number that love the present world and cannot fixe their thoughts upon that which is to come imagin that when they dye they lose all A great folly They cannot lose that which is none of theirs They have the use of the world only til their Lease be out Death is the great proofe of that fundamentall Maxime which I so often urge and no oftner then I need That the things that are out of the disposition of our will are none of ours and such are riches honours our body and life it selfe To them that are so farre mistaken as to thinke themselves owners of these things death is an undoing not to them that acknowledge themselves tenants at will and look continually to be called out of their tenement The goods of the world are held by turnes When you have enjoyed them a while you must give place to others Make your successours case your owne How should yee like it if a certaine number of men should be priviledged to monopolize to themselves the goods of all the world for ever to the perpetuall exclusion of all others This reasoning belongs to few persons for it presupposeth plenty and prosperity But how few have plenty and of those few againe how few have prosperity with it One would thinke that distressed persons have no need of comfort against death Yet they that have the greatest sorrowes in the world many times are the most unwilling to leave it But certainly if life be evill it is good to go out of it All men being born under the necessity of suffering and misery being universall in all conditions Death which ends all misery of life is the greatest benefit of Nature Blessed be God that there is no temporal misery so great but hath an end Take me a man that hath nothing but debts that liveth meerely by his shifts and tricks that hath the stone in the bladder and ten suits in Law that flyeth from the Sergeants to his house and then flyeth out of his house relanced by the scolding of his perverse wife If in that flight he be suddainly killed in the street by the fall of a tyle or the overturning of a Cart that happy misfortune delivereth him from all other misfortunes The Sergeants overtake him and let him are All attachments and Subpoenas against him are vacated Hee is no more troubled where to get his dinner His debts breake not his perpetuall sleep He is thoroughly healed of the stone and his wife now desperaetly crying because she seeeth him insensible for ever and unmoved at her noise Certainly Death is a shelter against all inâ—uries Death puts an end to endlesse evills It is the rest after a continual toyle It is the cure of the sick and the liberty of the slave So Job describeth that quiet state Job 3.7 There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voyce of the oppressor The small and great are there and the servant is free from his Master It is a great folly to feare that which cannot be avoyded but it is a greater to feare that which is to be desired When we have considered the evills of life those that we do and those that we suffer after that to feare Death what is it else but to be affraid of our rest and deliverance And what greater harme can one wish to him that will not dye but that he may live alwayes and be guilty and miserable for ever If it be for the paine that we feare Death for that reason wee ought rather to feare life for the paines of life are farre more sensible then the paines of Death if in Death there is any paine of which I see no great likelyhood For why should we imagine the revulsion of the soul from the body to be very painful it being knowne that the vital parts as the heart and the liver have little or no sense No more sense hath the substance of the braines though the source of the senses for the head-ach is in the tuniques When the braines is benummed and weakened the sense of paine is weaker over all the body And generally when strength decreaseth paine decreaseth together Hence it is that most of them that are sick to Death when they draw neere their end feele themselves very much amended That state is called by the Italians il meglioramento della morte The decay of senses in that extremity is a fence against the troublesome diligence talke cries more troublesome then Death wherewith dying persons are commonly persecuted But as a man upon the point of death is too weake to defend himselfe against all that persecution he is too weak also to feele it much Then all suffocation is without paine that is the most ordinary end of life In the most violent death paine is tolerable because it is short and because it is the last It is a storme that wracks us but casts us upon the haven To that haven we must looke continually and there cast anchor betimes by a holy hope conceiving Death not so much a parting as an arrival for unto well disposed soules it is the haven of Salvation The feare of that which comes after death makes some mens lives bitter and through feare of dying after Death they have already eternall death in their Conscience They have eyes to see Hell open gaping for them but they have none to see the way to avoid it In others that feare is more moderate and is an ill cause working a good effect inducing or rather driving them to seeke and then to embrace the grace and peace that God offers unto them in Jesus Christ and together to do good workes which are the way to the Kingdome of heaven A man cannot afeare God too much but he may be too deeply afraid of his Justice And the feare of that death after death must be swallowed up by the faith in Jesus Christ who by his death hath delivered them who through feare of death were all their life subject unto bondage Heb. 2.15 He hath made death the gate of life and glory to all that trust in him and doe good Godly men will not feare death for the sting of it is pluckt off by Christ It is the terrour of evill consciences but the joy of the good It is this pleasant meditation that sweetneth their adversities and makes them joy Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 The troubles of life are soone ended by death and after death comes a life without trouble and a glory without end Men may deprive us of life but they cannot deprive us of death which is our deliverance The same meditation will make us relish prosperity when God sends it for none can enjoy the goods of this life with delight but he that is prepared before to leave them Then are they
of riches To such men God is just and merciful together when he healeth that wanton-need with a pinching need of things necessary Need is the thing that is generally most feared of all men Certainly it is most incommodious even to the wisest Wherefore the Wiseman in the 30. of Proverbs besought God that he would not send it him It is an ordinary theme for eloquence and flourishes of wit to maintaine that Need is not evill and they that descant more upon it are they that lesse feele it as Seneca a man of prodigious wealth who many times commends extream poverty or the condition that is not farre from it They say indeed that it is to the wise onely that need is not evill but because that must be proved by the experience of a true and perfect wiseman we would have the testimony of such a man but such a man we finde not neither do all the sects of Philosophers that profest poverty afford such an example For we will not stand to the arbitrement of that sawcy begger Diogenes a vaine sordid and affected man in all his words and actions who tooke a nasty pride in an impudent mendicity If poverty did not make him evill he made poverty evill turning it into a profession and instead of making it an exercise of vertue using it as a pretence of idlenesse and licentiousnesse To the ordinary sort of minds Need is a gulfe of misery Prov. 14.20 The poore is hated even of his own neighbour Every one hides himselfe from him Need makes men ashamed and shame increaseth their need Some also by Need are made shamelesse and in the end bold theeves Qui paupertatem timet timendus est Need is an ill counsellor It makes men murmure against God and finde fault with the distribution of his goods It beates down the courage stupefyeth or sowreth the wit and clips the wings of contemplation It is hard for one to have high conceits when he wants bread Yet to speake properly Want doth not all that evill but the evill disposition of men that have not weaned their heart from the world nor sought their only treasure in heaven have not chosen God for their portion No wonder that their spirit is beaten down as well as their fortune when the worldly ground which they had built upon sinkes under their feet But he that despiseth the world and the life of the world despiseth also Want so much feared by others For take things at the worst a perpetual rule of wisedome about casual future things the worst that can come to him that is without bread is to be without life which a thousand other accidents may take from us Life is a depositum which God hath committed to our keeping No lawful diligence and industry must be omitted that we may preserve it and give a good account of it to God And himselfe having trusted us with it assists us to keepe it Very seldome it is heard that any persons dye for lack of bread But precious in the sight of God is any death of his Saints Psal 116.15 Neither is there any more curse in dying of hunger then of a surfet Of all kinds of death but the suddaine I hold death for want of food to be the easiest It is no more but letting the lamp quietly to go out Atticus after a long fast to overcome an acute sicknesse having lost the appetite of meat lost also the appetite of life and refusing to take any more meat dyed without paine And so Tullius Marcellinus after an abstinence of three dayes Mollissime excessit et vitae elapsus est he departed most quietly and escaped from life saith Seneca He spake better then he meant saying that he escaped for such a volutary death was an escape from the station where God hath placed him He went from life without commission for God had given him wherewith to keep it But he to whom God giveth no more wherewith to keep himselfe alive must acknowledge that his commission is out depart cheerefully For to prevent death by sordid and unlawfull wayes is more then God calls him unto and more then life is worth To say necessity compels me to these wayes and otherwise I cannot live is an ignorant or wilfull mistake of Necessity The wayes cannot be necessary when the end is not so And before a man conclude that such wayes are necessary because without them he cannot live he should consider whether it be necessary for him to live It is necessary for us to be righteous and generous not to live Who so conceiveth no necessity in life and no evill in death which to Gods children is the end of all evills and the beginning of all happinesse will soon rid his heart of that cowardly fear of dying for want and reject the temptations to lead an ill life that he may keep life The feare of Want is for want of obeying Christs command Matth. 6.34 not to take thought for the morrow and for want of observing the course of his providence which provideth for his creatures that cannot provide for themselves Beasts sleep quietly not knowing and not thinking where they shall get meat the next day You will say it is because they have no reason and no foresight and were it not better to have no reason then to make no use of it but for our vexation Were it not better to be incapable of thinking on God as beasts are then to think on him onely to mistrust and murmure against his providence A poore man to whom God giveth health industry to get his living is possest of a great treasure and a stock yeelding him a daily rent His condition is incomparably more happy then that of the noble and wealthy The labour that gets him bread gets him also an appetite to eate it and sleep to refresh him when he is weary and health to continne his labour Eccl. 5.12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet whether he eate little or much but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep His many children give him lesse care then fewer children to the rich and lesse paine also to provide for them For whereas in noble houses the câ—arge groweth alwayes as the children grow in poore families that live by labour the charges grow lesse as the children grow the Sonnes serve the Father in his worke the Daughters spin by their Mother Children are the riches of poore people and the impoverishing of the rich Then to give them portions the Father that hath no land is not troubled to engage the Lordships of the eldest Sonne for the marriages of his Daughters nor to charge the land with annuityes for the younger Brothers Each of them hath the whole succession which is their Fathers labour No doubt but that is the most tranquil condition of all The examples are many of those that lived merrily and sung at their worke as long as they were poore but an inheritance
kingdome of God within the soule Blessed and holy is he that hath it and to him is next in happinesse and holinesse he that sincerely endeavoreth to get it and to that end yeelds to God the raines of his affections brings his will under Gods will and humbly invites him to fixe his dwelling beare rule within his breast It is the end that I aim at in this worke And I beseech the God of peace so to blesse and honour it as to make it an instrument to work His peace in the souls of his servants beginning at my soule To that work every Christian ought to put his hand as he loveth God and himselfe To which wee are the more induced and in a manner compelled by the contrariety of the Time While the storme of warre or intestine dissensions is raging in all parts of the world not leaving one safe corner for peace the wise Christian must take sanctuary in that inward peace that peace of God which though it passe all understanding yet will dwell in the understanding and the affections of those that faithfully seek it and keep both hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ Get once God within you you have a shelter at home against all injuryes abroad as he that in a tempestuous raine flyes into a Church and in Gods house finds peace and safety whilst the whole aire abroad is enflamed with lightnings and roaring with thunder and the land floods are hurling down houses drowning sheep and shepheards and destroying the long hopes of the Husbandmans labour For the faithfull soul is Gods Temple which he graceth by his presence and blesseth with his peace not suffering it to be removed though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea This peace at home in which our duty and our happinesse are concentred is an inviting subject for a diligent contemplation Let us examine wherein consisteth the true peace of the soul and contentment of mind and how wee must keepe peace with God with our selves with our neighbours in adversity in prosperity and in all the occurrences of life CHAP. II. Of the Peace of Man in his integrity and the losse of that peace by sinne THe fundamentall rule of great reformations is to bring things to their beginning By that rule that wee may know the true peace of God and how wee may get it wee must cast back our sight upon the beginning how God gave it to man and how he lost it soone after And here wee must use that which the Spirit sayd unto the Churches Rev. 2.5 Remember whence thou art fallen and repent Man newly created after Gods likenes was in perfect peace with him for God making an image of himselfe would not have made it dissenting from him and peace is a prime lineament of Gods Image That first human soule recently breathed out of Gods mouth followed with delight the fresh and pure traces of his divine production and man finding in himselfe the likness of his Creator tooke a great joy and glory to compare that copy with the original That moving image of God did imitate his actions as doth the image of our body in a glasse And whereas in the worke of regeneration St Paul saith that the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and that he is created after God in righteousnes and true holines it followes that the first man was created such since wee learne that such must be the renewing of man to be created againe after the image of God These lively expresses of the image of God knowledge righteousnes and holines could not be in that first man without an entire peace and consonance with his Creator And having peace with God he had it also with himselfe His desires were not at variance with his fears nor his knowledge with his actions His thoughts belyed not his words His cupidity did not draw against his conscience his conscience layd no accusation against him From that good intelligence with God and with himselfe he could not but reape a great content in his mind that content also being a lineament of the image of God to whom as holines so happines is natural and essential For that contentment of mind he got no smal contribution from the beauty and plenty of Nature smiling upon him and the willing submission of all animals flocking about him as loving subjects meeting to wellcome their new Soveraign For his peace with God kept all creatures in peace and obedience under him Abroad the clemency of the aire and the pleasantnes of a garden of Gods planting delighted him And at home his familiarity and free accesse to his Maker filled him with joy and confidence And his original righteousnes if he could have kept it would have perpetuated that blessed peace unto him for peace is the most proper effect of righteousnesse as it is exprest by Isatah The work of righteousnesse shal be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietness assurance for ever Isa 32.17 Truly God forbidding him to eat of that excepted fruit upon paine of death did intimate that as long as he kept in obedience death could take no hold of him nor any of the appurtenances of death for such are all the infirmities of the body all the griefes of the mind and all the crosses of this life Ezekiel in the eighteenth Chapter is copious upon this demonstration that life is inseperable from righteousness and mortality from sinne This last was justified by wofull experience for man going from his righteousnesse forfeited his life and his peace And presently a dark cloud of confusion and misery troubled his golden serenity The voyce of God which was the joy of man suddenly became his terrour Gods presence which was his life became so formidable to him that it went for a currant truth Judg. 13.22 Wee shall surely dye because wee have seene God Man being fallen off from God most part of the creatures fell off from him and that rebellion continued ever since Those that have sense and motion openly deny to yeeld subjection unto him flee away from him when he will come neere them or flye upon him with open hostility And to get service from them he must tame them young before they be able to resist him Other Creatures destitute of sense yet seeme sensible enough to let him know that they yeeld to him a forced service Neither can the earth be wonne to doe any good for him but by great labour and long expectation Diseases enter into his body with the meate that he eateth and the aire that he breatheth Stormes beat upon him Summers scorch him Winters chill him Foxes have holes and birds of the aire have nests their garments are natural warme in winter light in summer To man onely Nature gives not where to lay his head nor so much as a skinne capable to abide his
countenance of Gods justice Their owne crimes take them by the throate and they seeme ready to say as Ahab to Eliah 1 Kings 21. hast thou found me mine enemy And God saith to their heart with anger I have found thee because thou hast sold thy selfe to worke evill in the sight of the Lord. There is no conscience so sunk in a deepe sleepe of sinne and worldlines but will now and then awake and cry out in a sudden fright So did Felix though a Pagan an extortionner and a man every way infamous for as St Paul reasoned of temperance and righteousnes and judgment to come Felix trembled and answered Goe thy way for this time Act. 24. Whosoever hath read bookes and men may have observed what unquietnes crimes will bring to the criminal That tyrants continually imagine a naked sword hanging over their head That the wicked flee when no man pursueth That murtherers and perfidious men have a broken sleepe and their mirth is interrupted with parentheses of frownes and grimme lookes That when they excuse themselves of a foule fact of which their conscience accuseth them their conscience many times gives the lye to their words and they are contradicted by the inconstancy of their lookes and the stammering of their tongue And conscience will double these terrours when their end draweth nigh Many know who he was that started up often in his mortal drouzines on his death bed commanding that his men should give over slaying But suppose that the wicked that have the world at will had as much rest within as without yet â—â—dons saying to Craesus ought to be observed Never to pronounce any man happy before his death But the Christian ought to give to that sentence a longer terme if he hath bin with David in the Sanctuary of God and there hath understood the end of the wickd and found that God hath set them in slippery places to cast them into destruction CHAP. III. Of the reconciliation of man with God through Jesus Christ Such being the enmity betweene God and sinfull man which is followed with the discord of man with nature with his kind with himself How welcome how precious to him must the blessed newes be of Gods reconciliation with him Esa 5.27 How beautifull upon the mountaines are the feet of him that bringeth good tydings that publisheth peace that bringeth good tydings of good that publisheth salvation that saith unto Sion Thy God reigneth the chief ambassadour that anounceth that peace with God is he that made it It is the eternal sonne of God who by an infinite mercy towards man guilty and miserable was pleased to allye himself with him by a personal union of the divine nature with the humane He hath taken our nature and imparted his unto us He hath made himselfe Man to take upon himself the debt of man For seeing that man was indebted to Gods iustice it was requisite that a man should give satisfaction Which because mans nature was not able to find Christ joyning to the Nature and Obligation of man the Nature and Vertue of God and both in one Person hath fully satisfied the justice of his father which required a perfect obedience and death for punishment of disobedience He hath then presented to God a most accomplisht obedience of which the most eminent act was to have readily undergone a shameful bitter death at his Fathers command for the sins of mankinde of which he was the pledge and the representative An obedience of infinite merit more powerfull to obtaine pardon yea and reward at Gods hands then all the disobedience of the world to incense his just wrath to punishment 1. Pet. 2.24 His owne selfe bare our sins in his owne body on the tree Isa 53.5 The chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes wee are healed For it pleased the father that in him should all fullness dwell and having made peace through the bloud of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himselfe Col. 1.19 All that have recourse to that infinite love of God and that ransome of inestimable value the merit of his sonne embracing it with a true faith which cannot act nor subsist without a true repentance find their peace made with God their iniquity is pardoned they have received of the Lords hands double for all their sinnes Isa 40.2 It is a double satisfaction both because it is twice greater then all the sins of the world and because it worketh a double effect the one to get pardon for sins the other to obtain a reward for imputed righteousness And that satisfaction represented to God in our faithful prayers makes them acceptable and of sweet favour as the incense put upon the sacrifices It is much to be lamented that these tydings of grace and glory are but coldly entertained by carnal eares as now growne stale and vulgar And that there is more joy for prevailing in a Law-suite and for a Peace that opens the markets and the freedome of commerce after a civil broyle then for our peace with God through Christ in whom wee have free accesse unto the throne of grace that wee may obtaine mercy and finde grace to help in time of need Heb. 4.16 But he that in the fright of his conscience hath seen hell open gaping for him and hath once lost his thoughts in that bottomelesse gulfe of misery and horrour to have his creatour his enemy if upon that he embrace by faith that great and heavenly message not onely that his sinnes are forgiven him by the merit of Christ but that by the same merit of an enemy and a child of wrath he is become the sonne of God and heire of his Kingdome his heart will melt with joy love and admiration and the sadder his sense was of his deplorable condition the greater will his thankfulnesse be for his gracious restoration O the depth of the riches both of the wisedome and the goodnesse of God who hath found a way to set forth together his justice and his mercy and to pardon sinne by punishing it O the infinite love of the Father who so loved the world that he gave his onely Sonne for them O the infinite love of that onely Sonne that so loved his enemyes that he delivered himselfe to a most bitter death to give them life and immortality yea and his own kingdome O the infinite love of the holy Ghost who so loved the world as to announce unto them this excellent piece of newes by his word and seale the promises of God in their hearts by faith in Jesus Christ that whosoever beleeveth on him should not perish but have life eternal Behold then the onely foundation of the peace of the soule and contentment of mind It is that peace made for us with God by his onely sonne who hath taken our sinnes upon himselfe and in consequence the punishment giving us in exchange his righteousnesse and consequently the reward of it since
by it wee appeare righteous before God This is the summary of the Gospell This is the onely comfort of the faithfull That being justifyed by faith wee have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 5.1 Without that persuasion all the moral precepts and all the reasons of Philosophy cannot set the mind at rest much lesse the riches honours pleasures and pastimes of this world for who can have peace with himselfe while he is in dissention with God And who can have peace with God but by the mediation of his beloved sonne Jesus there being no other name under heaven by which wee must be saved The chiefe impediment of the tranquillity of minde being the remorse for sinne against God and the apprehension of this just and terrible threatning Cursed is he that continueth not in all the words of Gods law to doe them Whosoever embraceth the merit of Jesus Christ by faith is fenced against all the threatnings of the law and all the accusations of his conscience For to them he will answere As Gods threatnings are just so are his promises now he hath promist that if wee judge our selves wee shall not be judged of the Lord. 1. Cor. 11.31 That he that heareth the word of the sonne of God and beleeveth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is past from death to life Joh. 5.24 That the blood of Jesus Christ the sonne of God clenseth us from all sin 1. Joh. 1.7 That he hath blotted out the hand writing of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his crosse Col. 2.14 Wherefore these threatnings that God will bring every work to judgement and that even for one idle word account must be given reach not to those evill workes of which beleivers have repented and embraced the remission by faith in Jesus Christ Those threatenings of judgement doe not reach me since I have already past judgemont upon myselfe by a serious contrition and have received my Absolution by the merit of him that was judged and condemed for me If account must be given for my sinnes Christ must give it who charged himselfe with them But that account is discharged My sins are put out of Gods score The curse of the law to a soule that beleeveth in Christ as I doe is a handwriting taken out of the way a Bond torne and nailed to the crosse of Christ God is too just to make use of a bond vacated to proceed against me the merit of his Sonne which he received in payment for me is of too great value to leave me in danger to be sued for the debts which he hath payd for himself was arrested by Death the Sergeant of Gods justice and put in that jayle whence there is no comming out till one hath payd the utmost farthing and being come out of that jayle by his resurrection he hath made it manifest that he hath payd the whole debt which he was bound for in our behalfe unto Gods justice What though my sins be great yet are they lesse then the merit of Jesus Christ No sinne is so great that it ought to take away the confidence in Gods promises No sinne is so great that it may damme a soule beaten downe with contrition but together raised by faith and washt in the blood of the sonne of God Indeed the remembrance of my sins must be bitter unto me yet that bitternes must be drowned in the joy of my salvation my repentance must be a step not a hinderance to my confidence So I will say to God every day with a contrite heart Forgive us our trespasses And at the same time I will remember that I make that prayer unto our Father which is in heaven who commands me to call him Father to assure me that he will spare me as a man spareth his owne sonne that serveth him Mal. 3.17 to stile him heavenly father to whom the kingdome and the power and the glory belongeth to lift up my hope to that celestial glory which he fully possesseth and which he will impart to his children in their measure I will walke before God with humility and feare thinking on my sins past and my present weakenes and sinfulnes but together I will goe in the strength of the Lord and make mention of his righteousnes The righteousnes of God that frighteth sinners comforteth me and his justice is all mercy to me For the infinite merit of his Sonne being mine he is now gracious unto me in his justice Hereby the peace and assurance which I enjoy through faith is advanced to a joy of heaven upon earth and to this song of triumph Isa 61.10 I will greatly rejoyce in the Lord my soule shall be joyfull in my God for he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation he hath covered me with the robe of righteousnes as a bridegroome decks himselfe with ornaments and as a bride adornes herselfe with her jewells This is the peace and contentment of the faithful soule that feeleth and relisheth her blessed reconcilation made with God through Jesus Christ For he that hath peace with God hath peace also with himselfe And the love of God powerfully growing in his heart by the consideration of the bounty of God whose sweetnes wee may taste though not conceive his greatnes breeds there together the peace of God which passeth all understanding banisheth tumultuous and unlawfull affections and brings the lawfull under its obedience so that all the affections of the regenerate soule meete in one and make but one which is the love of God as many brookes that lose their names in a great River When the love of God brings not that great peace to the soule and the absolute empire over the passions it is because love is as yet imperfect and the cause of that imperfection is the deficiency of faith which doth not yet embrace aright the reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ and faith is deficient when it is not maintained by good workes her food without which it pines away and falls into a shaking palsie and when that foundation is shaking all that is built upon it cannot but be tottering This then must be our first and earnest taske to make our selves sure of our peace with God by a lively faith whereby our hearts may be purified from evill workes and made fertile to all fruits of holinesse For hereby we shall have peace with our selves and shall be masters at home Hereby also wee shall have peace with Gods creatures receiving temporall blessings as testimonies of Gods reconciliation with us and in every bit of bread wee shall taste his love Prosperity and adversity will prove equally good unto us being dispensed by his fatherly care If God multiply our afflictions it will be onely to multiply our deliverances He will never put us to the tryal but to refine our faith weane
wee beare to God is the love that he beares to us wee must before all things study to conceive as well as wee may of the great love of God to us-ward Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that wee should be called the sonnes of God 1 John 3.1 This is the principall point of his love where all other testimonies of his love doe beginne and where they end Without this none can say that he is beloved of God For to be the work of Gods hands and maintained by his providence is common to all creatures and to be made after Gods image and by his liberality to enjoy the plenty and service of nature is common to all men good and evill But because creatures without reason and men without goodnesse beare no love to God it cannot properly be said that God loveth them though he be their maker and preserver Love being the bond of perfectnesse Col. 3. Gods love would not be the bond of perfectnesse if he loved those things that never return him love For that love may be a bond the two ends must meet knit together now these two ends knit when a creature beloved of God beares a reciprocal love to him For thereby not onely the man that feareth God joyneth with him but the whole nature also and all the creatures are re-joyned with their principle and Origine And whereas some creatures cannot others will not love God the true child of God because he gets some utility out of them all yea of those that are Gods enemies loveth him and gives him thanks for and in the name of all and so by this meanes love proveth a true bond of perfectnesse which proceeding from God and knitting with God againe embraceth and holds fast together the whole creation and brings it back to its Creator A consideration which cannot but bring a singular content and a great peace to the soule Being perswaded of the love of God to us whereby we are called the sonnes of God we looke upon all creatures as the goods of our fathers house prepared for us And though others which are none of Gods children enjoy them also yet they are for us since the wicked are for the good either to exercise their vertue by tryals or even to serve and sustaine them For as the angry waves roaring and foaming about the ship where Christ was with his disciples yet were bearing the ship likewise the enemyes of God and his Church while they are beating and storming against it beare it up in spite of their hearts The agitations of the great sea of the world make Gods children more sensible of the great love which the Father hath bestowed upon them to have given them his beloved sonne to be in the ship with them to keep them safe in the storm and the dangers that overwhelme others are helps for good unto them that love God All the deliverances that God sends them all the blessings that God powreth upon them they take them as productions of the fatherly love of God who hath adopted them in his Sonne They taste that love in the enjoyment of present goods they breath that love in the enjoyment of future eternall goods they rest upon that love when they sleepe they leane upon that love when they walk they find that love in all the occurrences of their life with what face soever the various accidents of the world looke upon them they see through them the evident love of God being certaine that nothing happens to them but is directed by the good hand of their loving Father These pleasant rivers of the love of God conduct our meditation up the streame to the great Source that love which passeth knowledge that mysterious deepe love which the Angels desire to looke into whereby of his enemyes that wee were he hath made us his children giving for us even to death his owne precious Sonne entitling us by him to his eternal glory and giving us the earnest of it by his good Spirit crying in our hearts Abba Father O incomprehensible love which hath undergone overcome death to give us life and that he might have from us an immortal love That immortal love ought to be the effect of this meditation So that having conceived to our power how much God loves us wee may also to our power apply our heart to love him acknowledging that all our heart all our soule and all our understanding is yet too little to returne him love for his love It it true that this is a debt from which we can never be acquitted and wee owe it even after wee have payd it But as this debt must be payd continually the continual payment yeelds a continual satisfaction to him that payeth it oweth it still For whereas pecuniary debts make the heart sad this debt of love makes it glad when our duty meetes with our inclination and when wee most desire to dok that which wee are most obliged to doe Besides this debt is of that nature that when wee pay it wee make together an acquisition for although the love began by God he takes it upon him to repay us the love that we pay him Ps 91.14 Because he hath set his love upon me saith the Lord therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high because he hath knowne my name Pro. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seeke me early shall finde me But love is due to God not onely for the love that he hath done us and for the good that wee hope from him but for the good that is in him and because he that is the soveraigne beauty and goodnes must be beloved in the chiefest highest manner All that is beautifull and good in Nature the glory of the celestial bodies the fertility of the earth the shady greene of trees the fragrancy of flowers the variety and utility of animals the rational inventive vivacity of intellectual natures the admirable order of the Universe both in disposition and conduct All these are so many productions of the great bottomlesse depth of beauty bounty power and excellency and who so wisely considereth them presently conceiveth that the Authour is possest of an infinite perfection onely worthy to be beloved for his owne sake and that all the good and beautifull things that he hath done must be beloved onely in relation to him and for his sake To which if you adde two other points of which Nature cannot sufficiently informe us and wherein the Word of God supplies the deficiency of Natures teaching which are the justice and the mercy of God towards sinners O who would not love that infinite love and excellency though he had no interest of his owne in it But how can we barely consider Gods excellency in it selfe with an abstraction of our interest Certainly the consideration of our concernment will go along though unsent for with the contemplation of Gods supreme
servants Now because the life of man is laborious and allwayes in action we learne out of Gods example to examine all our works severally and joyntly to see whether they be good and rejoyce when we find them so Thus God said Let the light be and the light was And God saw that the light was good The like after the workes of every day of the first week And in the end of the creation God made a review of all that he had done And behold all was very good to signifie that God seeing all his works good and compleate took great delight in them and did remunerate his own actions with the satisfaction which he he took in his owne wisdom and goodnesse That we may then imitate God let us do nothing but good and againe when we have done it let us see how good it is Though it cannot be but very defective yet if we find in it sincerity and an ingenuous desire to do good we may in our measure rejoyce as God did for doing good and shall enjoy a sweet peace within representing both in the good that we do and in the delight that we take in well doing the image of him that hath created and adopted us to expresse his likenesse Our confidence in God by the merit of his beloved Sonne is the ground of true peace and content But that confidence is fed by works By faith we beare testimony to our hearts that we are reconciled with God and by workes we beare testimony to our faith As by the respiration we know that a man is alive and by the same respiration the man is kept alive So the exercise of good workes is together the marke of faith and the way to maintaine that spiritual life As God hath wisely ordered that the actions necessary for the preservation of naturall life should be done with delight likewise the exercise of good workes whereby the life of faith is maintained gives a singular pleasure unto the faithfull soul Psalm 40.8 I delight to do thy will O my God said David And the Lord Jesus could say that his meat was to do the will of him that sent him John 4 32. Wherefore as healthful bodies eat their meat with appetite so godly soules apply themselves with a holy appetite to good workes In both it is an inward sence of necessity that provokes the appetite it being as impossible to live with the life of faith without good works as to keep the body alive without meat or drink And as these satisfy the stomack good actions give a sweet satisfaction to the soul But as one cannot live alwayes in the strength of one meale but must take new food every day else the body will pine away and die in a short time likewise the use of good workes must be daily too much intermission will abate the pulse of faith trouble will get into the conscience or a heavy numness which will end in the extinction of spiritual life unlesse the appetite of doing good worke 〈◊〉 awakened by repentance and faith get new strength by good exercises For this exercise the Lord Jesus gave us an example that wee should follow his steps Who did good in the whole course of his life and more in his death Who spent the night in prayer and the day in healing the sick and converting sinners Who for ill words returned saving instruâ—◠〈◊〉 Who overcame contempt with humility and adversities with patience Who did good to them that persecuted him to death healing the eare of Malchus that was come to take him and praying for them that crucifyed him Who to obey God his ather despised his owne life denyed the love of himselfe and made this free and miraculous submission to God in the terrours of death Father not my will but thy will be done The joy and glory which he got by that submission must encourage his Disciples to preferre the obedience to God and the duty of a good conscience before all interesses being sure that to forsake them for God is the way to preserve them and that by suffering for his glory wee get glory The content that accreweth to the soule by tending carefully Gods service and loving nothing like it cannot be exprest but by those that feel it How great was St Pauls satisfaction when he sayd 2 Cor. 1.12 Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not in fleshly wisedome but by the grace of God wee have had our conversation in the world And how sweet was his rapture of joy when he sayd being neere the end of his race 2 Tim. 4.7 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is layd up for me a crowne of righteousnes which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me O what pleasure is comparable to the testimony of a good conscience The joy of a great conquerour who hath newly got an imperial crown is not comparable to St Pauls happines when he rejoyced to have fought the good fight of faith and stretched himselfe towards the crowne of righteousnes layd up for him Increase of worldly goods increaseth sorrow When they are above sufficiency instead of easing the minde they oppresse it Worldly pleasures are shortlived leaving behinde them an unpleasant fare-well and often a sting of crime Worldly honour is winde which either will blow a man downe or puff him up with an unsound tumour But godlines and good actions give a sincere joy a solid content a lasting peace a satisfaction penetrating to the inmost of the soule This is richly exprest by Isaiah in prophetical termes Isa 58.10 If thou draw out thy soule to the hungry and satisfye the afflicted soule then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darknes be as the noone day And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfye thy soule in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters faile not Although Devotion and good conscience and the practise of good workes were sad things as the world imagineth them yet ought wee to undergoe that sadnes in this life of few dayes to make provision for the other life which is eternal since this life is a moment on which eternity depends And wee should sow in teares to reape in joy But seeing that a good conscience active in piety and good workes gets thereby even in the present a serene peace and a heavenly comfort not credible to any but those that feele it is it not a great incouragement to doe well That the way to make us happy is to make us saints It is none of the least arts of Satan for turning men away from the practice of godlines and vertuous actions to represent Devotion and vertue with an austere habit and a sowre face enough to make children afrayd and growne men also many of them having with a gray
do him harme or hindred to do him good or deprived of the good he might do to the publique that worthy man must not altogether neglect to rectifye the misconceits taken against him which he may with lesse difficulty atchieve by a serene and constant course of integrity then by finding and proving confuting and keeping a great bustle to bring contrary witnesses face to face Innocency and the confidence that attends it must needs stand so high above the babling of the vulgar as to be no more moved with it then the Starres with the wind â—â—owing in the lower Region The dishonour that hath some ground in the truth must be wiped off not by excuses but by amendment Is one blamed for being vicious He must be so no more And that out of hatred of vice not of dishonour which being but a shadow of it will vanish at the rayes of Vertue CHAP. XII Of the evills of the body Unhandsomnesse Weaknesse Sicknesse and Paine OUr judgement being satisfyed that the good of the body beauty strength health and pleasure are none of the great goods we ought also to bee perswaded that their contraries are none of the great evills And if our very bodies must not be accounted ours because we cannot dispose of them at our pleasure and because by the undermining of age they sinke and slip away continually from themselves the commodities and incommodities of these fraile tenements at will where our soules are harboured for a few daies as ought not to disquiet us matters of any importance To beginne at Unhandsomnesse if a woman be unhandsome for that sexe is especially sensible of that disgrace let her stay but a while age will bring all the beauties to her row within few yeares and death after That last day draweth neere which will make faire and foule alike strong and weake sick and sound them that are tormented with dolour and them that torment themselves with voluptuousnesse and curiosity Whosoever is much grieved with those incommodities never apprehended aright the frailty of the opposite commodities We must not be vexed for the want of things which by their nature decay and perish very houre There are few incommodities but have a mixture of commodities which a wise lover of his owne tranquillity will pick and convert to his advantage The unhandsome woman shall not be admired but in recompence she shall not be tempted nor importuned as a prey by lust and insolence She hath with her a perpetual exhorter to humility piety and all vertue and to recompence the want of beauty with goodnesse Seldome is unhandsomnesse reproached to women but to them that aggravate with malice envy their disgraces of nature Beauty cannot be acquired but goodnesse may Yet among them that want beauty some are so wise and so good that they become handsome They are commonly more happy in marriage then great beauties for they give lesse jealousy to their husbands and study more to content them Persons of weak constitution are lesse obnoxious to acute sicknesses which many times will kil strong bodyes in three or foure dayes They are lesse tainted with that stupid pride which commonly attends great strength of body Finding themselves inferiour to others in excercises of strength they apply themselves to exercises of wit to which commonly they are more apt As weezels have more mettle and nimblenesse then Oxen there is often more industry and quicknesse of wit in little weak men then in men of of large and brawny limbs for the predominancy of blood and phlegme which makes the body large is the duller temper for wit whereas choler and melancholy which by their contractive quality limit the stretching of growth to a lesser extent serve also the one to sharpen the wit the other to give solidity to the judgement Weakenesse reads to a man a continual Lecture of prudence and compliance for being not able to carry on his designes with a high hand dexterity onely will serve his turne Also that want of strength teacheth him to make God his strength sticking fast to him by faith and a good conscience That way the weakest become too strong for all the world When I am weake then I aâ— strong saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 12.10 Of this Gods children have a blessed experience in sicknesse whereby God makes their body weake to make their faith strong and their soules by the dolours and lingring decay of their bodies susceptible of many salutary lessons for which health and ease have no eares Sicknesse and paine are evill in their nature but they are good by accident when God is pleased to turne evills into remedies to bring a man to repentance and make him looke up to the hand that striketh They are punishments to sin and wayes to death but to the faithful soul they become instruments of grace and conveighances to glory Many of them that beleeved in the Lord Jesus while he conversed among men were brought to it by bodily sicknesses And he when he healed a sick person often would say Thy sins are forgiven thee To give an impartial judgement of their quality and measure one must rather beleeve what he feeles then the cryes and compassion of them that love him and have interest in his preservation They say that a man is very sick when he feeles not his sicknesse Yet he hath so much good time till he feele it If the paine be sharp it is short If it be little it is tolerable If the evill be curable be patient good Cure will heale it If the evill be incurable be patient death will heale it No evill is superlative when one is certaine to come out of it By life or by death there must be an end of thy sicknesse All the remedies that Pagan Philosophy giveth in extremities come to this that patience is a remedy to evills that have none But here Christian Philosophy openeth the treasure of divine comforts which to make the faithfull man patient in tribulation make him joyfull in hope shew him the crown ready for him at the end of the combat In the combat he is strengthened by faith and the comforter whom Christ promist to his disciples powerfully assisteth him in his last agony Or if his triall be prolonged he tels him as Paul buffeted by a messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12.9 my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse By that grace sicknesse beates downe pride quencheth lust weaneth the heart from the love of the world makes the soule hungry and thirsty after righteousnesse Theodoricus Archbishop of Collen with great wisdome exhorted the Emperour Sigismond to have the will in health to live holily as he said when he was tormented with the gravel and gowte Sicknesses give to a godly man a sense of his frailty when wee feel these houes of mud our bodies drooping towards the ground their originall then doe we sigh for that building of God that house not made with hands
eternall in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 Therefore labour and heavy load make us seek to him that saith come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy loaden and I will give you rest Matth. 11.28 Thus evil doth good to them that are good and helps evil men to turne good In sicknesse and dolours Gods children find the peace of the soule and contentment of mind CHAP. XIII Of Exile TO speake of exile after dolour is an abrupt passage from sensible evils to imaginary The world is the natural and general countrey of al men To be exiled is but to be sent from one Province of our Countrey to another That other Province where one is exiled is the Countrey of them that are borne there and of them also that live there exiled if there they get accomodation That particular Province which a nation calls their Countrey is a place of exile to them that are borne in it if they doe not know it as to Oedipus exiled from the place where he was bred to the place where he was borne Children brought from nurse to the mothers house wil cry taking it for a place of exile It is a childish weaknesse in a man to thinke him-selfe lost when he is in a place where he never was before Every where wee have the same nature the same heaven men of the same kind Reasonable creatures should be ashamed to be surmounted by unreasonable in that easinesse to shift Countreies Swallowes hatch about our houses are banisht from our Climat by the approach of winter and they make no difficulty to goe seeke another beyond al the lands and Seas of Europe but men wil cry when they are driven from their chimney corner having the choice of al places of the world which is so large Yet that advantage we have over birds and beasts that al Countries are not alike to them but al Countries are alike unto vertue and to us if we have it for that treasure no enemy can hinder us to carry along with us We may indeed be exiled into an ill Countrey but that Countrey is never the worse for not being our Countrey All lands are in equal distance from heaven the Countrey of gods children God is as soon found in the land of our exile as in that of our birth and sooner too for God is neer those that are destitute and preserveth the stranger Psal 146.9 Are you banisht by a Tyrant Thinke how many persons are exiled from their countrey and dearest relations by their covetousnesse which is the worst tyranny ranging the unknown seas of a new world for many years some to fetch cucineel and pearles from burning climats others to get sables and hermines from the snows under the Pole Some are banisht by others some bythem-selves Nothing is strange to a man when his wil goeth along with it we need but to encline our wil where necessity calls us Impatience in exile is want of a right apprehension of the condition of gods children in the world Heaven is their countrey Life is their Pilgrimage They are strangers even in the place of their birth yea in their very bodys Whilest we are at home in the body we are strangers from the Lord saith Paul 2 Cor. 5.6 Being then strangers in al places of the world one place must not seeme to us more strange then another Wee are never out of our way as long as we are going to God CHAP. XIV Of Prison PRison is the grave of the living There men are buried before their death Liberty is the priviledge of nature without which life is a continual death And it were better to have noe life then not to enjoy it All beasts enjoy liberty some few excepted that have lost it by being too much acquainted with us But as there is need of iron cages to keepe lyons there is need in the world of prisons and captivity to keepe in men that wil not be ruled by reason equity And though many be imprisoned wrongfully if they have the grace to look up to God the disposer of their condition they will acknowledge that God is wise to use them so and that licentious humour hath need of restraint Or if they need it not they have lesse need to afflict themselves A well composed spirit is free in the closest Prison bonds and fetters cannot restraine his liberty The worst fetters are covetousnesse ambition lust appetite of revenge wherewith many that seeme free are kept in bondage Who so can shake them off is at liberty though he were in a dungeon Such was St. Pauls freedom in a chaine 2 Tim. 2.9 I suffer trouble said he as an evill doer even unto bonds but the word of God is not bound The grace of God also cannot be bound and many times God makes use of the bonds of the body to set the soule free A man is very hard tyed to the world if he cannot be untied from it by a long imprisonment Prison will bee lesse tedious to him that remembreth that it is his natural condition That he was nine moneths Prisoner in his Mothers wombe That after his death he shall be made close Prisoner under ground And that as long as he liveth he is loaden like a snaile with his owne Prison which he carrieth about slowly and with great incommodity a clog put by our wise Master to the swiftnesse and quick turnes of our spirit which is alwayes in action Think how fast our thoughts go which in a moment travell from one end of the world to the other and how high our designes will rise whose wings we are constrained to clip and abruptly to pull down our soaring minde to look to the necessities of our craving body and then acknowledge that our body is a very Prison confining the spirit which is the Man The imprisonment of that body is no great addition to its captivity It is but putting one boxe within another And if we looke about us how much captivity do me meet with in society Is not ceremony a slavery which is multiplyed and diversifyed at every meeting Are not honours golden fetters and businesses Iron fetters Do not publique factions enslave particular interesses and spread nets for the conscience Many times that captivity is avoided by that of the Counter and the Fleet. To many their prison hath been a Sanctuary and a strong hold against the dangers of a turbulent and destructive time No dungeon is so close as to keep the faithfull soul from rising to God They that are forbidden the sight of their friends may converse with God at any time which is a great liberty And the Lord Jesus who recommends that worke of mercy to visit the prisoners himselfe doth carefully practise it comforting by his Spirit his disciples to whom the assistance of men is denyed and shewing them heaven open when they are lockt and bolted In effect it is the body not man that is imprisoned The Jalour may keepe out a
God in his breast that he should invite and then entertaine him there by a pure service a sincere love an entire cōfidence Many by much good Kindred many Friends and relations become lesse vertuous and industrious getting the ill habit of the Italian Signora's who walking in the streets beare more upon the armes of their supporters on both sides then upon their owne legs They have need to be sent from home to learne to stand alone without a Nurse to hold them None can be owner of any measure of stedfastnesse and content that makes all his support and satisfaction to depend of his neighbours That man hath more content in the world who having confined his desire to few things troubleth also but few persons and is desirous of Friends to do them not to receive of them good offices regarding their vertue more then their support When we have got good Friends we must be prepared to lose them Death separateth Friends and disolveth Mariages When that happens wee must remember without trouble or amazement that those persons so deare to us were mortal but indeed that should have bin remembred before A Philosopher visiting his neighbour who was weeping bitterly for the death of his Wife left him presently saying aloud with great contempt O great fool did he not know before that he had married a woman not a goddesse After we have condemned that cruel incivility yet must we acknowledge that it is a folly to lament for that which we knew before to be unavoydable Yet after all reasons when love hath bin very deare the separation cannot but be very sad Teares may be permitted not commanded to fall And after the duty payd of a mournful Adieu to the beloved person we must remember upon what terms and condition we hold of God that which wee love best even to leave it at any time when God redemands it And if besides we have good ground to hope that the person departed is received into peace and glory we must praise God for it which we can hardly do as long as our obstinate mourning repines against his will Lamenting for those that are well is ignorance or envy or selfe love If we would not rejoyce when they were in affliction why should we afflict our selves when they are in joy It is some recompence for the death of our deare Friends that our enemyes are mortal as well as they A wise man will consider his enemyes as rods in Gods hand and minde the hand rather then the rod. To destroy our enemies when they are in our power is a childish folly for so will Children burne their Mothers rod as though there were no more rods in the world Our enemies oftentimes do us more good then our friends for the support of our friends makes us carelesse but the opposition of our enemies makes us wary and industrious They make us strong and safe for they make us flye to God In nothing wisedome is more seene then in judging of an adversary A great serenity is requisite that feare make us not think him more dangerous then he is and that pride make us not despise him blinding our eyes not to see the good and evil that is in him and what harme he may do us It is a common and useful maxime for the conduct and tranquillity of mans life that there are few great freinds and no little enemyes When enemies are reconcileable all things past must bee taken to the best by charitable interpretation When there is no possibility of reconciliation al things to come must be taken to the worst both to strengthen us with resolution within and to encounter the evill without by prudence and vigorous wayes In the reconcilement we must pardon freely receive ill excuses and if there be an offence which cannot be excused never mention it The remedy of injuries is oblivion If an enemy can neither be mitigated by charity nor overcome by strength nor avoyded by prudence there remaineth still unto the wise Christian an intrenchment out of which he cannot be forced which is a good conscience and the peace of God in it These he must cherish and keep fast not onely as his last intrenchment but his onely possession and the strong hold only worth keeping It is impregnable as long as faith and love are the Garrison CHAP. XVI Of Death IT is the subject of which Seneca speakes most and of which there was least for him to speak for being doubtfull whether Death destroyed the soul or released it Mors nos aut consumit aut emittit and being more inclined to the first Opinion it was better for him neither to speake nor to think of it But what others of his rank that had reasoned before him about the immortality of the soul had quitted themselves so meanely of that task that out of their labours in that field he could not reape any satisfaction of his doubt This is the grand priviledge of the Christian that he seeth life through Death and that the last limit of Nature is the date of his franchising and the gate of his felicity and glory Death that moweth downe all the hopes of this world perfecteth Christian hope Death is the separation of body and soul It is the returne of these two parts of man so different to their several principles Eccles 12.4 Then the dust returneth to the earth as it was and the spirit returneth unto God that gave it Who disposeth of it either in mercy or justice Death is the last Act of the Comedy of this world To every one Death is the end of the world in his own respect In one sense it is against nature because it destroyes the particular being In another it is according to nature for it is no lesse natural to dye then to live Yea Death is a consequence of life we must dye because we live and we dye not because we are fick and wounded but because we are animals borne under that Law Wherefore considering Death in the natural way as Charron doth I approove what he saith that we must expect Death in a steady posture for it is the terme of nature which continually drawes neerer and neerer But I cannot approove that which he adds that wee must fight against Death Why should we fight against it seeing we cannot ward its blowes It is more unreasonable then if he had said that we must fight against the raine the winde for wee may get a shelter from these none from that Wherefore as when it raines wee must let it raine so when Death is coming and it comes alwayes wee need but let it come not thinking it more strange to live then to dye In stead of fighting against Death wee must acquaint our selves with it Indeed they that feare Death must fight against that feare Of them that feare Death there are two sorts Some feare it for its owne sake Some for that which comes after The former which are more in
divisions and disputations whether it be a vertue moral or intellectual contemplative or practical Whether the actus elicitus of prudence be to know or to will and what difference there is betweene acting and doing Goodly instructions to forme a Councellor of State and to underprop a tottering Commonwealth Could these Doctors have done worse for themselves if they had undertaken to justifye the ordinary reproach against learning that prudence lyeth out of the circuit of Schollership and that it is incompatible with learning This they justifye more yet when they passe from contemplation to practise For in Councel though but a meane corporation tradesmen many times will speake more pertinently thet great Scholars Of this the fault lyeth not in Learning which is the right way to Prudence but in not choosing the right learning for prudence and applying ones mind to other things For neither Transcendents nor Modals not Hesychius nor Suidas nor Apogees nor Excentriques teach a man wisedome It were a wonder if they that never learned wisedom understood it There are two wayes to get it Science and Experience These men have neither that have spent all their study about Syllogisms or Horoscopes But take me a Scholler that hath made prudence his study and bent all his learning to that marke seeking it first in Gods Book the spring of all wisedome then in the writings of wisemen both antient and late and in history which is the Mistriss of life Let him study men and business as well as Bookes Let him converse with the wisest and best versed in the world and consummate himselfe in experience When such a man shall speake in a Councell of State among unlearned men it will appeare how rash and injurious that sentence is that learning and prudence are incompatible and how farre the learned go beyond the ignorant for deepe insight into businesses and healing or preventing publique evills Because we seek here the just price of things we must not attribute too much unto Science and Prudence These two together make a goodly match By knowledge and and wisedome a man differeth from a beast But both are subject unto vanity For knowledge take the verdict of two the most learned of all the Canonical writers Solomon and St. Paul The first will tell you He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow Eccl. 1.18 The other Knowledge puffeth up 1 Cor 8.1 Sorrow pride are the ordinary effects of Learning but when it meets with a strong and meek spirit upheld with Gods grace Pride will easily get into those that have some but little learning for it is a point of ignorance for one to think he is learned when he is not But when we are advanced in learning we learne that we know nothing and discover the uncertainty of sciences that they performe not what they promise that new writers give the lye to the old Eccl. 12.12 that of making many Bookes there is no end and much study is a wearinesse of the flesh A wise man that will reape from learning utility and content must expect no more of it then it can afford He will deale with learning as with money he will not be a servant to it but make it his Servant When he is past the drudgery of the Schoole he will if he can make his study his pastime not his taske Prudence is no lesse subject to vanity then Learning but rather hath more uncertainty For sciences have certain objects since they consider universals which are alwayes the same what change soever happen in the particulars But prudence having no object but particular things casual and uncertaine cannot have but an uncertaine seat upon such an unstayed bottome for though there be generall rules of prudence they must continually be bowed and made longer or shorter according to the accidents and circumstances which being every where different require also every where a different manner of conduct After a wise deliberation an industrions managing of a businesse an unfortunate end many times will follow How oft hath the most mature prudence bin overcome by folly and precipitate rashnesse Of which the principal cause is the provocation of Gods jealousy by humane wisedome when it grows to presumption Isa 24.15 Woe unto them that seeke deep to hide their counsell from the Lord and their workes are in the dark and they say Who seeth us and who knowes us For God who is called onely wise by St. Paul Rom. 16.27 for which he will have him to be glorifyed for ever is highly offended when any pretends to share in that title which is his onely and takes a delight to blow upon projects made up with great art to shew to the wise of the world that they are but fooles To judge wisely of the businesses of the world we should see the wheels inward motions of them but they are hidden from us We can hardly pry into the counsels of men how can we penetrate into the Decrees of God those great and secret motions lockt up in the closet of his wise providence In the greatest revolution of our age we are eyewitnesses how the wisest counsels of a party have alwayes turned to their ruine and the faults of State on the contrary party have alwayes bin fortunate To one side prudence and imprudence have bin alike pernicious To the other prudence and imprudence have bin alike advantageous Let us looke up to God whose wayes are not our wayes and his thoughts are not our thoughts and against whose will no strength and no counsel will hold The future being to us a dark empty space where we see nothing no wonder that humane prudence seldome hits right in her forecast for the future The prudent man hath as much advantage over the imprudent as one that hath good eyes over a blind-man but when both are in the darke one seeth no more then the other Many future events are as dark to the wise as to the unwise And when wisedome is most cleare sighted it can but regulate the counsels but cannot dispose of the events The wiseman hath this benefit of his wisedome that if his counsels succeed well he can make good use of prosperity And if his good counsels have an unhappy successe either he declines the blow or gets a lenitive to it by prudence and patience or he makes advantage of it for some good and which way soever the staffe fall he never repents of a good counsell Of all the acquisite endowments of the understanding Prudence is the best therefore beyond all comparison more precious then all the goods of body and fortune But together let us acknowledge that it hath a short sight and a tottering bottome Wherefore the great precept of wisedome is to mistrust our wisedome and repose ourselves upon Gods wisedome and love Let our prudence depend altogether upon his providence It is a great abatement of the price of humane prudence that death cuts it off with the thred of life Eccl.
with covetuousnesse desire of superfluities but keepe within the bounds of nature and necessity Where there is a compleat vertue there is neither fortitude nor temperance Therefore these are not in God who is the original vertue He hath no need of fortitude for he hath no danger to overcome and no use of temperance for he hath no affection that need to be restrained whence it followes that man also when he is once brought to his perfection of vertue which is his full union with God shall have neither fortitude nor temperance as having no evill to oppose and no â—upidity to represse Justice is the onely vertue that outliveth the body and lives eternally with God not that justice establisht in the Polities of the world for in heaven there is neither selling nor contracting which are the subjects of communicative justice And as for the distributive which hath two offices to recompence vertue to punish vice humane justice exerciseth but the last recompence is accounted an act of grace and is rare Whereas Gods justice regardeth so much more reward then punishment as a thousand is more then three or foure as it is exprest in the precept against Idolatry Exod 20.5 and 6. That justice of good Christians which outliveth temporall life is the uprightnesse of their will which in the passage of the soul to the high seat of perfection will be wonderfully mended and sublimated While the spirit liveth in the flesh though the will were never disturbed from its uprightnesse by the tumult of passions yet it could not be raised to a degree of uprightnesse above the proportion of the illumination of of the understanding Now the understanding is obscured in this world with a mist of errour receiving but some few rayes of the Sun of righteousnesse through a cloud I like very well the setting forth of a faire and compleat notion of Vertue filling the soul with joy which is not a chimera and a fiction for every good soul must once be really brought to that perfection in his finall union with God who is the soveraigne good of man the originall perfection and vertue in substance But I wish together that while we set before the eyes of men a high character of a wise vertuous man compleat happy in himselfe we put them in mind of the fickly condition of mans soul as long as she dwels in the flesh that none be deceived with those Idea's of imaginary perfection which Pagan Philosophers ascribe to the wise man living according to nature To the Christian onely it becomes well to describe vertue in a perfect character 2 Pet. 1.4 partaker of the divine nature and though it be above his pitch yet to aspire to it for he knowes whom he hath beleeved and where he may get a perfection exceeding abundantly above all that he askes or thinkes according to the power that worketh in him Ephes 3.20 yea so farre as to be filled with all the fullnesse of God But in the mouth of Philosophers that expect no perfection but from their own nature nor a longer duration of their vertue then of their natural life and of such men there are more in the world then one would think those high expressions of the greatnesse and happinesse of a vertuous man are illegitimate unsuitable and unbecoming for either these characters are true and then they were not made for them or they are productions of a wild and phantasticall pride Seneca describing his wise man saith that he cannot be shaken with any thing and that he marcheth equal with God Alas poore little man Do but discharge a pistol at his eares though charged with powder only you shall see that stout champion which marcheth equal with God mightily shaken and discomposed in his march There needs but the sting of a tarantola to make him skip and dance put his vertue out of tune and turne all his Philosophy upside downe Another was saying virtute mea me involvo I wrap my selfe about with my vertue as if it had bin an armour cannon-proofe and thunderbolt proofe Though it had bin so and impenetrable to temptation besides yet it is not impenetrable to death for these disciples of nature onely pretend not to extend the life of their vertue beyond the life of nature To what purpose all those bravado's for a mortal vertue that the wiseman is alwayes free alwayes rich alwayes happy that he wants nothing because he hath himselfe that he is King of the universe and Master of fortune that in all conditions he is safe stedfast and content and finally that he is alwayes in health but when he hath got a cold as Horace jestingly addeth This is stretching man beyond man That wiseman after al that flourish is a calamitous creature weak needy unstable subject to erre to sinne to suffer and in the end to dye Certainly if among all the Philosophical vertues humility and faith be wanting they serve but to puffe up a man and make him burst and perish Let us before all things humble ourselves before God who is the onely wise and righteous mistrusting ourselves and putting our trust in him Then let us seeke wisedome in his wisedome and to frame our spirit upon it let us implore the assistance of his Spirit After that moral vertues will become easy to learne and pleasant to practise They shall obtaine a good reward in heaven and in earth work their own recompence CHAP. XX. Of the World and Life HAving lookt within and about us and beheld the course of the World in its parts let us now behold it in the great Which may be done two wayes Either in the outward scene of mens actions or in the inward motions of Gods providence that are visible to us in some part In both these respects the World is incomprehensible in the former for its great variety and confusion in the latter for its infinite deepenesse The outward face of the world is a stage of wickednesse vanity and misery Wickednesse is universall for although in Policies there be some face of order and justice without which no society can subsist Yet if one looke to the reality of the actions and intentions of men the two great trades of the World are fraud and oppression There is a general maxime which every man denyeth and every man in a manner practiseth That wisedome consisteth in thriving by other mens harmes Publique and private contracts bonds sureties and hostages are fences against that generall inclination and yet many times are imployed to execute it All securities both by strength and law are grounded upon that Opinion that none abstaines to do harme but he that wants power In the best composed States governed with most integrity particular interesse beares the sway howsoever publique good be pretended Wherefore that is the best forme of State where the more good the Soveraine Magistrate doth to the publique the more he advanceth his owne private interess Rapine is the
cheerefully out of hope of eternal felicity after death It is pittiful to behold what paine these old Philosophers tooke to arme themselves against death and how the seeming lofty peace wherewith they marcht towards death is like that of a starting hors blowing and pricking up his eares at the entry of a dark place whereas the good Christian goeth gently to it with simplicity joy and considence Why the Pagans knew not whither they went and conceived of death as of a ghastly darke denne but the right Christian seeth his way and thinking of death saith I know whom I have beleeved He gives thankes to the father who hath made him meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in light His desire is to depart and to be with Christ remembring that Christ went before and sayd to all his disciples both present and to come when he went up to heaven I goe to prepare a place for you So whereas pagan Philosophy seekes comforts against death Christian Philosophy presenteth death as a comfort Fellons condemned to the gallowes heare not with so much joy the grace and pardon that giveth them life as good Christians heare the glad tidings of their approaching death for death is a grace unto them since it opens them the prison doore If they be dangerously sick the way to cheere them up is not to say Be of good heart you shall recover but be of good heart you must dye for they conceive of death as of their haven of salvation after a stormy voyage That hope sweetens all their Adversities It is a corke that keepes up their spirits above the most raging waves not suffering it to sinke under any sorrow It is the charme of all cares which makes the Christian to say when he loseth his earthly goods Now I am unloaden of that luggage I am the lighter for my journey to the Kingdome of heaven and there I have my true goods which no man can take from me So were the Hebrewes disposed that received with joy the spoyling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance Heb. 10.34 This also makes the Christian disgest injuries and contemne contempt saying Earth is not the Country where am I to expect glory I shall have enough in heaven shortly I am little concerned in the Opinion of men during this life of few dayes and I am yet lesse concerned in that they shall say of me after my death Of all sufferings the sufferings for righteousness have the surest comfort Christ saying so expresly Matth. 5.10.12 Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousnesse sake for theirs is the Kingdome of God Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven Since by many afflictions we must enter into the Kingdome of heaven we perceive by the thornes which we were told we should finde in the way that we are in the right Any way is pleasant that leads us to salvation Finally this heavenly hope abates the tediousnesse of sickness and the chagreene of old age For the godly soul finding her house of flesh ready to fall prepareth herself with joy to come out at the breach and finding the race of this life neere done stretcheth herselfe towards the prize which the great Saviour holds her up from heaven Thus faith is found to be the most sublime Philosophy for it takes off the heart from things transitory and raiseth it up to the eternall It is the chiefe valour for it is victor over dolour and armeth the weake with invincible strength It makes the Christian to walke in the midst of calamities with a resolute and undanted march and to grow familiar with death finding in the principall subject of humane feares the great subject of his confidence and joy and in the cross a ladder to glory OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT OF MIND FIFTH BOOK Of Peace in Society CHAPTER I. Of Concord with all men and of Meeknesse OUr first Book hath bin imployed about the Peace of man with God The three following about the peace of man with himselfe To confirme himselfe in these his next care must be to have peace with his owne kind For in vaine should we hope to keepe peace with God and our owne selves if we live in wilfull discord with our neighbours these are things altogether inconsistent If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seene how can he love God whom he hath not seene and if a man be at odds with God and his brother how can he have peace at home We are commanded to follow peace with all men Heb. 12.14 Which because it is more easy to follow then to obtaines the Apostle St. Paul prepares us to meet with opposition by these termes If it be possible as much as lyeth in you live peaceably with all men Rom. 12.18 Now what lyeth in us with Gods assisting grace to live peaceably with all men is exprest in two counsels in the words next before The first is to recompense no man evill for evill It is impossible to go through the croud of the world and not to be thrust Fooles returne the like and thrust againe and thrusting brings striking The wise passe quiet and unconcerned As we must beare one with another for Gods sake that commands it we must do it for our own sake to keep tranquillity of mind the losse whereof cannot be recompenced by any satisfaction of revenge if revenge ever brought any Most part of injuries consisting in opinion the remedy consisteth in the same They hurt not him that resents them not Injuriarum remedium est oblivio But if the injury bee such that we must needs resent it Pardoning is the best resenting and the honorablest revenge of all is To recompence good for evill The other counsell is Provide things honest in the sight of all men For whether we live with good or bad men which are the greater number it were impossible for us to compasse all our designes if they were layd open in the sight of all men they must be so honest that when they are ripe for the knowledge of all men we need not be ashamed of them And if in the following of honest and beneficial designes we meete with opposition we must behave ourselves with so much meekenes that we make it appeare that we seeke not our advantage by the ruine of others and together with so much vigour that none be encouraged by our pusillanimity to crosse us There is no harder taske then to keepe ourselves free from dissention in this age which may be called the reigne of discord Here then wee must bestow the greater care to keep tranquillity in our conversation and more in our minde As for publique quarrels a wise man will wedde himselfe to no party with eagernes and if it be possible he will looke upon the game and himselfe