precept of dilection of enemies sits but light upon the carriage of the Cross of Christ The sixteenth Treatise Considerations upon the Unsuccessfulness of a good Cause Divided into six Sections §. I. That much Religion is required to assist us in this probation THere is no Argument wherein Natural Reason hath more need of a Supernatural prompter to help us to frame our conclusions then in this of the miscarriage and frustration of pious and just designs especially in publike causes For God hath left us a convenient light whereby to read the right of Causes and our duties to them which is our sincerest and most disinteressed Reason judging by the known Laws of his Will But to discern whether the Success or Defeature of any Cause concur most to the universal end of Gods Providence this knowledge is seated in unaccessible light We may read Gods present Will in Events but not his consequent Order which may require the demolishment of many particular goods to build up the frame of the universal therefore the present ruine of single pieces of Equity doth not derogate any thing from the goodness of their Nature Wherefore the right of Causes ought not to be sentenced by the irregularity of Successes which are always uniform to Gods universal design though disproportioned according to the model of our Reason Surely they who shall seek to penetrate the Divine Providence by the eye of Reason so far as to make a draught of the reasons of all particular occurrences in the variations of Events make such an attempt as one that should gaze upon the Sun to enjoy more light then when he looked upon the Earth For they who press into this light shall quickly be oppressed by the same splendor they design for illumination And yet the infirmity of man is subject to such a kinde of Temptation viz. To study even the decyphering of all Gods characters in which his hand to the Creatures is very often sent For the successes and prevalence of Injustice against Honesty and Vertue may be aptly termed Gods eyphers in which his hand is soon discerned but not his sense Nevertheless we do familiarly take Events for the key of all the characters of Gods Providence and presume to read many of his Secrets very confidently by this key of the present form and figure of Events Nay our zeal is often so ingenious in this art of decyphering as it perswades us that we may even run and read the right of Causes by this light of Successes Insomuch as S. Pauls case in Malta is very familiar in the world for while the Viper is hanging upon the Cause and we are looking when it shall fall down and perish then we make our Judgement to be Gods Sentence and when the Viper is shaken into the fire and that destroyed by us which was expected as our destruction when a cause recovers from this danger then commonly that is cryed up for Gods Cause which before passed for his Curse This is a familiar conclusion with such who as we may say know Gods Providence onely by fight that is by the external marks of Successes and have no acquaintance with the nature and condition◠thereof Therefore as it is said of Philosophy That a slight and superficial knowledge of it may incline the minde of man to Atheism for if our minde stay and rest upon second causes which are next to our senses this fixure of our thoughts may keep our minde short of the Supreme cause but if we make a farther advance and progression into the reason of Philosophy it will lead the minde up to Religion as it shews the congruous dependency and subordination of all causes to Divine Providence So in the first rudiments of Religion which present us with a superficial aspect of Gods Justice under the notion onely of rewarding and punishing This first impression may move us to conclude of the quality of causes by Gods present declaration in their promotion or their prejudice but a judicious advance into the farther grounds of Religion will carry us to a reverent suspense of our conclusions upon the present apparences of all Events and apply us to the contemplation of Gods universal Providence which the Psalmist calls Gods great abysse which when it is the most stormy to our Reason when it drowns and desolates in our apprehension the right and justice of Humane actions even then it runs in the proper course of universal Justice and Equity There is also a regularity even in the very wave it seems broken into subverting all Humane order though the concertation of this method falls not within our capacity for the Psalmist himself says when the waves of this Ocean were gone over his head Thy way is in the Sea and thy pathes in many waters and thy steps are not to be traced A profound immersion in Religion covers our Reason with a reference to Gods universal Providence in those cases which seem to be void of his particular justice whereas a looking upon Successes by the first glances of Religion and discoursing on their Reasons by the flashy light of our private zeal to the Cause may easily raise impertinent conclusions upon the present apparences and such hasty judgements are so little capable of giving rest to our mindes as they must needs keep them in a continual vassellation according to the vicissitudes of contrary occurrences Wherefore as meer eagerness and zeal to the mastery and prevalence of any Cause ought not to be the motive of electing our party for in that affection there is always some obliquity from the straight love of Right◠and leaning towards the conveniency not an uprightness in our address to Justice so the success of our election ought as little to raise or abate the zeal to our Cause for by this varying of our measures we seem to square our conformity to Gods method as it answereth to the model of our Reason by which we have framed conclusions upon our own suppositions of Equity And this expectation of the Success of our Cause comes nearer oftentimes to the flattering our own judgement then applauding the Divine order and disposition of Events §. II. Motives to constancy after a prudent election of our Cause GOd hath left us sufficient marks by which to discern the right of publike Causes though our mistake of them be very familiar being swayed by some private partiality which looks more upon the beam reflected back on our selves then upon the direct beam as it shines upon the publike good But supposing us mis-led by our judgement I conceive it less blameable to persevere firmly in our first application then to be shaken from our party meerly by the motions of adverse Events In the first case man doth but miss his way in seeking God and in the last he seems to fear God may miss his way in coming to man for we know God is often said to come down to men in several acts of his Providence and
god-head she could in number have made up that losse of quality she brought in all the celest all bodies into the account of Divinity serving the Militia of Heaven instead of the maker and we may call to minde that as humane bodies grew Giants mindes seemed to shrink into dwarfs when they fell in love as I may say with the daughters of men that is the conceptions of their owne naturall Reason in this point of Divinity And we may well suppose that the Giants soules in the law of nature became so by espousing this daughter of God which we may properly call Grace whereby their heads passed the skie and touched Heaven it selfe in this beliefe of the unity of the godhead and by this conjunction with grace reason produced their issue of a rectified Religion hence is it that we finde the Patriarks frequently visited by celestiall spirits as the allies as I may say of this daughter of Heaven they had espoused and most doe conclude that all those who in the law of nature continued in a rectified belief and worship of God were maintained in that state by grace supplementall to the virtue of single Reason How far humane Reason may alone finde the way to rectified Religion is a question to exercise curiosity rather then excite piety and very commonly reason in the disquisition of faith doth rather sink the deeper into the earth by falling from her over aspiring then she doth six her selfe upward in her proper station and besides this danger me thinkes there is this difference betweene them that are working upon reason to extract Religion and those that are feeding upon sincere faith that the first are labouring the ground for that fruit which the last are feasting on or that the first are plowing while the last are gathering of Manna I shall indeavour therefore to serve in this spirituall refection ready to be tasted treating of faith already digested rather then to be provided by ratiocination for devotion is faith converted into nourishment by which the soul contracting a sound active strength needs not study the composition of that aliment it finds so healthfull §. II. Treating the best habit of mind in order to the finding a rectified Religion ME thinks Religion and Devotion may be fitly resembled to the Body and the Soule in Humanity The first of which issues from an orderly procession of nature by a continuing virtue imparted all at once to mediate causes the last is a new immediate infusion from heaven by way of a creation continually iterated and repeated So Religion at large as some homage rendred to a supreme relation flows into every mind along with the current of natural causes But Devotion is like the Soule produced by a new act of grace directed to every particular by speciall and expresse infusion and in these respects also the analogie will hold that as Religion hath the office of the body to containe Devotion so Devotion hath the function of the soule to informe and animate Religion And as the soule hath clearer or darker operations according as the body is well organized or disposed so Devotion is the more zealous or remisse proportionately to the temper and constitution of the Religion that containeth it Sutable to the Apostle Saint James his intimation to us that Pure Religion keeps us unspotted from the world I shall not take upon me the spirituall Physitian to consult the indispositions and remedies of differing Religions but relying more upon the Testimony of confessed experiments then the subtilty of that litigious art I shall prescribe one receipt to all Christian tempers which is to acquire the habit of Piety and Devotion for this in our spirituall life is like a healthfull aire and a temperate diet in our naturall the best preservative of a rectified faith and the best disposition to recover from an unsound Religion for the Almes and Prayers of the Centurion were heard and answered when they spoke not the language of the Church and the Angel was sent to translate them into that tongue in which God hath chose onely to be rightly praised that which his Eternall Word Christ Jesus hath peculiarly affected and annexed to his Church this shews the efficacie of piety and the exactnesse of Gods order who hath inclosed his eternall graces within those bounds into which he brings all that shall partake of them and so doth naturalize all such strangers as he intitleth to them doth not allot any portions to aliens but reduceth all them he will endow into that qualification he requireth which is into the rank of fellow-citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God he leaves none with a dispensation of remaining forreiners The Angel that called the Centurion directed him to the gate of the Church Saint Peter did not bring him a protection to rest in his owne house with the exercise of his naturall pieties and so for those that are straying without the inclosure of the Catholique Church if they walk by the light of naturall charity morall piety and devotion in their religious duties this is the best disposition towards the finding of the way the truth and the life of whom the Psalmist sayes He is neere to all those that seeke him and those who are thus far advanced in morality may be said to be in atriis Templi in the Church-yard which is in a congruous disposition for farther advance into the body of the church I shall endeavour then to affect every one with the love of purity and holinesse of life for to those that are already rooted and growing in the Church this disposition will be are that fruit the Apostle soliciteth for them that their love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgement And in those who are yet strangers and forreiners as he calls them this reverentiall feare of God seemes to chase the wax for the seale of the holy Spirit for Prayers and Almes doe as it were retaine God for their Counsel and as his Clients open their cause to him in these tearms of the Psalmist Lord cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soule unto thee And such may be said to be halfe way towards their end that doe worship in a zealous spirit and are likely never left there but helped on to the other part of worshipping in truth by him that hath ordained our worship to consist of Spirit and Truth so that devotion sincerity in any Religion are the best Symptomes of our designation to the true and sincere Religion Wherefore having made this generall presentation of piety and virtue to all parties I shall not stay to wrastle in the Schooles but rather strive to set such Church-musick as all parties may agree to meet at the service and this I presume may sound in tune unto most eares that where consort and harmony in faith appeareth it is a good note of that
ill an odour as their former Sacriledge If these Animadversions meet likewise with any such as are not urged by the pressure of their Consciences but rather solicited so much by their natural temper and disposition to privacy and retiredness as upon the least provocation of the world they are apt to break with it these humors are desired to stay and pause â—â—riouâ—ly and long on this suggestion for this may often be the operation of Melancholy which works this hasty promptitude And as Melancholy is the highest degree of choler in the Humors so in these hasty sallies out of the society of the world there may well be more Natural Humor then Spiritual Disposition and so this be rather a Disease then a devout Constitution Wherefore like sick men that forbear food long while the Humor is consuming these retreaters may for some time live quietly as long as this Humor of the worlds disrelish is wasting and spending it self but after that is digested the appetite of the world returns and likely gnaws upon their peace they having no natural food for it Hence is it that such complexions ought to be very advised in this their assigning of themselves according to the propensity of their Humors which perswades them often that what is indeed but the Ecâ—ho of their own voyce of Nature which speaks in them is a Spiritual vocation For their Natural Constitution raifeth that desire in their imaginative part which causeth a little repetition and answer of it in the Judiciary and Rational power of their minde but it is rather from the hollowness of their reason then the solidity of it that this Eccho is returned The result therefore of all these Examinations of several Cases must be Not to conduct our selves by the precedents of special extraordinary vocations of some whom Christ hath sent for out of the streets and by-ways of the world that is immediately from the foulness and immundicity of their lives and by his Messengers of Crosses and Afflictions compelled them to come into his house For these Cases are prerogatives of Gods Grace which do not alter the known Laws that are enacted by him by which Laws we ought to try our vocations to wit by the mature advice of those Judges he hath seated in his Tribunal upon Earth his Church and by their Sentences to make the tryal of all our own private impulses or motions of our Spirit to this dispossession and abnegation of the world Christ himself hath ruled this case in an excellent Parable of one that builds a Tower which is properly adopted to the design of a contemplative life as it is the erection of a frame of life raised high above the other parts of the Earth and intended for prospect and discovery so that none must undertake this edifice but after computation of the pertinencies requisite for the finishment lest they expose themselves to the reproach of having begun what they were not able to finish and this reckoning and account of our provision must be made by the consulting of a prudent Spiritual Surveyor not trusting to the Architecture of our own Spirit in which we must zealously often and humbly consult the eternal Architect of all Spiritual frames for a sincere discernment of his order in the regulating our own designs with this address of the cautious Spirit of Holy David Lord grant me to know the way wherein I should walk for I have lifted up my soul to thee This parting and separation from our own Will is the first leave we must take in our valediction to the world and this is not to be done by a hasty dismission of it for so it is but a weight thrown upward which is fastened to us and falls quickly back again therefore it must be loosened and severed by degrees and steeped as it were in the fresh springing water of Prayer and Mortification whereby it will peel and fall away the easilier Some perseverence in this disposition is requisite to blanch and whiten the intention perfectly St. Pauls advice for our preparation for the Holy communion is me thinks very properly applicable to this our preparation for participating of this Spiritual food for Religious Solitude is the Table of the Holy Ghost Therefore let a man examine himself and then eat of this bread of life for he that presumes to taste of it unworthily may be truly impeached as guilty of much irreverence to the Holy Spirit in venturing to come to the Communion of his Gifts and Graces rashly without a due consulting of his invitation I need not urge our precaution and advisedness in this case farther since our temerity in it is brought to be a kinde of Sin against the Holy Ghost Whereupon I will close up this Advertisement in St. Johns words Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God for many false promises of this Spirit of an happy Solitude are current in the world it being truer in no case then in this It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God who sheweth mercy The nineteenth Treatise Of Violent Solitude or Close Imprisonment Divided into eight Sections §. I. How unwillingly our Nature submits to the loss of Liberty and Society IN the case we treated last the Will needed a premonition against the deception of sight for our Will in fits of Melancholy looketh commonly through the glass of our Imagination upon such objects as flatter that humor most This Perspective of our Fancy is often cut into such angles as represent various and false colours of perswasions wherewith the Will is inveigled such species proving not real when our Reason cometh strictly to oversee them Therefore in the election of Solitude the elective faculty was to be instructed against the falacies of discourse upon which the Resolution is to be grounded but this case requireth a different direction For here the best course the Will can take to rectitude is to be totally blinded and cieled that she may make the straighter mount upward to the eternal Will and not amuse or perplex her self by looking about with a solicitous inspection into second causes but may pitch at the first flight upon the primary cause of all Contingencies Our Nature requireth much precaution in this aptitude to intangle us under the pretext of infranchisement by the liberty of reasoning out the Causes of all advers Accidents for in this case of loss of Liberty and Company our Nature likely seizeth on curious disquisitions of all Humane Reasons as the next thing she takes hold on to make company out of them and the contrivement of issues out of these straights is a sort of freedom our Nature takes as some imaginary reparation in her necessity by reason wherof these are coÌ„monly the first occupations wherein our Fancy seeketh some divertisement and this entertainment may lighten the weight a little by removing it to and fro in our Fancy not
letting a sad apprehension setle upon our mindes but all this agitation of discourse as long as it is but in circumference about this world and in the element of secondary Causes is still but a circular motion which maketh no progression to our end for till our mindes are risen and fixed upon the supreme Cause all the various projects and motions of our Fancy are but cooling a Feaver with â—anning upon the distemper'd patient where the ayr may afford some exterior refreshment which may be an inflaming of the disease but if our Will be 〈…〉 eled at first with the Dove of the Psalmist she flyeth up immediately to her rest The sooner then we spread our thoughts upon the wings of Faith the more haste we make to be lodged in rest and tranquility of Spirit Liberty and Society are two so dear Proprieties of Humane Nature as natural Reason can give no equivalent exchange in satisfaction for them The Author of Nature can onely recompence this privation of two of the best Functions of our being and this by a communication of no less then his own Nature which is by filling up these breaches with his own Spirit otherwise our Spirits will certainly remain empty and destitute of peace and consolation For God who made Mans Society out of Man himself hath left the love of Company so inviscerated in him as that deprivement seemeth now to take more then a rib out of him even the better half of his Minde seems intrenched from him insomuch as his Reason seemeth to be left but one-handed to minister to him in this Exigence which would require a reduplication rather for his support But Nature is so unable to make this supply as for the redintegrating of his minde he must resort to a Supernatural suppeditation §. II. The deficiency of single Natural Reason argued for Consolation in this case and the validity of Grace asserted WHen I consider the strange undertakings of the Philosophers me thinks they have charactered to us the power of Natural Reason in a fabulous figure or Romance setting it out as vanquishing all corporeal sensibleness armed with never so many strong afflictions dissolving and disinchanting all the Charms and Spells of Passions although their characters be set never so powerfully against the efficacy of Reason which they exhibite in this predominancy dispersing all Errors rectifying all oblique Opinions thus have they fancied the superior part of the minde inthroned in such power as may easily blow away all ayr even of any Sedition that riseth in the inferior Regions of the imaginative or sensitive faculties Reason remaining in the posture of the Queen of the Revelation proclaiming I sit Queen and am no Widow and shall see us sorrow But they who account upon this Self-sufficiency shall quickly finde how impracticable these strong speculations will prove when they are bound and the Philistines are upon them that is inclosed in Solitude and assailed by Natural distresses and vexations if they shall then expect such a Hercules of their Reason as they have seen painted by the Stoicks that should break through all these Monsters and remain fortified by all these labors they will soon perceive their projected securities had more of Poetry then of Prophesie And sure I believe one that trusteth to the power of Natural Reason upon the word of Philosophy to deliver him from all faintness or deficiency of Spirit in this state of Violent Solitude doth as if one should perswade himself inspired with the vertue of some fabulous Heroe with whose character he had been strongly affected by reading his Romance for when he comes to combat his vitiated Nature in this Spiritual atchievement he will finde such a vanity in his speculation The Fable of Ixion is a good figure of this kinde of presumption for projecting to enjoy Juno that is some celestial Prerogative they do but embrace a cloud and by this mixture they beget nothing but Chymera's Certain it is that Christianity doth afford such Spiritual Samsons as carry the gates of their Prisons away upon their shoulders up to the Mountains and break all their chains as flax raising their mindes with the Psalmist up to the mountains contemplating Gods Providence and his design upon them in so high a degree of resignation as even their Prison and their Solitude are rather Marks to them of their liberties then Manacles of their Spirits but the strength of such Samsons is derived from the vow not from the veins or sinews of Nature Is it by their offering up and consecrating their Reason to that Spirit whose breath overthrows all the strong holds and destroyeth all the councels of Self-sufficiency and replenisheth the evacuation which is made of our own Reason to make room for that infusion therefore such victorious Spirits profess That the weapons of their warfare are not carnal but such as are mighty to the destroying of all the counsels of humanity and bring into captivity all understanding unto the obedience of Christ for as he himself assureth us If the Son of man make you free you shall be free indeed So that all such infranchised mindes are convinced of the incapacity of their single Nature to preserve this immunity and acknowledge this condition to that Spirit which ima 〈…〉 this freedom by the degrees of restriction â—o putteth upon them of his own bands for where the Spirit of our Lord is there is liberty This Spirit made St. Peter sâ—eep soundly in his chains between his two guards that is hold him reposing in a perfect stilneâ—s of minde in all his ex 〈…〉 disquiets and preserved him in as much freedom of Spirit before his irons were struck off as after the iron gates of 〈◊〉 City flew open before him even while he lay in his Dungeon he was surely in the same freedom of minde bound in his chains as sitting on his chairs of Rome and A 〈…〉 and the Centurion that fell down before him at Cesâ—â—ea constrained his Spirit more then the Soldiers between whom he was laid down at Jerusalem The Soul of man then is capable of a state of much peace and equanimity in all exterior bands and ag 〈…〉 ions but this capacity is rather an effect of the expropriation of our Reason then a vertue resulting from her single capacity for it is the evacuation of all self sufficiency that a 〈…〉 h a replenishment from that Divine plenitude from whose fulness we receive grace for grace so that it is a super ve 〈…〉 gift not a native graft in our Reason And this tranq 〈…〉 of Spirit he that led captivity captive hath given as a gift unto men whereby we become partakers of his Divine Nature in this calm and serenity of minde which he pa 〈…〉 out to us in all his several postures Wherefore in our copying of this equality and imperturbation we must protest with the Apostle We have not received the Spirit of the World but the Spirit