other satisfactions that we were not Born into the World together and therefore it must be expected that one must go before Have we lost a Good and Dutiful Child the comfort of our Lifes and the Hopes of our Family We are not overmuch to bewail our Misfortune because it has happened for his Good God himself has Adopted him into a better Inheritance than we could have provided for him and has adorned him with one of the Virgin Crowns of Heaven as a Reward of his early Piety Rev. 14.4 Were not our Hearts whilst he lived too much set upon him And did we not too much love and admire the Creature to the neglect of the Creator Was it not necessary to have this Bar removed to have our love return into its true Chanel Had not God before tried many ineffectual Scourges and Corrections to bring us to Repentance till at last he was forced to rouze up our sleeping Consciences like the Aegyptians by such an amazing Judgment as the smiting our first born So that all this may be the effect of Gods Love and Tenderness for the Salvation of our Souls and therefore ought to be repaid by a thankfulness and an acknowledgment of his Mercy and not by a Repining at his Providence Have we a Dear Friend snatched away from us by unexpected Death whose love like Jonathans was very pleasant unto us wonderful and passing the love of Women Yet God our best Friend will remain with us his Friendship can be ended by no Period of Time nor can be equalled by any Mortal Affection for he so loved the World that he gave his only begotton Son to Die for us Shall we bemoan and hunker after the senseless Ashes of a departed Friend and neglect to repay our Love to the ever blessed Jesus that Miracle of Love and Friendship who so loved us as to lay down his Life for us Have we lost a bountiful Benefactor who has hitherto liberally rewarded our Industry and upon whose Munificence we still depended for further Advantage It is true we can never pay acknowledgment enough to the Memory of so Noble a Friend and we must Write the sense of his Kindnesses upon our Hearts in indelible Characters but we ought not by that to distrust Gods Providence and to let our Gratitude run over the great Original Cause of our Happiness only by fixing our Eyes upon the blessed Instrument of his Goodness We should consider that it was a Signal Token of Gods Kindness to us that our Benefactor made such early Provision for us and that he remembred us before he went to the Grave where all things are forgotten Under Slander 3. Not to be Impatient or Dejected for the loss of our good Name It is perhaps one of the Killingest Griefs which can befal a Man to lose his Reputation in the World to have all peoples Tongues sounding in his Reproach which he has not in the least merited and to be laying to his charge things which he never did But then he must consider that this is the common fate of many Innocent Men nay the greater part of them that are of the most shining Piety for their Goodness exposes them to the Envy of those malicious Tongues whose wickedness does reproach them whilst the Vertues of the other shines forth with such brightness Our Blessed Saviour himself that inimitable Example of a spotless Integrity had all the blackness of Guilt thrown upon him which the malice of Devils and Devilish men could invent After all his Sobriety and Temperance after all his Mortifications his long and unparalleled Fasting he was reproached as a Glutton and a Wine bibber a friend of Publicans and Sinners Tho' he spake such things as never man spake tho' he so frequently confuted the Jewish Doctors Vindicated Moses from the wicked Glosses they had drest him up in tho' he over and over made it appear to them that he did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil yet he was reproached as a Preacher of strange Doctrines as a Seditious Person that set up for a Temporal Kingdom in opposition to Caesar that he had no Commission and Authority for his Preaching that he had a Devil and came to destroy Moses and the Prophets Altho' he produced Miracles in confirmation of his Doctrines to the astonishment of the Beholders more and greater than all the Prophets down from Moses to Malachy yet they attributed all the efficacy of his Almighty Spirit to the power of Satan and would have him to cast out Devils by Belzebub the Prince of the Devils When therefore we have so great an Example before us of reproached Innocence we ought to account it matter of great Joy to be thought fit to tread in the steps of our blessed Master We fall infinitely short in Dignity to our Glorious Redeemer and therefore any Disgrace which we can suffer must be inconsiderable to that which he underwent who yet notwithstanding this despised the shame Whatever Infamy we undergo yet if we have a good Conscience to bear up our Spirits we may defy all the Censure of the ill-natur'd World when we have his Sun-shine within our own Breasts we need not value all the gloomy Clouds which hang hovering without us 'T is to the Judgment of God that we are to stand or fall and not to that of peevish men and if we can keep a Conscience void of offence in his sight who knows our Innocency we need not much matter how we appear in the vitiated Eyes of others 'T is but the ill Opinion which some good men have of us that need to disturb us and they will shortly be undeceived either by our vindicated Integrity in this World or in the great Judgment of the other when all hidden things shall be revealed but as for the Evil ones we could never expect to have their good word unless we would agree to be as wicked as they It is but a little time in comparison of the duration of our Being before our Innocence will be compleatly cleared and why should we be more hasty than God is who defers the vindicating of his Providence to that great time of Retribution altho' he sees his Being Disputed his Providence Denied his holy Name and Word every day Blasphemed by Insolent and Daring Sinners 4. Loss of Preferments To bear patiently the loss of any Honour or Preferment we expected If we would contemn the World as we ought to do we ought not so to set our Hearts upon any thing we have a mind to here but that we bear the disappointment of it with a great deal of Temper and Indifferency for we ought to consider that this is a World of Contingencies which no one can expect a constant run of Fortune in that there are so many unexpected hits which turn the Scales in every Design we embark in that there are so many cross Rubs which lie in the way that we can never be positively
thought worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ For it shews but a pitiful zeal for our Religion to stand up for it only when we prosper and flourish under it to follow Christ only whilst he feeds us with the Loaves and to forsake him in the Garden and at Mount Calvary This indeed is the hardest Lesson which Christianity teaches but then it is encouraged with the most glorious Rewards Mat. 5.12 2 Tim. 4.8 Rev. 2.10 The Hopes of this made the Primitive Professors of our Religion with the greatest Earnestness even to desire and pray for Martyrdom and to wish for the greatest of Sufferings to the end that they might enjoy the greater Reward The Hopes of this inspired those noble Armies of Martyrs with that brave Spirit and Resolution as made them outface Death in his grimest Aspect that made tender Virgins to leave the Nuptial Garlands for the Crown of Martyrdom that enabled others to go singing to the Racks and the Lyons to smile upon the Gridirons and in the midst of the Chaldrons that did invigorate them with that invincible Patience whereby they wearied out not only the Cruelty but even the Invention of the Tormentors SECT VI. That a Contempt of the World doth consist in setting our Affections upon God and Heavenly Things HItherto Morality has shewed us the way to Contemn the World and the dusky Lamp of Nature has gone before us and afforded us Light enough to discover the Vanities thereof and how unreasonable and dishonourable it is for a Rational Creature to be defiled by those Pleasures or overcome by those Passions which betray him into Covetousness and Excess Pride and Impatience For many of the Heathen World have been eminent in those Vertues we have hitherto been describing or at least they have pretended to them as much as the devoutest Christian They have been so magnanimously Brave as to scorn to do a base thing for the sake of the Honourableness of Vertue and the Turpitude of Vice They have despised all the Riches of the World with the most fastidious Contempt they have been Temperate to admiration have been Modest as the Reclusest Vestal and Chast as the Flamen's Bed they have neglected all proffered Honour and affected the meanest Obscurity they have bore Pain with an invincible Patience and outfaced Death it self with a stupendious Bravery But yet there are some farther Heights which Christianity enjoyns that are necessary to a true Contempt of the World and which the Heathens were ignorant of And those are contained in that former Part of the Apostles Precept Set your Affections on things above and not on things on the Earth Col. 3.2 Now a great Number of them like Men of Sense and Spirit thought these little things upon the Earth were too vile to set their Affections on and that it would reflect upon their Rationality to be enamoured with such fleeting Pleasures But then they were unable to perform the former Part of the Command for they had but very imperfect Notions of those things above which are the true and noble Objects of our Affections These clear Manifestations which God has been pleased to make to us of his Nature and the unquestionable Promises he has given us of an eternal Reward in another Life have in them a Magnetick Attraction to raise our Affections a great deal higher to hinder their dull Weight from pulling them downwards to the Earth and do as it were draw them to another Centre Morality indeed might effect that a Man should not lie groveling upon the Ground and wallowing in sensual Pleasures it would enable him in some measure to stand erect like a reasonable Creature and not to stoop down to every puny Object that lay before him but those happy Revelations which our Religion affords us inspire us with a sort of Angelical Nature joyn the Seraph and the Man together add Wings to the Soul and make her take her Flight toward Heaven This setting our Affections on things above This Spiritual Mindedness which is so much commended in Scripture does consist in these two Particulars I. In an hearty Love of God II. An earnest Desire of Eternal Happiness I. In a hearty Love of God By the Love of God I do not understand here the whole Duty of the Christian Religion for the Love of God sometimes signifies as largely as the Fearing him does that is the doing every thing which God commands to the utmost of our Power and then the Love of God takes in all the Duties of Morality and revealed Religion As the Apostle takes it Rom 8. Every thing worketh for good to them that love God So 1 Cor. 2. Eye hath not seen nor Ear hath heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love him Neither do I mean any unusual transported Spirit of Mind by which the Soul is generally filled with Exultations and Raptures whenever it happens to think of God For these where they are found are rather the Effects of mens bodily Constitutions than the peculiar Symptoms of a true Christian Love which is best when it is constant and even throughout the whole Course of our Lives and does not take us by Fits and Spurts Where-ever such passionate Returns of Zeal are found they are good Signs and Indications of Piety but they are not Piety it self they do usually shew a Man to be good but they do not make him so such heated Transports do no more entitle a Man to the Love of God than an excessive Custom of Laughter entitles him to be a risible Creature But by a Love of God I understand that Complacency which we take in the Deity arising from the Consideration of the Excellence of his Nature and his Bounty to us For any thing may be rendered the Object of our Love either by having very great Perfections and Excellencies in it self or by the procuring us any considerable Benefit Now for both these Reasons we ought to love God or to set our Affections upon him 1. Because he is the most Perfect and Admirable Being 2. Because he is the most Kind and Bountiful to us 1. Because he is the most Perfect and Admirable Being Therefore in order to a Just Contempt of the World and a setting our Affections upon God we must 1. Study and admire the Perfections of the Divine Nature It will be an intollerable shame for us when God has made us alone of all his Creation here below capable of contemplating his Nature that we should think as little of it as the Cattle do that we should employ all our Thoughts about the Brutal part of our selves and think of nothing suitable to that Nobler part of us which alone denominates us Men and that we should drive away out of our Minds the consideration of the admirable Excellencies of the Divine Nature which are the properest and the most worthy Objects of them Not that we should with a bold inquisitiveness pry into the Mysteriousness of the Divine
Title for a Man to Pride himself upon They are just so many Words or Names which will neither make a Man Wiser nor better They are such as an Herald can produce an hundred of them in an hour and such as the poor Barbarous people out do us in for the Style of a little Petty Prince in the East-Indies out-swaggers the Medals of his most Christian Majesty I am apt to think that an Old Greek or Roman who knew no Honour but what followed the Office would have Laughed heartily to have seen our Modern Lists of Nobility to Read of Barons and Counts Marquisses and Dukes of such Places where perhaps they have not one Foot of Land or one jot of Interest These Titles 't is True are Marks of Distinction which the Supreme Magistrate in every Nation gives forth to shew what place each one should take in the Common Wealth and every one is obliged to maintain and to give place accordingly but to think that there is more than this in these Titles or that they do confer a real Worth where there is none before or to behave our selves haughtily upon this Account is only to be Proud of bare Fiocco's and Feathers And so again as for that All-Glorious thing called Fame that great Bait for Ambitious Spirits it is too pitiful a thing to be Courted at so passionate a Rate Obscurity and the not being taken Notice of is a thing which most Men mortally hate but it is because they do not enough consider its advantages But be that as it will yet what Advantage does a Man get by being much Talked of and much stared at by being much admired and praised by some and much censured by others Could we Arrive to all the Fame we aim at it would be but a silly thing when it was attained but not the thousand part of those that desired to be Famous ever could be so There are not much above half a Score Names of so many Millions of People that lived in the Heathen World that are really Famous now and are in every Bodies Mouths such as the Authors of two or three Philosophical Sects as Aristotle Plato and Epicurus or some Great Warriors as Alexander and Caesar and the like and these are known only by the sound of the Names and nothing else to most people but all the other Multitude of Antiquity are either totally lost in their Graves or some few of them known only by some Bookish Men. Nay if a Man has only a Design upon Fame as long as he lives it is but a very little Portion of it which he is like to get For a Man should consider that there are so many Men in the World that every Body is not like to know every Body The Chief Minister of State in France is not I believe Personally known to the thousandth part of that Kingdom nor by his Name to an hundreth part of this and yet how many Millions of Men are there that are never likely to be a quarter so Famous as Monsieur Pompone The Nobility of the Nation and the Prime Officers at Court are those that are the most Famous amongst us and yet they are utterly unknown by so much as their Titles to the greatest part of the Nation and to the rest mostly by Lists and by Hearsay One that makes a very great Figure among us here is never heard of perhaps in Germany or Denmark But if Fame consists only in being known and admired then our Mountebanks and Players are the famousest Men in all the Kingdom and therefore 't is hardly worth any Wise Man's while to seek after that which the Refuse of the Kingdom can so easily attain to Well but is not Fame after Death a Noble Purchase Why truly I think but an indifferent one for a Christian to trouble himself about who expects some other Pleasures after Death than the being talked of The Heathens 't is true were very fond of this a Volito clara per ora Virum was all they had to comfort them against the fears of Death when they wanted the Revelation of another State but they are in some measure to be excused because they found within themselves an impetuous desire of Immortality and could not easily see any other way to effect it but only by this But for us Christians to de spise the Joys of Paradise for the clattering of peoples Tongues is an unpardonable Affront offer'd to our Religion it is a worse Indignity put upon God than the Israelites longing for Garlick and Onions when they fed upon the Food of Angels But waving this Argument what good does Fame after Death do any Man I will instance in the most famous Man of all Antiquity I mean Aristotle for as for Alexander and Caesar I look upon them to be infamously so far beneath that Wretch that burnt the Ephesian Temple two barbarous Butchers of Mankind that cut the Throats of so many Innocent People to Sacrifice to their Wicked Ambition I say Aristotle he that was Tutor if that be any Fame to the greatest Conqueror in the World that had the most Universal Genius of all the Sons of Adam that brought Philosophy into some Method and Intelligibleness which was Cant and Jargon before that was I may say the Inventor of Logick that Great Pillar of Reason that was so admirable a Critick in Poetry that both Epick and Lyrick as well as the Drammaticks will stand obliged to him Eternally that gave the most admirable Rules in Rhetorick which ever the World had or I dare say ever shall have that wrote such a System of Morality as was never equalled till the Sermon upon the Mount whose Physiology was better than the best of his Time and will still be in Reputation and Request when the Cartesius's and Gassendus's shall not be heard of whose Heterodoxies in Divinity are better defended than other Mens Truths whose Books have been Read ten thousand times over and as many Volumes of Comments Wrote or Printed upon them who was almost the only Study of Learned Men for many Ages whose Assertions are taken in most Controversies as undoubted Axioms and are defended every day in most of the famous Schools of Europe to whom we are obliged for our usual distinctions and Terms of Art in our ordinary Discourse such as Material Formal Subject Object c. which were first of his Coyning I say Aristotle that has all this Fame entailed upon him can receive no Benefit from it after Death If he be happy he has something better to busie his thoughts about or if he be miserable it will not relieve him If he has ceased to be he knows nothing of it now and before his Death he could never have expected it So that in short as to all the good this Fame can have done this great Philosopher since his Death he had e'en as good have been Cleanthes Speusippus Crantor or Corneades for whom we are beholding to other Authors that we
know any thing of Next as to the sensual Pleasures of this World that Men run with so great a Gust and impetus to they are all of them so vain and inconsiderable in themselves that one would Wonder that ever Men could be so foolish to put their Souls to such infinite hazard for such Trifles For most of the greatest Pleasures we can enjoy amount to no more than the freeing us from some indisposition and bringing to a State of Indolence or want of Pain What is the Pleasure of Eating and Drinking but only the asswaging the Uneasiness of our Hunger and Thirst which when they are over the Pleasure is gone What is all the delight of our usual Sports and Pastimes but only some Artificial Methods to pass away the Tedious Minutes of our uncomfortable Time Nay as for those Pleasures which seem to have more positiveness in their Nature they are all so Fleeting and Vanishing that we have lost them before we can be well said to have them SECT IV. The Pleasures of this World ought to be contemned because they are Vnsatisfying NOW the Pleasures of this World are Vnsatisfying upon these Three Accounts 1. Because they are not the True Good of the Soul Now the Nature of the Soul as of every thing else can never be satisfied but with that which is or which tends to its own Good We may indeed delude it and put Tricks upon it and quiet its Appetite for some time but its Desires will still spring up a fresh and will be fully satisfied with nothing but what tends to its true Happiness and Perfection Thus we see a great number of Men live on jollily as they suppose in an eager pursuit of sensual Pleasures and think by them to gratifie that impatient desire of Happiness they find their Souls always to retain but when ever they give themselves leave to think they perceive their Minds to recoil upon them they feel those Enjoyments they have glutted them with sit uneasie on them they find that these fleshy Delights are no fit Food for the Soul that the more we cram her with these sort of Dainties the more we starve her For in good reality we may as well think to satisfie our Stomachs with Stones and Pebbles as our Souls with Riot and Luxury we may as well try to Nourish our Bodies with Arguments and Notions as our Minds with Eating and Drinking We may indeed by long Custom bring our Soul into such a Disease as to think this Trash more Palatable than at first but we can never make it so natural to her but that she must sometime dislike it especially when she finds it is like to Ruin and destroy her So that if we would have true satisfaction in this World we should endeavour to satisfie our Souls which are truly Vs and that is by a Course of Vertue and the Study of knowledg but without these let us door possess what we will we shall be miserable in the greatest Glut of Pleasures 2. The Pleasures of this World are Unsatisfying because they promise more Enjoyment than they can give I know not upon what Account it is whither that Mens Judgments are blinded by the Subtilty of the Devil or by the Impetuosity of their own Desires that they always fancy there is more Enjoyment in any sensual Pleasure than they find to be But I appeal to the Experience of all Men if it be not so With what impatience doth the young Heir wait for the Estate he is Intituled to How doth he long to be freed from the Yoke of Parents and Tutors What Pleasure does he cut out for himself in the full Possession of so large a Fortune But when the Good Old Parent is gone to his Fathers and the Impatient Successor has possessed his Place he finds his condition altered not one jot for the better and he perceives now at last that he must undergo the trouble also of that Estate all the Pleasures of which he enjoy'd before What strange Ideas of Happiness does the eager Competitor for a Preferment raise in his Brain what Wealth and Honour what Pleasure and satisfaction does he promise to himself if he can but succeed in his design And when he does succeed how flatly doth every thing Answer his expectation how ordinary do those fancied joys appear and how doth he find himself not at all happier than before his Competition It is needless to give more instances for this Truth because all Men are convinced of it And therefore it is matter of Wonder that they do not with joynt consent undervalue and despise those Pleasures which put such an apparent Cheat upon all Mankind 3. They are Unsatisfying as they have much Evil or Sorrow mixed with them Men may be apt to think that there is no Happiness like the Regal Glory that no Joys on this side Heaven are like those of the Glittering Diadem but alass they never consider what a Pain it is to have the Cares of a whole Nation in one breast to have ones Patience Racked and Tentered by unwelcom Petitions to have ones Quiet every Minute disturbed by importunate Addresses to be forced against ones Stomach upon constant business to be so full of Caution and Dread of treading any step awry to be continually thinking how to balm up differences in State and to reconcile contrary Factions how to appease Enemies and to gain Friends in short how to manage and how to humor so many thousand Peevish and Discontented Spirits Places of Honour are dazling things to look upon and which all Ambitious Men desire but then they do not consider the variableness and danger of them that such Great Men as they are high they are always tottering that then Envy is continually ready to trip up their Heels and that their Elevation will but make their fall the Heavier Riches indeed are things which all Men are desiring Courtiers a begging Church-men soliciting and Tradesmen a getting but let a Man cast up all the Trouble he must take along with them the Pains in purchasing them rhe Care in keeping them and the Vexation he may have in losing them and at length he will find that he shall not be much the happier for them Let the dissolute Voluptuary that thinks he engrosses all the Joys of the World to himself and drinks full Draughts of Unmixed Pleasures that despises all those Melancholy Religious that think there is any other satisfaction besides his Vive hodie let him but compute how much Tiresomness there is in a dissolute Course of Life how much Sickness is undergone by repeated Debauches what a sink of Diseases a Man's Body is made by a Habit of Lewdness and then let him speak of the great Pleasures of such a Life SECT V. The Pleasures of this World are to be despised because they are Cloying and Surfeiting THere is no Pleasure truly valuable but what we may take a full draught of and which our Appetite will serve us