination to love you That is something more antient than any benefits you can bestow and depends only on your own merits And let it not be judged an amplification to say that they are so great that they will not leave it to my choice either whether I will love you or no or how much I will love you but they constrain me to love you as much as I can It is a constraint indeed to which I am very willing there being no violence offered but of what my own judgement is the cause yet it is irresistable and I can never be of any other mind nor have a will to dispose of my affections otherwayes Nay I cannot for my life but think that your favours are a part of your deserts and that there is something peculiar in them to merit mine affection They flow purely from your own goodness and owe not themselves so much as to my entreaties You have not put me to the trouble of begging your kindnesses but they ran to me of their own accord I did but ask and you were pleased to open your heart and make me a liberal gift I did but shew my need and you instantly inriched me with your self And ever since I have not had so great a care to conceal my griefs as you have taken to find them out Nor have you suffered my troubles to speak before you saw them in my looks All your favours likewise have flowed so freely from you that there was no hope they should return again They have brought me a great deal of happiness but could not be thought to come to fetch any to him that sent them This adds exceeding much to the esteem I have conceived for you This will ever make me to propound you as the pattern of an excellent Friend And if I were now to dye it would be one of the last words I should speak to those that love me Remember that those will be your worst enemies not to whom you have done evil but who have done evil to you and those will be your best Friends not to whom you have done good but who have done good to you The End