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
countenance of Gods justice Their owne crimes take them by the throate and they seeme ready to say as Ahab to Eliah 1 Kings 21. hast thou found me mine enemy And God saith to their heart with anger I have found thee because thou hast sold thy selfe to worke evill in the sight of the Lord. There is no conscience so sunk in a deepe sleepe of sinne and worldlines but will now and then awake and cry out in a sudden fright So did Felix though a Pagan an extortionner and a man every way infamous for as St Paul reasoned of temperance and righteousnes and judgment to come Felix trembled and answered Goe thy way for this time Act. 24. Whosoever hath read bookes and men may have observed what unquietnes crimes will bring to the criminal That tyrants continually imagine a naked sword hanging over their head That the wicked flee when no man pursueth That murtherers and perfidious men have a broken sleepe and their mirth is interrupted with parentheses of frownes and grimme lookes That when they excuse themselves of a foule fact of which their conscience accuseth them their conscience many times gives the lye to their words and they are contradicted by the inconstancy of their lookes and the stammering of their tongue And conscience will double these terrours when their end draweth nigh Many know who he was that started up often in his mortal drouzines on his death bed commanding that his men should give over slaying But suppose that the wicked that have the world at will had as much rest within as without yet â—â—dons saying to Craesus ought to be observed Never to pronounce any man happy before his death But the Christian ought to give to that sentence a longer terme if he hath bin with David in the Sanctuary of God and there hath understood the end of the wickd and found that God hath set them in slippery places to cast them into destruction CHAP. III. Of the reconciliation of man with God through Jesus Christ Such being the enmity betweene God and sinfull man which is followed with the discord of man with nature with his kind with himself How welcome how precious to him must the blessed newes be of Gods reconciliation with him Esa 5.27 How beautifull upon the mountaines are the feet of him that bringeth good tydings that publisheth peace that bringeth good tydings of good that publisheth salvation that saith unto Sion Thy God reigneth the chief ambassadour that anounceth that peace with God is he that made it It is the eternal sonne of God who by an infinite mercy towards man guilty and miserable was pleased to allye himself with him by a personal union of the divine nature with the humane He hath taken our nature and imparted his unto us He hath made himselfe Man to take upon himself the debt of man For seeing that man was indebted to Gods iustice it was requisite that a man should give satisfaction Which because mans nature was not able to find Christ joyning to the Nature and Obligation of man the Nature and Vertue of God and both in one Person hath fully satisfied the justice of his father which required a perfect obedience and death for punishment of disobedience He hath then presented to God a most accomplisht obedience of which the most eminent act was to have readily undergone a shameful bitter death at his Fathers command for the sins of mankinde of which he was the pledge and the representative An obedience of infinite merit more powerfull to obtaine pardon yea and reward at Gods hands then all the disobedience of the world to incense his just wrath to punishment 1. Pet. 2.24 His owne selfe bare our sins in his owne body on the tree Isa 53.5 The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes wee are healed For it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the bloud of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himselfe Col. 1.19 All that have recourse to that infinite love of God and that ransome of inestimable value the merit of his sonne embracing it with a true faith which cannot act nor subsist without a true repentance find their peace made with God their iniquity is pardoned they have received of the Lords hands double for all their sinnes Isa 40.2 It is a double satisfaction both because it is twice greater then all the sins of the world and because it worketh a double effect the one to get pardon for sins the other to obtain a reward for imputed righteousness And that satisfaction represented to God in our faithful prayers makes them acceptable and of sweet favour as the incense put upon the sacrifices It is much to be lamented that these tydings of grace and glory are but coldly entertained by carnal eares as now growne stale and vulgar And that there is more joy for prevailing in a Law-suite and for a Peace that opens the markets and the freedome of commerce after a civil broyle then for our peace with God through Christ in whom wee have free accesse unto the throne of grace that wee may obtaine mercy and finde grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.16 But he that in the fright of his conscience hath seen hell open gaping for him and hath once lost his thoughts in that bottomelesse gulfe of misery and horrour to have his creatour his enemy if upon that he embrace by faith that great and heavenly message not onely that his sinnes are forgiven him by the merit of Christ but that by the same merit of an enemy and a child of wrath he is become the sonne of God and heire of his Kingdome his heart will melt with joy love and admiration and the sadder his sense was of his deplorable condition the greater will his thankfulnesse be for his gracious restoration O the depth of the riches both of the wisedome and the goodnesse of God who hath found a way to set forth together his justice and his mercy and to pardon sinne by punishing it O the infinite love of the Father who so loved the world that he gave his onely Sonne for them O the infinite love of that onely Sonne that so loved his enemyes that he delivered himselfe to a most bitter death to give them life and immortality yea and his own kingdome O the infinite love of the holy Ghost who so loved the world as to announce unto them this excellent piece of newes by his word and seale the promises of God in their hearts by faith in Jesus Christ that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have life eternal Behold then the onely foundation of the peace of the soule and contentment of mind It is that peace made for us with God by his onely sonne who hath taken our sinnes upon himselfe and in consequence the punishment giving us in exchange his righteousnesse and consequently the reward of it since
beard a childish understanding authoritatem senum vitia puerorum But certainly this is a false ugly vizard set upon a handsome and gracious face there being nothing more serene and pleasant then godlines and a good conscience A good conscience is that merry heart which is a continual feast To doe Gods will with a good will keepes a mans heart cheerefull to God and pleasant to himselfe Will you then make your hope sure of an eternal rest and of those pleasures for evermore at the right hand of God Doe but take the first course to make yourselves content and joyfull in this life which is to walke before God unto all pleasing to your power and to be rich in good workes Was there ever a more winning invitation then this Make yourselfe joyful and contented in this life that you may be eternally joyfull and contented in the next CHAP. XI To redresse ourselves often by Repentance Wee have meditated upon the peace of God and the way how to get it in our souls and keepe it That peace brings a golden serenity and a solid content to our hearts But because the godliest persons in this world are subject to sinne and by sinning to trouble that peace and serenity it is necessary to redresse ourselves often by repentance Of that duty I have spoken in the third chapter of this first booke as the necessary way to embrace by faith our reconciliation with God and a maine part of the great worke of our conversion But after wee are reconciled and converted wee are men still Neither is any conversion so great in this life as to roote out sinne altogether out of mans nature Whosoever then will preserve his integrity and peace for these two commonly goe together must have this warning continually in his mind Lét him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall 1. Cor. 10.12 And if he fall let him take up himselfe presently by a godly repentance The more he esteemeth himselfe advanced and confirmed in piety the more let him mistrust himselfe and beware of the temptations of Satan For after holy resolutions and elevations of zeale and devotion great sins very often are committed because then the conscience is most subject to relent as over-confident of her good estare Much like besieged souldiers who after a brave sallie will remitt of their watchfulnes despising the enemy whom they have beaten and in their security are taken by surprise Conscience will fall asicepe but Satan never sleepeth and never misseth to take advantage of our negligence Heb. 12.1 Sin that doth so easily beset us saith the Apostle to the Hebrewes By saying us he comprehends himself acknowledging that the most perfect are easily beset by sin Some sins are presently felt and leave a sting as the Scorpion doth To that sting the remedy must presently be applyed by repentance and a faithfull recourse to Gods mercy through Christ also the assistance of his Spirit must bee implored else the venome will spread and the wound become mortal Other sins are lesse felt or creep in undiscerned yet leave a heavinesse upon the heart and make it slower to godlinesse and good workes Then the businesses of the life intervening the remembrance of many sins will slip out of our memory which neverthelesse worke their effect upon the conscience blunting the sense of piety and setting the soul further from God Wherefore it is the part of a wise Christian often to revisit the state of his conscience call himselfe to account and by a pious solicitude of repentance pick and sift out even the least dust that sticks to us of the worlds uncleannesse and our own scowring out that rust which conscience like iron will contract if it be not often handled If the uncleane spirit will not dwell in a mans heart unlesse he find the house empty swept and garnisht Matth. 12. that is void of all goodnesse and furnisht for his turne We must not expect that the holy Spirit will dwell in our heart unlesse we bestow our best care to sweepe it for him emptyed of the immundicities of sinne to garnish it with holinesse He will not keep house under the same roofe with the unclean spirit And unlesse we speedily put that enemy out of doores God may in his displeasure leave him the whole house Whereas if you keep it swept for God with daily repentance he will make it his Temple and say Psal 132.14 This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I delight in it But that our hearts may be cleane habitations for him we have need to call for the assistance of his grace Psalm 51. Create in us a cleane heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within us Since the Son of God honours us so much as to call us his friends let us religiously observe the lawes of friendship with him Even in humane friendships if we have sometimes the missorutne to give offence to one whom we especially love and respect we cannot be at rest till we have given him satisfaction And should we be so imprudent as to neglect God our great friend after we have offended him Shall we let the Sunne go down upon his wrath and our offence Let us returne to him without delay and humbly seeke his peace The speediest reconciliations are the best In this returne to God which must be every day let us call to our remembrance all the sins of late date and others of elder date not sufficiently repented of confessing them to God with contrition and craving pardon for them with humility and faith through the merit of his Sonne which to all repenting sinners is an exhaustible spring of mercy open at all times Zechariah meant this by that Fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleannesse And becaure many trespasses of ours are out of remembrance and some we have run into without our knowledge we must beseech God with David to clense us from secret faults Psalm 19.12 and that he be pleased to forget those sins which we have forgotten To that daily returne to God some extraordinary returnes must be added where fasting and alms be joyned to prayer Thereby these clouds shall be cleared off which trouble the serenity of the conscience and the soul shall get a great help to rejoyce in the love of God and glory in his bounty When one is come to that blessed state of the soul he must wipe off the teares of repentance and drowne that sadnesse in a thankfull joy For the sorrow of repentance is good by accident only because there is some evill to be healed It is like a medicine which gives gripings and disquieteth nature therefore not to be used but to recover health Although we cannot repent too much to have offended God there may be excess in the sorrow of repentance To seek merit or ostentation in penitent sorrow which is the face that vulgar soules give to
devotion is making a glory of the matter of our shame as if a fellon had the ambition to weare the halter about his neck with a good grace The sorrow of repentance is an ill passage which we must of necessity go through if we will be saved but we must not make that passage a dwelling place After we have used it to make our peace with God we must be comforted and rejoyce in that peace For God hath not called us to sorrow but to peace and content And the Gospell is the Doctrine of peace and assurance OF THE PEACE OF THE SOVL AND CONTENTMENT OF MINDE SECOND BOOK Of Mans Peace with himselfe by Rectifying his Opinions CHAPTER I. The Designe of this Book and the next THe sence of our peace with God may be distinguished from the peace with our selves but not separated for the peace with God being well apprehended setleth peace in the heart betweene a man and his own conscience which otherwise is his inseparable accuser and implacable adversary We have spoken in the first Book of the ground and principal cause of our inward peace which is also the end and perfection of the same and that is our Union with God We have treated also of the meanes altogether divine and effective of that end which are the love of God and our neighbour faith hope and a good conscience active in good workes We intend now with Gods helpe to speake of those subordinate causes and meanes where Prudence is a servant of Piety to keep peace and good order within In this great work the handmaide shall often need her Mistrisses help for reason not sanctified by piety is as dangerous to use as Antimony and Mercury not prepared The two great workes of sanctified reason to keep inward peace and content are these Not to be beaten down with adversity or corrupted with prosperity going through both fortuns with vertuous cleare and equal temper making profit of all things and fetching good out of evill To frame that golden temper in our minde we must lay downe before all things for a fundamental Maxime That all the good and evill of mans life though it may have its occasions without hath truly and really its causes within us excepting onely some few casualties where prudence hath no place and yet there is no evill but may be either prevented or lessened or turned into good by a vertuous disposition Hence it followes that not without but within us our principal labour must be bestowed to take an order for our peace and content To keep us from falls in a long journey if wee would send before to remove all the stones out of the way we should never have done but the right course is to get an able and surefooted horse and to sit fast on him It would be a more impossible undertakeing in the wayfairing condition of this life to remove all temptations and oppositions out of our way but against these two sorts of obstacles we must provide a firme spirit able to go through all and stumbling at nothing but keeping every where a sure and eeven pace To that end let us acknowledge within us two generall causes of all our content and discontent and all our order and disorder The first cause is the Opinion that we conceive of things The second is the Passion moved or occasioned by that opinion Take a good order with these two causes you shall be every where content tranquil wise and moderate But from the disorder of these two causes proceeds all the trouble of the inward polity of our minds and all the misrule and misery that is in the world It must bee then our labour to order aright these two Principles of our good and evill within us and in the order here set down which is essential to the matter Imploying this second Book to get right Opinions of the things of this world from which men usually expect good or evill And this will prepare us matter for the third Book whose task will be to set a rule to passions For that which sets them upon disorderly motions is the wrong opinion wherewith the mind is possest about the objects And whosoever can instruct his mind with right opinions may after that rule his passion with little labour CHAP. II. Of the right Opinion I Said that things exteriour are the occasions of the good and evill of man but the causes of the same are the interiour Opinion and Passion Now to treat of the causes we must also treat of the occasions as subjects of the opinion and objects of the passion Not to examine them all for they are as many as things in the world and accidents in mans life there is none of them altogether indifferent to us but are considered either as good or evill We will stay onely upon the chiefe heads and endeavour to finde the true price of things that men commonly desire and the true harme of those things which they feare In this search I desire not to be accounted partial if I labour to give a pleasant face to the saddest things It is my profest intention For my work being to seek in all things occasion of peace and content why shall I not if I can borrow it even from adversity And is it any whit material whether I find it indeed or devise it so I can make it serve my turne Is it not prudence for one to be ingenious to content himselfe yea though he cosen himselfe to his owne content My readers may beare with me if I use them as I use my selfe who next to the care of pleasing God make it my chiefe study to content my mind and in all the several byasses that God puts upon the rouling course of my life strive to behold all accidents by the faire side or to give them one in my mind if they have none Wherein I hope to justifye the ingenuity of my dealing to ingenious mind and shew that I give no false colours to evill things to make them looke good For since the good and evill of most things consisteth in opinion and that things prove good or evill as they are taken and used if I find good in those things which others call evill they become good in my respect It is the great worke of wise men to turne all things to their advantage subjecting exteriour things to their mind not their mind to them et sibi res non se rebus submittere This truth then ought to be deeply printed in minds studious of wisdome and their own content That they beare their happinesse or unhappinesse within their breast and That all outward things have a right and a wrong handle He that takes them by the right handle finds them good He that takes them by the wrong indiscreetly finds them evill Take a knife by the haft it will serve you take it by the edge it will cut you Observe that all sublunary things are of a compounded nature
must then place bodily pleasure among the goods but among the least and those in which beasts have more share then men The more pleasures are simple and natural as they are among beasts the more they are full and sincere But we by our wit make a toyle of a pleasure and drown nature in art He that can set a right value upon Beauty Health and Strength of which we spake lately may easily do the same of the pleasure which they are capable to give or to receive If then these qualities be but weake transitory and of short continuance they cannot yeeld or feele a pleasure solid constant and permanent Health the best of the three is rather a privation of disease then a pleasure and it makes the body as sensible of paine as of delight of which many that enjoy a perfect health are deprived It is a great abatement of the price of bodily pleasure that one must seldome use it to use it well yea and to preserve it for the excesse of it is vicious be the way never so lawfull and the satiety of it breeds sastidiousnesse and wearinesse Whereas true pleasure consisting in the knowledge and love of God one cannot sinne by excesse nor lose the relish of it by fulnesse but the appetite is increased and the faculty mended by enjoying Pleasures of the body though in themselves good and desireable are given by God for something else and to invite us to actions of necessity or utility But spiritual pleasure which is to know and love God is altogether for it selfe and for nothing beyond it for there the pleasure is so united with the duty that the glory which we give to God and that which we enjoy by knowing and loving him are sweetly confounded together and become but one thing This consideration that bodily pleasures are appointed for a further end helps much to understand their price and their use For the pleasure of the taste is to invite the appetite to eate eating is to live living is to serve God and betweene these two last there are other subordinations for many actions of life are for the domesticall good domesticall good for the civill the civill good for the religious Bodily pleasure standing naturally on the lowest round of this ladder is removed out of its proper place when it is placed above the superiour ends which is done when the actions of life which are due to the domestical civill good and before and after all to the religious are imployed to make a principal end of those things that are subordinate to them as inferiour meanes For we must desire to eate for to live not to live for the pleasure of eating so of other natural pleasures the desire whereof becomes vicious when those things to which by nature they ought to serve are subjected unto them Pleasures are good servants but ill Masters They will recreate you when you make them your servants But when you serve them they will tyrannize over you A voluptuous nice man is alwayes discontented and in ill humor Where others find commodity he finds incommodity He depriveth himselfe of the benefit of simple and easy pleasures He looseth pleasure by too much seeking By soothing up his senses he diseaseth them and paine penetrates sooner and deeper into a body softned with voluptuousnesse But he that lesse courteth pleasure enjoyeth it more for he is easily contented To live at ease in the world we must harden our body strengthen our mind and abridge our cupidity In nothing the folly and perversity of the world is so much seene as in this that of the things which Gods indulgence hath given to man for his solace and recreation he makes the causes of his misery the baits of his sinne and the matter of his condemnation for from the abuse of pleasure proceeds the greatest part of the evills that are in the world both the evills which men suffer and those which they commit Yea from thence all evils proceed if wee remount to the first sinne Therefore a wise man will abstaine from unlawfull pleasures and taste the lawfull with moderation lest that by excesse he make them unlawfull Knowing that pleasure which strayeth from duty ends in sorrow that it is no gallantry to offend God and that no delight can countervaile the losse of the serenity of conscience Vice it selfe will teach us vertue For when we see the slaves of voluptuousnes get in that service a diseased body a sad heart a troubled conscience infamy want and brutality we find it an ill bargaine to buy pleasure at so deare a rate This observation also will be of some helpe for the valuation of pleasure That the pleasures that stick most to the matter are the most unworthy as all the pleasures of the taste and feeling and those pleasures that recede further from the matter are more worthy as the pleasures of the sight Wherefore the pleasure of hearing is yet more worthy as having more affinity with the minde And as they are more worthy they are also more innocent But in all things excesse is vicious As excesse in pleasures is vicious so is the defect For God hath made many handsome and good things to please us in which neverthelesse we take no content and many times reject them out of nicenesse How many perfect workes of God strike their image into our eyes and yet enter not into our thoughts How many conveniences are sent to us by Gods good hand sufficient to fill our minds with comfort and thankfulnesse if we had the grace to consider them and we think not of them though we make use of them We are so inchanted with false pleasures that we lose the taste of the true But a wise man is innocently inventive to solace himselfe and finds every where matter of pleasure All things without smile upon him because his spirit is smiling within and he lends to objects his owne serenity whereby he makes them pleasant CHAP. VIII Of the Evils opposite to the forenamed Goods IT is to make the title short that I call them evill not to condemne without appeale informatition all that is not in the list of the goods of fortune and goods of the Body By looking upon these goods we may judge of their opposites An easy worke for having found nogreat excellency in these goods no solid content in the possession of them it followes that to be without them is no great misery They must be viewed impartially for there is both good and evil every where although to speake Philosophically and properly the true evill and the true good lie within us The silly vulgar cannot comprehend that a man can finde his happinesse and unhappinesse within himselfe and seeke their good abroad where it is not toyling sweating and wearing out their life with labour in that quest and making themselves misetable out of feare of misery Whereas most accidents without are neither Good nor evill in themselves and
and ill wives they have need to learne obedience but in these bookes they learne soverainty Women being more given to these bookes then men shew that though they have lesse fougve of love then men they have neverthelesse a more constant inclination to it Who so will keepe himselfe holy in body and affection and preserve his soule serene and free from the tempest of that turbulent Passion must avoid the reading of such bookes whose proper office is to raise those stormes in a mans blood and appetite And I know not whether it be more dangerous to reade dissolute bookes which make of carnal love a jigg and a matter of sport openly shewing the ordure and the folly of it or dolefull amorous fables which make of it a grave and serious study and under the colour of honesty and constancy of love managed with an artificial and valourous carriage hoodwinke and bewitch the readers minde with a pertinacious Passion making their braines runne wilde after chimera's and hollow imaginations whereby some have runne mad Indeed one cannot follow the fancies of romances without straying from right sense Neither is there any thing that makes the heart more worldly and carnal and brings it further from God I will be judged by all good soules that would betake themselves to exercises of piety when they were newly come from this kind of reading Let them say in conscience how farre estranged from God they found themselves and ill disposed to every good worke Sure it is not without reason that these writers set up false Gods as being conscious to themselves that their writings are deviations from the true God and ashamed to name the God of truth among their fables Also because with some of them it is a prime piece of love-complement to make discontented lovers to wreake their anger upon the Deity they will have this excuse ready that they are not blasphemies against the true God but against the gods of Homer and Hesiod's making But from these blasphemous expostulations with false gods the readers learne to doe the like with the true and to avenge themselves upon him of all things that cross their impetuous Passion The same bookes set up the murtherous discipline of duells as a gallantry of love wherby lovers seale their affection to their mistresses by the blood of their rivals or their owne There are other matches of the wilde fire of carnal love which must be carefully avoyded wanton discourses vicious companies occasions to doe evil conversation with vaine malicious women whose chiefe aime and taske is to catch all the men that come in their way not that they may keep them but triumph over them and cast them away and feed their owne vanity with the disappointment of their suitors Take heed of idlenes it is Satans pillow the counsellour of vice and especially the procurer of lust He that doeth nothing thinkes on evill Take heed of intemperance Carnal love is so inbred with the matter that whatsoever heateth the blood sets the appetite on fire Wherefore Jeremiah sets intemperance and incontinence together Jer. 5.8 They were as fed horses in the morning every one neighed after his neighbours wife There be two great remedies to take downe that heate The one corporal which is mariage instituted by God for that end a holy and honourable state When both the parties are good and love one another it is the greatest sweetenes of life But whether a man be married or desire to be he must think on the vanity and short continuance of the most pleasant things of this world the frailty of life the certainty of death the uncertainty of the hour thence to inferre the conclusion of St Paul 1. Cor. 7.29 But this I say brethren that the time is short It remaines that they that have wives be as they that have none And so they that are woing must be as though they were not woing that is they must impose moderation upon their affections out of a wise apprehension of the vanity of the world and life ver 31. using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Wherefore should wee love with so much fervency that which wee cannot keepe when wee have got it which we must leave or which must leave us The other duty is Spiritual and it is that great and perpetual duty to Love God Let that holy Passion alwayes rule in our hearts Let us give to God his proper right which he demandeth in his word Pro. 25.26 My sonne give me thy heart and let us keep such a watchfull guard about it that none steale it from him and us Our love to a worthy Consort being so moderated will become both lawfull pleasant Humane condition hath nothing so delightfull as a reciprocal love Yea of all things to which mans will doth contribute it is the onely pleasant thing But as navigable rivers enrich a country with commerce and plenty when they keepe within their shores but ruine it when they overflow with a violent landflood Likewise love while it keepes within limits brings pleasure and utility when it exceeds them it brings displeasure and destruction Love that is not reciprocal will weare away in time But a wise man will shorten the worke of time with reason and will not obstinately court a person that will not love him For of what price soever she be in our regard she is of no price if she be not for us Wee must love our enemies but wee must let them alone CHAP. IV. Of Desire DEsire hath a neere kinred with love for it is the motion of the appetite towards the beloved object This is the difference that Love regardeth the present Desire aspireth to the future Some desires are natural some besides nature Natural desires are good and easily satisfied as long as they keepe within their mounds the first whereof is nature then reason to rule nature and piety to rule reason But wee must take heed of mistaking corrupted nature for pure Pure nature is contented with little but corrupted nature runs to excesse and embaseth natural desites with the allay of desires besides nature It is natural for a man to desire a woman but it is besides nature that he will have her so noble and so rich that he increaseth the desired object with imagination and kindleth his passion by difficulty It is natural to desire meate drink clothing but it is besides nature to desire great feasts gay garments and costly buildings Reason indeed was given us to embellish and inrich nature but Reason if it be well taught wil in all occasions make use of nature to rule the desire and teach it that besides Nature there can be no necessity Thus if your coach breake farre from the towne instead of grieving and fretting remember that Nature did not give you legs to sit in a coach and that it is not necessary for you to be carryed as long as you can goe If you be
nothing is frailer then mans life nothing more certaine then his death nothing more uncertaine then the hour What need we lay up much treasure since we must lose all What need to get up very high to fall to the ground and there to rot And whereas the tranquillity and contentment of man consisteth in the things that are within him not in them that are about him When he turnes his principall desire and the whole bent of his mind to things that are without he goeth out of himselfe and subjecteth himselfe to another He begs of another that which none but God and himselfe can give him He makes his content to depend on that which is out of his power A wise man will take heed of that and will call-in his desire to his owne breast where he shall finde God if he seek him well and in God his onely felicity Let us be covetous to be rich in God and ambitious to draw neare him Indeed since our body and life are maintained with things that are without us we cannot but desire them as things which our necessity calls for Besides which our condition and the course of the world makes many outward things to become necessary which in themselves are not so All these wee may desire so it bee with an infericur desire quietly subjected and subordinate to that Master-desire which must make a whole burnt-offering of the soul to God alone that we may say to God with an entire and free heart as Isaiah did Isa 26.8 The desire of our soul is to thy name O Lord and to the remembrance of thee With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seeke thee Blessed we that our spirit needs but to seeke within himselfe to finde the full satisfaction of his desire if he have the grace to desire what he ought CHAP. VI. Of Desire of Pleasure IT is easy to rule the Desire of Volupty when we have once well apprehended the nature of it The body hath the greatest share in the Pleasures which the world runnes after we must not then for their sakes subject our minde unto our body The pleasures of the body are short we must not then for a short enjoyment entertaine a long desire They are light and of a faint taste we must not then have a great Desire for a little Pleasure They promise much to the Desire and performe little Our desire then being forewarned of this will not lightly trust their faire promises and will looke more to their capacity then their invitation Some pleasures are altogether unlawfull Of which therefore the desire must be cut off altogether And before we give any admission to their flattery into our soules we must take time to consider the designe of him that sets them on work the Devill By them he seekes to blindfold us that he may lead us into perdition which he will be sure to do if we entertaine his false caresses for after blindfolding comes blindness in earnest errour in the understanding misrule in the affections beggery infamy hardnesse of heart a late remorse and eternall damnation Prov. 6.16 By meanes of a whoorish woman a man is brovght to a peece of bread and the adulteresse will hunt for the precious life Prov. 7.26 She hath cast downe many wounded yea many strong men have bin slaine by her Her house is the way to Hell going downe to the chambers of death He that hath the grace to consider so much before will step back when these inticements are offered unto him and say I will not buy a desperate repentance so deare Pleasures in themselves lawfull become unlawfull by accident when they are desired or enjoyed with excesse Moderation is the ballance of justice and the nurse of pleasure Without it Desire turnes into sorrow and Enjoyment into a severish fit Those pleasures in which a beast hath no share are more worthy of a man as those that are enâ—â—â—â—â— by contemplation For them we may allow 〈◊〉 â—â—ger tedder to desire For those that are 〈◊〉 â—ost betweene the body and the spirit as 〈◊〉 â—â—ghts of picture and musique the tedder must be tyed somewhat shorter not giving too great a scope to curiosity For the pleasures meerely corporall the tedder must be the shortest of all Yet in all humane delights whether of the body or the mind excesse is vicious and marreth the Pleasure Solomon found it in the noblest of humane delights Eccles 1.18 In much wisedome saith he is much griefe and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow It is one of the greatest proofes of the vanity of mans condition that in all humane things where the pleasure kindleth the desire the pleasure is afterwards choaked by the very desire for either we seeke in them the pleasure which they cannot afford or we seek it otherwise then we ought and even by seeking we lose it Which inconveniences are prevented or mitigated by moderation in the desire and pursuite For it will bring one of these two conveniences Either we shall more certainly get what we would have or if we misse it we shall not have the griefe to have lost much labour about it It were easy to draw a platforme upon paper of the most delightfull and compleat estate that humane desire can aspire unto in this world And that estate should be compounded with the three sorts of life contemplative active and fruitive A condition abounding with leasure to imploy it in the contemplation of things good noble and pleasant having businesses enowâ—â— be usefull in society and not so many as to weary a mans body and mind about things inferiour to the dignity of his soul enjoying sufficiency of worldly goods with peace and wisedome and a mediocrity of degree exempted from contempt oppression relishing the innocent contentments of life with sobriety and simplicity not fixing the heart upon them and therefore possessing the true use and and delight of them All that seasoned with health of body and serenity of minde and with a good conscience aspiring continually to a higher felicity enjoying it already by hope by a present sense of the blessed peace of God But we have not the liberty to cut our coat out of the whole cloath The skill of a good engineer does not consist in making a regular Fort upon a parchment or a ground chosen at will that hath all the natural advantages but in bowing his art to the nature of the place unto which necessity engageth him and overcomming by industry the incommodiousnesse of the seat Likewise a wisemans work is not to frame to himselfe poeticall felicities but to take things as he finds them and use them well for in mans condition on earth there is no seat so strong but is commanded or if it be not now it will be another time as being seated upon an unstable sand to day even to morrow uneven which no humane strength or forecast can keep unmooved
Temperance is the just proportion of the appetite and Fortitude is the constancy and magnanimity of the will requisite to keep one just Neither is fortitude a Vertue different from temperance for whereas of those two duties sustine abstine to sustaine and to abstaine the first which is resisting oppositions is ascribed to fortitude the other which is abstaining from the inticements of sinne is reserved unto temperance yet both belong equally to fortitude seeing there is as much if not more strength of mind requisite to stand out against alluring temptations as to encounter violent oppositions There are then two vertues in all the one intellectuall which is Prudence the other morall which is Justice I have spoken of the first and this whole treatise is but an exercise of it And of the second also of which the most essentiall part is the feare of God and a good conscience that is truly the prime Justice All human lawes if they be good are dependances of it if they be evill they are deviations from it Naturall equity sanctifyed by grace ruleth both publique and particular duties and both the outward and the inward man which is farre more then common and civill law can compass In all policies of the world Justice hath diverse faces The body of the Law especially in great and antient States hath statutes and cases without number which instead of clearing justice confound it All that legislative labour regards outward action and the publique peace But piety and true Philosophy rule the inward action and settle the peace of the soul with the right and primitive Justice Besides human lawes are most busy in forbidding evill and for that end make use of feare and the terrour of punishment whereas the inward law of Vertue is most busy in prescribing good and for that end makes use of the motive of love and reward But whether we need the motives of feare or love we have a Soveraine Court within our breast where the great Judge of the Universe is sitting continually There his Law is written and layd in view entering into the eyes of the understanding which seeth it even when he winkes that he may not see it And there a mans owne thoughts stand divided at the barre some accusing some excusing him out of that law compared with the records of the memory Of that Court St. Paul was speaking that the very Gentiles and heathen shew the worke of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts the meane while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 2.15 Before that Court that is before God himselfe and before us we must labour to be declared just and more to be so indeed There justice must be setled There it must be practised It will be well done to know and obey the formes of justice which publique order hath set over us but our maine taske must be to labour for an niward and habituall justice Let us obey cheerefully all good or indifferent human lawes but before all and after all let us seek and pray for that law of the spirit of life which may set a rule to all the unrulinesse within us and make righteousnesse and peace to kiss each other in our soules The ordinary definition of justice that it is a constant will to give to every one his owne as it is commonly understood regards onely the least part of justice which is the rule of duties betweene man and man But let us give it a fuller extent for to give every one his owne we must pay all that is due first to God next to ourselves and then to our neighbours Certainly the two former parts of justice are far more considerable then the third which is the onely cryed up though ill observed in the world for a man may and doth often retire from the society of men but he can at no time retire from God and himselfe and though a man were alone in the world yet should he have with him the chiefe subjects to exercise the vertue of justice We shall give God his owne by loving him with all our soul and with all our strength obeying his will carefully and cheerefully praising him for his love to us and for his owne greatness and goodness with a thankfull and a joyfull heart setting him continually before the eyes of our mind as alwayes present that we may walke unto all pleasing before his pure and all seeing eyes stick fast unto him by meditation affection and entire confidence And whereas man is the bond and the naturall mediator betweene the materiall world and the spirituall who alone must render for the whole Nature the due homage unto the great Creator Justice calls upon us to do that right to God Nature to knit Nature with God by our love faith obedience and praises Thus also we shall give to ourselves our due for to draw neere unto God is our good Psal 73.28 to separate from him is our destruction They that observe lying vanities forsake their owne mercy saith Jonas Jo. 2.8 meaning that they forsake him of whose goodness their being and wel-being depends This thought will renew the antient characters of the naturall notions of justice engraven upon the marble of our hearts upon which the corruption of the world and our owne hath bred as it were a thick moss which hides these characters But with the feare of God that moss is rubbed off and the law of God the originall justice written there with Gods finger appeares plaine and legible Who so then will do right to himself and recover his primitive dignity must study to know feare and love God perfect his union with him and associate himselfe with his Angels by obeying his will and tending his praise His saving eternall light is for us Wisedome righteousness sanctification and redemption are for us for he gives them to us liberally in his Sonne We do but right to ourselves when we study that those blessings which are for us may be ours And to lose such inestimable graces by our neglect is besides ungratefullness towards God a crying injustice against ourselves A maine point of that justice which we owe to ourselves is to labour to make ourselves possessors of ourselves and masters at home so untyed from all outward tyes that our content depend of none but God and ourselves and that rule over ourselves is attained by yeelding unto God the rule ver us To that end our first labour must be to traine well the Passion of love which is the great wheele mooving all the other passions for according to the subjects that we love and as we love them well or ill we are good or evill happy or unhappy To love what we ought and as we ought is the whole duty and happinesse of man Next our desires and hopes must be cut short which is not cutting downe Nature as greedy minds may think It is cutting off our bonds and
fortune hath her inconstancy as well as the good and the calme will come after the storme The proper exercise of vertue in Adversity is to imitate God who fetcheth good out of it and makes it a discipline of godlines wisedome and tranquillity to his children It is not enough to hope that after the storme the calme will come wee must study to find tranquillity in the very tempest and make profit of our damage Having spoken of the particular Adversities in the second booke I will endeavour here to set downe general remedies for all sorts of Adversities saving one the Adversity which a delicat man createth to himselfe out of a conceited tendernes for to such wilfully afflicted persons the counsells of reason are uselesse till they be afflicted in earnest They have need of real afflictions to be healed of imaginary To them that are sick with too much ease a smarting Adversity is a wholesome plaister As to the hypocondriaque who had a false opinion of a wound in his left thigh the surgeon made an incision in the right to make him feele the difference betweene real wounds and imaginary Indeed the most part of persons afflicted are more so out of opinion then any true ground but the wanton melancholy of some that were all their time dandled in fortunes lap addeth to that epidemical disease Wee will let them alone till they have reason to complaine and desire them that groane under some apparent Adversities to examine seriously whether they be such as they appeare For there are some Adversities or called so which rather are prosperities if they that complaine of them can obtaine of themselves rather to beleeve their owne sense then the opinion of others and to have no artificial and studied sense but meerely the natural Thus he that is fallen into disfavour whereby he hath lost wealth and honours and hath kept liberty and bread enough to subsist retired remote and neglected is very much obliged first to the envy and after to the contempt of the contrary prevailing faction if God give him the understanding to enjoy the prosperity created by his adversity It is a happy misfortune for a little barke to be cast by the storme upon a smooth shore where the Sea ebbing leaveth it dry but safe while the rest of the fleet is torne by the tempest The wave is more favorable if it thrust the ship upon the haven Now the godly wiseman finds a haven any where because God is every where Sitting under the shelter of his love and providence he lookes with compassion upon the blinde rage of parties flesht in the blood of one another praising God that he was hurled downe from a stage where they are acting a bloody tragedy that he may be an actour no more but a beholder onely disinteressed from the publique contradiction His ruine cannot equal his gaine if by the losse of his estate he hath bought his peace and the uninterrupted contemplation of God himselfe and the world It would be a long taske to enumerate all the commodious adversities for which neverthelesse comfort is given and received with great ceremony Many accidents bitter to us for a time turne afterwards to our great conveniency Some should have missed a great fortune had they not bin repulsed in the pursuite of a lesser Many teares are shed upon the dead but more would be shed if some of them should rise againe God hath so enterlaced good and evill that either brings the other If wee had the patience to let God doe and the wisedome to make use of all wee might finde good in most part of our Adversities Many persons ingenious to their owne torment are like the boulter that lets out the flowre and keepes the bran they keepe disgraces and misfortunes in their thoughts and let Gods benefits goe out of their minde It had bin better for them to resemble the rying seeve that lets out ill seedes and keepes the good corne taking off their thoughts from that which is troublesome in every accident of their life unlesse it be to remedy it setting their mind upon that hath which may yeeld profit or comfort Thus he that received some offence in company by his indiscretion in stead of making that offense an occasion of quarrel must make it a corrective of his rashnes He that is confined within the limits of a house and garden instead of grieving that he hath not the liberty of the street must rejoyce that he hath the liberty of a walke And how many crosses come upon us which being wisely managed would bring great commodities if anger troubling our judgement did not make us forgoe the care of our conveniency to attend our appetite of revenge Could wee keepe every where equality and serenity of spirit wee might scape many Adversities or make them more tolerable or turne them to our advantage All afflictions are profitable to the wise and godly Even when all is lost for the temporal there wants never matter for the principall Advantage which is the spiritual There wee learne to know the perversity and inconstancy of the world and the vanity of life that wee may not repose our trust and bend our affection upon it Since a curse is pronounced to the man that trusteth in man and to him that trusteth in his riches the way to the kingdome of heaven is as impassable as the going of a cable through a niedles eye and we notwithstanding these divine warnings are so prone to trust and love the world God therefore in his wisedome and mercy suffers that unsound reed which wee leane upon to breake in our hand and our love of the world to be payd with its hatred that wee may learne to settle our confidence and love in a better place Hereby also a man comes to know his sin and Gods Justice Though we be prone to attribute the good and evill that comes to us unto second causes there is such an affinity betweene sin and punishment that even in the most obdurate hearts affliction brings sin to mind and gives remorse to the conscience But in godly soules that remorse is salutary David having sayd to God Psal 32.5 Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer addeth I acknowledged my sin unto thee mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And whereas the appetite will run wilde when prosperity opens the broad gate of licentiousnesse Adversity comming upon that holds a short hand upon the appetite and awakes piety and wisedome David speakes of this experimentally Psal 119.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word ver 71. It is good for me that I have bin afflicted that I might learne thy statutes Prosperity is an evill counsellour and all her adresses are to the appetite but Adversity crossing the appetite calls upon the judgement