delightfull when they are possest without care and without that which makes prosperity bitter the feare to lose them Whether I have little or much let me allwayes say Praised bee God for his temporal gifts Here is more then I need to live and dye well But these are not the goods that he promist me and to which he calls me by by his Gospel O when shall that day come when I shall be satisfied with the goodnesse of his house even of his holy Temple Psal 65.4 My desire is to depart and to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 The imprisonment of our immortal Soul of heavenly nature in a body cosingerman to the beast where it lyeth heavy drowzy and mired in the flesh ought to make us think that a happy day when we shall be awake quickned and set at liberty Children in the womb sleep continually Men if you take their whole age together sleep well nigh halfe their time But after death the spirit which is the true man hath shaken off all his sleepinesse The faithfull soul is no more in darknesse She receives light no more at two little loope-holes She is all eye in the presence of God who is all Light She is free holy joyfull all vertue and all love and all glory for seeing God and being seene by him she is changed into the same image And to that blessed state death is the way Who so knoweth so much of the nature of death yet feares it as a terrible evill sheweth that he is very farre within another death which is the death of sinne and that he hath more flesh then spirit that is more of the beast then man CHAP. XVII Of the Interiour of Man FRom that which is altogether without us and out of our power and may be taken from us by others or by death Let us turne our eyes within us upon that which is more ours our soule and her endowments naturall and acquisite either by study or infusion Not to examine very exactly their nature but enough to judge of their price and what satisfaction may be expected of them Because I have restrained solid content to those things that are within us and which cannot be taken from us I acknowledge my selfe very much perplexed about some things within us and doubtful whether they be ours or no seeing that many things within us may be taken from us without our consent and therefore are not ours absolutly Is there any thing that seemes more ours then the illumination and dexterity of our wit and our learning and prudence got by study and experience for those were the goods which that Philosopher owned with so much oftentation who carrying nothing but himself out of a Town taken by storme and pillaged answered the victor that gave him leave to carry our all his goods I carry out all my goods along with mee But how could he make good that possession there being no Wit so clear no Philosophy so sublime but a blow upon the head or a hot feaver may overturne it Epictetus accounteth nothing ours but our opinions our desires and our actions because these alone are in our power But in an understanding maimed by Phrensy that power is lost It is true it is not the soule but the Organe that is vitiated But howsoever you cannot dispose of your soul when that organ is out of tune Here to say that death will set the soul at liberty and then the spirit shall enjoy himselfe and all his ornaments is to bring a higher question to resolve a lesser For there is no doubt but that the spirit loosed from the matter will recover that liberty of his faculties which was obstructed by materiall causes but it is a point of singular difficulty to judge whether he shall retaine all the skill hee had got in this life As for mechanicall Arts altogether tyed to the matter it is not likely that the spirit will retaine that low skill when he liveth separat from the matter But as for higher intellectuall sciences it seemes very unreasonable that a Spirit polisht sublimated by long study and stored with a great treasure of knowledge should lose all in an instant by the death of the body and that the soul of a great Naturalist as my Lord of St. Albans be left as bare of learning and acquisite capacity as the soul of a skavenger And when the soul not only is made learned but good also by learning were it not lamentable that death should have the power to make it worse Neither would holy writ presse this command upon us with so much earnestnes Get wisdome get understanding forget it not if wisedom were an acquisition that the soul must lose with the body The difficulty lyeth in picking among the sciences those that will be sure to stick unto the separat soul It is much to be feared that those sciences which cost most labour will bee sooner lost and will goe out together with the lampe of life For since the dead have no share in al that is done under the sun it is like that great students who have fraught their memory with histories both antient moderne shall lose when they dye the remembrance of so many things that are done under the Sunne By the same reason Lawyers Linguists Professors of Sciences and arts depending upon humane commerce should leave all that learning behind them But I doubt whether the contemplators of Gods works as the Naturalists shall lose their learning when they dye seeing that it is the duty the perfectioning of the rationall creature to know the wisedome and the power of the Creator in his wonderfull workes And I am inclined to beleeve that those things that are done under the Sunne in which the dead have no share are the actions businesses of men not the workes of God but that Naturalists shall learne the science of Gods workes in a higher and transcendent way Also that Astrologers shall need other principles to know heaven to which their forbidden curiosity to foretell humane events out of the Starres wil rather be a barre then a furtherance Nec quicquam tibi prodest aerias tentâsse domos morituro Among all the spirituall ornaments there is one which we may be confident to keep for ever when we have it once really therefore it is properly our owne That rich and permanent Ornament is heavenly wisedome of which Solomon saith Prov. 3.16 Length of dayes is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour Her wayes are wayes of pleasantnesse and all her pathes are peace She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaines her That wisedome consisteth in knowing loving and obeying God and trusting upon him It is good studying that wisedome that giveth eternal felicity and glory We finde but two things in the interiour of man which we may be sure not to lose by death The one is the
number that love the present world and cannot fixe their thoughts upon that which is to come imagin that when they dye they lose all A great folly They cannot lose that which is none of theirs They have the use of the world only til their Lease be out Death is the great proofe of that fundamentall Maxime which I so often urge and no oftner then I need That the things that are out of the disposition of our will are none of ours and such are riches honours our body and life it selfe To them that are so farre mistaken as to thinke themselves owners of these things death is an undoing not to them that acknowledge themselves tenants at will and look continually to be called out of their tenement The goods of the world are held by turnes When you have enjoyed them a while you must give place to others Make your successours case your owne How should yee like it if a certaine number of men should be priviledged to monopolize to themselves the goods of all the world for ever to the perpetuall exclusion of all others This reasoning belongs to few persons for it presupposeth plenty and prosperity But how few have plenty and of those few againe how few have prosperity with it One would thinke that distressed persons have no need of comfort against death Yet they that have the greatest sorrowes in the world many times are the most unwilling to leave it But certainly if life be evill it is good to go out of it All men being born under the necessity of suffering and misery being universall in all conditions Death which ends all misery of life is the greatest benefit of Nature Blessed be God that there is no temporal misery so great but hath an end Take me a man that hath nothing but debts that liveth meerely by his shifts and tricks that hath the stone in the bladder and ten suits in Law that flyeth from the Sergeants to his house and then flyeth out of his house relanced by the scolding of his perverse wife If in that flight he be suddainly killed in the street by the fall of a tyle or the overturning of a Cart that happy misfortune delivereth him from all other misfortunes The Sergeants overtake him and let him are All attachments and Subpoenas against him are vacated Hee is no more troubled where to get his dinner His debts breake not his perpetuall sleep He is thoroughly healed of the stone and his wife now desperaetly crying because she seeeth him insensible for ever and unmoved at her noise Certainly Death is a shelter against all inâ—uries Death puts an end to endlesse evills It is the rest after a continual toyle It is the cure of the sick and the liberty of the slave So Job describeth that quiet state Job 3.7 There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voyce of the oppressor The small and great are there and the servant is free from his Master It is a great folly to feare that which cannot be avoyded but it is a greater to feare that which is to be desired When we have considered the evills of life those that we do and those that we suffer after that to feare Death what is it else but to be affraid of our rest and deliverance And what greater harme can one wish to him that will not dye but that he may live alwayes and be guilty and miserable for ever If it be for the paine that we feare Death for that reason wee ought rather to feare life for the paines of life are farre more sensible then the paines of Death if in Death there is any paine of which I see no great likelyhood For why should we imagine the revulsion of the soul from the body to be very painful it being knowne that the vital parts as the heart and the liver have little or no sense No more sense hath the substance of the braines though the source of the senses for the head-ach is in the tuniques When the braines is benummed and weakened the sense of paine is weaker over all the body And generally when strength decreaseth paine decreaseth together Hence it is that most of them that are sick to Death when they draw neere their end feele themselves very much amended That state is called by the Italians il meglioramento della morte The decay of senses in that extremity is a fence against the troublesome diligence talke cries more troublesome then Death wherewith dying persons are commonly persecuted But as a man upon the point of death is too weake to defend himselfe against all that persecution he is too weak also to feele it much Then all suffocation is without paine that is the most ordinary end of life In the most violent death paine is tolerable because it is short and because it is the last It is a storme that wracks us but casts us upon the haven To that haven we must looke continually and there cast anchor betimes by a holy hope conceiving Death not so much a parting as an arrival for unto well disposed soules it is the haven of Salvation The feare of that which comes after death makes some mens lives bitter and through feare of dying after Death they have already eternall death in their Conscience They have eyes to see Hell open gaping for them but they have none to see the way to avoid it In others that feare is more moderate and is an ill cause working a good effect inducing or rather driving them to seeke and then to embrace the grace and peace that God offers unto them in Jesus Christ and together to do good workes which are the way to the Kingdome of heaven A man cannot afeare God too much but he may be too deeply afraid of his Justice And the feare of that death after death must be swallowed up by the faith in Jesus Christ who by his death hath delivered them who through feare of death were all their life subject unto bondage Heb. 2.15 He hath made death the gate of life and glory to all that trust in him and doe good Godly men will not feare death for the sting of it is pluckt off by Christ It is the terrour of evill consciences but the joy of the good It is this pleasant meditation that sweetneth their adversities and makes them joy Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 The troubles of life are soone ended by death and after death comes a life without trouble and a glory without end Men may deprive us of life but they cannot deprive us of death which is our deliverance The same meditation will make us relish prosperity when God sends it for none can enjoy the goods of this life with delight but he that is prepared before to leave them Then are they
you have it you shall reape from it a more sincere content because you shall require of it as much as its nature affords and no more Strength also and Health are things desired not laudable as things that come by nature not by will Great strength of body is commonly accompanied with a weake minde and that disproportion is augmented with much feeding and obligeth nature to bestow the maine Magazine of spirits upon disgestion distribution of meat and hardning of the brawnes of the limbs to enable them for strong labour leaving but few spirits to attend reasoning contemplating Speak to perpetuall hunters of the delight of speculation you shall finde them little more capable of it then their hounds which are the highest point of their meditation To their minde is very convenient the definition which Aristotle gives to the Soul that it is the first act that is the principle of the motion of an organical body for their soul seemes to be made for no other end but to move their body It is certain that too great excercise of the body dulls the mind The preheminency of man above beasts consisteth in reason and the capacity of knowing and loving God Men that are proud of their strength robore corporis stolidè feroces placing their advantage and content in a thing wherein they are inferiour to many beasts descend from their dignity and take place under their natural subjects He that with his forehead would knocke a great naile into a post to the very head deserved this praise that next to a Bull he had the hardest head of all beasts Health of all goods of the body is most to be desired yea more then life A truth not contradicted by the knowne Maxime that the end is better then the meanes for I hold not health to be subordinate unto life but life unto health Being is the meanes and well being is the end Non est vivere sed valere vita So Mecenas must be left to his owne Opinion desire who though he were maimed hands and feet and had all his teeth loose in his head and a bunch on his crooked back would think himselfe well if he had but life Yea if by enduring the sharpest tortures of the cross he might keepe life he would willingly endure them His enemies could wish him no greater harme then to buy life at that rate The body being made for the soul the true natural benefit of Health is not long life but the liberty of the actions of the mind For the minde stickes so to the body that it cannot act very freely in a body tormented with acute paine or pined with a lingring disease Wherefore that we may go through that necessary captivity as easily as may be an especial care must be had of the health of our body taking all occasion from it of accusing the excesses ill government of the minde for the corruption and inflammation of the humours behaving ourselves with our body not as living for it but as unable to live in the world without it Our minde was made for a better end then to serve the flesh Yet let us give it faithfully its due as to the horse that carryes us in our journey It must be fed and tended else it will faile us in the way Curious persons commit two faults about the care of their bodies They bestow much cost and labour to adorne them but they neglect their health exposing themselves halfe naked to cold aire to shew a fine halfe shirt as if they furnisht their roomes with rich hangings and suffered the raine to fall on them for want of repairing the roofe In matter of cloathes health and commodity are the best counsellors not the eyes and Opinions of strangers Health must be acknowledged the richest jewell of all temporal things yea preferable to many ornaments of the minde He that hath got much learning in the Tongues and hath diseased his body with watching hath lost more then he hath got But the healthfullest body of the world is a tottering house which must every day be underpropt with food and for all our care will fall in the end We must looke upon it as a tenement at will which we hold under God our Landlord not fearing but rejoycing that we must leave it knowing that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were disolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 LIFE I set neither among goods nor among evils for it is neither good nor evill in itselfe but the subject of good and evill like the painters cloath where all sorts of colours are couched Such as it is it must be put in the rank of those things that depend not of our will and therefore must not be accounted ours but used as a borrowed commodity We must say more of it when we speake of Death CHAP. VII Of bodily Pleasure and Ease OF all arguments of meditation there is none where writers shew lesse sincerity then in this Every one blames pleasure and ease and yet every one seekes it They tell us that it is the cause of all evill that it poisoneth the passion that it blindeth reason that it is an enemy to good counsell aad that it is impossible for Vertue to stand with Volupty Yet the same Authors love their ease and their very discourses of ease are effects of ease and productions of wits sweetned by prosperity Then they charge pleasure with the vices of men whereas it is not pleasure but men that must be blamed For pleasure doth not corrupt men but men corrupt pleasure It must be acknowledged good in it selfe It is the seasoning that God all-wise and all-good hath given to things profitable and actions necessary that wee should seek them Look upon a brave horse with a judicious eye After you have considered his great use and praised the bounty of God for making an animal of so much service and commodity to man praise God againe for making him so handsome and of such a gallant mettle And acknowledge that the gracious Creator regarded as well mans delectation as utility The delicious taste of fruits the fragrant smell and gay colours of flowers the fair prospect of groves meadowes calme and cleare waters and all the delicate variety of Nature speake very expresly that God as an indulgent Father hath taken great care to please and recreat us and condemneth that sad and sowre wisedome which deemeth to merit much by avoiding at least in shew all that is pleasing in Nature Of that kinde is this prayer which may be read in many Bookes of devote contemplation Lord give me grace to be delighted in no earthly thing Which is as much as saying to God that he was much overseen when he made his workes good and pleasant since it is ill done to delight in them That devotion wants common sence if it be serious and more if it be hypocritical We
divisions and disputations whether it be a vertue moral or intellectual contemplative or practical Whether the actus elicitus of prudence be to know or to will and what difference there is betweene acting and doing Goodly instructions to forme a Councellor of State and to underprop a tottering Commonwealth Could these Doctors have done worse for themselves if they had undertaken to justifye the ordinary reproach against learning that prudence lyeth out of the circuit of Schollership and that it is incompatible with learning This they justifye more yet when they passe from contemplation to practise For in Councel though but a meane corporation tradesmen many times will speake more pertinently thet great Scholars Of this the fault lyeth not in Learning which is the right way to Prudence but in not choosing the right learning for prudence and applying ones mind to other things For neither Transcendents nor Modals not Hesychius nor Suidas nor Apogees nor Excentriques teach a man wisedome It were a wonder if they that never learned wisedom understood it There are two wayes to get it Science and Experience These men have neither that have spent all their study about Syllogisms or Horoscopes But take me a Scholler that hath made prudence his study and bent all his learning to that marke seeking it first in Gods Book the spring of all wisedome then in the writings of wisemen both antient and late and in history which is the Mistriss of life Let him study men and business as well as Bookes Let him converse with the wisest and best versed in the world and consummate himselfe in experience When such a man shall speake in a Councell of State among unlearned men it will appeare how rash and injurious that sentence is that learning and prudence are incompatible and how farre the learned go beyond the ignorant for deepe insight into businesses and healing or preventing publique evills Because we seek here the just price of things we must not attribute too much unto Science and Prudence These two together make a goodly match By knowledge and and wisedome a man differeth from a beast But both are subject unto vanity For knowledge take the verdict of two the most learned of all the Canonical writers Solomon and St. Paul The first will tell you He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Eccl. 1.18 The other Knowledge puffeth up 1 Cor 8.1 Sorrow pride are the ordinary effects of Learning but when it meets with a strong and meek spirit upheld with Gods grace Pride will easily get into those that have some but little learning for it is a point of ignorance for one to think he is learned when he is not But when we are advanced in learning we learne that we know nothing and discover the uncertainty of sciences that they performe not what they promise that new writers give the lye to the old Eccl. 12.12 that of making many Bookes there is no end and much study is a wearinesse of the flesh A wise man that will reape from learning utility and content must expect no more of it then it can afford He will deale with learning as with money he will not be a servant to it but make it his Servant When he is past the drudgery of the Schoole he will if he can make his study his pastime not his taske Prudence is no lesse subject to vanity then Learning but rather hath more uncertainty For sciences have certain objects since they consider universals which are alwayes the same what change soever happen in the particulars But prudence having no object but particular things casual and uncertaine cannot have but an uncertaine seat upon such an unstayed bottome for though there be generall rules of prudence they must continually be bowed and made longer or shorter according to the accidents and circumstances which being every where different require also every where a different manner of conduct After a wise deliberation an industrions managing of a businesse an unfortunate end many times will follow How oft hath the most mature prudence bin overcome by folly and precipitate rashnesse Of which the principal cause is the provocation of Gods jealousy by humane wisedome when it grows to presumption Isa 24.15 Woe unto them that seeke deep to hide their counsell from the Lord and their workes are in the dark and they say Who seeth us and who knowes us For God who is called onely wise by St. Paul Rom. 16.27 for which he will have him to be glorifyed for ever is highly offended when any pretends to share in that title which is his onely and takes a delight to blow upon projects made up with great art to shew to the wise of the world that they are but fooles To judge wisely of the businesses of the world we should see the wheels inward motions of them but they are hidden from us We can hardly pry into the counsels of men how can we penetrate into the Decrees of God those great and secret motions lockt up in the closet of his wise providence In the greatest revolution of our age we are eyewitnesses how the wisest counsels of a party have alwayes turned to their ruine and the faults of State on the contrary party have alwayes bin fortunate To one side prudence and imprudence have bin alike pernicious To the other prudence and imprudence have bin alike advantageous Let us looke up to God whose wayes are not our wayes and his thoughts are not our thoughts and against whose will no strength and no counsel will hold The future being to us a dark empty space where we see nothing no wonder that humane prudence seldome hits right in her forecast for the future The prudent man hath as much advantage over the imprudent as one that hath good eyes over a blind-man but when both are in the darke one seeth no more then the other Many future events are as dark to the wise as to the unwise And when wisedome is most cleare sighted it can but regulate the counsels but cannot dispose of the events The wiseman hath this benefit of his wisedome that if his counsels succeed well he can make good use of prosperity And if his good counsels have an unhappy successe either he declines the blow or gets a lenitive to it by prudence and patience or he makes advantage of it for some good and which way soever the staffe fall he never repents of a good counsell Of all the acquisite endowments of the understanding Prudence is the best therefore beyond all comparison more precious then all the goods of body and fortune But together let us acknowledge that it hath a short sight and a tottering bottome Wherefore the great precept of wisedome is to mistrust our wisedome and repose ourselves upon Gods wisedome and love Let our prudence depend altogether upon his providence It is a great abatement of the price of humane prudence that death cuts it off with the thred of life Eccl.
2.17 This was a cause why Solomon hated life even because the wiseman dyeth as the foole Yet had he wisely pondred the matter before ver 13. I saw that wisedome excelleth folly as farre as light excelleth darknesse The wisemans eyes are in his head but the foole walketh in darknesse but I perceived also that one event happenth to them all It is enough to disdaine the vanity of life and of human wisedome better then life to see a great Statesman that made a Kingdom to flourish and the neighboring States to tremble to be cut off in the midst of his high enterprises and deep counsels all which dye with him Psal 46.4 His breath goeth forth he returneth to his earth in that very day his thoughts perish That plotting braines from whose resolution the fortune of an empire depended shall breed wormes and toades And truly it should be unreasonable that this kind of prudence which hath no object but worldly and perishable should remaine permanent But it is very consonant to reason that a higher prudence which applyeth itselfe to permanent things remaine permanent It is that permanent wisedome which our Saviour recommends unto us Luke 12.33 Provide yourselves baggs which waxe not old a treasure in the heavens that faileth not It is that wisedome which Solomon calls a tree of life to them that lay hold on her because she lives after death and makes the soul live for ever Judge you of the price of these two sorts of wisedomes the one that perisheth and many times makes men perish the other that endureth for ever and will certainly make them that embrace her eternally blessed CHAP. XIX Of the acquisite Ornaments of the Will THe end of the instruction of the Understanding is the ruling and ordering of the Will in a constant goodnesse so much better then science and prudence as the end is better then the meanes unlesse by prudence we understand that wisedome which is employed about mans duty to God and comprehends all vertues for as in God all vertues are but one which is his Being likewise when we take vertues in a divine sense one vertue comprehends many as having some participation with the divine nature Commonly by vertue we understand uprightnesse of the will because without it the vertues of the understanding science intelligence and prudence deserve not to be called vertues and the more able they are the more pernicious Vertue of all acquisitions is the most precious without it the goods of body and fortune become evills serving only to make a man guilty and miserable for then the goods of the body give the faculty and the goods of fortune give the opportunity to do evill but without them Vertue alone is good and fetcheth good even out of evill By vertue man is made like God who is the originall vertue Vertue gives glory to God utility to the publique tranquillity and joy to the conscience reliefe to some counsell to others example to all Vertue is respected of all even of them that envy it They that love not the reality of vertue yet study to get the name of it and to put upon their false coyne the stamp of vertue All the hypocrisie in the world is an homage that Vice payeth unto Vertue A vertuous man may be stript of his estate by his enemies but of his vertue he cannot Because he keepes it he is alwayes rich Vertue strengthneth him in adversity moderates him in prosperity guides him in society entertaines him in his solitarinesse adviseth him in his doubts supports him in his weaknesse keeps him company in his journeyes by sea and land If his ship sink vertue sinkes not and he whether living or dying saveth it and himselfe By vertue he feares neither life nor death looking upon both with an equal eye yet aspiring to depart and to be with Christ but bearing patiently the delay of his departure because he is already with Christ by a lively hope Vertue steering the soule makes it take a streight and safe course to heaven and there abides with him eternally for vertue as well as glory is that treasure in heaven where neither the moth nor the rust corrupt and where theeves do not breake thorough and steale Math. 6. Philosophy considereth three vertues in the wil Justice Fortitude and Temperance excellent vertues the first especially which in effect containes the two others for it is the right temper of the will not drawne aside from the integrity of a good conscience either by oppositions of adversity against which fortitude stands fast or by allurements of prosperity from which temperance witholds the appetite Good conscience of which we have spoken in the first Booke is nothing else but justice For these vertues wherein mans duty and happinesse consisteth it were hard to find Elogies equal to their worth But there is great diffecence between the excellency of Vertue in it self and such vertue as is found among men The exactest justice that man is capable of is defective and infected with sinne All our righteousnesses are as the defiled cloath Wherefore the description of a just counterpoise of the will never swarving either on the right hand or the left never shaken from his square cubus either by afflictions or temptations is a fair character fit to set before our eyes to imitate as neere as we can as faire pictures in the sight of breeding women But truly such a perfect vertue subsisteth not in any subject under heaven In this world to be just is only to be somewhat lesse evill then others If a perfect Justice cannot be establisht in the private policy of a mans soul it is not to be lookt for in publique Policies Justice being pure in her original becomes impure and maimed being kneaded by the weak and uncleane hands of men Job 14.4 Who can bring a cleane thing out of an uncleane Of this it were easy to give instances out of the formes of Justice out of the very Lawes in all States But it is a point of justice to respect her in those hands to which divine providence hath intrusted her and to adde strength to her weakenesse by our voluntary deference Man being weake in justice cannot but be so in her appurtenances fortitude and temperance The highest point unto which human precepts endeavour to raise fortitude is to make patience a remedy to evills remediless But how short the bravest men come of that remedy in their paines and griefes daily experience sheweth it The vulgar placeth the vertue of fortitude in striking and massacring which is rather a barbarous inhumanity and if it be a vertue tygers are more vertuous then men As for Temperance her very name sounds weakenesse For he that is not subject to be corrupted by evill suggestions hath no need of temperance That man is temperat that knoweth how to keepe himselfe from himselfe who therefore is naturally evill and prone to vicious excesses Wherein men are inferiour to beasts which are not tempted
is dreadfull when it is assisted with power It is an impetuous storme overthrowing all that lyeth in its way How many times hath it razed Citties turned Empires upside downe and extermined whole nations One fit of anger of Theodosius one of the best Emperours of the whole list slew many thousands of men assembled in the amphi-Theater of Thessalonica How many then have bin massacred by the wrath of wicked Princes And what slaughter should there be in the world if meane fellowes had as much power as wrath What disorders anger would worke abroad if it were backt with power one may judge by the disorder which it workes within a mans soul for with the overflowing of the gall into the mass of the blood wrath at the same time overflowes all the faculties of the mind suffocates the reason maddes the will and sets the appetite on fire Which is to be seene in the inflammation of the face the sparkling eyes the quick disorderly motion of the limbs the injurious words the violent actions Wrath turnes a man into a furious beast If man be a little world wrath is the tempest of it which makes of the soul a stormy Sea casting up mire and foame and breaking it selfe against rocks by a blind rage In the heat of such fits many get their death or do such things which they repent of at leasure afterwards for wrath brings forth an effect fortable to its cause it comes out of weakeness and it weakens a man there being nothing that disarmes body and mind more and exposes a man more to injuries Indeed when anger is kept within mediocrity it sharpens valour and awakes subtility and readinesse of wit But when it is excessive it makes the sinewes to tremble the tongue to stutter and reason to lose the free exercise of her faculties so that a man out of too much will cannot compasse what he wills Latin Authors calling that weake violence ira impotens impotent anger have given it the right epithete for it strips a man of his power over his owne selfe and of strength to defend himselfe In that tumultuous overthrow of the inward polity what place remaines for piety charity meeknesse justice equity and all other vertues for the serenity of the soul is the temperate climat where they grow but the heat of choller parcheth them they are not plants for that torrid Zone I know that many times vertue is a pretence for choller Angry men justifie their Passion by the right which they maintaine thinking that they cannot mantaine it with vigour enough Thus whereas other passions are corrupted by evill things this it corrupted by good things and then to be even with them it corrupteth those good things for there is no cause so good but it is marred by impetuous choller The great plea of anger is the injustice of others But we must not repell one injustice by another For although an angry man could keep himselfe from offending his neighbour he cannot excuse his offence against God and himselfe by troubling the serenity of his soul which is expelling the image of God for it is not reflected but in a calme soul and bringing in storme and confusision which is the devills image As when a hogshead of wine is shaken the dregs rise to the top and when the sea is raging the mire doth the like a fit of raging choller doth thrust up all the hidden ordure which was settled before by the feare of God or men The wrong done by others to piety and justice is no just reason for our immoderate choler For they have no need of such an ill champion which is rather a hinderance then a defense of their cause and to maintaine them transgresseth against them To defend such reasonable things as piety and justice there is need of a free reason and a sober sense And whether wee be incensed with the injury done to them or that which is done to us wee must be so just to ourselves as not to lay the punishment upon us for the faults of another or make ourselves miserable because our neighbours are wicked To that end wee must remember that in the violation of justice God is more interessed then wee are and knoweth how to punish it when he sees it expedient And if God will not punish it as yet our will must not be more hasty then his and it becomes us not to be impatient for our interess when himself is patient in the wrong done to his owne Let the cause of our anger be never so holy and just the sentence of St James is of perpetual truth Jam. 1.20 The wrath of man worketh not the righteousnes of God If it be the cause of God that we defend we must not use that good cause to bring forth evill effects the evill that incenseth us can hardly be so grievous as the losse of humanity and right reason of which a man is deprived by excessive wrath for Wrath is cruell and anger is outragious Prov. 27.4 It resteth in the bosome of fooles saith Solomon Eccles 79. Our good opinion and love of ourselves which when all is sayd are the chiefe causes of anger ought to be also the motives to abate or prevent it for would any man that thinks well of himselfe and loveth his owne good make himselfe vile brutish Now this is done by letting the raines lose to choler whereas the way to deserve the good opinion of ourselves and others is to maintaine ourselves calme and generous never removed from the imperial power over ourselves by any violence of passion Pro. 16.32 He that is slow to anger is better then the mighty and he that ruleth his spirit then he that takes a citty I account not Alexander the Great a great Conquerour since he was a slave to his anger A man that never drew sword and is master of himselfe is a greater Conquerour then he That calme disposition shall not want many provocations from those with whom wee must of necessity live servants especially and servile soules like unto cart horses that will neither goe nor drive unlesse they feel the whip or be terrified with a harsh angry tone Seneca gives leave to the wiseman to use such varlets with the words and actions of anger but not to be angry A difficult taske It is to be feared that by counterfeiting anger wee may become angry in good earnest and a man hath need of a sound premunition of reason and constancy before he come to use those wayes so easy it is to slip into anger when one hath cause for it and is persvaded that the faults of an idle servant cannot be mended without anger But anger is a remedy worse then most diseases and no houshold disorder is worth the disordering of our soules with passion Better were it to be ill served or not served at all then to make our servants our Masters giving them power to dispossesse us of the command of ourselves whensoever
resolution of mutual forbearance Above all things wee must remember that wee are all guilty before God and stand in need of mercy and unlesse wee forgive them that trespasse against us wee pray against ourselves and aske our condemnation every time that wee say the Lords Prayer The meditation of death will conduce much to lay downe hatred To wish one dead is among the vulgar an expression of the greatest hatred If then wee may be satisfied with the death of our enemies we may be sure that all our enemies shal die but wee must be sure also that they may expect of us the like satisfaction The worst wee can doe the one to the other is to bring us to the end which Nature leads us unto As while two little fishes are fighting for a flye the Pyke comes that devoures them both while wee quarrell about small things death is coming which will swallow him that is in the right and him that is in the wrong the victor and the vanquished Looke upon the broyles of the age of our fathers What is become of the long and opiniatre quarrel of the Leagve in which all Christendome was involved death hath decided it It hath cooled the * Titles that the Leagvers assumed Ardent and the Zealous It hath stopt the full careere of hatred assisted with valournd power It will do the like to the quarrels of our dayes Let us not be so hot in our dissensions Death will quench our heat within a few dayes and send us to pleade our causes before our great judge It will goe ill with us if wee appeare in that judgement before wee have made peace with our judge by a true repentance and faith which without charity with our neighbours cannot subsist Why should our hatred be long since our life is short The same consideration will serve to temper the hatred of iniquity which for the most part is a pretence whereby wee cozen ourselves and others to palliate personall hatred If we take Gods cause sincerely in hand we must conforme ourselves to his will and wisedome expecting till he send his messenger which is death to attache the wicked before his judgement Psal 37.8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath Fret not thy selfe in any wise to do evill for evill doers shall be cut off 10. Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be If we hate wickednesse we may be sure that God hates it more yet and he will punish it but in his owne time to satisfie his justice not our fashion Certainly if we hated iniquity in good earnest we would hate it in ourselves Though our enemies be wicked we must love them for Gods sake and because we also are subject to the like infirmities we must love them for our sakes CHAP. XIII Of Envy HEre is one more of the Daughters of Pride and therefore a grandchild of Ignorance and Selfe love She is much like Hatred her elder Sister In this they differ that Hatred is bent against the evill and Envy against the good But to shew herselfe descended from Ignorance she mistakes the false goods for the true For no man will envy the Christian vertues of his neighbours nor the riches of his minde but the goods of fortune which often deserve rather to be called evils Let a man grow in learning holinesse let him be a Saint upon earth let him have Seraphicall raptures no man will envy him for it but let him once get favour at Court let his degree and his rents be augmented presently the arrowes of envy will be shot at him on all sides Indeed great Oratours great Warriours and men eminent in civill prudence are much envied by idle droanes but if you looke to the ground of that envy it is not the vertue and capacity of those brave men that begets it but the fame and credit which they get thereby Think not that Satan envieth God because he is good wise if he did he would endeavour to be so He envieth God because he is Almighty and because he is worshiped by men and Angels whereas himselfe would have all power in heaven and earth and every knee to bow unto him It is not vertue but the reward of vertue that moveth envy If it were in an envious mans power to distribute all the wealth spirituall and temporall which is among men he would not dispute to his enemies the possession of all the vertues but he would keepe to himselfe all the rewards This is the cause of that disposition When an envious man seeth others enjoy wealth he feareth there will not be enough left for him But as for Vertue he is sure that the plenty of it with others will not hinder his owne possession of the like So he doth not envy it For nothing moveth envy but such things as have moved cupidity before Cupidity is for light glittering stuffe and envy keepes pace with cupidity Vertue is a substance too dark and solid for their turne Learne we then to store ourselves with those goods which provoke no envy and which we may possesse no body being the poorer by our riches Envy is a great enemy to tranquillity of the suol It is the rottenness of the bones saith Solomon Prov. 14.30 which is a pregnant character of a passing malignant and corroding passion It hath two unnaturall effects The one that an envious man is afflicted with the prosperity of others the other that he punisheth himselfe The first effect is particular to Envy and herein it doth not enter commons with any other Passion The envious man is sick because his neighbour is well He groweth leane because another growes fat he thinkes that he loseth all that another gets and makes of his neighbours prosperity his adversity He is directly opposite to Christian sympathy and the commandement of the Apostle Rom. 12.15 Rejoyce with them that rejoyce and weepe with them that weepe for he is weeping with them that rejoyce and rejoycing with them that weepe Whereas the Apostle saith that Charity is not envious 1. Cor. 13.4 wee may invert the termes and say that Enuy is not charitable yea of all vices it is most incompatible with charity Envious men are the onely kind of men to whom without forme of justice without breach of charity wee may doe harme since to doe them harme wee need but doe good to their neighbours But it is needlesse to doe harme to an envious man or wish him more harme then he doth to himselfe vexing his mind and drying up his body by a continuall and just punishment This is wisely exprest in the CXII Psalme where after the promise made to the just that his righteousnes endureth for ever and his horne shall be exalted with honoùr the text addeth The wicked shall see it and be grieved he shall gnash with his teeth the desire of the wicked shall perish And it is very probable that in the outward darknes where there is weeping and
the smaller and unworthyer the object is the more shamefull is the despaire about it but in recompense it is more curable For then one is easily brought to consider in cold blood that the thing was not worthy either of his affliction or affection But when the object is great and worthy the despaire is more guilty and lesse curable Wherefore the worst Despaire of all is when one despaireth of the grace of God so farre as to hate him for nothing can be worse then to hate the Soveraine good onely worthy to be beloved with all the soul Many distrust the grace of God who are not therefore desperate though they think themselves so to be Let them aske of themselves whether they hate God and let them know that as long as a graine of Gods love remaines in them there is together a graine of faith though opprest and offuscated by melancholy For it is impossible that God should be their enemy and their Soveraine evill while they love him To them this comfort is addrest Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me and those that seeke me early shall find me And this likewise 1 Joh. 4.19 We love him because he first loved us If then we love him we must be sure that he loveth us and we must fight against the temptations of despaire saying with Job Though God stay me yet will I trust in him Job 13.15 and with Isaiah Isa 25.9 Loe this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord wee have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation Confidence is good according to the goodnesse of the subject that it reposeth upon Wherefore Confidence in God the only Soveraine good perfect solid and immutable is the best of all and the onely that can give assurance and content to the soul He that is blest with that confidence is halfe in Paradice already He is firme safe meek serene and too strong for all his enemies Psal 84.12 God is to him a Sunne to give him light heate life and plenty of all goods and a shield to gard him and shelter him from all evills ver 13. He gives him grace in this life and glory in the next O Lord of hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee CHAP. XVIII Of Pitty PItty is a Passion composed of love and sorrow moved by the distress of another either true or seeming And that sympathie is somtimes grounded upon false love because we acknowledge our selves obnoxious to the same calamities and feare the like fortune Pitty is opposite to Envy for Envy is a displeasure conceived at another mans good but Pitty is a displeasure conceived at another mans harme The Passion of Pitty must be distinguished from the vertue that beares the same name for they are easily confounded The Pitty of the vulgar which is imputed to good Nature and Christian charity comes chiefely out of two causes The one is an errour in judgement whereby they reckon many things among the great goods which are good but in a very low degree and likewise many things among evills which are not evill Hence it is that those are most pittied that dye and the best men more then any as though death were evill to such men and they that lose their moneyes which are called goods as though they were the onely good things and they that lose their lands which are called an estate as though a mans being and well being were estated in them The other cause of the Passion of Pitty is a sickly tendernesse of mind easy to be moved wherefore women and children are more inclinable to it but the same tendernesse and softness makes them equally inclinable to choller yea to cruelty The people that seeth the bleeding carkasse of a man newly murthered is stricken with great pitty towards him who is past all worldly sorrowes and with great hatred against the murderer wishing that they might get him into their hands to teare him to peeces But when the fellon is put into the hands of Justice condemned and brought to execution then the heat of the peoples Passion is altogether for pitty to him and that pitty begets wrath against the executioner when he doth his office So easily doth the passion of vulgar soules pass from one contrary to another from pitty to cruelty from cruelty to pitty againe and from compassion for one to hatred for another But all these suddaine contrary motions proceed from one cause which is the tendernesse and instability of weake soules whose reason is drowned in passion and their passion is in perpetuall agitation But the Vertue of Pitty which is a limb of charity is a firme resolution to relieve our neighbour that stands in need of our help and it hath more efficiency then tenderness This is the Pitty of generous and religious spirits aspiring to the imitation of God who without feeling any perturbation for the calamities of men relieveth them out of his mercy And whereas the Passion of pitty is for the most part caused by the ignorance of the goodness and badness of things he that is lesse mistaken in them is also lesse inclined to that passion for he calls not that misery which others call so Nec doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti Or if a wiseman pitty one dejected by poverty it will not be his poverty but his dejected spirit that he will pitty And so of him that is weeping for a slander a wiseman will pitty him not because he is slandered but because he weepes for it for that weeping is a reall evill though the cause which is slander be but an imaginary evill He will labour to get such a firme soul that neither the good nor the evill that he seeth in or about his neighbours be able to worke any perturbation within him The world being a great hospitall of misery where we see wellnigh as many miserable persons as we see men if we were obliged to have a yearning compassion for all the miserable we should soone become more miserable then any of them and must bid for ever Adieu to the peace of the soul and contentment of mind It is enough to give power to our neighbours to command our counsell our labour and our purse in their need but to give them power over the firmeness of our soul to shake and enervate it at their pleasure it is too much Let us depend of none if it may be but God and ourselves Let none other have the power be it for good or evill to turne the sterne of our minde at his pleasure It must be acknowledged that Pitty as weake as it is hath more affinity with Vertue then any other Passion and turnes into vertue sooner then any That way weake soules handled with dexterity are brought to meekeness and charity and that way many Pagans have bin brought to the Christian verity We owe the great conversions to the sufferings of Martyrs