our selves any where into the hands of Innocency rather then among the imaginary felicities of sin and wickedness Say to thy self O my Soul it will not be long until thy Eyes be shut and thy body become troublesome to all that come near it unless speedily yeilded up to the Earth And no sooner will death absent thee from the eyes of thy Friends but forgetfulness will draw thee off from their heart Thou art enforced O my Soul to inhabite in a sickly body encountring with all sorts of pains and maladies O my God! What a favour then is it to be banished from so many Gouts Sciaticks Collicks so many pains of Head Teeth and Heart so much hunger thirst and other infirmities which afflict a frail and momentary body And oh that we would but remember this when Temptation comes upon us When we are tempted to give up our minde to the world and drown our selves in earthly cares when we are tempted to profits pleasures and evil company with the neglect of the Duties of Gods Worship That we would but seriously be-think whether the world will then be as sweet as now Whether our unruly Passions and Lusts will then bear the same sway with us and whether all the Glories Beauty Honours and Preferments of the world will not then seem needless vain and unprofitable Alas Will any of those things be comfortable to thee at that day of Reckoning Is this a day to be forgotten Is not that man worse then mad that is going to judgement and never thinks of it Should we not rather forget to eat to drink to sleep or work then a matter of so great concernment What To forget that we must remember for ever O poor Souls How much rather should we in the midst of all our Temptations and allurements to sin imitate him who wheresoever he went seem'd to hear a Voice calling to the World Arise ye Dead and come to judgement The Misery of those who have yeilded to the Passion of Love and the Glory of Souls which have overcome it TO mention the sad effects of sensual Love which hath so many ways of working will be a Task very hard and difficult seeing this Fury hath a thousand hands and a thousand attractives yea for the most part different and quite opposite It takes by the eyes by the ears by the Imagination by change of purpose by flying pursuing honouring and insulting by complacency and by disdain Somtimes it lays hold by Tears by laughing by modesty by boldness by confidence by subtilty by simplicity by speech and by silence It assaileth us somtimes in company somtimes in solitude at windows in grates in Theaters at Feasts at Sports yea oftentimes at the Church and in Duties of Devotion Briefly if we behold one transfixed with violent Love we shall finde he hath all that in his love which Divines have placed in Hell viz. Darkness flames an evil Conscience an ill savour and banishment from the presence of God Sin will not at first discover its dreadful events and Tragedies It will perchance shew you a chamber wherein Beauty is presented which hideth gross infirmities It presents you with smiles glances Courtships and flatteries which yet carry nothing with them but ruine yea it shews you Sports and Banquets Tears and Funerals in one day Alas How many millions of men are there in the world who would be most fortunate and flourishing if they knew how to avoid the mischievous power of this Passion Hence is it that so many Virgins are stoln away so many Families desolated and Parents precipitated often times into their Tombs by their ungrateful children That so many little Innocents are made away by death whose birth also is often prevented Hence is it that so many Widdows are dishonoured that chaste Wedlocks are disturbed and so many Rapes committed Is it not hence that so many are abandoned to dishonour their Estates to pillage and poverty their Reputation to infamy and their whole lives to continual disturbances Is it not hence that poysons are mingled that Halters are noozed that Swords are sharpned and those Tragedies begun in the Night are executed upon the Scaffold in full day-light Good God! What heavie scourges do always fall on sin and what a pleasing spectacle among so many confusions is it to see any Victory gained over evil Love It were easie to enlarge the History of Loves power which would require a Volumn greater then hath yet been seen if I should tell you how Love oftentimes rejecteth the greatest commands wisest Edicts and best Laws How it despiseth Honour neglects Fame Wealth Health Life Soul and all It is compared also by some to Fire the most active and strongest worker of all the Elements which destroyeth Castles Houses and Cities which melts and consumes the hardest Metals and if our contemplation dive into former Times or if we turn over the variety as well of Modern as Ancient Histories not only Divine but Humane we shall finde the sad effects of our evil Love how Ambition Revenge and Murther vices which not only eclipse our judgments but darken our understandings have ever proved fatal to the Undertakers thereof and that we shall not only see with grief but finde with repentance how this Passion of fond Love hath brought shame instead of glory misery for felicity and affliction for content where affection hath not had reason for its guide nor vertue for its object I shall spare to insist on those infamous Ladies whose memory purchased by odious Lust will survive the course of time as Cleopatra Faustina Clitemnestra with the last whereof Aegistus lost his honour through too great a familiarity and we finde not a few to suffer a great eclipse of their credit through their too much effeminacy whence it was that Demosthenes being demanded a great price for a little pleasure by the Courtezan Lais answered I will not buy repentance at so dear a rate well considering that the fairest flowers do as well serve for a shelter to hide Aspes and Serpents as to beautifie Garlands and Chaplets neither would desire the fruit of that Tree nor the kernel of that Apple which was at first of that fatal and dreadful consequence to the Taster The things we finde commended in Mary Magdalen by our blessed Saviour was her humility and the Office she performed to his feet and no way admiring her comly countenance and the pleasant flower of her youth which she had too often made as a snare to betrey her Lovers and all to let us see how loathsome disrelishing and unsavoury are the husks of vain and empty Beauty and how irksome the taste of sinful pleasures are which like deep laughing still carries a deep sigh in the end in respect of those inward vertues of the soul to be preferred beyond the fair and ruddy fruit of Earthly Beauty But then again on the contrary how large do we finde History in setting forth the admirable command which some have had
enquire to pray and yet not finde the light of thy presence But O Lord Leave not this poor Soul of mine but make it to understand the unmeasurableness of thy Bounties and Mercy Oh for that day when this knowledge of mine now childish and darksome shall be turned into a full and clear Vision O happy darkness if thus to become lightsome The more hidden thou art now blessed Saviour the more glorious wilt thou be then Ah that my heavie thoughts had the wings of an Angel to soar aloft amongst those celestial Quires Me-thinks I see when thou shalt be pleas'd to remove the skreen of my mortal body which now detains me from thy presence and interrupts the view of thy glory how nothing will be able to hinder the eagerness of my Soul from flying to thee Me-thinks I see Eternity too short to enjoy thee Surely there 's no possibility of pleasure without thee no faculty of Soul to wish or think any thing but thee yea my Soul would more willingly wain into nothing then part with thee Thee my only incomprehensible and Eternal All my dear dearest Lord and God! Adieu then those charming warbles of a fleeting and deceitful world O merciful Father Behold my prodigal Soul which returns unto thee Receive me as a mercenary servant if thou wilt not receive me as a Son for I resolve no longer now to run after the salt waters of worldly pleasures and contentments The light of thy countenance is far better then life it self being able to turn the shaddows of death into life and the midnight of the sharpest adversities into the noon-tide of joy and chearfulness Oh how great is the clemency of God to hide from us the greatest part of things which will befal us in the world The knowledge whereof would continually overwhelm our wretched life with sadness and affrightment and give us no leave to breathe among the delicious Objects of the earth Had many great and eminent persons mounted on the highest degree of honour but seen how they were still falling into endless Abysses or beheld the change of their Fortune and the bloody ends of their life it is impossible but the joys of their Tryumphs would have been moistned with Tears and through a perpetual fear of inevitable necessity they would have lost all the moments of their felicity And did the poor and seemingly forsaken Soul thorowly at once apprehend the severe anger of an omnipotent God what alas would it do when it sees it self menaced by the hideous and affrightful terrors and mischiefs of Satan What shall the poor heart do when God is pleas'd to write bitter things against it when he shall scare it with dreams and terrifie it with Visions Surely not pains imprisonments poverty or death it self can be more troublesome to it Whereas the comforts of a quiet conscience becalmed with the gracious in-comes of Gods gracious presence and enlightned with his glorious Beams which expel the darkness and ignorance of our cursed Nature as are so many threads of gold which involve us here below in precious repose and a certain expectation of beatitude until at last we finde wings to take our flight to the City of Peace and Refuge promised unto us by that mouth which never erred and whose Laws are established upon foundations stronger then the pillars of heaven and earth and where we shall receive the excellent Promises and clearest revelations of Eternity The Soul admires the infinite Riches of her Saviours Love in taking Humane Nature upon him WIth what admiration is not the heart of man seized on when he entereth into the great Abysses which are discovered in our Redemption and when he seeth Jesus a Saviour to reveal unto us the secrets and wisdome of heaven by his blessed Incarnation For what saw he in our Nature but a brutish body and a Soul all covered over with crimes and wholly drenched in remediless miseries Or what could he set before him but a miserable ungracious wretch cast forth upon the face of the Earth wallowing in uncleanness abandoned to all sorts of scorns and injuries And yet behold how the Prince of Glory looking on us with the eyes of his mercy taketh us washeth cloatheth adorneth and tyeth us to himself by a hand of infinite Love He laid aside the beautiful Angels and came upon earth to seek this lost creature though a Foe to his Honour and injurious to his Glory See O my Soul How that God far beyond all other created Essences hath been so liberal as to bestow himself on thee He bowed the Heaven and came down rendering his sacred Person subject to all the misery of humanity to bruises to tearings to shatters to violences oppositions and tyrannies and all to accomplish a King of sorrow calamity and scorn He laid aside all the Prerogatives of his most perfect Soul exposing it to labours to tears and griefs to those stupendious Throws in the Garden which made him cry out in those expressive words My God! My God! To what a point hast thou let me to be brought and in the end to be commended even to death it self How alas didst thou abandon thy body to heat to cold to weakness to hunger to thirst to travel to weariness to fear to sadness of Soul and death it self What was it but Love and Love alone that brought down God from heaven to be incarnate in the womb of a Virgin and to suffer all the hardships not sinful to which humane Nature is subject So that thou art not able to conceive the multitude and greatness nor any way comprehend the worth of his mercies And what then canst thou say but only lie gasping with admiration of so vast so unknown a goodness and sigh out the rest in the Center of thy heart Good God What sublimate is made in the Limbeck of Love What attractive was there in Humane Nature to draw thee from the highest part of the heavens to its love Thou out of thy goodness wouldst not lose him who through his own weakness delighteth to lose himself O miracle That humane Nature should be thus tyed to the Divine That glory should be separated from the estate and condition of glory yeilding his Soul up as a prey to sadness O dear Saviour Thou stretchest out thy hand to him who turns his back to thee Man flyeth as a Fugitive and thou pursuest him even to the shaddow of Death What may we say more of so profuse a Bounty Oh how thou courtest sinful flesh Being not content to pardon his crimes but even through thy own death to procure him a Kingdom All the ancient Patriarchs who were persecuted in times past and all the glorious Martyrs who since our Saviour have endured such torments made but a tryal of his Dolours Impatient souls then as we are Can we expect a greater motive to suffering then to have our Saviour for an example Who then will complain Or who is the man who cannot bear a
know ah little indeed the glory and blessedness of this love little dost thou know the excellency of this Love Is there any thing here below but baseness in espect of thy enjoyments above are the heavy sufferings the unsatisfying vanities of this world really sutable to thy desires or canst thou find any place more sutable to thy misery then that of mercy or of nearer interest or Relation then that of Heaven Come away then O my Soul stop thine ears to the ignorant language of the world what is the Beauty the Riches the Honours thou hast so much admired Canst thou but even close thine eyes and thou wilt think it all darkness and deformity What is the beauty thou hast so much admired alas when the night comes it will be nothing to thee whilst thou hast gazed on it it hath withered away doâ—h not the wrinkles of consuming sickness or of age or some other deformity make it as loathsome as it was once delightful Ah then O miserable man that thou art unworthy Soul how canst thou love a skinful of dirt and canst no more love the heavenly Glory art thou not a Soul is not heaven the onely lovely Object art thou not a Spirit and is not Earth a Dungeon to Celestial Glory shall Gold or Greatness or worldly Pomp be thy Idols vvhich are all dirt and dung to Christ come forth then O my dull and drowsie Soul thou hast lain long enough in these earthly Cells where cares have been thy Fetters where sorrows have been thy lodgings and Satan thy Jaylor The Soul calling to mind the infinite Love of her Saviour bewailes her ungratefulness and the coldness of her returns WHen holy David considered the vvorks of Gods hands the Sun and the Moou which he had made Psal 8.3 4. he immediately breaks forth into thoughts of humility touching the frail and sad estate of man But blessed Lord what can we say for our great neglect of that Love which hath stretched it self for us even to the death of the Cross and what stupidity is it to forget that that bloody Banquet which was to us the source of life should bring with it the Edict of death O poor Sinner What hast thou done look upon a Deed that vvas worthy of none but thy cruelty stretch out thy hands put thy fingers into those wounds vvhich thou hast made bedew thy hands like unbelieving Thomas in that sacred stream vvhich flowed from thy Saviours side Drink miserable vvretch of that River vvhich there thou seest glide to quench thy thirst Look and behold those dead eyes which accuse thy nakedness and which thou still dost wound with the aspect of thy wickedness alas they are not shut so much by the necessity of death as by the horrour of thy Luxury Behold the great temper of thy Saviours Soul in his most horrible sufferings what could be invented which he endured not what could be undergon which he met not vvith Oh high effect of an infinite Love vvhich found no belief in senses no perswasion in minds no example in manners nor resemblance in nature It is storied of a Prince vvho being desirous to offer himself to death for the preservation of his Subjects took the habite of a Clown the better to facilitate his death he laid down his Crown and Purple and all the Ensigns of Royalty onely retaining those of Love and lost his life in his Enemies hands But alas this was but a mortal life and in giving it he onely paid that tribute to Nature which at last he must of necessity yield But where have we read that a man glorious by Birth and immortal by condition hath espoused that humility which all the world despiseth that mortality which all must partake of that mercy which none can equalize and for no other occasion then to dye for his friend O dear Jesus thou wert by nature immortal and impregnable against all exterior violences thou took'st not the Body of a Peasant nor a body of Air but a true body of Flesh personally united to the word of God Thou O blessed Saviour consumedst thy body with Travails thou quailedst it with toils thou castedst tottered Rags over thy Purpleâ— thou laid'st our miseries upon thy own shoulders and at last resignedst thy selfe as a Prey to a most dolorous death My God! What a Prodigie is this Thou foundest a way to accord infirmity with Soveraignty Honour with Ignomy Life with Death and Time with Eternity O God of Glory O mild Saviour all this hast thou done it was not possible that sole God should suffer death nor sole Man should vanquish it but God and Man hath overcome it Ought not then thy pains to be as much adored by our wills as they are incomprehensible to our understandings And alas how much ought we to be ashamed since instead of enkindling our Affections with the sacred fires of thy Eternal Love we have sought after prophane fire from the eyes of earthly Beautie and have opened our hearts to Forreign flames Ah ungrateful Soul art thou not afraid to hear those heart-piercing words Cant. 5.6 I opened to my beloved but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone my soul failed when I spake I sought him but I could not find him Shall the love of God be so communicative as to stream forth by those two conduit-pipes of Glory and Beauty and art thou not hereupon even confounded to see thy heart so narrow and streightned in the exercise of holiness and good works Oh blessed Saviour thou didst spend thy time in continual pain and labours here on Earth for the redemption of the world Many were the scorns reproaches and miseries thou endurest for us Thou didst even melt and dissolve under the ardors of unspeakable affection and zeal for our salvation and at last exposedst thy self to languors sorrows extasies and the cruel punishment of the Cross and shall ingratitude be all the return thou reapest for such infinite mercy How justly maist thou many many times question with me as thou did once with S. Peter Joh. 21.17 Lovest thon me Thou seemest indeed poor soul to love me But why then dost thou not keepe my Commandements Doth not fond love which ordinarily delights to see what it cannot attain find too much admiration for thy eyes and food for its flame Ah that ever thou shouldst spend so many hours endure so much pain and run so many hazards to seek after an unhappy loathsomness Oh that ever thou shouldst take away thy love from me to place it on Creatures which so little deserve it And why should the faculties of the eye which was ordained for light be thus applyed to darkness Shall that which was Created for the use of Life be the cause of Death Alas what canst thou gain by imbracing thy Lusts O poor deceived Soul what Snares what Traps what Tempests beset thee on all sides O Man miserable wretch drenched in the waters of bitter Tears where alas wilt
deploring the evil effects of Covetousness namely That the life of man was miserable because Avarice like a spirit of Storms and Tempests had poured it self on Mortals and that it were to be wished that the best Physicians might meet together to cure the Disease The same may we say of Love since it is the fatal Plague among all Passions and no simple malady but one composed of all the evils in the world A Passion which maketh charms and illusions to march before it and draggeth on Furies disasters and rapines after it Was it not this which sharpned the sword which transfixed Ammon Which shaved and blinded Sampson Which gave a Halter to Phillis Alas How many wretched and caitif souls how many ship-wracked Spectacles may we behold standing on Promontory tops who tell us of the ruines which this Passion hath caused Simon Magus was undone by a Hellen being more bewitched by her love then he enchanted others by his Sorcery Apelles was corrupted by Phylumene Donatus by Lucilia Montanus by Maximilla Women having ended amongst all these what Heresie and Magick had but begun which made one wittily to say That Heaven was most happy in having a God In Coelo Angelus Angela c. Tertul. adversus Val. and Angels and no Goddesses since it might be feared that if there were diversity of Sex it would alter somthing of its tranquility Was it not the love of Women which caused Sampson's David's and Solomon's shipwracks Hath it not besotted the wise conquered the strong deceived the prudent corrupted Saints and humbled the mighty Hath it not trodden down Scepters and Crowns blasted the Lawrels of the greatest Conquerours troubled the most flourishing States Hath it not thrown Schism into Churches corruption among Judges and the greatest cruelties into Arms Hath it not acted Treasons Furies firings poysons murthers and ransackings And how should it spare its enemy since it is so cruel to its self It kills and murders those that have most constantly served it drinking their blood and insensibly devouring them and making many to sink in the twinkling of an eye It will open a Flood-gate to a Deluge of miseries and cares It will by some invisible hand as it were shoot Arrows amidst the Vermilion of Roses and the whiteness of Lilies It is the worm which gnaweth all our great actions the moth which eateth all the vigour of our spirit the Labyrinth which hindreth our chief designs yea it is the true snare of our soul which too often hides poison and death under a seeming sweetness See here the goodly sacrifices of Lust Behold the transfigurations of sottish Love What Nothing but Poyson Gibbets Massacres and Precipices Nothing to be seen but smoak flames darkness despairs and the sad complaints of unfortunate Lovers O God! What is he who beholding these Pictures would ever betray his soul heaven and his God to yeild obedience to loathsome lust In time then let us behold the disasters which wait on the experience of this miserable sin which is so ruinous to our body soul estate and reputation so full of fetters and snares It being impossible to write all the Tragedies which arise from this Passion for which all Pens are too weak all Wits too dull and all Tongues would be dryed up Neither is it to be wondred at what the Wise man said That the too free familiarity with Women was a firebrand in the bosome Prov. 6.27 and as another said It was as easie to live among burning coals as to converse with this Sex and not to wound the soul How careful then should we be to avoid whatsoever may endanger the scortching not only of our Body but our precious Soul yea how should we fear our Relapses and shun all occasions which may re-enkindle the flame For if vain Love be a Tree the fruit flowers and leaves whereof are nothing but sorrows if it be a Sea full of Tempests and Storms where a Haven is not to be hoped for but with the loss of our selves If it be a Passion which causeth a continual drunkenness of Reason If this Banquet which seems to be the source of life brings an Edict of Death with it and the best sports thereof are ordinarily bloody why should we embrace such cruelty as is mingled with delights Or that pleasure which is attended with Funerals O my Make us to bury all our concupiscences before we go to the Grave and so strive to live as that when death comes it may finde us prepared and that we may have little other business then to die That Love in its self is not a Vice but the Soul of all Vertues when it is tyed to its proper Object which is the Soveraign Good NEver shall the soul of man act any thing great in this world if he retain not holy fire in his veins since from the beginning of the world all things are held together by this Divine tye Concord which in its union causeth the happiness of all things and those sacred influences of Love have woven eternal chains to tye indissolubly all the parts of the Vniverse True joy is nothing else but a satisfaction of the soul in enjoying what it loves neither is the accomplishment of Pleasure any thing but the presence possession and fruition of the good which is known to us and which we love We cannot have one silly spark of love for God unless it be inspired into us by himself That which the Ayr is in the Elementary world the Sun in the Celestial and the Soul in the Intelligible the same is he throughout All He is the Ayr which all the afflicted desire to breathe in the Sun which dispelleth all our clouds the Soul which giveth life to all things and therefore he that is thus the Lover of our souls ought really to be the object with which our soul ought everlastingly to be in love And oh how happy are they who entertain this chaste and spiritual love for things Divine who embrace the wisdom of heaven which is so far beyond all humane Beauties as the light of the Stars surpass the petty sparklings and flitting fires of the earth but miserable are those who mount not above the flatteries and fading Beauty of the world From hence it was that the beauties of Solomon's Mistresses were no sooner adored but that through the neglect of his former Zeal and Courage Idols were worshipped That Sampson was no sooner blinded with love but that Dalilah forthwith blinded the eyes of his reason and body together Hence was it that David paid so dear for that unhappy cast of his eye on Bathsheba all which God is pleas'd to place as broken masts on the top of a mountain to make others take heed of the shipwracks of love And great care surely ought to be taken in the whole course and progress of our life sin being usually killed by flying the occasions of it Absence resistance coldness silence labour and diversion have overcome many assaults
to arive to tranquility It is a Treasure which will be infinitely profitable if we can tell how to attain it It taketh hearts which as yet are but of earth and clay and enkindleth them with a divine flame It beats them under the hammer of Tribulations and sufferings to make them fit for their Saviours reception Yea it makes fit vessels of them worthy to be placed above the chiefest of terrene enjoyments We finde Love indeed divided into many branches to wit Natural love which consisteth in things inanimate having their sympathies and antipathies as the Amber draws the Straw the Adamant Iron and as Trees and Plants bend or decline one from another Next Animal Love is that beginning which giveth motion to the sensitive appetite of Beasts to see that which is fit for them and to take pleasure therein Reasonable Love is that which seeketh and accepteth the good represented by the Understanding But alas What are all these to that Divine and Angelical Love by whose sides are lodged Beauty and Goodness which make up all loves the soul of man being able no where to fix it self until it re-ascend to God It is the nature of Quicksilver to tremble up and down and never leaveth until it have found Gold wherewith to mingle it self so boundeth and leapeth the heart of man here and there in all its troubles and disturbances there being nothing but Ebbs and Floods in it until such time as it is united to its Creator as being the Temple of all repose There only it is that the Banished finde a Country the Poor a Patrimony the Ignorant Knowledge the Feeble Support the Sick Health and the Afflicted Comfort It is that only which immortalizeth us after death and gives us light in our darkest affairs It is that alone which is the sanctity of all humane hearts the comfort of our souls the repose of life and the knot of all felicities And what is the cause that the blessed are never weary of loving but that they perpetually finde in God new Beauties and Perfections The body of man is finite and quickly thrusts out all its qualities which with time doth rather fade then flourish but our soul in some sort tendeth to infinity Oh what sweetness Oh what an earnest of the life of the blessed is that Love which is inviolably grounded upon Vertue and Holiness upon heaven and the Beauty thereof Whereas on the contrary when we wax cold in the love of God and in the exercise of Devotion taking too much liberty in our conversation with such things as we affect how insensibly do we finde our selves surprized by the eyes and ears the heart the gesture the smiles the speech yea the whole carriage of any who lays a Plot with our passion to betray our Reason How do we dote wax pale cry to the woods and mountains one hour we write another we blot then tear out all our repast is unpleasant and irksom and repose which charmeth all the cares of the world seems not made for us So doth the poyson of Love spread it self over all our Veins Absence unquietness and disturbance of minde ever keeps waking the imagination Still our fair one still our cruel one tormenteth us and God makes a whip for us of that thing we most affect How wretched then are those poor souls who seek for pleasure in their affections As that of Eloquence of Poesie of Musick ingenious sports and witty jests since these though for a time sweet to the sense are subject to the diversity of Ages Humours Seasons and Employments If we consult with History how many millions of Lovers shall we finde who complain of the infidelity of their Mistresses and those they seem to adore But the Love placed upon heavenly objects never fails to make an answerable return It is from thence that the blood is enflamed the body weakned the colour changed That the eyes grow hollow the senses stupified and the whole body overthrown And though there be diversities of Love in some sharp and violent in others dull and cloudy in others light and wanton in others turbulent and perplexed and in others weak soppish fantastique and inconstant yet as if somthing of Idolatry adhered to it how do all seem to Deifie the creature of whom they are so passionately enamoured and would willingly place it amongst the Sun Stars and Altars yea they would die a hundred times for it chains and wounds being accounted honourable so it throw but so much as a handful of Flowers or distil but one poor Tear on their Tomb. And as for affections purely Conjugal you shall finde them now adays very rare and for Celestial loves they are much more scarce But for the love of Fantasie the love of sensuality of servitude of fury on what side soever you turn your face you shall not fail to meet them though nothing be beautiful or to be affected in the best of them Surely a small Circle since Volumns are not sufficient will not shew you the Essence the Causes the Symptoms sorts and effects of Love neither the inconstancy and fickleness thereof Some feign it to be the Sun of the Wind to signifie it may be the wavering and diversified colours thereof appearing in the beginning all in Rubies Diamonds and Emeralds over our heads but afterwards to cause storms and tempests discovering it self first with such bright semblances to our senses whilest it occasions much corruption in our mindes Insomuch that if we do but observe one which is transfixed with violent Love we shall finde he hath all that in his love which Divines have placed in Hell namely Darkness Flames the worm of Conscience an evil savour and banishment from the presence of God He sometimes entereth into quakings sometimes into faintings one time into fits of fire and another time into ice If I go about to fetter Love saith one it gets out of my hands if I will judge it it grows into favour with me when I intend to punish it it flatters me if I will fly from it it seems tied to me when I destroy it with one hand I repair it with the other if it be too much cherished it assaults me more violently if watching withers it sleep pampereth it by treating it ill I endanger my life by pampering it too much I incur death Briefly Love enters into the most secret places which seem inaccessible but to Spirits and Lightnings It bewitcheth the minde dislocateth the brain and eclipseth the reason All that the Lover beholdeth all that he meditateth on all he dreameth all he speaketh of is the Creature he loveth He hath her in his head his heart he carves her into the most pleasing forms he fears he hopes he despairs he sighs he groans and blusheth yea he never takes rest If Beauty then of it self be so much to be dreaded when it hath no other companions how dangerous think you is it when Pomp of Apparel attractives dalliances cunning wiles
the Arrians who were thirsty for his blood was beholding to a woman for shelter and the supply of such necessaries as he wanted And may we credit the relation of Writers on this Subject how great do we finde the passions of St. Jerome for Paula as if all the splendour of Romes greatness all the riches of the earth were nothing to him in comparison of the resplendent vertues of this noble Lady He is not onely very large when he goes about to praise her wishing all the members of his body were turned into Tongue and that he were nothing but voyce to chant out her Praises but even in his old age makes an Epitaph upon her death St. Chrysostom also a man austere in his life and vehement in the matters of vertue is reported to have written letters to his dear Olimpias from the place of his banishment wherein he saluteth her with openness of most ardent Aeffections He instructs and encourageth her by sublime and grave discourses he imparteth and recounts his Voyages and adventures his comforts and discomforts unto her yea he descends unto particulars of his own health habit and exercises in that ugly place whereunto he was banished and adviseth her in the like manner what he thinks to be most necessary for her If we look further into History we shall finde Chastity to be the Trophey of Cyrus the Triumph of Alexander nay if we may believe the Relation of Ju-Julianus apud lian the worst of Emperours though re Arminianum nouncing his Christian Faith would would never renounce Chastity which he had learnt among Christians saying This Vertue made beautiful Lives as Painters did fair faces By all which formerly said we may conclude Saints have very lively Affections to those they love And therefore seeing there is a necessity of Love vain is the opinion of some Philosophers who teach indifferency and say We must not love any thing And however a severe Censurer may with a supercilious countenance and a wrinckled brow look asquint yet may we not doubt there may be love between Sex and Sex pure and ardent as the flames which enlighten stars though belonging onely to persons prudent and absolute in Vertue yea great circumspection must be used herein men usually fortifying themselves with much precaution observing diligently the disposition of their Nature the causes of Temptations and the maladies of the Soul whereby the more successfully and with better effect to attain the Cure Love indeed may be termed the Phronzy of the Understanding the Poyson of the Heart the Corruption of Manners and the desolation of the life in some yet doth it not follow that women are always fat of the ruine of men Many indeed resemble those Serpents which requite them with poyson who sing pleasant songs unto them But what shall we bring an accusation against Nature in general and conclude nothing to be good of all that God made because it may be corrupted by the wickedness of men Shall we accuse the Sun because it is said that Phaeton burnt himself in those heats or take away the water from among the Elements because they say Aristotle was drowned therein Onely let it be our greatest care not to serve two Mistisses God and the Beauties of the World which are so different as not to agree When David and Sampson endeavoured to accord them they became Lascivious instead of being Holy The one at first could overthrow a Giant but had no sooner received the wound from Bathsheba's eye but Love soon dryed up all his Victories and those eyes which first discovered her at the Fountains head had much ado to cure themselves with the waters of many tears And when the other betook himself to the Comb and Looking-Glass of Dalilah being formerly like a shining Sun enlightning his Nation he became a coal and dark vapour having no longer eyes but to deplore the fondness and disafter of his love with Tears of blood As the best Wine is most subject to degenerate into Vineger so we see the chastest Love if heed be not taken changeth it self into Flesh How carefully then should we avoid reject the first thoughts of such miserable Designs as being the first sparkles of this fire lest by giving too great a command to our Passion we give too great an overture to our unhappiness We finde what the World could not do to Solomon the wisest of men a Woman did and what the Devil could not by himself do to Adam he did it by a Woman Neither was it the Devil but the Daughters of men which tempted the Sons of God Gen. 6.2 So did Dinah the son of Shechem Dalilah Sampson Bathsheba David and millions more have done the like whose eyes being like burning Lamps or coals of fire to kindle their breath their lips as lime-twigs to ensnare and their hands like Manacles or Bands to binde and hold fast How ought we then to make Jobs covenant with our eyes not to look upon a Maid And oh Happy are those who are so instructed in the Vertue of Purity as that they know not the least shaddow of those sins which are committed in the world It being a Fate sadly attending those who see and smell out so many vain Customs and entertainments of Countries since too soon they learn what too late they will forget taking so much fire in at the Ears and Eyes that water enough will not be found to extinguish it except with Mary Magdalen we sit under the feet of Jesus and bedew them with the chrystal Tears of our Repentance O wonder of Women O most happy of aâ—l Lovers How didst thou make profit of Sin which destroys all How didst thou sanctifie that Love which so little knew the way to any sanctity a work only wrought in thee by the right hand of the Highest Thou which wert a sinner wounded with Love curest thy self by Love Thou changest the fire of Babylon into that of Jerusalem thou pluckest out the venomous Dart of worldly Love off thy Wound to make way for the Arrows of Jesus to pierce thy heart and that soul which was before black and burnt up with the fire of Concupiscence provideth a Fountain for the King of Heaven and draweth Tears from its sins to procure a Pardon And for ever blessed are those who with this Pattern of holy Sorrow considering the evil consequence of sensuality effeminacy and the too eager pursuit of carnal pleasure use severity denyal and the frustrating of their appetite when it any way grows unreasonable For why should we thus offer violence to our selves Why should we thus endanger our Estate Shall we drown those Senses here in a world of pleasure which will not hereafter be able to procure one bottle of Water to refresh us O horrour What Of the Members of Jesus Christ to make them the members of an unclean Creature O great indignity What To worship and serve our Lusts to adore our sinful Appetites O that we would put
over themselves who would not make Beauty their Object nor be surprized with amorous folly Joseph would not be tempted by his Mistris Holy Job Made a Covenant with his eyes not to look upon a Maid with many other the like Examples we read of in the holy Scripture Besides Do we not read of the Roman Stilpo who notwithstanding he were naturally addicted to Incontinency became absolute Commander of his affections by reading only certain Precepts of Moral Philosophy What admirable Continency also do we finde mentioned of Alexander in sparing the Wife of Darius and his three Daughters Scipio after many years prosperous exploits purchased not more glory then by overcoming himself when a beautiful maid was brought unto him whom he returned with a great reward unto him to whom she was espoused No less worthy to be noted not to mention those Noble Matrons whose Vertue and Chastity will transcend the Period of all Ages as Porcia Octavia Caecilia Cornelia c. were Marius Solyman the Magnificent and many others recorded for their Princely command over themselves and their affections If Beauty then chance to shew thee a fair Visage remember the Syrens do the same if she allure thee by her Caresses so doth the Panther if her amorous plaints invite thee let the sighs of the Crocodile be thy Instruction Her greatest brightness is at best but a false and fading Meteor And seldome saith Plutarch doth Beauty and Honesty dwell together Thou then that art beautified with an Angelical Feature Why shouldest thou participate of any inferiour Creature Why wilt thou suffer so great an Eclipse for a minutes pleasure since this Vice above all others derogates so much from thy Honour It was ill Physick and only fit for so luxurious a a Physician which Epicurus used to one of his Patients viz. To lay him on a Down bed in a perfumed chamber crowning him with a Garland of sweet smelling Flowers and after a Potion or two of good Drink to bring him a beautiful young Wench which could play sing and dance And was it not as great a vanity which Ctesias relates of a Persian King that had an hundred and fifty Maids attending his Table to play sing and dance by turns The like whereof another reports of an Aegyptian Prince who still kept nine Virgins of most excellent Feature and sweet Voices to wait on him But were these things well considered by those who are surprized with an amorous folly their desires would not be so much bent to sensuality nor their delights wholly engaged to fleshly Liberty Beauty would not so often be their Object nor Vanity the subject of their discourse they would not be so often fieng'd in the flames of that Love which cannot hold without jealousie nor break without repentance Neither would Complexion take up so much room in their thoughts who should rather give themselves to Diviner Meditations How we may avoid the Snares of Love IF we desire to know the way how to banish this Passion for our more quiet and comfortable living let us in the first place consider That we cannot do it without having this singular gift of God who is onely able to banish this Fury which plungeth our whole life in such great acerbities and horrible calamities and against which we ought to bend our utmost endeavours Presume not too much on thy own strength and integrity and take heed of the pride of thy heart arrogant spirits being usually subject to fall into such sins and God often makes it a counter-poise as we see in St. Paul who in the height of Revelation 2 Cor. 12. had a sting in the flesh to abate the fierceness of the courage and to quell the exorbitancy of humane arrogancy Let us take heed also of serving soothing frequenting or spying out occasions For as Love takes most and works by idleness and converse so is it best resisted by the contrary good employment and the shunning of wanton company Flight of occasions is the most assured remedy and rampire for Chastity and whosoever this way carries himself well shall appear stronger in flying then Conquerours in their bravest Battels a Retreat in Love being as honourable as a Victory Take heed of fondness in apparel behaviour complement books songs banquettings and unlawful recreations Many things indeed at first seem innocent enough but it too often hapneth that as drops of water incessantly falling do hollow rocks so continual and ceaseless allurements soften and betray the most impregnable Natures Art thou weak then fear thy infirmity if strong suspect even thy own safety Be not too forward in beginning the Combate until you know what will be the end Love at first will beset thee with the visage of a Virgin but leave thee with the body of a Serpent If you look on it upon one side you shall finde it infinitely sweet and charming but on the other a Hideous Fury a Specious Bait a Pleasing Witch a Living Death a Fair Disease a Specious Plague a Fresh but infectious Ayr a Satyr sweetly drawn and a Wilde-fire finely covered with Lawn Besides false opinion is ever at the gates of this soft fly tempting Slut which deceiveth and bewitcheth all those that come near her It discovers not at first the dreadful events and Tragedies of this Passion it shews them chambers wherein Beauty is presented under white and vermilion skin which hideth a Sepulcher of rottenness it is attended with smiles glances flatteries and courtships which for the most part end in care terrour folly distrust tears sighs falshood jealousies and dolours Hence was it that one wittily compared the heart of a Lover to a Stage whereon at the same time were seen Sports and Banquets Battels and Funerals yea this delicate admired Enchantress will prove but a very sad bargain even to those that enjoy her after their own lusts and at their own rate she being no better then a Canker-rose full of deception and sorrow Oh what a miserable thing then is it to love a Beauty which is onely fair in the fantasie of a feaverish Brain and of which in a short time the most liquorish worms will scorn to make a Dunghill O weakness O false Idea O remissness of heart Is not this to betray our own manhood to embrace a Cloud which vanisheth for a Bright day which neither admitteth end nor darkness and to neglect that Love which will at last wipe away our Tears enrich our Poverty and Beautifie our Chains What delight alas can we take to seek out a felicity which we shall never finde Shall we then seek to be roasted in ashes shall we prefer a blast of smoak and a glittering chain before perpetual Liberty shall we desire to sleep on Thorns and feed on Gauls Oh meer madness to live a slave to the world and not enjoy the Love of the Creator to seek rest in the Creature and neglect the love of the Maker Oh let us better imploy that time which heretofore we have
of thy eternal happiness That when all Loves fail the Love of God remains THe Soul of man is unsatisfied nothing but the Creator thereof will content it It walks but sadly amongst the Riches Honours and Dignities of the world all the joys glories and beatitudes of the earth afford it no comfort It wholly represents God as the beginning and end of all things and is ravished with its glory as poor creatures use to be with the heat of the Sun It is he alone which the soul seeks esteems and honours All that she sees hears or understands besides is nothing to her if it carry not his Name and take colour from his Beauty she well knows she shall get all by loving him and death it self which comes from his Love is the gate of Life Here we every night finde a little death in our sleep sickness and pains are still subject to overtake us neither indeed do we know what belongs to a Crown Scepter or Kingdom while we are in this base life But surely had we talked only one quarter of an hour with a blessed Soul departed and discoursed of the State of the other life Oh! How would our heart dissolve into desires How would we hasten to go out of that ruinous house where of we are but Tenants How would we be ravished to hear these words Go faithful soul out of this Body go out with joy in full peace and safety the eternal mountains those glorious Heavens and all the goodly company of Angels and blessed Spirits which there inhabite will there receive thee Go on confidently behold God is ready to wipe away all thy Tears No more sorrows no more clamours behold an Estate altogether new Oh What Repose What Peace What cessation of Troubles shall we there meet with Our Saviour met the Young-man that was carried to Burial at the Gate of Naim Luke 7.11 which is interpreted The Town of Beauties to shew us that neither Beauty nor Youth are freed from the Laws of Death And it was not impertinately storyed of a young man who going eagerly after the pursuit of his Lusts met a dead Corps in his way which occasion'd his return and the future amendment of that and other his exorbitant and lascivious courses And truly as the consideration of our ashes will humble us under the greatest Pride so will it abate and consume our burning Lust he being very strong by Nature or wicked by his own choice who will not amend himself having ashes for his Glass and death for his Mistris Oh! What then is it silly dust and ashes that thus strangely enflames thy swelling veins when the least breath or shew of death is like Belshazzar's hand-writing on the Wall ever ready to affright thee Wilt thou then pursue those seeming joys and fancies which will at last vanish into a dejected Melancholy Wilt thou unadvisedly let loose the Reins of thy affections towards the enjoyment of such perishing Pleasures If so oh How dearly wilt thou buy thy folly What are we alas and what is all we call ours To day we flourish and are well spoken of we please and are in favour with men But out alas our flower will fade to morrow and we shall be evil spoken of and out of favour with God and man And whither tends all this O my soul but to tell thee that thou art made to wait on thy Lord and Spouse and wholly to thirst after Divine things neither must thou ever think to attain perfect rest and happiness in the troublesome Bed of this world Three cubits of earth will suffice us and how little or much soever we possess how beautiful or deformed soever we are this is all shall be left us Yet how often O God! doth it come to pass that for a little deceitful Beauty a little fugitive honour a little filthy pleasure and that not long we so slightly regard the joys of heaven neither dread the everlasting pains of hell He that but truly be-thinks himself of Haman's pride of Belshazzar's sacriledge Ahab's covetousness Absolon's hair Sampson's locks and Dives riches shall quickly finde that these things wherein we most presum'd and which we esteem'd our best support may suddenly become the occasion of our ruine and destruction You then that say Come and let us enjoy the pleasures that are let us take our fill of precious wine and sweet perfumes and no way lose the flower of our time let us crown our selves with Roses before they fade away and let no meadow be untraversed by us O that ye would but a little apprehend that what this way seems most to afford you content exposeth you a hundred times a day to the hazard of your lives For how little alas is the continuance at best of all the favours of Fortune When one Sun-shine of pleasure is past in comes a Tempest and when one storm is dispersed how are we again cast into new despairs and at last with what dreadful complaints able to rend Rocks and Marbles asunder will we lament our sins then presented unto us like so many Furies which heretofore we esteemed so light If then at any time thou art taken with the Syren and pleasing smiles of the world if thou seem here to content thy self in the beholding of earthly Palaces rich furniture exquisite pictures and sweet Perfumes if thou seem here to please thy melancholy Fancy in high Mountains goodly Forrests rich Marbles fair Meadows pleasant Rivers and beautiful Flowers O do but be-think thy self What are these What is this to Heaven What is this to Eternity All being but a little Atome to the unspeakable joys of the Celestial Paradice Earthly delights may I confess astonish but can never satiate our senses Temporal Beauty is but a transitory charm an illusion of our senses a Flower which hath but a moment of life and a Dyal which we never look on but when the Sun shines What is humane glory but a Dunghil covered with snow a Glass painted with false colours a sugar'd Fruit gilded with poyson or a dangerous Hostess in a fair House Shall we then trust so fading a good Shall we hazard our Souls in so unhappy a snare Or shall we tye out contentments to so slippery a knot Or dote upon temporal goods which like chirping Birds give us only a little Musick in the Summer and so fly away There are some who upon these words of the Psalmist By the waters of Babylon we sate down and wept have compared the temporal goods and delights of the world to these Waters not only for their swift running away and never returning but for their trouble in procuring and their sorrow in losing and well may we therefore hang up our Harps and sit down weeping while we live in this Babylon of Captivity And surely Wisdom tells us that such is the vanity of all earthly goods as that there is nothing so great in this Vale of Tears whose loss should any way disquiet us VVhat
are our bodies but the food of worms Our gaudy Attires but nourishment for Moths Our stately pyled Houses but stones and morter Our most precious Jewels but the excrements of an enraged Sea which borrow their worth from our weak fancy and all our honours but the golden Masks and Weather-cocks of inconstancy O unfortunate Worldling Where then are thy thoughts fixed What is here in the world that can deserve thy love Behold the whole Fabrick of the Creation and see what thou canst meet with worth thy affection Canst thou then embarque thy self among such trecherous Syrens Seest thou not that thy riches friends reputation companions and all will at last forsake thee as a Butterfly which escapes the hand of a childe Whereat then aims thy strong Ambition What means thy burning Avarice Thy profuse Ryot What will one day become of thy wretched profit thy fading pleasures Will not all vanish into fancy and a body of smoak and nothing avail thee when thy mouth shall be stopt with eternal silence Be not then so bad a Merchant as to sell things eternal for temporal It is for silly flies to gad only in the Sun-shine of this world This Enchantress which thou so much admirest and enjoyest after thy own lusts will at last prove but a very bad bargain full of vanity deception and sorrow Ah! That thou shouldest love poyson and embrace death That we should seek our own ruine and confusion Doth the world tempt thee to honour Oh despise it in humility If to Riches O scorn it in contentment And O my Soul Let not the wings of thy love to God be entangled with the bird-lime of temporal things God hath espoused thee a chaste Virgin to himself Let not those Love-tokens which he hath sent to engage thy Affections more strongly to himself seduce thy heart from him who except he may have the choicest will admit of none of thy love Temporal Goods cannot content the Soul and therefore deserve not our Love ALl the happiness and felicity of man in this world is a Dream it comes on we know not how and when it vanisheth we cannot so much as discern whether it is gone Yea How do all the possessions thereof pass away in an unperceived motion When we suppose them fast lock'd in our arms they creep from us in a mist or smoak which silently steals out at the chimnies top after it hath fouled and smutted it within Our life is but like the nest of some silly Bird whose best composure and materials are straw and dust and as soon doth the stately Palaces and Courts of the greatest Princes decay as the poor resting place of a Swallow comes dropping down at the approach of Winter What alas shall I say since wheresoever we reflect our eyes we shall finde cause sufficient to dissolve them into Tears If we look up to heaven while we behold our Country aloof we cannot but consider our selves in banishment If on earth it is but the upbraiding remembrance of our grave and how proudly soever we trample it under our feet at present it makes full account to have the disposure of our heads yea the greatest Emperours after death are found sitting in Vaults under earth in silence and mournful Majesty Neither is there any thing when all other Beauty Honours and happiness proves brittle and inconstant which remains to yeild us comfort but the benefit we receive from the few hours we spend in Prayer Meditation and the Exercises of a pious life Now now is the time that in one little part of an hour we may obtain pardon here which all Eternity shall not hereafter Now is the time that in one short day we may have more debts so given us then in all the years and times to come Here may we so lament for sins committed as to escape everlasting punishment Here 's nothing but the fearful cracks of ruines every where the dreadful roaring of storms and tempests on every side Our house still threatens its fall and we are with S. Stephen in the midst of a violent shower of stones on every hand and shall we not think of retyring our selves to our heavenly Countrey Shall we not willingly then leave the house of our Pilgrimage here for those glorious Mansions above O happy Countrey O blessed Mansions which are provided for us in our Fathers house But O Eternity Eternity How little do we think on thee Or strive to avoid those endless miseries and those perpetual nights of horrour and sadness which custome in sinning will assuredly bring upon us Alas What more fond then for a little earthly Beauty for Riches and for the love of this world to lose heaven and procure eternal wretchedness Alas How do all the sweet waters of our pleasures at last run hastily into a Sea of sorrows and bitterness How doth sadness dive into the bottom of the Soul when delights tickle us in the outside of the skin How like a bunch of Grapes saith S. Bernard are the Worldlings joys whose juyce is pressed out How full of disquietness are they Their fulness at best being seasoned with shame and repentance Oh! How do they like abortives die in the birth yea too often prove the executioners of the owners or leave us like a poor Pilgrim dispoiled by thieves We finde our Saviour disswading his Disciples from Ambition Matth. 20.20 and to call Riches thorns as bearing fair flowers but the fruit very bad yea serves as a shelter for Vipers and serpents Yet oh insatiable Avarice Whither dost thou transport our manners and understanding Ah! the forgetfulness of our condition Alas What are we Whence came we Was it not a few years since we were born naked creeping on the earth and having a mouth open to cries and hunger and do we think we have nothing except we possess all things Alas Our misery lies in our life we die when we do not die In our last end is all our happiness which will transport us from earth to heaven from Aegypt to Canaan if so be we make it our care to avoid as well the affections as the presence of all the creatures of this world and unite our selves to God by the practise of vertues which will serve as so many steps to glory Nor is there any other way to take away the sting of death or make our life comfortable Our honour will lie in the dust and sleep in a Bed of earth Our Riches will not deliver us in the day of wrath what if thou leave them behind to procure a few mourning weeds to attend thy Herse or erect some glorious Monument to thy memory yet will they at last rather afflict then relieve thee at the hour of thy passage Oh but thou wilt say thy friends shall help thee Alas All that they can do is but to attend thee to thy last resting place and to shed some friendly perchance feigned Tears for leaving them behinde thee Such miserable comforters are all things
thou canst think on here below When all things leave thee the love of God and a good Conscience will be thy familiar friends and which must ever attend thee That Balmof Gilead which must chear thee and that Palm of Peace which must at last crown thee And truly we have daylie need of God and not of man to help us One cries out here Wretch that I am who will help me out of misery Where shall I finde Tears enow to save me Another cries out What shall I do Must I needs leave my only Father my dear Husband my loving Brother my sweet and only Childe Oh let me die Some good body or other make an end of me The black clouds of sorrow somtimes so sadly overshadow us as that with Jacob we rend our clothes and will needs go down with sorrow to our Grave We often cry out What for ever In aeternum valedicere What to part for ever To forsake the world and all our friends what more troublesome What To take this young betrothed this poor Maid this intended Husband What To lay hold on one so well beloved in the flower of his age so fresh so flourishing so full of Honour and Prosperity O cruel and malicious Death What Hast thou Ears of Brass and Diamonds and wilt not hear our cries Alas What do I here I am but a living death and an unprofitable burden to the earth Why hadst thou not rather taken away this Begger that Cripple who hath not wherewith to live Ah Death Now shoot the utmost of thy Darts Thus do our humane respects too often seem to withstand the Divine Providence But oh thou that art thus unwilling to part with a Dunghil an earthly Cottage to enjoy a life of perpetual Beauty and felicity What alas may we think of thee That Heaven should open it self to thee and thou wilt neither embrace it nor open thy heart to love him that offers it Alas O Soul many times ungrateful and disloyal what wilt thou answer for so great a neglect when God shall call thee to an account Ah! If we love any thing in the world let us love it for life eternal The joys of heaven are without example Oh that we might then know our names to be written in the book of Life Oh how should we finde our Spirits ravished with those beautiful Ideas of glory Where can we more fitly commend our selves then unto so vast a bosom of Compassion as shall set a period to all the miseries of this sinful life To God I say who is an endless Ocean and boundless Sea of mercy How can we better fix our thoughts then on our crucified Saviour and in his countenance to read the lively characters of that infinite love he bears us the remembrance of death it self being sweet to those who lead their life so as to meet him comfortably as their Judge at the last day It will be no more to him to die then is one nights sweet repose on a bed of Roses Who can but behold the spirit of Jesus amongst those great Convulsions of the world moving round about the Cross in the midst of those bloody dolours insolent cries and insupportable blasphemies O behold and see him there as in a Sanctuary bleeding weeping and praying yea mingling his prayers with his tears and blood and at last to die unmoveably upon the Throne of his patience Oh madness of men That spend all their time encrease their account and lose so many fair opportunities when they might have gotten heaven for a tear a sigh or a groan from a penitent heart for the attaining of that which not only proves their eternal ruine hereafter but occasions their miserable vexation here O worldlings Thus to deceive your selves Who shall weep over you since you know not how to lament and bewail your selves Why alas are you so careful and tender of your bodies yet daylie entangle your poor souls in a thousand vanities a thousand Courtships and a thousand worldly loves which defile you and must one day be discharged at a dear rate Miserable wretches How will you then cry out what have we done Once had we time to have wrought out our salvation O precious time but these golden days are past And have we thus miserably undone our selves Come Rocks and fall upon us Come ye Furies and tear us until we moulder into nothing Sad creatures then as we are to procrastinate and put off our Repentance Since the Sun which goes so many miles in a minute and the Stars in the Firmament which go many more make not so much speed as our body hastens to the Grave The devouring sword the consuming fire the winds from the Wilderness the Diseases of the Body and all that afflicted holy Job are still at our heels what daylie reports do we hear Such a man is slain another is drowned a third breaks his neck this man died eating that man playing another sleeping this by accident that by his own hands Oh how great an Elephant and yet how small a Mouse can destroy us a pin a comb a hair pulled out hath gangren'd Nay our joy our mirth and laughter our shame and blushing may ruine us and in the very flower of our youth and blossome of our age we may be untimely nipt and sent down into the dust And alas If God but a little withdraw our breath vain is the power of art vain is the Physitians skill vain and fruitless are the sighs and tears of thy friends yea vain and helpless are the wishes of all our kinsfolk Here sits one weeping there another lamenting yet all to no purpose Neither is it Beauty or the Damask skin that can help us when we feel the slow pace of our panting pulse It is not mirth nor greatness which can then affect us when death in a moment shall dissolve all our honour into darkness The whole world cannot afford us content when our Soul is expiring from our body Neither can all her alluring baits smiling blandishments and beautiful temptations avail thee when thy spirits shall tremble with affrightful pangs when all thy senses shall decline and all the faculties of thy soul attempt which way soonest to leave thy body O then that we did but present unto our selves the sad and miserable condition at present and the happiness which is to come How effectual it would be to raise up our thoughts from the fading blossoms and perishing pleasures of this transitory world How would it comfort us in all conditions whatsoever How little would we care for the losses and crosses of this world did we think of a heavenly kingdom We are all in the time of our absence from God but strangers upon earth Let us then pass the time of our sojourning here in fear 1 Pet. 1.17 and then he needs not care for ill usage in his pilgrimage here who knows he is a King at home But alas We too often eat husks when we should
feed on Manna Great riches cannot make our clothes warm nor our meat more nourishing why then do we tumble in the myres of this world Seek rather O Christian Soul for that Kingdom whereof there is no end that Kingdom which is infinitely glorious Luke 1.33 and every way blessed the King that ruleth is eternal and they that live there never die Let our hearts and mouths be ever filled with the praises of it Let our thoughts and words ever bend towards it since we have no other way then this to attain any true and lasting glory Let us also wholly resign our selves to him that sent us here We have too long lived in the Gardens of Adonis which in the beginning make shew of Flowers but at last bring forth nothing but Thorns Let us then fix a nail in the wheel of this furious and yet inconstant Chariot lest at last we expose our selves to the hazard of a precipitous fall Can there be a greater victory then to conquer our own tumultuous thoughts in such a conjuncture of time when our own ruine lies at stake Can we better use our choicest skill then to shake off those enchanting embraces and turn away our earsfrom those betraying sighs lest like that insolent Conquerour who was vanquished by his own slave we become strangely cruel to our selves Alas That we did but consider how fearful will be the case of those who have neglected the day of their salvation If it be a troublesome thing to be tyed to a Bed of Roses though but for a little time with silken strings oh what may we think of those damned Souls which must dwell in a bed of Flames as long as there is a God! It will be in vain then to cry to the Hills to fall on us and to the Mountains to cover us It will be in vain to repent and wish we had not slighted the day of our Visitation nor sold it for a little pleasure It will be in vain then to cry Lord open to us oh spare us oh pity us do not cast us into Eternal Burnings O what ease What eternal darkness Blinded world Prostituted World Desperate World Ah hadst thou but known Hadst thou but known But alas Thy unhappiness hath put a Scarf before thine eyes O poor secure Worldlings What will you then do when he that will be your Judge shall come in the clouds of Glory and Majesty Where will you hide your selves What shall cover you Mountains are gone the Earth and Heavens do pass away and how do you wish your selves might melt away as they do But ah wishes are now in vain To what end dost thou cry Lord Lord It is too late alas too late why then dost thou look about thee Whither dost thou run Can any save thee Wretches as you are To what pass have you brought your selves How happy had you now been if you had believed and obeyed having only time left to bewail and lament your miserable condition Ah drowsie earthy Creatures Are you still hanging downward when heaven is before ye Are you sleeping when so great a Treasure is set before you Are ye taken up with your delights and pleasures Had ye rather sit down in dirt and dung then walk in the Palace of Heaven Is it better to be there then above with your Saviour Alas deceived Soul Come away then out of the Wilderness of this World make no excuses frame no delays look not back on thy worldly business thy unbridled lusts thy sinful company which here took up thy thoughts in this howling Desart this Valley of Tears Do but consider how soon thou art to depart hence then wilt thou finde what thou hast neglected in following trifles and so much minding thy provision in the way whilst thou art hastening so fast to another world and thy eternal happiness lies at stake How wilt thou then cry out upon thy rocky heart thy proud and unbelieving heart thy Atheistical and Idolatrous and worldly heart yea thy carnal and sensual heart for here toyling and selling an endless glory for worldly vanities and adventuring the loss of heaven for the pleasure of sin to have thy portion in this life where the best things are often the lot of the most miserable wretches and to lose thy part in heaven and eternal happiness to take up thy ease and dwelling here in a nest of straw of wind and vanity the greatest of Plagues and forest of curses which God can give thee over to and to lose thy part in Paradise and thy Mansion in the heavenly Jerusalem But oh the strange aversness of our souls from God! that we should account our misery a happiness Nay that we should rather groan under any intolerable burden and servitude then seek our happiness in him That we should think these Honours delightful that Beauty tempting those goods lands and houses our dependance that merry company our solace that health and strength contentful those buildings walks apparel and pastimes to be pleasant and after all those seeming enjoyments and heart-contenting thoughts we shall look behinde us and see death with open mouth proclaiming these words Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee O gross Idolatry to make any creature or means our relyance To place any dependance on the worlds favours to settle our soul upon such hazardous enjoyments or to say here am I well here will I rest And wilt thou here rest oh my soul on the top of those tempestuous mountains Wilt thou swallow down those deceitful baits where death is nearest when the pleasure seems sweetest Alas Settle not in this perishing world where all our days are sorrow and our labour grief The Souls solitude and content in her Separation from the great enticements of the world HOw strange a thing is it that God is always with us and we are so little with him We have our life our being our moving from him and yet all this while we scarce know what he is Alas What is the cause But that our eyes are dazled with the false lights of the world they are darkned with so many mists and vapours of our own appetites and passions as that we cannot see the goods of heaven in the brightest of the day Whereas to speak true our Soul should always be languishing after her Jesus and count it a sad thing to be separated from him so much as in thought Would we but learn a little to talk with him O how would it sweeten the sadness of our Pilgrimage by the contemplation of his Beauties Were we but embarqued in his Vessel while we sayl on the Seas of this troublesom world we would not amuze our selves to gather Cockles on the shore but we would always have our eyes fixed upon Paradice Or had we but our eyes well opened to penetrate and see what the world is we should finde its chains indeed to have a certain pleasure and seeming vigour in them but only painted and attended with
small burden to which he is tyed by duty and nature when he beholds this great Abyss of love of mercy of dolours of ignomy of blood of lowliness of admiration and amazement which swalloweth up all thoughts dryeth up all mouths and stayeth all Pens and hands And canst thou O my Soul after all this think any cross heavie any affliction hard to endure Canst thou chuse but be vexed and enraged at thy repinings O my great and only good Suppress those unreasonable follies which boyl in my Breast Make me know that whatsoever happens good or bad to me is my best portion because it comes from thee O rich Treasure O mass of glory In proportion to which all the labours and tribulations which Men or Divels can heap on me are nothing considerable Thou hast seen also O my Soul with what unparallell'd addresses and exquisite inventions the Lord hath sought thee and wooed thy love He gave thee heaven and earth with all their creatures for thy motives to serve and love him He made himself thy fellow and brother in flesh and blood yea he hath heaped on thee all the Names and Titles of Endearment which either Nature or Use have introduced among mankinde He is thy Father thy Spouse thy Friend thy Ransomer out of danger thy Redeemer from thraldome and slavery thy Saviour from death and misery yea he is thy food thy drink thy self O Eternal Wisdomed How truly then didst thou say It was thy delight to be with the Sons of men Can Angels boast of such Priviledges of such tendernesses of such Extasies of Love No None but so weak a Nature as Ours was able to necessitate Goodness it self to so deep a condescendence as this and none but all goodness could so appropriate it self to all infirmities O melting goodness that fillest every Corner thou findest capable of thy perfection We find the holy Phrenzie of Love to have possessed many of the Saints of God here on earth Moses out of his extream love to his Country-men wished himself blotted out of the Book of God Exod. 32.32 S. Paul wished himselfe accursed unless his brethren might be saved with him Rom. 9.3 But if ever any exceeded in Love above all the Love that was in the world it was thou O Saviour Joh. 10.20 who in the excess of thy Love to thy very Enemies wouldest suffer thy Self to be taken delivered up and shamefully put to death for them And in consideration whereof it seems S. Hierom cryes out Oh ungrateful man to thy God whosoever thou art considerest thou not the wonderful Love of him who is the Lord of heaven to be delighted thus to do and to suffer for thee And thinkest thou thy selfe better when thou art in the company of the wicked and prophane Return Shunamite return And surely methinks we should not here so greedily seek after the delights and contentments of Nature seeing the God of Nature so roughly handled in the world which he built with his own hands Ah! should not the Example of our Saviour make us ashamed when we nearly consider the sorrow of his life and the ignomy of his death We read of one further who considering this height of mercy which aboundeth with all Riches and hath the plenitude of all happiness cryeth out in a great Extasie O Love What hast thou done Thou hast changed God into man thou hast drawn him out of the lustre of his Majesty to make him a Pilgrim here on Earth thou hast shut him nine moneths in the wombe of a Virgin Tu deum in hominem demutatum voluisti tu deum abbreviatum paul sper à majestatis suae immenfitate c. Zeno. Ser. de Fide Spe. Charit thou hast annihilated the Kingdom of Death when thou taughtest God to dye Ah Love indeed which drowneth all humane thoughts which swalloweth all earthly affections which causeth the Spirit to forget it selfe and to look on nothing but Heaven A Love which Angels study and admire whichman could not be without and conceived in that fire which Jesus came to enkindâ—e on earth to enflamethe whole world Alas who can chuse but admire to think how thou O blessed Jesus descendest from the highest part of Heaven to take our Nature upon thee to charge thy self with our debts to lay our Burdens and Miseries on thy own shoulders to lodge in the silly Cottage of our Heart to be dispoiled of all for us to become our Riches by thy Poverty Strength to us by thy weakness To become Contemptible to make us Glorious and full of Sufferings to ease our servitude To make thy selfe of a King of Glory a man of Sorrows and to purchase our happiness with as many wounds as thou hadst â—embers And shall none of those Arrowes and shafts flying on every side of thee O my Soul wound thee to him shall none of his Favours Benefits and Affections descend into thee to fill and replenish thee with flames of thankfulness and love Canst thou still continue obdurate in the midst of those burning ardors and not be wholly captivated with his Bounty yea altogether inebriated with the Extasies of his Love Canst thou think of the infinite love of thy Saviour in suffering for thee and not admire his goodness Canst thou read the History of his life a life of Dolours from the Cradle to his Grave and peruse it without compassion canst thou think of his death and not commix the waters of thine eyes with those of his water and blood Ah! canst thou consider all this and not perpetually languish with fervent desires yea cause thy soul to melt and dissolve with spiritual languour on the heart of thy beloved O mirrour O Perfection mine eyes dazel in beholding thy Love my Pen fails in writing thy Praises O blind if thou knowest not O insensible if thou neglectest it and O unfortunate if thou loosest it Go and see the Ashes of those who have been burnt with the worlds love and thou shalt see nothing comparable to his Love who came to put us into the possession of all his greatness by surcharging himselfe with our miseries It may be thou hast seen some to die on an Earthly Scaffold who with the sweetness of their countenances terrified the most terrible aspects of their Executioners They did they spake they suffered they ordered their death as matter of triumph They comforted others in a time when they had much to do not to complain themselves But here here is a Banquet which carries with it all the benefits of Life yet attended with an Edict of Death Here 's Cruelty mingled with Delights Joy with Sorrow and Pleasures with Funerals Ah! what more could he possibly have done then thus to suffer for us He hath washed us in his blood he hath regenerated us into his Love If we endure any thing for him he endureth with us he weepeth for us he prepareth eternal springs of consolations for us yea he mingleth all our griefs in the
inexplicable sweetnesses of his bounty O the excellency of divine Love which thus causeth a Calm to be found in a Tempest Safety in the midst of Dangers Life on the brinck of Death Comfort in Disasters an Upholding in the midst of Weakness and which protects so many people under the shadow of its Branches Happy Souls which flyes hence into heaven enricht with the purple stains of so heavenly a Fountain yea happy are the wounds from whence flow so much virtue and goodness What greater mercy could there be then to see a Humane Nature sought unto by God which was once despoiled of the Robe of Honour and Diadem of Glory as a just chastisement of its Rebellions and condemned to a Prison of Flames and Darkness even then when it was unable to free it selfe and when neither Angel nor Man could deliver it from the misery whereinto it was plunged To see it I say sought unto by God when it flew from him and to consider how so heavenly a Father transported with unspeakable love said unto it Take my only Son to redeem thee from thy many remediless calamities And this onely Son disdaineth not to become its Ransom and delivered himself for it to Torments so enormious and Confusions so hideous What shall we further admire in the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation Can there be any thing in the world greater then a Man-God If we cast our eyes on our heavenly Father we there see a work of the power of his Arm wherein he seems to have exhausted all his strength The Heaven and the Stars saith Gregory Nyssen were but the works of the Fingers of this divine Majesty but in the Incarnation he proceedeth with all the extent of his might with all the Engines of his power and Miracles of his greatness Blessed Jesus who can chuse but love and adore thee who wert not content onely to reconcile us to thy Father but espousedst our Nature and unitedst it to thy selfe by an indissoluble Band we naturally use to shew an aversion and dislike to such persons as are loathsome mishapen and infected and if with those defects we find a Soul wicked ungrateful and an Enemy to God we conceive him with such horror as that we had need be more then men to endure him But were not we in as bad estate as this for besides the mis-fortunes and calamities which encompassed us on all sides were we not Enemies to God by being too much a friend to our selves and yet all this while he accepteth us and appropriateth us unto himselfe amongst all these contrarieties The Soul checks her selfe for her backwardness and too much neglect of her Saviours invitations WHat imagination is sufficiently powerful to figure to its selfe the ardent dolours of a wounded Soul who desiring to be free and purified from the contagions of the earth and apprehending the shadows of the least sinnes hath its spirit seised on with the consciousness of some more hainous and grosser omissions How hard a matter is it for the Soul to guid the Helm of Reason in so tempestuous a storm of disturbances and in so dead a night of misery to adore the Ray of Gods Providence since almost swallowed in the depth of her sorrows But Nature having at last evicted a huge Tide of Tears she thus sighs out the other in Complaints My God! how justly have my sins deserved this desolate condition yea to endure the Trial of those sorrows which might ever befall the thoughts of a wretched Creature How happy alas are those pure and innocent Souls who have departed from their Bodies when they were ignorant of the sinnes which have approached my knowledge and defiled my thoughts They like little blossoms were cut off in the tenderness of their Age and thrice happy had my Soul been to have been transported into the other world before I had felt that trouble and anguish of Spirit which through the sense and horrour of my sinnes in refusing those gracious tenders of a mercifull Saviour now so sadly afflicts me O wicked and ungrateful heart it is thou which art the source and spring of all my disasters wretch whether goest thou what hast thou to do with the things of the world which will at last ruine thee wilt thou thus cast underfoot the Laws of thy God! Is it not madness to let pass so many golden Harvests which time presents thee and to sow nothing but wind and vanity which onely return thee thorns and sorrows and at last abandons thee as a Pilgrime rob'd and dispoil'd by a Thief O poor Soul wilt thou live rather amongst feavers and burning coals in an inconstant world then tie thy self to the will of God Miserable man to have thy heart fill'd with such restless desires wilt thou like Ravens be ever feeding upon Carrion Is it for such infamous pleasures thou renouncest the delights of heaven unhappy man where wilt thou find place to rest on at the last Dost thou forget the words of the Prophet Jer. 17.11 Silly Partridge thou broodest borrowed Eggs thou hast hatched Birds which were not thine let them fly since thou canst not hold them And canst thou yet fix thy beatitude upon this Gold that Silver that Beauty that Profit and Pleasure as on a little Divinity Is not Jesus thy Saviour enough to content thee must a world be made of Gold and Roses to please thee Alas senseless Soul canst thou have any better Object to behold then a Saviour on the Cross all naked and who in his nakedness giveth all things Oh! how little are all things mortall with him who looks upon a God immortal Blessed Jesus having thee for my guid I will walk confidently in the shades of death since they cannot separate me from the fountain of life I came not into the world glittering with precious Stones neither can I go out poorer then I came Let Poverty then come against me with all its terrours I shall account it a Glory to die poor for a God so dispoiled If Banishment come what need I care what Land be under my feet so my eyes be fixed in Heaven Or what at last can Imprisonment Fetters Gibbets yea death it selfe take from me but a life of Pismires and Flies and a miserable Carkass subject to a thousand deaths And woe unto that Soul the darkness of whose understanding is so great that though Jesus be all light he cannot see him how deprived is that will who though he be all goodness he cannot love How are his affections perverted who though he be all power will yet refuse to submit unto him Alas how art thou estranged from him when thou wert created it was by his power If thou live it is by his bounty if thou move it is by his assistance If thou lie down he sustaineth thee if thou sleep he refresheth thee if thou awake he enlightneth thee if thou read he teacheth thee if thou eat he nourisheth thee if thou art cloathed he warms
thee no Creature being able towork by its own strength having all but dependent Beings from God alone Miserable wretches then as we are as not to see him with our bodily eyes so not to behold his Glory in our most retired Meditations that he should be all brightness yet we view him not all sweetness yet we taste him not That he should be in all places yet we feel him not alas what strangers are we in the House of our Father O that our life here should be fuch an estrangement from him and that when we most behold him it should be but as it were in a Glass darkly Draw nearer then O my Soul bring forth thy strongest burning Love here 's matter for thee to work upon here 's something truly worth thy loving Oh see what bounty presents it self Is not all the Goodness in the world contracted here Is not all the Beauty in the world deformity to it Here is comfort for thy Soul and a feast for thine eyes Ah! that ever thou shouldest need to be invited to feed on it That thou shouldst be invited to love where thou feel'st a heavenly sweetness accompanying it and where the very Act of loving is unexpressibly sweet O what wouldst thou give for such a life couldst thou be all love and alwaies loving Come away then O my Soul stand no longer looking on that Beauty admiring this Face or Idolizing these earthly shadowes But behold that Glory which is onely to be enjoyed in the lap of Eternity Ah that thou couldst bid the world farewel and here immure thy self that thou couldst shut the door upon thee and injoy the sweet content of divine and heavenly Meditation But Oh the dulness of thy desires after so great a happiness How doth thy backwardness accuse thee of Ingratitude must thy Saviour procure thee Heaven at so dear a rate and wilt thou not more value it must he purchase thy life by the Pangs of a bitter death must he go before and prepare a Mansion and art thou loath to follow must his blood and pains and care be lost O unworthy and ungrateful Soul what is loathing if this be love Ah wretched Creature if thou art not ashamed to neglect so great a mercy The Soul repents the time that ever she was Cloistered up in the walls of Clay and thrown into the Dungeon of that corrupt mass of Flesh THe Soul of Man being embarqued in the dangerous Sea of this world where her adventure is very hazardous and full of Rocks and having no Port to put in at but either Repentance or Death bewailes the want of her Pilot without whose guidance she is sure to meet with a miserable shipwrack and which she conceives as natural to her as swiming is to Fishes flight to Birds beauty in Flowers and rayes in the Sun Woe is me saith he that ever I was born to see the Light Why did my Mother rejoyce to hear me cry and to receive the news that I was a living Soul when first I entered into the world I bore the Image of my Creator in some lustre and glory but since that time my first Parents who bore as it were in one Vessel the Riches of all Mankind had lost all that which wretches might lose or men desire and which with grief we yet deplore it s scarce discernable in me in regard of those Leaprous spots of sin and taintures of iniquity which I have contracted from those frail corporeal Organs which have so pittifully dis-figured and transformed me as that the Character of my God is almost lost in me Alas I am but an unweildly lump of Earth a meer passive thing of my self Those eyes of mine which should have been as christal Casements through which I might behold the glorious Firmament and study my Creator in the Volums of Nature have let out the Beams of vanity and lightness Those Ears which should have let in wholsome precepts and holy exhortations have been no other then Trunks to receive idle discourses and vain sounds That Mouth and Tongue which should have sounded out the praises and glory of my Creator and sung Halelujahs to him have been instruments of Equivocation Sinne and Prophaness Those hands which were design'd to deeds of Charity have been employed in evill and sinful works That Throat which was intended as a Conduit-pipe to poure out divine and pious Ejaculations hath been made the instruments of Luxury and excess And those Feet which were made to walk in the paths of Piety and Virtue have been used to run into the Road of al Licentiousness But oh when I examine my heart the seat of my affections what a sinck of sin a Cage of unclean Birds do I find it and whereas I should have made it a Closet for my Saviour to sit and reside in alas what Hatred what Hypocrisie what spiritual Pride and Choler hath infected every corner thereof And if I look further how shall I find every Cell of my Brain infected My Fantasy is become wild and extravagant my Memory hath been more mindfull of bad then good things my Understanding full of darkness my Will wholly blinded my Reason strangely besotted and my Imagination wholly puffed up with airy passions and malignant humours which interpose between me and the glorious Beams of my Saviour Ah whether have the Councels of those transported me which desire the ruine of my Soul How am I environed with admires of Lusts and besieged with Legions of inordinate affections Miserable that I am what shall I do to hinder the designs of my naturall Corruptions Alas How they prevail against me unhappy that I am that the Sun which this day shines so bright over my head should see his face defiled with the stains of my sins What do I here in this house of Pleasure where we seem to enter in by five Gates which are all Crowned with Roses and bear the face of youth and prosperity Are not those five Gates the five Senses by which all the passages are made into carnal pleasures and the vain delights of the world Is this the way to live like a Christian to walk according to the Rules and propensions of Nature Is this the Babylon of worldly hopes which in the beginning sheweth it self as a Miracle carrying Hony in the lip Light in the face but Poyson in the tail Why alas should I thus live in the fervours of a Feaver why should I desire to live in that greatness which will onely serve to make my fall the more miserable Why should I rest upon those worldly comforts whose acquisition is painful whose fruition uncertain and taste unsavory And how pleasing soever they appear in the dawning of the day seeming in the first springing to be spread with Emeralds and Rubies yet will they at last be changed into the horrours or a sad Tempest and ever waited on by ignomy and confusion O that I should thus spend the latter part of my age after smokes and
and easie What though thou here seem to weep for a time thou shalt but onely resemble the Flower-de-luce which weeps a little and out of its own Tears produceth seeds to renew its Beauty The salt Sea of this world shall become a flourishing field as it did to the people of God when they came out of the chains of Egypt Wee are here in this World like little Infants without Air or Light besmeared with blood and swadled in Clouts which Nature onely gave thee for a time to fit thee the better for that life where thou shalt for ever breath in all freedom and liberty We are yet in Prison Fetters and Obscurity until the coming of the great day wherein God shall give us a Spiritual body All the pomp of this World all our life yea all that pleaseth here and taketh up our heart is but the shadow of that Glorious Beauty and contentment which passeth in Eternity Let me then O my God! continually exercise my self in the desires of joyes Eternal let me sanctifie all other Loves to the love of Jesus Christ let me forsake all humane things O my God! and betake my self wholly to the consideration of his excellency When I speak let it be of Heaven as of my resting place and of thee as of the Object of my Felicity Ah! what can be more divine then to see a Soul thus capable of the influences of Heaven whom the Sithe of Time cannot affright whom the Threats of the world nor the wheel of Inconstancy neither the power of Death can dismay O House of God! O Temple of Peace when will the time come which will devest us of all that is mortal which will sweeten the bitterness of our life replenish our hearts with spiritual refreshment and at last put us into the bosom of Immortality The Soul filled with Heavenly Love sends forth the pure flames of her Affection GOd who loves the importunities of his servants often hides his face the longer to the end his Grace may with the more brightness afterwards appear We find in Nature that the Sun is never more resplendent then after an Eclipse the Sea never more calm then after a Tempest nor the Air brighter then after a shower Neither is it ever too late to knock and cry at the Gate of Heaven The fainting Beggar which neglects the re-inforcing of his complaint often goes away without his reward The weary and lingering Christian seldom attains the end of his journey where he shall live for ever in the Palace of Peace and contentment where our happiness shall be perpetual and our fulness never occasion loathing to him that possesseth it Neither doth God do us any injury if after long waiting here instead of a Crown which is the Weather-cock of winds of a Scepter which is the Reed of the times or of a Life which is the Harbenger of Death he affords us delights and glories which outstrip the flight of Thoughts which drie up all our Tears and surmount all our Imaginations It was once told a great Prince being in his Infancy bred up in the House of a Peasant whose Son he took himself to be that he should no longer follow so mean an employment of life that his Hat should be turned into a Diadem his Spade into a Scepter his Raggs into Robes of Gold his Cottage into a Pallace and his servitude into an Empire Oh can we think how he was ravished with the love of a Father by whom he was born to so much Treasure and Greatness And shall we not have the like approbation when our Saviour tells us we are not created to live among Mire and Dirt to be tyed to a wretched frail and miserable Body to walk among Bryars and Thornes and embroyl our selves in the toyls and cares of a mortal life Bring me then O dear Jesus in thine own time into those celestial Palaces of incomprehensible lights and unspeakable Beauties Enlighten me O thou Son of Righteousness to discover those glorious excellencies all white with Innocency and resplendent with the Rayes of Glory from the Syrens of the world which so much abuse us with deceits vanitie and infamies I acknowledge thus far the infinite mercy of thy divine Providence that while I was in darkness and under the black Cloud of thy heavy displeasure thou sanctifiest my Fetters and hast now raised up my Ashes above the Crowns of the World Thou mightest indeed have made me ambitious delicate haughty covetous and adorned with worldly Treasures to have walked on Roses to have putrifed in delights yea made my happiness seemingly to have out-run my desires Such there are I confess who have defiled their names with reproach wearied the Earth with their vices astonished Posterity with their deportments and peopled Hell with their crimes But O mercy that thou makest me to see light in the most dusky Nights and a Haven of comfort in the most forlorn shipwracks O most Mighty O most Soveraign Lord of all things visible and invisible were I with thee in the shades of death what should I fear being between the arms of Life O great eye who seest all and art not seen of any here below Thou art truly worthy if we with mortal lips may call thee worthy yea worthy to whom all the world should give continual thanks for thy inexplicable Benefits Worthy before whom we on our bended knees should all our life-time remain prostrate Worthy that for thee we should have Prayers and prayers everlastingly on our lips O Monsters of impudency if yet we see not thy goodness and persist insensibly of thy mercy With these considerations if the Soul now wholly ravished she walks on Earth as a man suspended in Heaven drenched in God and fill'd with the joyes of his Spirit Her eyes are listed up towards Heaven though streaming down tears for sinne upon Earth Her hands are still lifted up thither by prayer Her heart formerly contracted with sadness for crimes committed against so good a God now melts with joy unspeakable Neither earing nor drinking nor sleeping is able to dissolve the sweet conversation she hath with God Now is it that the Soul begins to lead a life wholly Celestial as one who seems to have nothing to do with the Bodies and conversations of the living Now is it that after so many Tempests so many Thunder-claps and Whiriwinds of grief and sadness she arrives at a Port not of temporal felicity but of the unspeakable joyes of Heaven Ah ignorant that we are of the works of God! perpetually fixed to the Earth and deprived of those sparkles of heavenly fire and light Let us but a little draw aside the Curtain and we shall see through so many Clouds the glorious Rayes of lasting happiness There may you behold the Effigies of a gracious Soul with a Crown on its Head and Scepter in its Hand with prosperity continually smiling with loves free from disturbance with desires void of denials with affairs without
trouble Greatness without change Pleasures without sorrow and at last fully laden with celestial Honours This surpassing Joy having one time so far transported a heavenly lover as to give occasion to some who beheld him to think him besides himself you are in the right said he my Beloved hath taken away my will and I have given him my understanding there is nothing left me but memory to remember his mercy Oh what a great Abyss of Delights are reserved for those purified Souls who are thus wholly rapt in the contemplation of heavenly Beauties and altogether ravished in the consideration of Gods divine Goodness No longer do they suffer themselves to be transported with earthly prosperities but in the midst of all worldly Pomps their eyes are firmly fixed upon the many benefits received from God their Ears being charmed their Tears wiped their Fetters broken And what way do they more seek out then how to testifie their gratitude and poure themselves as incense upon Coals towards the Altar of divine Majesty Yea there is a love so tender in them and a fear of offending so infinite a Saviour as that they apprehend the least shadows of sinne as Death Day and Night do they send forth Centinels before the Altars who cease not to implore the assistance of Heaven for the salvation of their Souls How often in the deep silence of darkness when no eye sees nor ear hears do they cause their weeping eyes to speak to God and address their many vowes to Heaven for the attaining of Eternal life How willingly do they part with all the Interests of Flesh and Blood and all other impediments about them They think they can never do too much for eternal happiness whatsoever are their sufferings here the know Paradice will still be purchased at a good penny-worth Oh true zeal O most powerful Alchymie changing all Tears and Troubles into Marble and Gold What Wisdome what Grace what Eloquence doth a heart truly endowed therewith use towards the attaining of Heaven What love for its Soul what fervour for its salvation what care for its direction what resignation of its will to the mind of God What a heart of Diamond doth it express against a thousand stroaks of dolours and sufferings how joyfully doth it meet death yea what Triumphs afterwards in all conditions and after all its afflictions offering up unto God the obedience of the heart the Prayers of the lips and all the faculties of Soul and Body which appear in a general conformity to the commands of God And what indeed can that Soul fear nay what can he not hope for who hath a Jesus for a Protector and a God absolutely powerful and whose power and essence walk hand in hand which is without limits embraceth all places and no way confin'd to any certain number of Ages since it is Eternal and involveth all time What can he doubt of who can conclude an Interest in him who made the world with the least blast of his mouth and can as easily the same way unmake it all the great variety of this Universe where there are Creatures without number Beauties without end and Greatnesses innumerable being but an effect of his word O how brave a thing do we account it for a Prince to possess an earthly Kingdom in the hearts of men to make himself a Throne of Peace to which love raiseth an Eternal Basis and on which God raineth infinite Blessings Whereas what a hideous spectacle is it to see Tyrants hidden like Owls in perpetual Nights with a mind possest and beset with horrid Fancies filled with suspitions and seised by distrust whose Dreams are full of bloody spectacles for whom Thunder seems to roar and for whom Heaven prepares all its Thunderbolts Oh what horror is it to see them not dare to appear in publick without being clothed with Iron and dispoiled of the peoples affections to appear among their Subjects in nothing but Blood Terrors Torments and Massacres and afterwards to be hated like Plagues and poysons Is not this the way to make a Hell of his life a Tyranny of his manners and to increase vowes towards his death Just so is the difference between a poor Soul vvho daily marcheth under the standard of Gods providence and is every hour replenished with the mercies and benefits of Heaven Like a virtuous King the one adventures to live in the most unfrequented Wildernesses without Corps-du-gard He finds assurance in Battels prosperity in his House veneration abroad admiration at home When he sleeps his Saviour who is more watchful then a million of eyes wakes for him when he prayes that voice which is better then a million of mouthes makes intercession for him His joyes are pure his pleasures innocent his repose dreadless his eating and drinking without fear of poyson his Life happy and his Memory blessed Whereas divine Providence which sharpens the Sword of Justice in the Tears of the miserable pours it on the head of the other consumes him by strange Maladies a thousand hands are ready to punish him his life is a reproach his memory full of cursings dung-hills are provided to interre him yea the Stones or Mettals afterwards punished and defaced for no other crime but to mention his Actions and set forth his feature The Soul contemplates and sets forth her Folly in hazarding Eternal Joyes by preferring Earthly Vanities AReprobate sense being the last step which any one makes to enter into Hell O how great is the happiness of an enlightned Soul which sets all the glory of the world at its feet and preferres the knowledge of Christ and an obedience to his will and command beyond any thing here below which shall come in competition with it Often doth she thus expostulate with her self what alas shall the sight of Temporal Beauty which too often fills our Soul with nothing but fire and flames abate the more fervent love of Eternal things Is it possible that I should so adore my prison and fetters here as to ballance them with the Cross of my Saviour Jesus who alas can give me Tears sufficient having thus forsaken my God! Origen mentions of Mary Magdalen That Heaven and the Angels were a burden to her and that she could live no longer then she beheld him that made them and shall we here preferre an Earthly Pilgrimage before a Heavenly Paradice Is it possible that I should suffer my self to be entangled with worldly vanities which are more brittle then Glass more light then smoak and more swift then the wind that I should fatten my self in earthly Pleasures that I should nourish this Carrion this Dunghill of my Body and neglect and forget and despise my Soul Oh! what horrid Phantasms will seem to reproach me with ingratitude when the affairs of my conscience shall be set in order and say unto me I am the Pleasure thou hast obeyed I am the Ambition to which thou wert a slave I am the Covetousness which was the aim
of all thy Actions Behold thy sinnes thus begotten by thee Behold thy iniquities which thou didst love so much as to preferre before thy Saviour Alas alas what Comfort what Happiness hast thou now in all these Thus the unhappy Soul thinking her self undone cuts off her words and deeply sighing with sobs of true Repentance and a lively penetrating grief wisheth her self any thing rather then a Reasonable Creature And how glad would a miserable sinner be if he might turn to nothing and cease to be But alas how doth he find himself lost and involved in misery yea perpetually gnawn and torn with a torrent of inexplicable dolours which cause him to break out into unheard of Phrensies O Pallace of God saith he that I have lost O ugly Den of Serpents whereinto I am thrown O hideous darkness which shall for ever be my inheritance O infernal countenances of enraged Devils who must for ever be my Companions The brightness of Paradice will now be nothing unto me the joyes of Heaven will now but aggravate my grief what alas then shall I do whether shall I turn my self Go then ye Worldlings go let Love fool ye Ambition rack you Covetousness rust ye Lust inflame ye Hope tickle ye Pleasure melt ye Let Anger burn Envy gnaw and Jealousie prick ye Revenge exasperate Cruelty harden Fear sreez and sorrow consume ye Yet know that one day ye will wish to have devested your selves of all your worldly affections and that ye had loved nothing but for God of God and to God See see fond man of Earth who art glutted with delights and with the Richman in the Gospel signest Requiems to thy Soul Luk. 12.11 As having Goods laid up for many years See I say at the doors of these Syrens or rather the Sepulchers of thy lusts the smoak and stench of these dainties which have heightned thy sinnes ready to smother thee See see those pleasures which like Lots wife over the burning Ruines of Sodom cry out against thee with an Eternal voice Traiterous Pleasures Pleasures Enemies of the Cross of Christ how alas have ye beguil'd me how have ye deceived me Alas O voluptuous O carnal Creature how short a time will it be ere those Members which thou wouldest not crucifie by a holy mortification on the Cross of Jesus shall be tormented with those pains of the justice of God! Ah Illusion ah Witchcraft why should we live in the excess of those pleasures which we shall one day have more occrsion to curse then cherish Oh thou ungrateful to God! Traytor to thy own salvation Go I say and place thy self in a better state of happiness Go thou and make a Covenant with Hell and agreement with death But O remember what will be the event Alas poor Soul that thou shouldest purchase Repentance so dear to give up the expectation of Eternity and the fruition of so many glorious years as a prey to one unhappy minute of pleasure Where is thy faith which thou hast promised to God where is thy weariness to avoid sinne Dost thou think that God doth not see thee sinning The time is drawing on when Death shall strip thee to the very skin and leave thee nothing but what thou hast done and given for God How would it then comfort thee to have conformed thy self to a religious life and to have made every action thereof a step to Eternity What greater thoughts of comfort can possess thy heart then those which bring to thy remembrance a lively faith purity of life exemption from grievous sins poverty of Spirit affection to the word of God humility charity to thy Neighbour clemency and a full resignation of thy whole mind to the will of thy Creator Alas how vvill one sole pleasure taken in heavenly Objects be a thousand times better and more esteemed then all the delights and contentments of the world But on the contrary how sad will it be when thy conscience which as Phylo terms it is the little consistory of the soul shall sit on a Throne with a Scepter in her hand and say unto thee wicked Servant recall thy Thoughts Words and Actions how hast thou mispent the time of thy life how many dayes hast thou carelesly lost what sluggishness at thy rising what negligence in thy employment how great Words and how little Works Why this rash judgement that curious question these wandering eyes these stragling thoughts this angry passion that hasty slander why this dayes intemperance that dayes excess this dayes neglect of thy God that dayes uncharitableness to thy Neighbour Oh how sad will these expressions be at the last day Cursed Atheism why wouldst thou rather feel thy torments then believe them Cruel Ambition to vvhat pass hast thou brought me deceitful Riches how have ye beguilded me wicked Company vain Companions worldly Pleasures how have ye been the chains of my Ruine Alas how can I write or how canst thou hear or read this vvithout trembling to think on thy forlorn condition Poor vvretch vvhat vvill become of thee vvhen thou shall look above thee and see the God which hath forsaken thee the Saints whom thou hast despised and all the faithful at the right hand of Glory vvhen thou shalt look below and see those hideous flames which thou must a bide for ever vvretched Soul vvhat vvouldst thou now give for a Christ vvhich onely can but will not save thee vvhat vvould thou give for one hours time of repentance which once thou slep'st under refusedst and esteemedst of no value Then wilt thou say unto thy self O God! O God! whom have I lost yet cannot lose I have lost thee as my Saviour yet have thee still present beholding my pains O Eternity shall there never be end of my evils shall those Torments be alwaies beginning Ah why was not the womb of my Mother the Sepulcher of my birth Why did not the Stars which then ruled throw the sparkles of their influences against me why did not the Earth swallow me up in my Cradle must I live one sole minute on earth to live an Enemy to God eternally Ah Lord what a depth is there in thy judgement let silence smother the remainder of my complaints since I can no longer endure my self nor my Tongue make known the conceptions of my heart Neither canst thou justly complain poor Soul whatsoever thou be that God did thee wrong in making such a hell for thee seeing thy sinne hath neither end nor limits in its Eternity It is an infinite evil becaus it strikes at the head of an infinite Divinity Wilt thou say to an Omnipotent God thou createdst me to serve thee but I will live for my selfe Thou maidst a World for my use but I wil fill it with my sins thou redeemedst me with thy blood but I will contemn and trample it under my my feet O horrible confusion O unspeakable wickedness No way of redress then is there left thee O poor Soul but to live alwaies in a
to the voyce of his deceitful charming not doubting that however Christ had for a time withdrawn his wonted favour he was still her Advocate and even at that instant pleading her case and answering for her at the Bar of Gods Justice all those suits which Satan was then objecting against her Oh saith the Soul it is he that dyed for my sins and rose again for my Justification my own Righteousness alas is but as menstruous Rags It is he onely that was made for me Wisdome Righteousness and Redemption Rom. 5.25 It is he that hath satisfied an infinite Justice for my sinnes Isai 53.4 5 6. It is he that bears my grief and carries my sorrows and will at last cure my sufferings Behold then the various Dispensations of a merciful God! Oh the wonderful experience of a strong belief in a high mounted Soul whose excellent Graces of Charity and Humility are like so many wings to carry her above all the sense of her present Afflictions giving her to see that though Jesus were sometimes pleased to hide himself in the Gospel as the Sun within a Cloud yet he would again draw the Curtain the Sun of Righteousness would appear with healing in his wings and notwithstanding his present withdrawment did receive her sighs and bottle up her Tears and would again shew himself in the best time And whensoever the ship of her Soul seemed wrack't then would she endeavour to save her self upon the Rock of his infinite mercy at this Pool of Bethesda would she still lie until he cured her on this Thread would she catch to bear up her wounded spirit and upon him would she still wait who loves those to the end whom he once loves whose presence she always desired to cherish and resolved still to wait on him who but for a time hides his face from the house of Jacob Isai 8.17 And Iob. 10.1 laying her complaint upon her self How often would she thus expostulate with her offended God Ah Lord the marks of thy bounty * Semel electus semper dilectus I confess are no less then all I am and have Ah wretched I that continually wear about me all the Tokens of thy kindness and yet not love thee what shall I answer when thou saist unto me I created thee like unto my self I made thee a little God on Earth I imprinted on thy forehead the Character of my Greatness The Sun shined on thee the Earth supported thee the Creatures clothed thee and yet thou hast forgotten me O admirer of thy self and ignorant of my works Why hast thou husbanded my goods as to change them into evil Alas poor Soul what evidence will at the last day be produced against thee The Devils who first tempted thee to sin will then rise up as witnesses against thee The Angels of God before whom thou shouldst not have sinned will then testifie against thee The abused Creatures will then be brought in to thy conviction The Messengers of God will cry aloud against thee for neglecting their Doctrine All the personal mercies which thou hast received will also be so many evidences against thee the Earth that bore thee the Air thou breathedst in the Food which nourished thee the Clothes which covered thee the Creatures that laboured for thee the Houses thou dwelledst in and all things else that served for thy use will then further thy condemnation And may not God himself justly expostulate with thee Did all my mercies deserve no more thanks shouldst thou not have better served me that gave them was I so hard a Master was my work so hard and unreasonable or my Rewards of so little value as no way to perswade thee to my service Ah ungrateful wretch that the love of God the evil of sinne the blood of thy Saviour the Judgements to come the Glory promised and the punishment threatned should not be as forcible to draw thee to Holiness as a little fleshly delight and worldly gain is to draw thee to wickedness O whether will thy mind fail when distempers shall steer it Whether will thy Fancy run when Diseases shall ride it What Hell wilt thou frame within thy Conscience Watchings will surprize thee Dreams will terrifie thee and if some terrible Bird do but croak in the Night it is presently the sad voice of some dead man who bids thee prepare for another world Ah! that thou couldst but think of thy perplexed condition vvhen thy conscience being once awakened shall blush and stare thee in the face when thy sins with David Psal 51.3 Shall be ever in thy sight Then will thy mouth be confessing thy eyes weeping thy cheeks blushing thy hands writinging and smiting thy bosome thy heart-bleeding thy Heart-strings breaking and thy voice crying out vvith Cain My sinnes are greater then can be forgiven Then too late wilt thou cry Lord have mercy upon me vvhen a ruinous house shall be ready to fall about thy ears vvhen tediousness of sickness loss of Goods and confusion of understanding shall encompass thee when thy windy sighes and deep-fetch't Groans of thy breaking heart when the misty Clouds of thy closing eyes the Roaring thunder of thy stammering tongue sometimes perchance venting horrible Oathes and Blasphemies shall represent nothing but Images to the Beholders And alas vvhat vvilt thou do when in the last agonies of Death thy Body shall feel such great disturbances as will make thee to turn here and there to rub the Bed-clothes vvhich over-power thee with Convulsions vvhich choke thy speeches make thy Visage Pale thy memory to faulter and a cold sweat to over-spread all thy body which is onely encompassed with weeping eyes whining countenances distracted looks affrighted and dejected Visages hideous out-cryes and perchance which is worse with petty Furies Ah! what content wilt thou then take when Death comes to sound his last Trumpet in thy Ears saying unto thee Come let us be going thou must dislodge from thy Riches thy large possessions from thy Beauties and fading Pleasures from thy friends and from thy kindred and never more to return again Oh! how bitter will be the remembrance of death how harsh will it be unto unmortified spirits when they shall say to the Body ah whither goest thou dear Hostess whether goest thou Thou hast hitherto most tenderly pampered me pompously cloathed me wantonly cherished me I was thy Idol thy Pride thy Glory and whether now must thou go What into a Grave with Serpents and Wormes alas what wilt thou do there and what will become of thee Thus fares it with distressed Souls in the shades of Death when fixing their dying eyes upon their former acquaintance they find some weeping others screeching some fainting and all under a veil of sorrow encompassing their Bed with this sad Note alas do you leave us and shall we meet no more Farewel pleasing amities adieu all our sports feasts and loves now is the time come that me must leave all our earthly acquaintance all our Table
Fear not O Spouse thy Beloved is not wholly departed Be not troubled if thy journey to Canaan be through the wilderness of this world and if in thy way to Sion thou pass through the valley of Baca since Christ is a Cloud and Pillar to direct thee Thus by the Gates of Hell doth God oftentimes shew us the way to Heaven He who is not tyed alwayes to bring a Soul thither by one and the same Road can make Death the way to life The Sun of Righteousness is stil bright though behind a Cloud and not seen to us The Nurse is withdrawn oftentimes that the Mother may get the chiefest affections of the Child And though God leave a poor Soul labouring in the Pangs of Desertion yet through the Sun-shine of Gods countenance ripening its Graces cloudy weather still advantageth her growth and her Barrenness at last yeelds a fruitful Harvest Gods relief comming alwaies in the best time and she patiently attends his help from Heaven even until the fourth which is the last watch of the Night And when vvith Peter she is freed out of the Prison of strong Temptation and God is pleased to come in unto her with abundance of comfort Oh! how is she raised to bless the Lord who hath forgiven her sinnes and healed all her infirmities The waves of Terrours and flouds of Afflictions never beat so violently upon her neither did she so much complain of spiritual wants as now she saw the wonders of God in the deep and the infinitenefs of his Wisdom in the dispensations of comfort and joy of grief and terrour The Souls complaint now is no longer Where is my God become or that There is no soundness in her flesh because of his anger All her distempers seem but as so much Physick to clense her from her manifold sins Yea she now seems even drown'd in sweetness and in sinking cryes out Oh the breadth of thy unfathomable love what Saint what Tongue what Angel can speak out thy unexpressible kindness Ephes 5.17 Thou hast loosed my Bonds Oh that my heart could burn in love towards thee Oh that I could as I desire make known to others hovv good thou hast been to me in preserving strengthning and fixing my fiath on a Rock not to be over-born vvith the storms and swelling Surges of Satans Temptations Methinks I meet thee every where O blessed Jesus with a hundred arms unfolded to do me good what place what time what moment is not filled vvith thy Bounty Though passions have for a time assailed my mind and thy Terrours have affrighted my spirits yet behold now thy Grace hath shot through the dark Clouds of my Sin and doubting thy Darts have pierced the Center of my heart with quickning sparklings my spirits are come again Ah how my Soul is fill'd with joy ravishment and admiration Oh God! who is he who beholds the fading shadows of the world this dismal place where cares and sorrows are still growing young and never die that would ever betray his Soul Heaven and his God to yield obedience thereunto who vvould betray an Eternity of blessing for a Pleasure so short and wretched who would build Tabernacles here to lose a Mansion among Celestial Souls where Love onely Reigns who would not give a farewel to those earthly Cottages to ascend those mounts of Bliss vvhere every season is a constant Spring who vvould desire to make his name great here on Earth and desire to have them enrolled among the Saints in Heaven O what Celestial mirth what an expansion of all the faculties of the Spirit yea what rejoycing is there in the heart of Man vvhen Christ begins to make it his Throne all Powers do him homage all Passions render him service Who can conceive what joy passeth in the Soul vvhen Jesus is pleased to take up his lodging in it Hovv is the heart excited awakened and enflamed towards Heaven what distaste is there of all things in the world It is as light to bleared eyes It is as food to hungry Travellers It is the repose to the wearied the Country of poor Pilgrims and the Crown of all our happiness Nothing but Fires Desires Sweetness Affections Joyes and Admirations will transport our Souls having once regained our wel-beloved our thoughts will wholly be employed upon Jesus we shall be dead and insensible to all the Objects of the world All the Thornes wherewith it is encompassed will seem as Roses If we swim in the Tears of Wotmwood it will be no other then sweet water All the wounds we receive will be but like Rubies and Pearls Our Maladies will prove but sports our Calumnies will be our blessings yea Death it self no other then a happy life When the Soul sleeps Jesus is in her sleep vvhen she speaks Jesus is under her Tongue when she Writes Jesus is under her Pen and when she is merry she chaunts forth the praises of her Jesus in her solitude she seems all environed with Raptures And vvhen any reproves her for being alone she cries out nothing less before she vvas interrupted with their company In the morning she grieves to think how often she shall offend God before Night Being about to rest she bitterly vvith scalding Tears laments that she shall have no more power over her Dreams but offend her Saviour while she slept Thus is her mind alwayes running after her dear Spouse Se is in a prison of Love vvhere her Thoughts her Hopes her Joyes were Chains And still doth she elevate her self upon the wings of Faith in the highest postures she can towards Heaven taking the choisest affections vvith her vvhereby to ascend that Mountain of pure and inexpressible light She vvell knew that true Pleasure vvas to be found no vvhere but in God vvhose Joyes are like those Gardens which never vvither but are perpetually watered vvith immortal Graces And oh How if it vvere possible vvould she express her love to him by daily offering her self a hundred times for him in as many Sacrifices as she hath Thoughts and Body Members Never Ship laden vvith Gold arrived more gladly at the Haven after many tedious Tempests and a thousand disasters among Pirates at Sea as the poor soul novv seems to take content in the love of God And having spun out all the Web vvhich he gave her cryes out I have ended all the hopes of the vvorld why stayest thou O my God! to receive my Soul which I bear in my lips O Jesus at whose name the Heaven the Earth and Hell do bend the knee I now care not what I suffer for thee so I sin not against thee so I may for ever injoy thee Thus the love of God is like Lightning in a Cloud still striving to break forth and suffers the Soul to take little rest in any thing but what it undertakes for the glory of her Maker Joh. 11. who many times defers the cure that his power may be the more manifest the heats of
canst thou love more or express it beyond this yet to all these and infinitely more tortures and unspeakable miseries was thy Saviour expos'd O my Soul for thy sake for thine my soul that thou maist not complain thou wantest an Object a Motive a Pattern or invitation to love O mirrour of Love Love it self Christ our Saviour Hovv earnest wert thou nay how delighted wert thou to Treat of thy Passion It were thy sweet words not long before thy death With desire have I desired to eat And when S. Peter would have disswaded thee from thy last Sufferings thou reprovedst him more for this then for his denyal of thee in the High Priests Hall Thou only castedst thy eye upon him for the first as minding him thereby of his great promise made never to deny him but for the other thou bidst him avaunt yea call'st him Satan as being the hinderer of thy much desired and longed for death Ah! incomparable Love who can think on and not admire the Extasies of our sweet Saviour How is he even ravished with the object of his Death and transported with the Idea of his sufferings Behold how he encourageth himself in this combate How troubled he is at all those that hinder it How confident doth he look on the Cross as the Fountain of his Glory And shall we not love his Cross which Jesus hath cherished every place is a Paradise to him that knows how to love the Cross and every thing a Hell to those that fly it Oh blessed Saviour then who canst lift up all the Earth with the least finger of thy power raise up a little this sinful mass of my Body which so sadly weighs it self down by its sinnes O my God fix thine eyes upon me and thou shalt thereby bring me to the fountain of true happiness The Father hath given me to thee and I am the conquest of thy precious bloud and wilt thou suffer a Soul to be taken away from thee that hath cost thee so many sweats and sufferings Alas Lord thou hast but one life and I see 1000 instruments of death that have taken it away Was there need of so many bloudy Doors to let out thy innocent Soul Could it not part from thy Body without making on all sides so many wounds which after they had served for the Objects of mens Cruelty serve now for those of thy mercy O Lance cruel Lance why didst thou open his most tender side But in thus playing the Murtherer thou hast made a Sepulchre wherein I will from henceforth bury my Soul When I behold the wounds of my dear Saviour I do acknowledge the stroaks of my own hand and will therefore likewise there engrave my Repentance Give me then O sacred mouth give me that Gall which I see upon thy lips to sprinckle all my pleasures divide with me O beautiful head thy dolorous Crown of Thorns seeing it were my sinnes which sowed them Lend me O sacred hands and adored feet the Nails that have pierced them and while I live let me never breathe any other life but that onely which shall be produced from my Crucified Saviour Surely we shall never be worthy of him until we thus bear the Ensigns of his War and Ornaments of our Peace And alas what reason hath wretched man to complain Is not suffering our Trade our Vow our Profession As the Clock goeth on by the help of its counnter-poise so a Christians life never proceedeth so much in virtue as by the counter-ballance of its Crosses Make me then to serve thee to imitate thee yea to suffer for thee O thou King of the afflicted Ah that I had a Sea of sweet odours to empty on an Object so worthy of love Art thou unwilling to bear part of thy Saviours Cross yet give O my Soul give at least tears to him who satisfied for thy sins Consider that thy miscalled Sufferings ifrightly used are indeed Blessings What if thou lose thy fortunes it is to make thee know thy self what if thy Health be empaired it will make thee disaffect this world What if thou lose thy Riches is it not to make thee seek out better By all which God is pleased to shew us the straightest way to that life which he hath promised us and to assure us by his own Tribulation who could not but know and embrace what is best that the way of Tribulation is the high-way to Heaven We find indeed Tertullian in one place thus complaining Eternal Wisdom which thus cuts thy childrens Threats and use them as Sacrifices as if thou couldest not Crown them but by their Torments or Honour them but by their punishments But alas he that will love must serve And Behold August Serm. 19. de verb. Apost saith S. Au-gustine The foolish Lovers and Amorists of the world are not they who are surprised therewith ready to serve to endure all commands in Attire in Habite and behaviour for a Mistress sake Oh foul confusion of life and prostitution of spirit God who promiseth never to behold us with a good eye unless we keep his Commandments deserves to be loved above all things Love that cannot suffer is not Love Yea the last Character of love to our Saviour is to suffer for him the Prince of Sufferings Our Souls are engaged by Oath saith Tertullian to this warfare so soon as we first enter into Christianity Tertul. ad Scap. Besides know we not that all Creatures of the world groan and bring forth that all the Elements are in Travell and in a ceaseless agitation The Air it self say the Philosophers is perpetually struck with the motion of Heaven to prevent the hatching of Poyson The Rivers are purified by their streaming current One deep must call upon another the deep of Afflictions calls for that of Honour and the heights of Honour are prepared according to the measure of our Tribulations In this world Cruelty is mingled with Lights and Pleasures with Funerals Gods Prison is a School of Wisdome In this Captivity are we free under these Bonds and Irons our Soul can walk with God in the midst of Groans and sighs our heart can rejoyce it can talk with him though with the three Children in the midst of the fiery Furnace And as the most rigorous of Punishments became a Throne of Honour to those three Champions the fire forgetting it self to be fire and the Furnace strewing it self with Roses so all the Thorny paths of our Pilgrimage here seem but like a Meadow enamelled over with Flowers If we here make Jesus the Object of our present Dolours he will hereafter prove the Fountain of our Eternall Joyes Behold then the exact method which providence keeps in the conduct of her chosen ones Behold the Character of an humble Soul persecuted by the Tongues of Slanderers by the Arms of his kindred by the contempt of his friends by the ingratitude of his Enemies yea of those upon whom he had still heaped good turns without
Soul resolves for ever to yield an humble submission to his Will THe Soul of Man can hardly entertain any Portion of Gods will but that wherein it s own is concerned It is usually more troubled for any chastisement then for its sin yea it often mourns for sin rather because it deprives her of comfort then because it provoketh God Nay how hardly can it embrace his word with that joy and his providence with that contentment as to say at all times with patient Eli It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Alas vvhat patience hath it in committing sinne but how impatient in suffering for it how ready to execute vice but how unwilling to endure the punishment Oh good God! How many years have I retain'd an inclination to sin my Soul is bound as it were with Iron Chains in this unhappy Bed Will there be no Angel to move the water for me How strange a thing is it that God should be so near us and yet we so far from him But alas we are too much for the world too fast nailed to the Earth He that desires the society of Angels must not embarque himself deeply in worldly affairs God is a Spirit and he that intends to receive good from him must not be a slave to his Body He that intends to find Christ must search for him as the three Kings did in the Manger of his Humility he must look for him as the blessed Virgin did in the Temple in his piety yea he must seek for him as the Maries did in his Sepulchre in the imitation of his death But where O Saviour shall I begin thy passion shall I go with thee into the Garden indeed there it begun there it was that thy Soul began to be exceeding sorrowful even unto the death There it was that thou beggest That the Cup might pass from thee Mat. 26.38 c. There it was that thou sweatedst in a cold night on the Ground in a cold Garden yea there it was that those drops of blood which so freely issued from thy veins were forthwith congealed with the Air. Oh thy matchless love Ah how sweet is the smell of it there in thy great Agony But shall we follow thee from the Garden into the High Priests Hall O how hideous were the outcryes of the rude Rabble against thee Ah Lord what was that vvhich stopped thy ear that thou wouldst not regard or silenced thy Tongue that thou wouldst not reply was it not thy Love Some spit upon thee others smiled on thee some railed on thee others blasphemed thee some scoffed others buffeted many accused and all cryed out against thee But stay may we not yet follow thee further and ascend mount Calvary Shall we not here see thee Nailed to the Cross for our sakes Shall we not here find thee breathing out thy last and pouring out thy hearts blood in a shameful cursed and tormenting way Ah the depth of thy Love O the transcendency of thy affections No man having ever thus laid down his life for his friends Unfortunate Sons of Adam the effects of whose fond disobedience are now become so sadly evident Behold thy Saviour cast on the Ground his knees bent his eyes over-flown with Tears his Hands stretched up towards Heaven all covered with gloomy Clouds and darkness his heart swoln with grief and is ready to break into some loud and doleful complaint against mans Ingratitude O my God! what means this universal strife and contention within thy own breast Art thou daunted at the sight of danger Is the sight of danger become so frightful to thee Thou weepedst indeed over Hierusalem and Mary Magdalen drew Tears from thy eyes but not with such astonishment as this Thou discoursedst of thy Passion on mount Tabor but with a Glory which ravished the eyes and hearts of all that beheld it thou hast often profest a great desire to see the hour of thy suffering and can horror possibly seize on thee Can grief surround thee cold and stupifying Tears possess thee now thou art arrived so near the place of thy wishes O no! thy great Design is to be tempted in all things without sinne that we might be comforted in the tremblings and faintings of our heart and that we might learn this great and difficult Lesson how to comfort our selves at the full Tide of anguish and Tribulations Behold further O my Soul what a glorious Lesson of Patience thy Saviour hath set before thy eyes Bend but thy ears to those sacred words Not my will but thine be fulfilled and who would think but that the excess of grief should a little disturbe thy memory Thou fore-saw'st no question Blessed Saviour those Clubs and Lantherns Souldiers and Officers prepared to lay hands upon thee and with loud cryes and scorns to carry thee to Hierusalem Hierusalem where thon hadst done so many miracles Hierusalem where thou so lately enteredst with Joy and Triumph and yet thou cryedst thy will be done Thou well knewest that Judges of all sorts Priests and Divines and Religious men which daily ministred at thy Holy Altar were appointed to discredit and accuse thee That Kings and Presidents Jews and Gentiles and an infinite number assembled at this great Feast would scorn and condemn thee and yet still thou cryedst thy will be done Thou beheldest those whips and scourges those Speâ—rs and Thornes prepared to afflict thee a mock purple and the ridiculous Scepter of a Reed to vilifie and abuse thee a heavy Cross and tearing Nails unmerciful hands and ungrateful hearts to torment and affront thee yet could no way alter thee from crying Thy will be done It was no news to thee that a Murtherer should be preferred before thee and begg'd in thy place by thy beloved People amongst whom thou spentst thy life that two Theeves should be thy Companions and fellow-sufferers That Judas amongst thy own Disciples should betray thee that three of thy best friends should lie sleeping by thee that Peter himself should deny thee yea that all should shamefully forsake and fly from thee and yet still O dear Saviour thou said Thy will be done Thou sawest afore hand thy weeping and disconsolate Mother stand at the foot of thy Cross and afflicting thy departing Soul with the sight of thy grief and disconsolate condition thou leavest her in and last of all that thou shouldst be abandoned on all hands and not so much as thy lifes last breath spared O invincible Courage O admirable Fortitude which neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor fears nor torments could so far alter thy resolution but still thou submittest in these words Thy will be done Lord and not my own But alas Is there no remedy after all this submission for thy blessed Soul Must thou alone drink of this sower Cup Must thou alone tread the wine-press of sowre Grapes Alas dearest Saviour where is then the God of Elias Are his bowels of mercy turn'd
the pleasure of sin and the perpetuity of sinners Torments the easinesse of thy gentle yoak and light burden here below and the weight of thy glory provided for me above since there is no moment O Lord void of thy goodness why should there be any moment void of my praise I know it will not be long until death consume me to the very bones and I shall then possess nothing but what I have done for thee Shall I then live in this world to my self and be still vexed with care how to preserve a miserable life Dear Jesus suffer me not thus to be taught by thy Judgements what I have neglected to learn from thy mercy Time and age will one day wither the blossoms of youth The best of our joyes are but fires of straw or flattering sun-shines which are suddenly either washed away with a shower or banished by Tempests The Sun will at last daver the freshest Roses and Lillies O let not then my thoughts strike sail or my heart do homage to the transitory beauties of this world which will onely ensnare and imprison me in the Fetters of sin least the storms of an evil conscience suddenly arise and trouble the serenity of my delights and the tranquility of my seeming felicity The Soul being sensible of its former Mercies sits weeping under the Cross of her Saviour and resolves to partake with him in his Sufferings AS Humility is seldome planted upon Crowns and Scepters so the wisdom of State seldome joyns with that of the Cross where its lustre is too often darkned by the too much glittering of the world and ordinarily finds slippery footing amongst the Rubies and Diamonds of a Crown It was the saying of Tertullian who flourished two hundred years after the Nativity of our Saviour when there had been no speech of any Emperours that had embraced Christianity Tertul. in Apol. That if the Caesars would become Christians they would cease to be Caesars and if the Christians would become Caesars they would cease to be Christians conceiving that poorness of spirit cannot consist with so high and stately Riches neither Humility with a Soveraign Empire or the Tears of Repentance with the vain delights of the Court. Surely the hungring and thirsting after Righteousness upon which our Saviour so often leaves his blessing can no way stand with the desire of Pomp and Greatness in the world no more then Peace can subsist with Licentiousness of War or pureness of heart with the conversing with most pleasing and tempting Beauties or the fairest hopes of the world which are mowed dow in their flower by the pittiless Sythe of death Peter was never so near his ruine as when he was warming himself in the Priests Hall John Baptist was far more secure amongst Wolves Foxes and Tigers then among the wicked Courtiers of Herod He was more happy with his little Dinner of Locusts and wild Honey retired in his Cabin then amidst the Pomps and Pleasures of the King of Galilee Do we know whether our Fancy will run when Ambition rides it or our Minds sail when distempers steer them What makes a Hermit at the Court a solitary man in a Tumult a David in his Tower of Pleasures a Solomon in the midst of so many Wives and Concubines and a Sampson under the enticing hands of his treacherous Dalelah Yea what makes a sacred man amongst the prophane or a Saint in the house of a Tyrant So hard is it also for Carnal eyes to behold the bitter Agony of our blessed Saviour so hard is it for any Tongue without being steeped in Gall to express his sufferings or for any person without pouring out of Tears to approach his Cross What eyes can look on thee as they should and behold all thy flesh wholly imprinted with dolours and thy heart drenched in acerbities What eyes can without bitter relenting behold thy deadly sweat of blood can see thee dragg'd through the streets of Hierusalem every one looking out at the windows to fill their eyes with gazing and astonishment can see thee buffeted flouted tossed from one Tribunal to another spit on every where despised and maliciously affronted What eyes can look on thy spread Arms thy nailed Hands and Feet thy rack't sinews thy pierced side thy bended Neck thy faln looks thy torn Body thy pale and bloodless flesh thy company to be of infamous Theeves and thy miserable Favourite and forlorn Mother ready through grief to expire their last breath what ears could with patience hear thy doleful out-cryes to Heaven and what heart could apprehend thee at first received into a wretched Stable and there laid in a Manger and at last to conclude thy innocent life in so great nakedness as that thou hadst no other veil to cover thee then the blood which gushed from thy wounds Behold O my Soul the whole life of thy Saviour which he passed here on Earth and thou shalt find it a School of Christian manners by the contemplation whereof Holiness is perfected in the fear of the Lord 2 Cor. 7.1 The world loved Riches but he would be poor The world loved Honours but he shun'd and refused a Kingdom and the Treasures thereof the world delighted in a carnal off-spring but he desired neither Marriage not Issue The world feared nothing more then disgrace desertion of friends insulting of enemies bodily Tortures and Death whereas Christ endured the rebukings of the people the flight of his Disciples the mockings of the Souldiers the spitting of the Jews and the death of the Cross O vvonderful that the mighty power of the Divinity would thus manifest it self in the infirmity of the Cross Sure it was onely for God to perform this great Design and thus ascend up to his Throne of Glory by the basest disgraces of the world and if vve vvill be his Children vve must make it appear by participation of his Cross and by suffering Tribulation By this Sun it is that the Eagles are discovered The good Thief saw no other Title or sign of his Kingdom but onely his body covered over vvith bloud and oppressed with dolours by that Book of the Gross he learned all the Glory of Paradise and apprehended that none but God could vvith such patience endure so great Torments Methinks blessed Saviour I hear devout Simon seeing thee heavy loaden with the burden of the Cross thus expostulating with thee O Jesus vvhether goest thou with the extream vveight of this barren piece of Wood whether dost thou carry it and why vvhere do you mean to set it What upon mount Calvary Alas that place is most wild and stony How canst thou plant it there who shall water it to which thou answerest I bear indeed a piece of Wood upon my Shoulders and carry it to mount Calvary This Wood I bear must bear me to bear the salvation of the world and to draw all after me I bear it to place it by my death and water it with my blood Oh Love