freed from cares and attent to their Devotions why may it not be enlarged to others besides these Younger I mean such as shall contribute the value of their charges without damaging the Foundation Which also may occasion to the wealthy a pious distribution of what they have superfluous Always provided that besides the practice of their Devotions they have some imployment for spending their time profitably for themselves or others and be observant of the laws of the place and the Injunctions of their Governours there in whose power it may be to eject the disorderly 4. Erecting Hospitals for the sick Or among these for the Incurable For the decrepit lame blind For the distracted For poor children orphans or abandoned or not maintainable by their poor Parents These to be taught to write and read and their Catechisme and afterward to be bound apprentices Or those of better parts and more capable of learning to be maintained in the University and fitted for the Clergy For poor Girls after their education to be provided of a Dowry for their Marriage For poor women with Child in order to their decent lying in and delivery For Widows For Wives ill married forsaken and undone For Infants exposed c. 5. Endowing Religious single-persons for visiting the sick poor imprisoned and relieving their wants for attending Hospitals Women for teaching Children gratis to read 6. Setting up Monte-Pios Banks of Money to be lent out to poor Tradesmen or others with pawns or other securities given that the Stock be not lost 7. Employing the Idle in setting up Manufactures and working-houses for them 8. Putting forth Children to honest Trades and binding them Apprentices 9. Paying Dowries for poor maids marriageable especially those more comely or beautiful and so providing for their Chastity 10. Translating printing publishing and bestowing on the necessitous Books of more singular Piety and Devotion Digr 1. Of the great benefit as the advancing and improving of Charity in any of the Kinds forementioned of Sodalities or Confraternities of pious and devout persons Clergy or Laicks and especially of those that have a nearer relation and correspondence with one another in being of the same Office Trade or Profession Which association may many ways more promote the foresaid pious design than single persons can by making a greater stock of Charity-monies by having many eyes to see and hands to relieve the necessitous by inviting and incouraging and countenancing one another in such acts of Mercy and attracting those who are led by example more than their own choice and affection thereto By having meetings at certain times for consulting about such affairs wherein the prudence of a few may be serviceable to the whole and electing out of their number certain persons more intelligent and fit and disengaged for the distribution of their Alms Such a Body being also more obvious for the distressed their making known their wants and more secure to whose care and overseeing the charitable may commit and leave their benefactions Of the like Sodalities of Ladies and Gentlewomen usually the more compassionate and tender-hearted Sex And the Graces and Virtues of a few thus diffusing themselves and alluring many others into the same charitable engagements Of Confraternities in several Trades for relieving the necessities of those of the same company who through many Crosses happen to be decayed in their Estates Digr 2. Of the many opportunities that Divines Physitians and Lawyers more especially have for helping and assisting their poor Neighbours as to their Souls Bodies and Estates The first in catechising the ignorant visiting and comforting the sick or imprisoned especially when near their end instructing them administring to them the Sacraments and preparing them for a good departure out of this world The second in gratis affording them his advice and remedies for their Diseases and especially making known to them the state of their sickness if dangerous or hopeless for their better preparation for death The third in affording his Patronage to and gratis pleading and defending their cause when just and when it otherwise disswading them from contention and in arbitrating differences among Neighbours and preventing Suits and expences at Law And that these Professions are much recommendable to the Nobility and Gentry not in order to gain but to such deeds of Charity Digr 3. Of the nobleness of Charities done not only to the present but future Generations and perhaps lasting to the end of the world Digr 4. Of the great power with God of all good deeds done to our Neighbour whether it be in our remitting their trespasses or relieving their necessities And of the special promises made to these Duties in the Scriptures God making our goodness a rule unto his and doing unto us at the same time as we do or wish unto them Promises of 1. Remission of our Sins 2. Deliverance from Evils as from Sickness Want Enemies c. 3. Temporal happiness to us to our seed Amongst other Benefits the Alms given of some portion of God's gifts sanctifying to us the use of the rest Luk. 11.41 4. Life Eternal Digr 5. Contrary Of God's shewing no mercy to those who shew no mercy to others Digr 6. Of the unacceptableness with God and inutility of the good deeds of those who do not purify themselves from the continuance in any mortal sin §. 75. 3. To God III. DVTIES to God 1. Honouring and loving Him above all things and doing every thing you do for his glory and to please Him 1. Honouring and loving Him above all things 2. Exciting this Divine passion of Love towards God the Father and our Saviour especially by the frequent contemplation of his perfections beauty wisdome goodness love and mercy to you and that in as many particulars as you can remember Digr 1. Of the beneficial alternation of the Acts of Fear and Love to be prevalent in us according to the often change of our present condition which is variously affected towards God and now terrified by his justice now caressed by his mercies 2. Cor. 5.11 Heb. 12.28 Phil. 2.12 3. Never speaking of or naming him but in serious matters with great reverence Ecclesiasticus 23.9 and retaining still a spiritual bashfulness and modesty toward the heavenly Majesty 4. Reading hearing whether this in publick or in private discourse reciting his Word with a special devotion and affection 5. Doing all your things as much as you can only for his glory and this with the more readiness when things seem in any opposition to any your temporal good for this is thank-worthy Or when they are not yet then having no regard as much as you can to your own temporal benefit Else other ends of your own being joyned with that of his glory are commonly tho unobserved by us preferred before it and such means are oftner chosen that conduce more to this than to that tho this foolishly for whilst we look only after God's good he takes so much more care and
virtue if done only out of some motives of reason and not out of the love and to the honor of God and in obedience to his commanding them and out of love to Christ and to his Church or Members As if we said before every action of ours this I do for God's this for Christ's sake See Phil. 3.6 comp 9. 1. Cor. 13.3 Rom. 2.14 15. comp 3.9 Jo. 3.5 6. Non collocatur inter fideles propter opus suum qui naturali bono motus facit bonum non propter Deum This right end especially shewed in actions contrary to our own present good 9. The necessity of our improving the several particular talents and gifts received from God in bringing forth fruits proportionable for which gifts we must certainly give account Matt. 23.30 Luk. 16.2 10. The necessity of Perseverance in well-doing and the lapsibility of all conditions 11. The necessity of not deserting any part of our duty for any opposed sufferings which as they are provided by God for exercising our Vertue so are they to be willingly undergone and not we at any time for them to dispense with any part of our obedience 12. That all Christians in the happiest temporal Condition at all times one way or other are to undergo some Crosses if they will not yield unto sin 13. The Example of our Saviour and of the Saints in walking in all God's Commandments and chearfully undergoing all opposition for it Psal 18.21 c. comp 1. King 14.8 Isa 38.3 Neh. 8.19 2. Tim. 4.7 Job 13.10 11 12. comp Job 1.8 Lu. 1.6 Act. 23.1 24.16 §. 6 VI. Concerning the Reasonableness and Benefits of Holiness VI. Concerning the Reasonableness and Benefits of the Service of God and of Holiness Consider 1. Our Obligation to this Service 1 In Duty to God Where Consider 1. The obedience we owe to God's supreme power and dominion 2. The love to his transcendent amiableness and perfections 3. The gratitude to his multiplied mercies Our Creation Redemption continued Providence in all our Affairs our unexpressible dependance on him in our Being Working c. 4. God's Majesty to be contemplated in the several appearances of it to Moses Esay Daniel St. Paul St. John Rev. 1. chap. 5. God's Wisdome Especially to be admired In his conducting all things from the beginning still to more perfection In his alway bringing good out of evil In his ordering all the particular affairs of the world and of every man therein through the greatest seeming casualties in a symmetry as perfect and exact to his own Just ends could we entirely discover and compare all the causes and effects as that which we see in the wonderful natural Fabrick of all the parts of the world and of every man Psal 107.42 43. It a magnus in maximis ut non minor in minimis All which works of his Providence and Conduct at the great day of the consummation of all things his wisdome shall review and pronounce of them as of those of the Creation Gen. 1.31 valde bonn And then all his admiring Saints reiterate this Confession to Him Valde bona Valde bona 6. The excessive and appearingly-causeless Love of God to man 1. In several degrees the Saviour of all men 2. Patient and long suffering toward Sinners 3. Shewing Mercy and pitty according to the creatures greater impotency and misery 4. Rewarding to us the good he produceth in us §. 7. 2 In duty to our Selves 1. The great reasonableness 2 and amiableness of God's Service and of living in all Christian vertue and holiness Ratio perfecta virtus vocatur As when we look with indifferency on another man where Passion swayeth not our Judgment what a sweetness decency honorableness and heavenly peace and tranquility do we judge to be in patience compared to blood-thirsty revenge In meeekness in respect of peevish anger and frowardness In humility in regard of scornful pride and restless ambition In liberality compared to sordid niggardize In charity compared with lean envy In sobriety in respect of beastly and rotten intemperance How divine a thing a Republick of men all entirely honoring and obeying their Superiors who command them still in Charity intimatly loving and in respect preferring one another some patient in poverty others charitable in wealth when any sick all hasting to serve when poor to relieve when sad to comfort him all holy just chast temperate c. In comparison of a tumult of idle drunken debauched and sottish persons loving only from the teeth outward railing at backbiting scorning one another catching at one anothers wealth supplanting one anothers preferments tempting one anothers wives plotting treasons against their Governors lastly such as are described Rom. 1.29 2. Far less trouble and more freedome in it than in Sin Par mundus dat onus gravinsque The Acts thereof leaving behind them a singular delight in the Soul as those of Sin great after-disgust and discontent Vertue pleasing much better after sin before it is committed Only in such vertuous practice and in every good work small or great almost always a little pain felt for a while in the beginning and this to make it more rewardable 3. The great Reward of it § 8. 1 For the present 1. Tim. 4.8 1. A present union of us with Christ and God by the same holy Spirit dwelling in both 1 and quenching the thirst to all worldly things Jo. 4.14 Former sensual pleasures to one acquainted with holiness when he again happens upon them no more seeming what precious things they were but such as to a man do the sports of children contemptible or also to the more confirmed odious Quas Sordes suggerebant quae dedecora said St. Austine reform'd of his former sensual delights 2. Extraordinary illuminations and consolations from this Spirit especially in the time of necessity in extraordinary poverty afflictions persecutions and the excess of joy in the mind rendring little-perceived the pain of sense 1. Thes 1.6 2. Cor. 6.10 2. Cor. 4.8 9. only as it were afflicted poor sorrowful dying but indeed alway rejoycing rich possessing all things 3. Contentedness in all conditions as being always and certainly possessed of that which he only or chiefly loves Jo. 16.22 Jer. 6.16 Matt. 11.29 Phil. 4.7 And for other things less considerable partly by his submission in many of them as purely indifferent to God's will partly by God's condescending in many other unto his See Psal 4.3 Seldome having occasion of discontent Gen. 24.1 4. Tranquility of mind and joy of conscience for past actions and for doing good which joy though serious is very great And as they do greater good so still greater consolations accompanying it 5. Joy of mostwhat attaining their desires and ends because these honest spiritual following the divine not their own Interest 6. Great joy of hope with freedome from anxious fear for all good things to come Joy of Hope which useth to be in all worldly felicities a far greater joy than
most of men suddenly carried away hence not by the decays of old age but some accidental Distemper or mischance See the larger Meditations on Death below § 170. 4. That eternal Estate depending on our ordering this momentany 5. The Sufferings of the present not worthy to be compared with the Felicities to come nor with the Torments 6. The Pleasures of the present not worthy to be compared with the Sufferings to come nor with the Pleasures II. Concerning the Condition of all present things about us II. Concerning the condition of all present things about us Consider 1. The good things of this world 1 attained with much trouble which is many times also destitute of success 2 Very fleeting in no one moment exactly like themselves in another and not at all certainly enjoyed Here meditate on the temporal Crosses of the greatest and happiest of men David considering his many Psalms of complaint Solomon considering the Confessions of Ecclesiastes Ezechias Josias Constantine Augustus c. And that all Conditions are equally liable to the greatest and intimatest of evils i. e. Sickness 2. The enjoyment no way satisfying not only vanity in them but vexation Ecclesiastes 1.26 3. Though never so satisfying yet many of them forbidden by our Maker and not to be enjoyed without sin The end of our and their Creation not being our present happiness in a full indulgement of them but in the use only of such as are necessary and allowed and in our subjection to many strict Laws and great Temptations and constant service and worship of our Creator here and hereafter an eternal Fruition of him 4. Those that may be without sin enjoyed yet many of them hinderances to our future happiness and tempting to sin and ordinarily our pleasure not to be had both here and hereafter 5. Lastly Consider how few those pleasures and how momentany that time will appear upon your sad Death-bed with which you have bargained for eternal pains Ecclesiasticus 11.27 and how sweet and gentle those commands and how short the time of your restraint by them by which you might have gained eternal felicity III. Concerning the unreasonableness and hurt of Sin III. Concerning the unreasonableness and hurt of Sin Consider 1. The great unreasonableness of sin and the constant opposition it hath both to the publick and to a man's private natural good Or That all things naturally and in the judgment of right reason good for man are by the supreme Law-giver allowed and only things naturally as we are men hurtful prohibited 2. The chief Causes of Sin 1. External The Devil and the evil Spirits his Angels enemies to man Digr Of the great malice and power of Satan intervening in humane affairs in general and of the incessant temptations and suggestions of evil Spirits to the production of Sin circumeuntes quaerentes quem devorent 3. 2ly Internal The sensitive part disobedient and rebellious to the rational Digr Of the great power and the many ways that the sensitive faculties have in perverting reason for the production of Sin 4. The Antecedent of a sinful Act the torment of an inordinate desire 5. The great trouble and servitude that is under Sin 6. The Consequents of Sin 1. Either Inquietude of Conscience Or which is worse a dangerous blindness of mind and hardness of Heart within 7. 2ly Stronger Delusion by God's Grace abandoning us to the will of Satan from abroad And so the Curse of Sin still more Sin 8 1. The present Temporal punishments of Sin in this world Some inflicted by God's vengeance which especially pursues Murder and Cruelty Adultery Disobedience to Parents Breach of Oaths and Solemn Promises 9. Some naturally caused by the Sin Among these Sickness a shortned life Infamy Poverty Quarrels Disconsolation and Despair 10. 2 Such Punishments inflicted and that very severely for greater sins even upon those who are in God's favour and Penitents 11. Inflicted upon many Generations one for the sins of another God using besides those on private persons Inquisitions Ps 9.12 and Judgments more publick at pre-appointed times on families on nations wicked 12. These publick Judgments returning ordinarily once in three or four Generations upon the disobedient Exod. 20.5.34.7 for God's Eternity and exceeding patience maketh not such hast as we 13. Then These Judgments extending further than Man's Justice doth 1st For the Sufferers namely to Relatives in that particular sin not faulty to Children to Buildings And 2ly further than man's for the Crimes also that such persons are charged with namely for those of many Predecessors for God's hand is heavier than man's 14. Punishing 1st the Crimes if very grievous of the Fathers though they become afterwards penitent and received into favour upon their Posterity wicked or other Relatives As appears in Manasseh 2. Chron. 33.10 13. 2. King 24.3 4. And in David 2. Sam. 24 17. 15. 2ly The Crimes of sinning Parents upon Posterity innocent of such Crimes though not every way righteous Ezech. 18.14 2. Sam. 21.1.14 2. Sam. 12.18 But never this in the same measure as he doth on a wicked Progeny See Ezech. 18. chap. 16. Using ordinarily the more wicked his Instruments to punish the less 17. The first and more in Grace when lapsed the first and more in punishment 18. Punishing men for their guilt in one thing by another thing wherein they are innocent or involving those in the same punishments who are innocent as to that common guilt for which he punisheth the rest 19. Punishing also the Instruments of his Justice and of his punishments they executing them most what unjustly and punishing also the Rejoycers at his punishments 20. In equal guilt punishing some not others Lu. 13.2.4 21. In unequal guilt punishing all alike yet not this by punishing any beyond but only some less than their desert 22. Punishing at certain times only the sins of many times and sometimes the less wicked age for the sins of the more wicked 23. Not excusing sin the more when grown to general custome as man doth but ordinarily then his wrath breaking forth upon it when the commonness makes it seem no fault and so when the Sinners least fear or think of wrath Our sins appearing greatest to him when least to our selves 24. Punishing in such set places universally the less faulty there as the more whilst at the same time elsewhere people more faulty enjoy impunity and yet the Lord in all these punishments most righteous since of these the more guilty are always punished much under the less guilty never beyond their demerits their Demerits I say in some other if not in the same kind 25. Inflicted not according to the estimation which man the Offender maketh of his sin but which God the Judge who reckons many very hainous which the other accounts very small and all sins in general far more sinful than man doth He looking on the heart and discovering its malice and hypocrisy more perfectly than the sinner himself doth beholding
and going into another life strongly invited to devotion and the making some acquaintanec beforehand with God and Heaven Is By reason of Sin 's appearing now no more unto him with a painted face but in its own natural colours and deformity after the Instruments of it decayed and goustless the pleasures spent and only a sting of conscience and fear of punishment left behind Is I say much more flexible to repentance of it and having a much greater aversion from it Is By reason of many Infirmities and diseases within contempts and affronts abroad inured also to much patience and necessitated to great mortifications So that if we measure the happiness of this life by attaining the end of our Creation the serving of God in Holiness Innocence and Vertue we find cross to the Poet That pessima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi prima venit Subit hinc prudens pia docta Senectus Nor is the former virgour of the Body in youth so desirable as the imperfections of the Soul to be loathed nor would any wise man were it in his power be content to forego all the improvements of the one to have repaired to him all the decays of the other 'T is true indeed that the more miserable and blind and molested with temptations the days of our youth are the greater miracle and more estimable is a Holy young man and such happy in his death also when it prevents old age Ne forte malitia mutaret intellectum But yet he also by arriving to old age only if persevering is to be pronounced much happier as accumulating his reward and glories in heaven by his good works so much longer multiplied here §. 21. 7. Of Sleep 1. Not indulging your self much Sleep considering that if we may number our life by the full enjoyment and use of our sensitive and rational faculties we no longer truly live than we are awake and that it is in our power so much to lengthen our life as we shorten our sleep at least that so much of it only is beneficial to us as men and as Christians wherein we are awake to perform those duties here for which we live and to be rich in good works and execute the end of our Creation Considering also the strict account which must be made of time and the shortness of that time after which no man to all eternity can work the least thing to better his condition Lastly considering That watching and abridging sleep very much tames the flesh and in the deficiency or less activity of our Spirits produceth much what the same effects upon it as Fasting renders us less disposed to vain mirth and jollity and more inclined to silence gravity recollection c. much Activity being seldome innocent And Piety as to much secular entertainments and affairs resembles an holy Somnolency 2. Measuring your rest and sleep by time not satiety and then breaking it off with violence Sleep and Lust will not be treated with This time by no means to exceed Eight hours i. e. the third part of your life More than which he that spends in sleep unjustly complains of want of time especially if for Prayer our most important business Holy men have limited it for whole Societies within the Seventh And those in a higher degree temperate have contracted sleep I mean always such a proportion thereof as satifies nature for an undrowsy dispatch of our dayly business to yet fewer hours for themselves to Five Four or perhaps less for less sleep is necessary as our dyet is more temperate and fasting best remedies its excesses and by this means adds some hours each day to our life our life i. e. that short time which we are allowed here on earth to purchase for our selves a happy Eternity Sleep also as it is shortned after some practice becomes more profound and hath in depth what it wants in length and so also is freer from troublesome and foolish dreams To a moderate and equal Diet may be also added a hard bed for the same effect we being not so apt to exceed in that which supplies our necessities without delight 3. Beginning the time allotted for your rest as soon as you conveniently can in the evening that in those morning and best hours which the world abroad usually bestows on their repose you may enjoy the more freedome for your negociations with God not importuned with company or secular Business As going to bed at Nine or Eight at night and rising in the morning at Five Four or Three if in the Summer-season 4. Repelling secular thoughts and praying when in bed you are indisposed to rest or sleep which is perhaps to some by reason of our weakness and dis-affection to Spiritual matters the best art they can use to fall asleep quickly 1. Pet. 4.7 Col. 4.2 Psal 6.6 4.4 5. In the morning not keeping your bed longer than sleeping for fear of evil thoughts As also composing your self in bed with all decency and modesty as being in the presence of and beheld by God and his Holy Angels 6. Watching sometimes on nights to Prayer and Devotion tho you make some repairs of sleep for it in the day The less distraction of sense by variety of objects the silence of midnight and terror of darkness much helping devotion And most leisure then from business therefore night-devotions much used by our Lord by his Apostles by David and other Saints See Luk. 6.12 Mar. 1.35 Matt. 14.23.25 Act. 16.25 2. Cor. 6.5 11.27 Luk. 2.37 Act. 12.12 comp 6. Psal 63.6 7.3 16.7 119.62.148 Esa 26.9 Luk. 12.37 38. Matt. 13.37 Act. 20.31 Eph. 6.18 Performing this half-clothed upon your bed rather than omit it 7. The later your serious conversion to God happens to be using so much the more diligence these ways in redeeming so much former lost time §. 22. 8. Of Recreation and Vacancy from Employment 1. Not indulging your self much time of leisure and vacancy from business and no way predisposed of In desiderio est omnis otiosus 2. Easing tediousness with variety and change of labours Digr 1. Of the many dangers from Idleness and non-imployment Digr 2. The benefit of diligently following some constant Vocation by which all Sin is excluded §. 23. 9. Of Company and secular Converse 1. Not seeking acquaintance no way necessary to us nourishing idleness and the neglect of our Vocation a temptation to make visits and go much abroad an occasion of entertainments vain expence and intemperance and as many times an effect so a cause of ambition and desire to be known whereby we subject our selves to new obligations and laws I mean of secular Civilities pretended to belong to the duty of friendship not well consistent with those laws of God to which we owe an indispensable observance Ungrateful Friendship that to please a less Friend offends a greater 2. Abstaining from much conversation and frequenting of company Cavete ab hominibus for you will get no good by them
under the hand of God's wrath 7. Giving no scandal to the weak And supporting and tolerating them with all patience 8. Much compassionating and condoling the afflicted our partaking nay aggravating their grief to them much lessening it And comforting them tho smitten of God a temporal stroke many times saving and preventing an eternal 9. Admonishing reproving sinners Luk. 3.19 And in Reproof using what privacy you can yet in company not forbearing it when a sin committed before the company or when no likelihood of other opportunity to do it privately Reprehending rather in the close of your converse and discourse with them than at your first accost and rather at some distance from committing the fault because such reprehension is less offensive Not usually reproving without some pre-commendations as to other things Not reproving the fact without some excusing at least in part of the intention which only known to God is never by us to be judged or censured In Admonition and Reprehension using the first person including your self rather than the second We rather than You We should or should not do thus or thus We offend God in doing so and so Or sometimes using the third Men ought or ought not c. And in mentioning their faults delivering many times what you have to say rather as from a third person some say It is said I was told c. 10. Correcting the refractory when having authority to do it 11. Quitting men of their fears fear being many times a great torment 12. Reconciling Enemies and arbitrating and taking up differences between friends And procuring as much Charity the greatest virtue as you can between all men This being the greatest deed of Charity §. 72. II. CHARITIES to the Body 1. Feeding the Hungry Cloathing the Naked 3. Warming the Cold. Relieving with money or rather for Money is often mis-spent with victuals or cloths or in cold Seasons with fuel a certain number of poor at your door on certain days or also sending such alms to their houses Providing a private receipt for Tickets where the more bashful poor of honest families reduced to poverty may make known their wants and so be relieved Entertaining some poor at your table on certain days and exercising some acts of humility with and toward them In all supplying of the Poor's corporal endeavouring also to relieve their spiritual Necessities as if their alms were made their wages for saying our Lord's Prayer Creed or some part of their Catechisme where more secular wants there being commonly also more ignorance and poverty in Spiritual things 2. Visiting tending on the sick especially the poor and helpless those in Hospitals or in Prisons c. providing necessaries for them Physitians a stock of usual remedies for their diseases praying with reading to them and helping any way their repentance in a time when Souls are most humble pliant and best wrought upon and procuring by all means their dying in God's fear Especially not rashly comforting the sick with Hopes of their recovery whereby they may be hindered from a due preparation for their death or at least lose the benefit of their sickness in their performance of the Acts of Humiliation Confession Contrition Prayer c for which God sends it 3. Visiting Prisons and that with all indifferency to the distressed there that you may have a greater reward Relieving their present wants providing necessary helps in their Sickness the Divine Service to be celebrated among them and other needful instructions in Religion Making collections for their debts and purchasing their freedome when in restraint for some smaller summe Hearing their complaints and interceding to those to whom their sufferings relate soliciting their business where any injury seems done them Expediting their tryal and procuring a release or moderation of their punishment And accustoming your self to be frequent in such houses of mourning and mortifications and where your self also may incur some sufferings 4. Especially visiting the sick that are hopeless of recovery Prisoners and Malefactors after condemned to dye Moderating their sorrows and despairs helping their repentance Inviting them to confession and directing them how to make it especially in respect of wrongs to their Neighbours instructing where need their ignorance accompanying them to the place of execution and using all means to guard them from the Temptations of the Divel in that most perilous hour hoping that a broken and a contrite heart God will never despise If no way fit to do such office your self procuring some Holy man who abounds in Charity and Humility to assist them in such extremities and to comfort and prepare them for a penitent and happy end 5. Furnishing and maintaining Apothecaries shops abounding with all sorts of Druggs Compositions and Remedies for all sorts of Diseases gratis for the poor within such a parish or larger Circuit Or which is the practice of many charitable Ladies and Gentlewomen making a plentiful provision of such Medicines Cordials Balsomes in your own house for their relief according to the directions of the skilful 6. Redeeming Captive Christians 7. Entertaining and furnishing necessaries to the stranger and traveller Luk 10.33 8. Burying the Dead i. e. taking care of the decent burial of their body preserving of their good name and doing those favours in their unperfected affairs which you would do for them if yet living and which you would desire after your decease others should do for you III. CHARITIES to Him in his Estate 1. Lending Money without Interest and tho with hazard of losing it Matt. 5.42 Deut. 15.8 9.24.13 Eccl. 29.8 9. Luk. 6.35 2. Forgiving debts to the necessitous Remitting forfeitures and other your rights 3. Delivering the Poor from his Oppressors and defending his just cause against the rich and powerful Esai 1.17 58.6 Psal 82.4 Digr Of our obligation under the Gospel toward all Christians equal to that of the Jews toward their Brethren i. e. those of the same Nation And of the plentiful Alms enjoined to them by the law of Moses IV. CHARITIES more Vniversal 1. Building or repairing houses of God's Service High-ways Bridges 2. Endowing Churches wanting Meanes 3. And more Ministry in great Parishes or necessary places 2. Furnishing Divinity Lectures Catechists for Children Readers of the Divine Service dayly in Churches especially those in greater Towns 3. Erecting Schools of Learning with Orders of a strict Discipline Colledges of Retirement from the world with a more strict frequent and orderly practice of their Devotions and Sobriety of diet And these for both Sexes being single persons with clausure if need be for the women And it seems tending much to many mens Salvation if these Colledges were instituted not only for receiving the Aged or Insirm but young persons also in whom the crosses troubles or vanities of this world have wrought the same inclination to a retreat from it as old age or diseases have caused in others For if any extraordinary happiness may be thought in such a life
a Guest but with great humility bespeak him as a Father recount to him her calamities and beg of him the remedy thereof acknowledging she is unworthy to be his daughter Treat ye with him as with a Father with a Brother with a Lord and with a Spouse sometimes in one manner sometimes in another for he will teach you what you must do to please him Observe that it concerns you much to understand this truth that God abides within you and that there we may abide with him This way of praying although it be vocally with much more speed recollects the understanding and is a way of Prayer that brings with it many good things being stiled of Recollection This she supposeth to be in our power by our endeavours to attain to Because the Soul in it recollects all her faculties and enters within her self with her God and there her Divine Master comes to instruct and teach her in a much briefer manner than 't is in other ways and to bestow upon her the Prayer of rest This is the lowest sort of Prayer which she calls super-natural and not in our power to acquire Because thus retired she may here with her self meditate on the passion and here represent the Son as Crucified and offer him to the Father and not weary the understanding in going forth to seek him on Mount Calvary or in the Garden or at the Pillar Those who in this manner can lock in themselves in this little Heaven of our Soul where abides he that created both the Heaven and the Earth and shall inure themselves not to behold nor stay where the exterior senses distract them let them believe that they walk in an excellent way and that they shall not fail at last to arrive to drink water from the fountain In this recollection the Soul retires the exercise of its faculties from these exterior things and in such a manner abhors them that tho unawares she shuts the bodily eyes not to behold them that so those of the Soul may see so much better Accordingly who walks by this way almost always in Prayer keeps his eyes shut and it is an admirable custome for many things because it is as it were a forcing ones self not to observe these things below This shutting the eyes happens only in the beginnings of such recollections for afterwards its needless since then we must use more force upon our selves to open them The Soul at such a time seems to fortify her self at the bodies charge i. e. in withdrawing from it its Spirits and leave it all alone and much enfeebled and thence to draw provisions and maintainance against it And although this power of retiring the faculties in the beginning is not perceived because it is not much for in this recollection there are degrees of more and less yet if it be once brought into a custome although at the first it causes some trouble because the body replies and disputes the business not perceiving that it destroys it self in not yielding to and suffering such a conquest if I say this for some days be used and we force our selves to it the gain thereof will be manifest and we shall afterward perceive that in the beginning of Prayer the Bees will presently repair to their Hive and enter there-into to make Honey and that without any diligence or trouble of ours because so it hath pleased God that by that former time of forcing our selves the Soul and the Will hath merited to be endowed with such a command as that in only intimating to them and no more that she would withdraw them the faculties obey her and retire unto her And although after a while they return to go forth again yet much is gained that thus they have been retired because they now go abroad only as slaves and subjects nor do that mischief in it as formerly and when the Will again recalls them they come with more readiness till after many of these Re-entrances of the Soul into it self it at length please the Lord that they should fix there altogether in a contemplation more perfect §. 103. And this which I have said although it appear obscure yet who will put it in practice shall easily understand it c. And since it so much concerns us not to go on in our Devotions slowly let us discourse a little how we may inure our selves to so good a way of proceeding in them Let us therefore make account that within us there stands a Palace of most rich workmanship its Edifice consisting all of Gold and precious Stones in fine every way such as is suting to so great a Lord and that you are in part the cause that this Edifice is such as indeed it is for there is no Fabrick at all of so great beauty as a Soul pure and replenished with vertues which by how much greater they are so much greater is the lustre of those precious Stones and that in this Palace lodgeth that great King who is pleased to make himself your guest and that he is there seated in a Throne of the greatest value which is your Heart This will seem at the first to you but a thing impertinent that I should make such a fiction to make you understand it yet it may help much you especially c. Again Chapter 29th She proceeds thus on the same subject The Soul 's entring within her self into this Paradice together with her God and locking the door after her against all things which are in the world Ye may know that it is not at all a thing super-natural but that it depends on our Will and that we are able to do it with that help of God without which we are able to do nothing at all not so much as to have of our selves one only good thought For this is not a silence of the faculties but a shutting them up within themselves §. 104. Many ways we go on in acquiring it both by dis-busying our selves from all other things that we may interiourly thus joyn our selves unto God and in business also by retiring sometimes into our selves tho it be but for a moment This remembring my self that I have such a companion within me is of great help and that which I only aim at is that we procure to stand with him whom we are speaking to without turning our backs upon him for no other thing than turning our backs seems it to me to stand in discourse with God and be thinking on many vanities All the damage comes from not understanding that most truly he stands near us and not a far off from us But how far is he from us if we go to seek him in Heaven The Lord teach this to those of you who do not know it I confess for my self that I never knew what it was to pray with any affection until the Lord taught me this way And I have always found so much benefit of this Custome and manner of recollection within