Nature but still it hangs upon me and sinks and weighs down my Soul as oft as 't is aspiring towards thee O my God have pity upon me deliver me from this Body of Sin ease my weary and heavy laden Soul of this grievous Burthen under which it labours and groans and suffer not this spark of divine Life which thou hast kindled in me to be opprest and extinguisht by it but so cherish it I beseech thee with the continual Influences of thy Grace as that it may at length it may break through all this Rubbish that suppresses it and finally rise into a glorious Flame Then shall I always approach thee with Joy and breath up my Soul to thee in every Prayer then shall my Heart be firmly united to thee in a devout and chearful Affection and my Prayers shall come up as incense before thee and breathe a sweet-smelling savour into thy Nostrils Hear me therefore O my God I beseech thee and strengthen me with all might in the inward man that for the future I may contend more vigorously and successfully against these vile Inclinations of my Nature which do so miserably hamper and depress my soul that so at last I may be a conqueror and more than a conquerer through Jesus Christ our Lord Amen If through any bodily Infirmity such as Melancholy Weariness Drousiness or Sickness you find your self indisposed to divine Offices indeavour to quicken your sluggish Mind with the Consideration of some one of the most moving Arguments of your Religion such as the Love of God and of your Saviour the Majesty of Gods Presence in which you are or the blessed Immortality you hope for and then address your self to God in this following Prayer O Blessed God thou art a most pure and active Spirit who doest always move with an uncontrolable Freedom and art never hindred or wearied in thy Operations have pity upon me I beseech thee thy poor infirm Creature who am cumbred with this Body of death and so deprest by its manifold Frailties that I cannot lift up my Heart unto thee Thou knowest O Lord my spirit is willing though my flesh is weak my labouring Soul aspires towards thee it stretches forth the Wings of its Desires toward thee and would fain mount up above all earthly things and unite it self with thee in eternal Love but alas its Fervours are dampt and its Endeavours tired by this clog of Flesh that hangs upon it and perpetually sinks and weighs it down again O my God draw near unto me and touch my Mind with such a powerful sense of thee as in despight of these my bodily Indispositions may attract and draw up my Soul unto thee And if it be thy blessed will release me from these fleshly Incumbrances and fit my Body to my Mind that I may serve thee as I desire to do with a fervent and a chearful Spirit But if it shall seem good in thine Eyes to leave me strugling under these bodily Oppressions Lord give me Patience and Submission to thy heavenly Will that so when I cannot approach thee with that Pleasure and Satisfaction I desire I may be heartily content to serve thee upon any Terms and that what I want of Vigour and Chearfulness in my Religion I may make up in Truth and in Reality And O let the Sense of these my present Indispositions cause me more vehemently to long after that free and blessed State wherein with fixt and steady Thoughts with flagrant Love and an entire Devotion of Soul I shall for ever worship praise and glorifie thy name Amen If through present Worldly-mindedness or Vanity of Spirit you find your self cold and apt to be distracted in your Religious Offices indeavour to stir up your Affections by representing to your self the Greatness and Urgency of your spiritual Wants the Vanity of all outward things and the Reality and Fulness of heavenly Enjoyments And do what you can to recollect your wandring Thoughts by setting your self in the Presence of the great God to whose All-seeing Eye every Thought and Motion of your Soul is open and naked And when by thus doing you have composed your Mind into a more serious Frame present this following Prayer O Thou ever blessed Majesty who fillest Heaven and Earth with thy Presence and art always listening to the Supplications of a world of Creatures that hang upon thee open I beseech thee thine Ears of Mercy to me who am unfit and unworthy to approach thee who by setting my Affections upon things below and plunging my self into the Cares and Pleasures of this Life have estrang'd and alienated my Mind from thee and lost that delightful Relish of thee with which I was wont to draw near unto thee And now that I am retired from the World to converse with thee and spread my wants and my desires before thee those worldly Cares and Delights with which I have been too too conversant are importunately thrusting themselves upon me to divert my Thoughts distract my Intentions and carry away my Affections from thee by reason whereof my Mind wanders my Hope droops and my Desires are frozen and whilst I am drawing near thee with my lips my heart is running away from thee O my God have pity upon me pluck my Soul out of this deep mire quicken raise and spiritualize these my groveling Affections Possess this Heart which opens it self to thy gracious Influences with such a strong and vigorous Love to thee as may lift me up above all earthly things and continually carry forth my Soul in vehement Desires after thee that so I may always approach thee with a joyful Heart being glad to leave the company of all other things to go to thee my God my exceeding Joy Give me a sober diligent and collected spirit that is neither choaked with Cares nor scattered with Levity nor discomposed with Passion nor estranged from thee with sinful Prejudice or Inadvertency but fix it fast to thy self with the Indissoluble Bands of an active Love and pregnant Devotion that so when-ever I prostrate my self before thee I may presently be born away far above all these sensible Goods in a high Admiration of thee and a passionate Longing after thee And now O Lord while I am addressing to thee gather in I beseech thee my wandering Thoughts and fix and stay them upon thy self And O do thou touch my cold and earthy Desires with an out-stretched Ray from thy self and cause them to rise and flame up to thee in Fervours answerable to my pressing Wants that I may so ask as that I may receive so seek as that I may find so knock as that it may be opened unto me through Jesus Christ my blessed Lord and Redeemer Amen If after this you find your Heart is very much enlarged and your Mind and Affections vigorously disposed towards God and heavenly things fix your Mind a little while upon the Beauty and Excellency of his Nature or upon some of the most
Affection corresponding with the most perfect Draughts and Models of its own Reason it must needs highly approve of and be perfectly satisfied with it self and while it surveys its own Motions and Actions it must necessarily have a most delicious Gust and Rellish of them they being all such as its best and purest Reason approves of with a full and ungainsaying Judgment And thus the Soul being cured of all irregular Affection and removed from all corporeal Passion will live in perfect Health and Vigor and for ever enjoy within it self a Heaven of Content and Peace IV. ANOTHER Virtue which appertains to a man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is TEMPERANCE which consists in not indulging our Bodily Appetites to the Hurt and Prejudice of our Rational Nature Or in refraining from all those Excesses of Bodily Pleasure of Eating Drinking and Venery which do either disorder our Reason or indispose us to enjoy the pure and spiritual Pleasures of the Mind For besides that all Excesses of Bodily Pleasures are naturally prejudicial to our Reason as they indispose those Bodily Organs by which it operates For so Drunkenness dilutes the Brain which is the Mint of the Understanding and drowns those Images it stamps upon it in a Floud of unwholesome Rheums and Moistures and Gluttony cloggs the Animal Spirits which are as it were the Wings of the Mind and indisposes them for the Highest and Noblest Flights of Reason so Wantonness chafes the Bloud into Feverish Heats and by causing it to boil up too fast into the Brain disorders the motions of the Spirits there and so confounds the Phantasms that the Mind can have no clear or distinct Perception of them by which means our Intellectual Faculties are very often interrupted and forced to sit still for want of proper Tools to work with and so by often loitering grow by degrees listless and unactive and at the last are utterly indisposed to any Rational Operations Besides this I say which must needs be a mighty prejudice to our Rational Nature by too much familiarizing our selves to bodily Pleasures we shall break off all our acquaintance with spiritual ones and grow by degrees such utter strangers to them that we shall never be able to rellish and enjoy them and our Soul will contract such an Vxorious Fondness of the Body that being the Shop of all the Pleasure it was ever acquainted with that 't will never be able to live happily without it For though in its separate state it cannot be supposed that the Soul will retain the Appetites of the Body yet if while it is in the Body it wholly abandons it self to Corporeal Pleasures it may and doubtless will retain a vehement hankering after it and longing to be re-united to it which I conceive is the only sensuality that a separated Soul is capable of For when such a Soul arrives into the Spiritual World her having wholly accustomed her self to bodily Pleasure and never experienced any other will necessarily render her incapable of enjoying the Pleasures of pure and blessed Spirits So that being left utterly destitute of all her dear Delights and Satisfactions which are such as she knows she can never enjoy but in conjunction with the Body all her Appetite and Longing must necessarily be an outragious Desire of being Embodied again that so she may be capable of repeating her old sensual Pleasures and acting over the brutish Scene anew AND this as some think is the Reason why such gross and sensual Souls have appeared so often after their separation in the Churchyards or Charnel-Houses where their Bodies were laid because they cannot please themselves without them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soul that is infected with a great Lust to the Body continues so for a great while after Death and suffering great Reluctancies hovers about this visible place and is hardly drawn from thence by force by the Demon that hath the Guard and Care of it Where by the visible Place he means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is About their Monuments and Sepulchres where the shadowy Phantasms of such Souls have sometimes appeared For being utterly unacquainted with the Pleasures of Spirits they have nothing in all the spiritual world to feed their hungry Desire which makes them when they are permitted to wander to hover about and linger after their Bodies the Impossibility of being re-united to them not being able to cure them of their impotent Desire of it but still they would fain be alive again and reassume their old Instruments of Pleasure Iterumque ad tarda reverti Corpora Quae lucis miseris tam dira Cupido And hence among other Reasons it was that the Primitive Christians did so severely abstain from Bodily Pleasures that by this means they might gently wean the Soul from the Body and teach it before hand to live upon the Delights of separated Spirits that so upon its separation it might drop into Eternity like ripe Fruit from the Tree with Ease and Willingness and that by accustoming it before to spiritual Pleasures and Delights it might acquire such a savoury Sense and Relish of them as to be able when it came into the spiritual world to live wholly upon them and to be so intirely satisfied with them as not to be endlesly vext with a tormenting Desire of returning to the Body again For so Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We that are hunting after the Heavenly Food must take heed that we keep our Earthly Belly in subjection and to keep a strict Government over those things that are pleasant to it For saith he a little before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither saith he is Food our Work nor Pleasure our Aim but we use them only as necessaries to our present Abode in which our Reason is instituting and training us up to a Life incorruptible i. e. They did so use them as that as much as in them lay they might wean their Souls from the pleasures of them that so they might have the better Appetite to that Spiritual Food upon which they were to live for ever AND therefore thus to temperate and restrain our selves in the Use of bodily Pleasures is one of the necessary Virtues of the Christian Life For hitherto tend all those Precepts concerning abstaining from fleshly lusts which war against our Souls I Pet. ii 11 and mortifying the deeds of the Body Rom. viii 13 and keeping under the Body 1 Cor. ix 27 and putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Coloss. ii 11 And we are strictly enjoined to be temperate in all things to watch and be sober and walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in excess of wine revellings and banquettings The sense of all which is That we should not indulge our bodily Appetites to the vitiating and depraving of our spiritual that we should not plunge our selves so far in
never returning to them more whatsoever Temptations may invite or Difficulties encounter and oppose us Which Resolution is in Scripture called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Repentance but in strictness signifies a Change of Mind or of Purpose and Resolution a renouncing our sinful Purposes and solemnly ingaging our selves in a contrary Resolution of living soberly and righteously and godly in this present World So that wheresoever the Precept of Repentance is expressed by this word the meaning of it is to oblige us to change the wicked Purposes of our Hearts into a firm and serious Resolution of forsaking all ungodliness and worldly lusts and intirely resigning up our selves to the Will and Disposal of God And hence it is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. to change our minds and convert or turn are in Scripture so often put together the one denoting the inward Change of our Resolution the other the outward Change of our Practice pursuant to it So Acts iii. 19 repent and be converted and Acts xxvi 20 that they should repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance that is that they should resolve to forsake their Sins and submit to their Duty and put their Resolution into Practice And so that other word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we also render Repentance strictly signifies an after-care that is pursuant unto this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Change of Resolution NOW this Repentance or Change of Resolution is the Initial Act of the Religion of Sinners whereby they resume their inward man from the Service of sin and submit and resign their Wills to God whereby in Heart and Will they forsake the Devils Colours and list themselves Volunteers under the Banner of Christ. And being so it ought to be performed with so much the more Care and Preparation For the Beginning of all great Enterprizes is the Ground and Foundation of them which if it be not firmly laid will be apt to sink under the Superstructures and to endanger their Ruin and Downfal Now all the foregoing Duties being necessary Preparations to a good Resolution we ought before we resolve to spend a considerable portion of time in the diligent Practice of them and not to resolve hand over head till we are duly and throughly prepared for it till by exercising our Faith and Consideration c. we have broken and tamed our perverse and obstinate Wills and throughly persuaded them to part with every Sin and to approve of and consent to every Duty that is comprehended in a through Resolution of Amendment And if when we are about to resolve we find upon a strict Examination any secret Reserve or Exception in our Wills if there be any Lust which they are not throughly persuaded to part with or any Duty to which they are not fully reconciled we ought for that time to forbear resolving and to go on in the Exercise of the preparatory Duties till we find our reluctant Wills throughly conquered and persuaded by them For if there be any leak left open in our Resolution for any Sin to creep in at that will be sure to insinuate in the next Storm of temptation and if it should not let in other Sins after it as 't is a thousand to one but it will 't will by its own single Weight sink us into eternal Perdition Wherefore before ever we enter into the Resolution of Amendment we ought to be very careful that our Wills be throughly prepared for it that they be reduced to a fair Compliance with the matter we are resolving upon and effectually dissuaded out of all Resolution to the contrary and when this is done we may chearfully proceed to the forming of our good Resolution WHICH ought to be performed by us between God and our selves with the greatest Seriousness and Solemnity For now our Hearts being ready we are to betake our selves to our Knees and in these or such like words to devote our selves to God O thou blessed Author of my Being I am now fully convinced that I ow my self to thee by a thousand Ties and Obligations and am infinitely sorry and ashamed that I have so long sequestred and withdrawn my self from thee to serve my own base Lusts and Affections Wherefore now in thy dread Presence and in that of thy holy Angels I here intirely resign up my self unto thee and do resolve without any Reserve or Exception that whatsoever Temptations I may meet with for the future I will never wilfully withdraw or alienate my self from thee more From henceforth I heartily renounce all my Sins and particularly those that have been most dear and pleasant to me and do faithfully promise to continue thy true and loyal Subject as long as I breath and that whatsoever Invitations I may have to the contrary I will never revoke the Resolution I now make or any part of it So help me O my God AND having thus solemnly resolved it will be highly necessary that for the farther Ratification of it we should yet more solemnly repeat it in the holy Sacrament wherein according to the Custom of Feasts upon Sacrifices God and every faithful Communicant do mutually re-oblige themselves to one another and upon the sacred Symbols of the Body and Blood of Jesus do ratifie to each other each others Part of that everlasting Covenant which by the Federal Rite of his meritorious Death and Sacrifice was inviolably sealed and confirmed So that when we take those holy Elements into our hands which the Priest in Gods stead presents and offers to us we do in effect make this solemn Dedication of our selves to God Here we offer and present unto thee O Lord our selves our souls and bodies to be a reasonable holy and lively Sacrifice unto thee and here we call to witness this sacred Blood that redeemed us and those vocal Wounds which do now intercede for us that from henceforth we oblige our selves never to start from thy service what Difficulties soever we may encounter in it or what temptations soever we may have to forsake it And having thus resolved and confirmed our Resolution by the Body and Blood of our Saviour and taken the Sacrament upon it not to depart from what we have resolved we have actually listed and ingaged our selves in a Warfare against Sin the World and the Devil upon the final Success whereof our everlasting Fate depends And thus you see what Duty is implied in the Beginning or Entrance of this warfaring Part of the Life of a Christian. SECT II. Wherein some Motives are urged to persuade men to the Practice of those Duties that are proper to the Beginning of the Christian Warfare HAVING in the former Section given a brief Account of those Duties which are necessary to the well Beginning of our Christian Warfare I shall now for a close of that Argument endeavour to press and persuade those who have not as yet begun to enter immediately
piercing sense of my Sins as may cause the floods of unfeigned Grief and Contrition to gush forth from it Cause me to bleed for my sins now that I may not bleed for them for ever and that having felt the Smart and Anguish of them I may utterly detest and abhor them and never be reconciled to them more Thus do thou assist me O good God in the Exercise of all these Duties till thou hast throughly conquered my Will by them and prepared it for a firm Resolution to forsake all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world And now that I am going into the world among those very Temptations that have hitherto so miserably captivated and inslaved me O let thy blessed Spirit be present with me to keep my drousie Conscience awake and arm me against them with his holy Inspirations that so those good Thoughts and Desires which thou hast at present excited in me may stick fast upon my Soul in the midst of my worldly Occasions and never cease importuning my Conscience Will and Affections till they have produc'd in me the happy Effect of a serious and hearty Repentance All which I most earnestly beseech of thee even for pity sake to a poor perishing Soul and for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. In the Evening when you find your self most sit for serious Thoughts go into your Closet again and consider cooly with your self whether you are heartily willing to part with every Sin and particularly with your beloved Sin and to submit to every Duty and even to those that are most contrary to your vicious Inclination if you are not as it 's very probable you will not for some time or if you find the least reason to suspect you are not press your self anew with such divine Reasons as are most apt to affect you with the Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell with the love of God and of your Saviour represent your Obstinacy to your self with all its Baseness and Disingenuity Madness and Folly till you find your self affected with a sorrowful Sense of it and then offer up this following Prayer O Father of Mercies and God of all Grace and Consolation who art a ready help in time of need look down upon me I beseech thee a miserable and forlorn Wretch that have wilfully sold my self Captive to the Devil and am now strugling to get loose from this my wretched Bondage into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God I know O Lord that I am striving for my immortal Life and accordingly as I succeed I expect to be happy or miserable for ever I have seriously considered the Reasons on both sides and am fully satisfied in my mind that there is infinitely more Force in thy Promises and Threats than in all the Difficulties of my Duty and the Pleasures of my sin But after all this I find a law in my Members warring against the law in my Mind a perverse Will that rejects the counsels of my Reason that makes obstinate Reservations of some beloved Sins and Exceptions to some particular Duties in despite of all the persuasion of my Reason and Religion So that after all my Endeavours I am still detain'd in Captivity to the law of sin that is in my Members and am not able to incline my self to an intire Resolution of Amendment O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death I know O Lord though I am weak and impotent and of my self unable to shake off the Chains and Fetters of my Lusts yet thy Grace is abundantly sufficient to rescue and deliver me from them and thou hast promised to assist with it my honest Endeavours and crown them with a blessed Success Wherefore for thy Truth and Mercies sake suffer not thy poor Creature who with pitiful and bemoaning Looks cries out for help to thee to spend himself in weary and fruitless Struglings against this violent Torrent of my sinful Nature which without thy aid will quickly overcome my poor Endeavours and drive me down into eternal Perdition My sole Dependence is upon thee my Hope of Success is wholly in thee help Lord help or else I perish stretch forth thy powerful Arm to my sinking Soul and let not this Deep swallow me up but do thou so quicken my faint Endeavours so strengthen my weak and doubting Faith so enliven my cold and languid Considerations so clear up my Convictions of my need of a Saviour and of the Danger and Odiousness of my Sins and thereby so increase my penitential Sorrows and Remorses as that by all these means together my obstinate Will may at last be conquered and effectually persuaded to part with every Sin be it never so dear to me and to comply with every Duty be it never so cross to my vile Inclinations Then shall I freely resign up my self unto thee and with a firm Resolution devote all my Powers to thy Service And that I may do so and by so doing be reconciled to thee O my offended God before I go hence and be no more seen receive me I beseech thee into thy protection this Night that I may yet see the light of another Day and have a longer space to finish my Repentance All which I humbly implore even for Jesus Christ his sake in whose name and words I farther pray Our Father c. If upon searching your own Heart you find that after you have fairly represented to your self what sinful Pleasures you must part with what Duties you must submit to and what Difficulties you must ingage with you are willing without any Reserve or Exception to submit your self to God beware you be not too hasty to form your Resolution but take some little time to try your self see whether you will continue to morrow of the same mind you are in now and if then you perceive you have reason to suspect your self try a little longer and at the present indeavour as much as in you lies to confirm and settle your self in the good Mind you are in by pressing and urging your self with all those Arguments of your Religion by which you have been thus far convinced and persuaded and while you are thus trying your self instead of the former let this be your Evening Prayer O Blessed Lord and most merciful Father thou art a God hearing Prayer and to thee shall all flesh come I admire thy Goodness I adore thy Grace that after so many heinous provocations I have given thee for which thou mightest have justly shut thine ears against me for ever thou hast heard my Cries and pitied my Misery and thus far contributed towards my Recovery I acknowledg 't is by thy Grace that I am what I am that this stubborn Heart begins at last to relent this perverse Will to bow and stoop these lewd Affections to hunger and thirst after