and warre in the world and of the subsistence and revolution of Empires Who would beleeve that at the same time he tels the number of our hairs and that not so much as one sparrow falls to the ground without his speciall appointment but that we are told it by his own mouth and that our experience assureth us of his care of the least of our actions and accidents of our life Here wee must rest amazed but not silent for our very ignorance must help us to admire and extoll that depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God whose eye and hand is in all places whose strength sustaineth whose providence guideth all things and taketh as much care of each of his creatures as if he had nothing else to looke to If our minds be swallowed up in the depths of Gods wisdome this one depth calls in another deep which brings no lesse amazement but gives more comfort that is the fatherly love of God to us his children Eph. 3.18 O the bredth the length the depth the heighth of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge the bredth that embraceth Jewes and Gentiles having broken the partition wall to make a large room to his wide love that his way might be known upon earth his saving health among all Nations Psalm 67.2 The length which hath elected us before the foundation of the world and will make us live and reigne with himselfe for ever The depth which hath drawne us out of the lowest pit of sorrow death to effect that hath drawn him down to that low condition The height which hath raised us up to heaven with him and makes us sit together with him in heavenly places With what miracles of mercy hath he preserved his Church from the beginning of the world How many graces doth he poure upon the several members thereof nourishing our bodies comforting our souls reclaiming us from iniquity by the gift of repentance and faith keeping off the malice of men and evill Angels from us by the assistance of his good Angels delivering our life from death our eyes from teares and our feet from falling But before and after all other benefits we must remember that principal benefit never sufficiently remembred Col. 1.12 Giving thankes unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light who hath delivered us from the power of darknesse and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Sonne in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgivenesse of sins This is the highest top of our felicity the main ground of the peace of the soul and the incomparable subject of the contentment of our minds Yea if we have such a deep sence of that heavenly grace as to praise God continually for it with heart and mouth For as we praise God because he blesseth us he blesseth us because we praise him and by his praise which is the eternal excercise of his blessed Saints we become already partners of their imployment their peace and their joy CHAP. IX Of good Conscience ALl that we have said hitherto regardeth the Principal causes both the efficient and the instrumental of the peace with God There are other causes which of themselves have not that vertue to produce that great peace yet without which it cannot be preserved nor produced neither these are a good conscience and the excercise of good workes Not that the reconciliation made for us with God by the merit of his Son needs the help of our works but becaus the principal point of our reconciliation and redemption is that we are redeemed from iniquity which is done by the same vertue that redeemes us from Hell and by the same operation For it is a damnable self-flattery and self-deceipt for one to beleeve that he is reconciled with God if he feele in himselfe no conversion from that naturall enmity of the flesh against God neither can he enjoy a true peace in his soul In that reconciliation God makes use of our wil for in all agreements both parties must concur and act freely And to make us capable of that freedome God by his spirit looseth the bonds of our unregenerate will naturally enthralled to evill But it will be better to medle but little with the worke of God within us and looke to our owne learning the duties which wee are called unto as necessary if wee will enjoy that great reconciliation The first duty is to walke before God with a good conscience for in vaine should one hope to keepe it tranquil and not good Conscience is the natural sence of the duties of piety and righteousnes warning every man unlesse he be degenerated into a beast to depart from evil and doe good And a good conscience is that which obeyeth that sense and warning But the ordinary use which I will follow by a good conscience understands onely the first part which is to beware of evil This good conscience is so necessary for the enjoying of that peace of God applyed to us by faith that the A postle to the Hebrewes requires it that wee may stand before God with a full assurance of faith Heb. 10.22 Let us draw neere saith he with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washt with pure water And St Paul chargeth Timothy 1. Tim. 1.19 to hold faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack shewing that faith and a good conscience must goe hand in hand and that the losse of a good conscience ushereth the losse of faith which is consequently followed with the losse of inward peace Whereas a good conscience brings forth confidence as St John teacheth us 1. Joh. 3.21 Beloved if our heart condemne us not then have wee confidence before God By a conscience that condemnes us not wee must not understand a conscience without sinne for there is none such to be found Much lesse a conscience that condemneth not the sinner after he hath sinned for the best consciences are those that forgive nothing to themselves and passe a voluntary condemnation upon themselves before God by a free and penitent confession But the good conscience that condemnes us not according to St Johns sense is that which beares witnes to a man to have walked in sincerity and cannot accuse him to have shut up his eyes since his conversion against the evident lights of truth and righteousnes or to have hardned his heart against repentance after he hath offended God The godly man will remember that the peace betweene God and us was made by way of contract whereby God gives himselfe to us in his Sonne and we give our selves to him If then any refuse to give himselfe to God there is no contract God will not give himselfe to him and so no peace for every contract must be mutual When the one party
kingdome of God within the soule Blessed and holy is he that hath it and to him is next in happinesse and holinesse he that sincerely endeavoreth to get it and to that end yeelds to God the raines of his affections brings his will under Gods will and humbly invites him to fixe his dwelling beare rule within his breast It is the end that I aim at in this worke And I beseech the God of peace so to blesse and honour it as to make it an instrument to work His peace in the souls of his servants beginning at my soule To that work every Christian ought to put his hand as he loveth God and himselfe To which wee are the more induced and in a manner compelled by the contrariety of the Time While the storme of warre or intestine dissensions is raging in all parts of the world not leaving one safe corner for peace the wise Christian must take sanctuary in that inward peace that peace of God which though it passe all understanding yet will dwell in the understanding and the affections of those that faithfully seek it and keep both hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ Get once God within you you have a shelter at home against all injuryes abroad as he that in a tempestuous raine flyes into a Church and in Gods house finds peace and safety whilst the whole aire abroad is enflamed with lightnings and roaring with thunder and the land floods are hurling down houses drowning sheep and shepheards and destroying the long hopes of the Husbandmans labour For the faithfull soul is Gods Temple which he graceth by his presence and blesseth with his peace not suffering it to be removed though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea This peace at home in which our duty and our happinesse are concentred is an inviting subject for a diligent contemplation Let us examine wherein consisteth the true peace of the soul and contentment of mind and how wee must keepe peace with God with our selves with our neighbours in adversity in prosperity and in all the occurrences of life CHAP. II. Of the Peace of Man in his integrity and the losse of that peace by sinne THe fundamentall rule of great reformations is to bring things to their beginning By that rule that wee may know the true peace of God and how wee may get it wee must cast back our sight upon the beginning how God gave it to man and how he lost it soone after And here wee must use that which the Spirit sayd unto the Churches Rev. 2.5 Remember whence thou art fallen and repent Man newly created after Gods likenes was in perfect peace with him for God making an image of himselfe would not have made it dissenting from him and peace is a prime lineament of Gods Image That first human soule recently breathed out of Gods mouth followed with delight the fresh and pure traces of his divine production and man finding in himselfe the likness of his Creator tooke a great joy and glory to compare that copy with the original That moving image of God did imitate his actions as doth the image of our body in a glasse And whereas in the worke of regeneration St Paul saith that the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and that he is created after God in righteousnes and true holines it followes that the first man was created such since wee learne that such must be the renewing of man to be created againe after the image of God These lively expresses of the image of God knowledge righteousnes and holines could not be in that first man without an entire peace and consonance with his Creator And having peace with God he had it also with himselfe His desires were not at variance with his fears nor his knowledge with his actions His thoughts belyed not his words His cupidity did not draw against his conscience his conscience layd no accusation against him From that good intelligence with God and with himselfe he could not but reape a great content in his mind that content also being a lineament of the image of God to whom as holines so happines is natural and essential For that contentment of mind he got no smal contribution from the beauty and plenty of Nature smiling upon him and the willing submission of all animals flocking about him as loving subjects meeting to wellcome their new Soveraign For his peace with God kept all creatures in peace and obedience under him Abroad the clemency of the aire and the pleasantnes of a garden of Gods planting delighted him And at home his familiarity and free accesse to his Maker filled him with joy and confidence And his original righteousnes if he could have kept it would have perpetuated that blessed peace unto him for peace is the most proper effect of righteousnesse as it is exprest by Isatah The work of righteousnesse shal be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietness assurance for ever Isa 32.17 Truly God forbidding him to eat of that excepted fruit upon paine of death did intimate that as long as he kept in obedience death could take no hold of him nor any of the appurtenances of death for such are all the infirmities of the body all the griefes of the mind and all the crosses of this life Ezekiel in the eighteenth Chapter is copious upon this demonstration that life is inseperable from righteousness and mortality from sinne This last was justified by wofull experience for man going from his righteousnesse forfeited his life and his peace And presently a dark cloud of confusion and misery troubled his golden serenity The voyce of God which was the joy of man suddenly became his terrour Gods presence which was his life became so formidable to him that it went for a currant truth Judg. 13.22 Wee shall surely dye because wee have seene God Man being fallen off from God most part of the creatures fell off from him and that rebellion continued ever since Those that have sense and motion openly deny to yeeld subjection unto him flee away from him when he will come neere them or flye upon him with open hostility And to get service from them he must tame them young before they be able to resist him Other Creatures destitute of sense yet seeme sensible enough to let him know that they yeeld to him a forced service Neither can the earth be wonne to doe any good for him but by great labour and long expectation Diseases enter into his body with the meate that he eateth and the aire that he breatheth Stormes beat upon him Summers scorch him Winters chill him Foxes have holes and birds of the aire have nests their garments are natural warme in winter light in summer To man onely Nature gives not where to lay his head nor so much as a skinne capable to abide his
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
neither play nor bet He will leave the zeale of State to them that hold themselves unworthy to be exempted from common distresses He will remember that he is a citizen of a better countrey then that where he was borne Who so takes a great interesse in publique affaires sheweth thereby that he hath a great love to the world and esteemes it more then it is worth for we may be sure that which party soever prevaile fooles will prevaile for such are all men and in the commotion of a State as of a muddy river the mire and foame will alwayes be the uppermost If it be past our power to part them let them fight it out and let our part be to looke with judgement and compassion how the vials of Gods wrath are powred first upon the minds of men to confound them with a fierce and blind impetuosity whereby they runne and prey one upon another next upon Empires states to turne them upside downe Of which an image is represented in the sixteenth Chapter of the Revelation where a viall is powred upon the Sunne whereby he is made hot and scorching beyond measure and presently another vial is powred upon the seat of the Beast wherewith his kingdome is filled with darknes and infested with sore and smarting plagues For a mans spirit is within him that which the Sunne is in the world When the spirits of a people are kindled with a malignant heate a darke confusion of the State and the miseries of the particular members of it will follow That man is blessed who in such an epidemical turbulent heat keepes the meekenes and serenity of his mind And although it be hardly possible for him not to be carried away by the streame of that party where his private interesses happen to be engaged yet he keeps his soul free heavenly peaceable charitable to his greatest enemies and praying for them that persecute him In all times and places a wise Christian will abhorre warre It is the very empire of the Devill and in nothing so much doth he shew himselfe the Prince of this world It is the discipline of robbery and murder It is the deep gulfe of all misery It is the sinck of all wickednesse and vilany Yet the best men are often engaged in it even out of conscience duty for every one oweth his life to the defence of his Country But for one to love the trade of Manbutcher and delight in the hunting of man his owne kind as others do in the hunting of the wolfe or wild boare is an unnaturall barbarousnesse not valour Who so will keep the integrity and serenity of his conscience and hopeth for the salvation of his soul must keep himselfe free from that inhumane inclination the true image of Satan who was a murtherer from the beginning Gods children are children of peace which they entertaine in their mind and advance by their prayers and counsels There is another warre in the midst of peace little better then that where the quarrell is decided by the sword the warre of lawsuites the discipline of cutting mens throats with a pen. There robbery is committed by the due forms of law there men are flayed alive for others to cloath themselves with their skin There the profession of giving to every man his owne is turned by the professours into an invention to make every mans goods their owne The contentions infinite in number and length and the devouring trade of law tricks is the great plague of these Westerne Provinces of Europe and the greate shame of Christendome while the Mahumetan Moores our neighbours dispatch suites in an hour without appeale or writ of errour He that knowes how to value that precious peace with God and himselfe and desires to keep it will endure great extremities before he try that remedy worse then most sicknesses following St. Pauls lesson 1 Cor. 6. There is utterly a fault among you because ye go to law one with another Why do you not rather take wrong Why do you not rather suffer your selves to be defrauded And if he be yet to chose his civill profession he shall do wisely not to betake himselfe to those professions that live by the contentiousnesse of others But if he find himselfe necessarily engaged in the practise of Law he must behave himself in it as a child of peace sewing up againe as much as in him lyeth what others have rent like good Princes which never draw their swords but to have peace Look upon that tumultuous clamorous mischievous bustle then account it no small happinesse to live far from an aire so contrary to the tranquillity of mind and the integrity and serenity of conscience There are other dissensions without law and many times without conscience which begin in envy suspicions credulity to reports in words ill intended or ill taken proceeding from words to blowes and many times ending in destruction The worst effect is within the breach of the inward peace with God in a mans selfe and the inbittering of the spirit both of the offendor and the offended unlesse he be of a very milde and godly and Philosophical temper To avoyd those troublesome encounters Solomons precept must be observed Prov. 22.24 Make no friendship with an angry man and with a furious man thou shalt not go But because those that must of necessity converse with many cannot pick their company and much lesse change the manners of those with whom they converse they must so govern and temper their owne by piety and judgement as never to give a just provocation to any Truly there is no fence against unreasonablenesse and proud anger will be offensive though unprovoked Our part must be to breake such mens choller with patience as woolsacks and gabions full of earth are set before the battery of cannons St Pauls precept to give place unto wrath Rom. 12.19 is as wise as it is holy for wrath groweth by opposition but spends it selfe when one gives it place If you be fiercely persued by a serpent do but step aside the serpent will rush straight on and misse you And if you be set upon by impetuous choler give it place by a gentle declination it will passe-by harmless Or if you receive reall injury from an angry man expect no satisfaction from him while he is so but appeale from him in hot blood to himselfe in cold blood Contentious insolent men being generally persons of small worth it is a sordid and unworthy imployment to contend with them For as friendship makes friends equal quarrells workes the like effect If we contend with a drunkard or a loggerhead we make him our fellow Prov. 26.4 Answere not a foole according to his folly least thou also be like unto him If you debate with a foole you must imitate him for the debate obligeth you to follow him in all his extravagancies That contention may not reach us we must stand far from the contentions of others