wrought thee for thy perversion thou hadst not at last dyed ours Blessed bee the God of all comfort who having stood by thee made thee faithfull to the death hath now given thee a Crown of life and immortality and left thee a noble patterne of Christian Fortitude so much more remarkable as lesse frequently followed Whether I look into the former or the present times I finde the world full of shrinking professors Amongst the first Christians persecution easily discovered four sorts of cowardly Renegadoes The first and worst whom they justly stiled Idolaters that yielded to all the publicke formes of worship to those false Gods The second Sacrificers who condescended so far as to some kinde of immolation unto those fained deities or at least to a tasting of those things which were thus offered The third Incensers such as with Marcellinus himself came on so far as to cast some graines of incense into the Idols fire The last were their Libellaticks such as privately by themselves or by some allowed proxey denyed the Faith yet with their money bought out this ignominy and sinne of any publick Act of Idolatry Not to speak of those many thousands which fell downe before Solyman the second and held up their finger to signifie their conversion to his Mahometism for ease of their taxations how many do we hear of daily of all nations and some which I shame and grieve to say of our owne who yeeld to receive circumcision and to renounce their Saviour Oh the lamentable condition of those distressed Christians If constant to their profession they live in a perpetual purgatory of torment If revolting they run into the danger of an everlasting damnation in hell Even this gentle restraint puts me into the meditation of their insupportable durance Why do not all Christia nhearts bleed with the sense of their deplorable estate why is not our compassion heightened according to the depth of their perill and misery What are our bowels made of if they yearne not at their unexpressible calamity Ye rich Merchants under whose imployment many of these poor soules have thus unhappily miscarried how can you blesse your selves in your baggs whiles you see themembers of Christ your Saviour thus torn from him for want of a petty ransome Ye eminent persons whom God hath advanced to power greatness how can you sleep quietly upon your pillows whiles you think of the cold and hard lodgings the hungry bellies the naked and waled backs of miserable Christians Lastly what fervent prayers should we all that professe the dear name of Christ poure out unto the God of heaven for the strengthning of the faith patience of these afflicted souls against the assaults of violence and for their happy and speedy deliverance out of their woefull captivity SECT XI THese prisoners are worthy of our deep compassion as those who are too sensible of their owne misery Others there are who are so much more worthy of greater pity by how much they are lesse apprehensive of their need of it plausible prisoners under a spirituall tyranny whose very wills are so captived to the powers of darknesse that to chuse they would be no other than bondmen pleasing themselves in those chains whose weight is enough to sink their souls into hell such are they who have yielded themselves over to be enthralled by any known sin No men under heaven do so much applaud themselves in the conceit of their liberty none so great slaves as they If the very Stoick Philosophers had not enough evinced this truth Divinity should Indeed the world is a worse kind of Algier full of miserable captives here lies one so fettered in lust that hee rots againe there another so laden with drunken excesse that he can neither goe nor stand and in very deed is not his owne man here one so pinched with golden fetters that he can neither eate nor sleep nor at all enjoy himself there another so pined with envy that he is forced to feed on his owne heart here one so tormented with anger that hee is stark mad for the time and cares not how hee mischieves himself in a furious desire to hurt others there another so racked with ambition that he is stretched beyond his own length and lives in the pain of a perpetuall self-extension These and all others of this kinde are most miserable prisoners chained up for ever-lasting darknesse So much more worthy of our pity as they are lesse capable of their own Spend your compassion if you please upon these deplorable subjects But for me wish me if you will as free from any imputation of evill as I was and am from the thought of it wish mee in your free champian where I may have no hedge so much as to confine my eye wish me happy in the society of so dear and noble a Friend but in the meane while think of me no otherwise than as a Free Prisoner And Yours thankfully devoted in all faithfull observance I. N. FINIS Severall Tractates written by Dr. Hall B. of Norwich In and since his Imprisonment and Retiring Namely 1. THe Devout Soul and Free Prisoner 2. The Remedy of Discontentment Or A Treatise of Contentation in whatsoever condition 3. The Peace-maker laying forth the right way of Peace in matter of Religion 4. The Balme of Gilead Or Comforts for the distressed both Morall and Divine 5. Christ Mysticall Or The blessed union of Christ his Members To which is addded An holy Rapture Or A Patheticall Meditation of the love of Christ Also The Christian laid forth in his whole disposition and carriage 6. A Modest Offer tendred to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster 7. Select Thoughts in two Decades with the breathing of the Devout Soule 8. Pax Terris 9. Imposition of Hands 10. The Revelation unrevealed Concerning The thousand yeares reigne of the Saints with Christ on Earth 11. Susurrium cum Deo Or Holy Selfe-Conferences of the Devout Soul upon sundry choice Occasions Now in the Presse and never before Printed Dr. Preston Psa 19 1 2 Psa 104. 24. Cant. 5. 6. Psa 41. 4. 79. 8. 130 3. 94. 11. 3. 7. 89. 48. 109. 21. 86. 4. Psal 71. 10. 86. 11. 70. 6. 60. 11. 71. 23. 31. 17. 40. 14. 5. 8. 119. penult 68. 35. 92. 5. 71. 17. 18. 47. Psa 63. 4. 145. 10. 04. 25. 18. 31. 20. 5. 107. 8. 31. 21. 9. 10. 16. 12. 8. 4. 115. 1. Psal 19. 1. 74. 17. 97. 11. 36. 9. 39. 5. 93. 5. Psa 139. 11 139. 2. 51. 7. 17. 5. 90. 12. 39. 5. Luk. 11. 25 Wisd 1. 4. Psa 26. 6. Ecl. 10. Esa 66. 2. Gen. 18. 27 Pro. 30. 2. Mat. 3. 11. Ephes 3. 8. Job 38. Phil. 2. 6 7 8 c. Rom. 5. 1. Ps 103. 8. Ps 116. 12 13. Ps 119. 18 21 c. Phil. 1. 21. Gal. 2. 20. Cant. 2. 16. Cant. 4. 9. 6. 4 5. Cant. 5. 10. 8. 6. 2. 5. Psal 116. Rom. 3. 4 Psal 119. 8. Carolus Bor romaeus Acts 19. 35. Eccles 5. 1. Judg. 3. 20. 2 Cor. 5. 20 Acts 10. 33. 1 Sam. 25. 24. Job 13. 17. Psa 40. 6. Serm. ad Eccles cautelam 1 Pet. 2. 2. Eph. 3. 9. Zach. 3. Mat. 5. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hos 2. 14. Non enim potest mens attrita oneribus importunitatibus gravata tantum boni peragere quantum delectata oppressionibus solut a. Cornel. ep 2. Rufo Coepiscopo Acts ult Gen. 36. 22 Magna domus homuli Psal 8. 3 4.
THE DEVOVT SOUL OR Rules of heavenly DEVOTION ALSO THE FREE PRISONER OR The Comfort of RESTRAINT By Jos. H. B. N. London Printed by W. H. and are to be sold by George Latham Junior at the Bishops-head in St. Pauls Church-yard M. DC L. TO All Christian Readers Grace and Peace THat in a time when we heare no noise but of Drums and Trumpets and talk of nothing but armes and sieges battels I should write of Devotion may seem to some of you strange unseasonable to me contrarily it seems most fit and opportune For when can it be more proper to direct our adress to the throne of grace than when we are in the very jawes of Death or when should we goe to seek the face of our God rather than in the needfull time of trouble Blessed be my God who in the midst of these wofull tumults hath vouchsafed to give me these calm holy thoughts which I justly suppose he meant not to suggest that they should be smothered in the breast wherein they were conceived but with a purpose to have the benefit communicated unto many Who is there that needs not vehement excitations and helps to Devotion and when more than now In a tempest the Mariners themselves doe not only cry everyman to his God but awaken Jonah that is fast asleep under the hatches and chide him to his prayers Surely had we not bin failing in our devotions we could not have been thus universally miserable That duty the neglect whereof is guilty of our calamity must in the effectuall performance of it be the meanes of our recovery Be but devout and we cannot miscarry under judgements Wee is mee the teares of penitence were more fit to quench the publique flame than bloud How soone would it clear up above head if wee were but holily affected within Could wee send our zealous Ambassadours up to heaven we could not fail of an happy peace I direct the way God bring us to the end For my owne particular practice God is witnesse to my soule that as one the sense of whose private affliction is swallowed up of the publique I cease not daily to â—ly the Father of mercies with my fervent prayers that hee would at last be pleased after so many streames of bloud to passe an Act of Pacification in heaven And what good heart can do otherwise Brethren all ye that love God and his Church and his Truth and his Anointed and your Countrey your selves and yours joyn your forces with mine and let us by an holy violence make way to the gates of Heaven with our petition for mercy and peace and not suffer our selves to be beaten off from the threshold of Grace till wee be answered with a condescent He whose goodness is wont to prevent our desires will not give denyals to our importunities Pray and farewell NORWICH March 20. 1643. THE DEVOUT SOVLE SECT I. DEvotion is the life of Religion the very soule of Piety the highest imploiment of grace and no other than the prepossession of heaven by the Saints of God here upon earth every improvement whereof is of more advantage and value to the Christian soul than all the profit contentments which this world can afford it There is a kind of Art of Devotion if we can attain unto it whereby the practice thereof may bee much advanced We have known indeed some holy soules which out of the generall precepts of piety and their own happy experiments of Gods mercy have through the grace of God grown to a great measure of perfection this way which yet might have been much expedited and compleated by those helps which the greater illumination and experience of others might have afforded them Like as we see it in other faculties there are those who out of a naturall dexterity and their own frequent practice have got into a safe posture of defence and have handled their weapon with commendable skill whom yet the Fence-schoole might have raised to an higher pitch of cunning As nature is perfited so grace is not a little furthered by Art since it pleaseth the wisedome of God to work ordinarily upon the soul not by the immediate power of miracle but in such methods and by such means as may most conduce to his blessed ends It is true that all our good motions come from the Spirit of God neither is it lesse true that all the good counsails of others proceed from the same Spirit that good Spirit cannot be crosse to itself he therefore that infuses good thoughts into us suggests also such directions as may render us apt both to receive and improve them If God be bounteous we may not be idle and neglective of our spirituall aids SECT II. IF you tell me by way of instance in a particular act of Devotion that there is a gift of prayer and that the Spirit of God is not tied to rules I yeeld both these but withall I must say there are also helps of prayer and that we must not expect immediate inspirations I find the world much mistaken in both They thinke that man hath the gift of prayer that can utter the thoughts of his heart roundly unto God that can expresse himself smoothly in the phrase of the holy Ghost and presse God with most proper words passionate vehemence And surely this is a commendable faculty whersoever it is but this is not the gift of prayer you may call it if you will the gift of Elocution Doe wee say that man hath the gift of pleading that can talk eloquently at the Barre that can in good termes loud and earnestly importune the Judge for his Client and not rather hee that brings the strongest reason and quotes his books and precedents with most truth and clearest evidence so as may convince the Jury and perswade the Judge Do wee say hee hath the gift of Preaching that can deliver himself in a flowing manner of speech to his hearers that can cite Scriptures or Fathers that can please his auditory with the flowers of Rhetorick or rather he that can divide the Word aright interpret it soundly apply it judiciously put it home to the Conscience speaking in the evidence of the Spirit powerfully convincing the gainsayers comforting the dejected and drawing every soule nearer to heaven The like must we say for prayer the gift whereof hee may be truely said to have not that hath the most rennible tongue for prayer is not so much a matter of the lips as of the heart but he that hath the most illuminated apprehension of the God to whom he speakes the deepest sense of his own wants the most eager longings after grace the ferventest desires of supplies from heaven and in a word whose heart sends up the strongest groanes and cries to the Father of mercies Neither may we look for Enthusiasmes immediate inspirations putting our selves upon Gods Spirit in the solemn exercises of our invocation without heed or meditation the
There he must lye in an uncouth posture for his appointed moneth till the native bonds being loosed and the doores forced open hee shall be by an helpfull obstetrication drawn forth into the larger prison of the world there indeed he hath elbow-room enough but all that wide scope cannot free him from a true incarceration Who knowes not that there are many differences and latitudes of restraint A Simeon may imprison and enchaine himself in the compasse of a pillar not allowing himself the ease of his whole dimensions Peter may be lockt up in a larger Jayl betwixt his two Leopards as that Father tearms them S. Paul may be two years allowed to be a Prisoner in his own hired house but under the guard of his keeper and not without his chain There are those who upon hainous and dangerous occasions may be kept close under many locks there are prisoners at large who have the liberty of the Tower yet even these last notwithstanding the allowance of spacious walks fresh gardens are no other than acknowledged prisoners Such is my condition to the world when I am at my fullest liberty It is true that when I look back to the straitness of my first and native prison and compare it with the large extent of that wide world into which I am brought I may wel with Isaac's Herds-mensay Rehoboth For now the Lord hath made me room but when I compare that world wherein I am with that whereto I aspire and which I know to be above and look to enjoy I can see nothing here but meer prison-walls and professe my life to be no other than a perpetuall durance SECT IX IF Varro said of old that the world was no other than the great house of little man I shall be bold to adde what kind of house it is It is no other than his prison yea his dungeon Far be it from me to disparage the glorious worke of my omnipotent Creator I were not worthy to look upon this large and glittering roof of heaven nor to see the pleasant varieties of these earthly landskips If I did not adore that infinite power and wisdome which appears in this goodly and immense fabrick and confesse the marvellous beauty of that majestick and transcendent workmanship Rather when I see the Moone and the Stars which thou hast ordained I say with the Psalmist Lord what is man But O God it is no dishonor to thee that though this be a fair house yet thou hast one so much better than it as a Palace is beyond a Jayl This beauty may please but that ravisheth my soul Here is light but dim and dusky in respect of that inaccessable light wherein thou dwellest Here is a glorious Sun that illumineth this inferior world but thou art the Sun who enlightenest that world above Thou to whom thy created Sun is but a shadow Here we converse with beasts or at the best with men there with blessed souls and heavenly Angels Here some frivolous delights are intermixed with a thousand vexations There in thy presence is the fulness of joy So then let the sensuall heart mis-place his paradise here in the world it shal not passe for other with me than my prison How can it Why should it for what other termes do I find here What blinde light looks in here at these scant loop-holes of my soul Yea what darknes of ignorance rather possesses me what bolts and shackles of heavy crosses do I bear about me how am I fed here with the bread of affliction how am I watched and beset with evill spirits how contumeliously traduced how disdainfully lookt upon how dragging the same chaine with the worst malefactors how disabled to all spiritual motions how restrained from that full liberty of enjoying my home and my God in it which I daily expect in my dissolution when therefore I am released from these wals I am still imprisoned in larger and so shall be til the Lord of the Spirits of all flesh who put me here shall set me free and all the days of my appointed time will I wait till this my changing come SECT X. YOu see then by this time how little reason I have to be too much troubled with this imprisonment or my friends for me But indeed there are some sorts of Prisoners which neither you nor I can have teares enow to bewaile and those especially of two kinds The one those that are too much affected with an outward bondage The other those that are no whit affected with a spirituall In the first rank are they that sink under the weight of their Irons Poor impotent soules that groaning under the cruelty of a Turkish thraldom or a Spanish Inquisition want Faith to bear them out against the impetuous violences of their tormentors I sorrow for their sufferings but for their fainting more Could they see the Crown of Glory which the righteous Judge holds ready for their victorious Patience they could not but contemn paine and all the pomp of Death and confesse that their Light affliction which is but for a moment works for them a far more exceeding eternall weight of glory But alas it is the weaknesse of their eyes that they onely look at the things that are seen close walls heavy fetters sharp scourges mercilesse racks and other dreadfull engins of torture and see not the things which are not seen the glorious reward of their victory blessednesse Had they had Stephens eyes they would have emulated his martyrdome Surely whosoever shal but read the story of the mother and the seven brothers in the Maccabees that of the fourty Armenian Martyrs frozen to death reported by Gaudentius and shall there see the fainting revolter dying uncomfortably in the Bath whiles the other thirty and nine together with their new converted Keeper are crowned by an Angel from heaven cannot chuse except he have nothing but ice in his bosome but find in himself a disposition emulous of their courage = ambitious of their honour But alas what ever our desires and purposes may be it is not for every one to attaine to the glory of Martyrdome this is the highest pitch that earthly Saints are capable of He must be more than a man whom paine and death cannot remove from his holy resolutions and especially the lingring execution of both It is well if an age can yeeld one Mole In what termes shall I commemorate thee O thou blessed Confessor the great example of invincible constancy in these back-sliding times if at least thy rare perseverance be not more for wonder than imitation whom thirty yeares tedious durance in the Inqusitory at Rome could not weary out of thy sincere profession of the Evangelical truth All this while thou wert not allowed the speech the sight of any but thy persecutors Here was none to pity thee none to exhort thee If either force of perswasion or proffers of favour or threats of extremity could have