turned into joy we may rejoyce in that very thing we sorrowed for and our waters of Marah may become sweet and pleasant by our drinking Afflictions are sent to exercise Our Faith by believing most assuredly God's promises of his deliverance from them Our Hope by assuring our selves of the reward promised to them that suffer patiently and Our Charity in suffering willingly for his sake who loved us and suffered for us And shall this be performed by our endeavours to find out means to forget our sufferings But besides Theological virtues there are Moral too to be exercised thereby and even one of them is sufficient to awaken us and rouze us up from this dull passion of sorrow Let us consider a little the worldly esteem of a noble undaunted Spirit beyond a degenerous and poor one Fortitude is that Heroick Moral virtue which can never shew it self so illustrious as in Adversity There are none of us but would willingly be thought to have it inherent in us and then is the proper time to shew it for it must be a tempestuous not a calm Sea which shews the excellency of a Pilot. Fortitude has already been owned to shew more of its reality in a passive than an active dress and oftner appears with the Shield the Buckler and the Helmet than the Spear and the Sword Let us think with Theophrastus that the World is a great Theatre and that each of us is often called forth upon the Stage to fight with poverty sorrow sickness death and a number of other miseries rather then with one another and besides our Brethren Spectators God himself from above beholds every one how he performs his part and that besides an hiss or a plaudite here we must expect a Crown or Prison hereafter And then let us fight valiantly and think through him that will assist us to master and subdue all adverse Fortune that is in two words to contemn the World and that is truly the definition of Fortitude or a great mind We have great known Enemies to contend with here the World the Flesh and the Devil and we have once vowed to fight against them all and to continue Christs faithful Servants and Souldiers to our lives end Indeed when we wrestle not only against Flesh and Bloud but Principalities and Powers we had need take unto us the whole Armour of God that we may be able to stand viz. the Breast-plate of Love and for an Helmet the hope of Salvation c. But shall one of these Enemies the World when there were more danger from her smiles overcome us with her frowns If ever we think to obtain a Crown of Righteousness after the finishing of our course we must like St. Paul who often uses Military terms to encourage us Fight a good fight and let us by our very Fortitude master a puny sorrow But if neither Honour nor Glory nor the sight of God or man will herein move us but that we are ready to yield and let our affections carry us away like Captives and Slaves there is yet this reserve left us to become at last resolute from fear and tell our selves what Ioab told David that if we do not Arise from our sorrow and speak comfortably again it will be worse unto us then all the evil that befell us even from our youth until now And that worst evil is death if Satan be not deceived in our sense of humane evils who says All that a man hath will he give for his life Immoderate sorrow will macerate these beloved Carcasses of ours and although before pain makes us sensible of our follies and it be generally too late we are apt to take some kind of pleasure in nourishing and feeding our diseases yet methinks in this where we have none of our senses to please which is chiefly looked on in the World we might take the words of wise and experienced persons David telleth us his eyes were consumed with grief yea his soul and his belly and he tells us of those who are brought low through oppression affliction and sorrow St. Paul tells us Worldly sorrow worketh death Solomon hath told us that by sorrow of the heart the Spirit is broken and that a broken Spirit drieth the bones and the wise Son of Syrach in plain terms that sorrow hath killed many and that of heaviness cometh death For let every man assure himself that if he cannot in some sort overcome and master this Tyrant by his own struggling and God's gracious assistance he is become such a Slave to his passion that he is not to expect an enfranchisement from Time but Death I do agree with him who said Nisi sanatus sit animus quod sine Philosophia non potest finem miseriarum nullum fore quamobrem tradamus nos ei curandos if Deo were placed in the room of Philosophia For now at length I must conclude that although Moral Philosophy may be sometimes admitted as an Handmaid and Attendant on Divinity and 't was not for nought that St. Paul termed Religion Our reasonable service yet we must take care we look upon the one in no other respect than under the precepts and dictates of the other I for my part am apt to think and do indeed rest convinced that no man ever yet cured these wounds of the Soul by the bare strength of natural Reason and Argument though even that be the immediate gift of a Divine power without some more special Light or influence from above For although many of the ancient Philosophers and Sages who perhaps knew not God aright have seemed from their profound knowledge and reason to reduce their minds unto a most constant calm serene temper I rather think that tranquility of mind in them was the gift of that God they rightly knew not as a reward of their Moral virtues industriously acquired than the native off-spring of their knowledge I my self am a man like other men and I have been ever sensible by intervals in my serious thoughts of the vanity of this World and I may truly say there is nothing in these Papers but what at some time or other occurred to my thoughts before and in those thoughts I have Goliah-like contemned a pigmy sorrow but find as contemptible a thing as it may seem to the best humane reason being sent from the Lord of Hosts who alone is he that wounds and heals there can be no Armour of defence proof against his Darts but what is taken out of his own Arsenal For if contrary to mans experience which hath found that we are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves our wills were present with us and those wills could command our cogitations and our reason to attend them too we might however think what we would or could and dig about and water all our days this crabbed root of Nature and never cause
he has shewed me and in particular amongst the multitude of blessings I still enjoy I have this ready at hand That he has given me and yet left me a consort so every way virtuous and so helpful a sharer in my sorrows that without ostentation or just cause of reply she might well put the same question to me that Elkanah did to Hannah Am not I better to thee then ten Sons Now if any other man want that blessing I am sure he may joyn with me in thanks for this for the dead do not complain that he is yet living and on this side the Grave which is the sole benefit that renders him capable of either having or desiring Indeed adversity has made many men Stoicks in words and to commend death to us but I doubt upon tryal every man would find Satan the truer Naturalist Skin for Skin and all that a man has will he give for life And if I should so far Catechize any man as to ask him to what end he was created I suppose the answer would be to serve God and save his own Soul Now so long as he enjoys all those helps and means which tend to the end for which he was created he has little reason to complain But if there be any man that longs for death more then hid treasure and rejoyces to find the grave and thinks that there only the weary are at rest yet until he obtains that desire if he have but reason left him which is the gift of God too as well any thing he would hardly cast that over-board and be willing to part with it to save or regain all his other lading however he might value it before his losses But to descend to any mans particular losses It is a rule that every privation presupposes a habit and from that every man may find reason with Iob to be content and bless God since he that takes away first gave 'T is true the word habit in no good sence is made the phrase of the World Every one can look upon his tenure of Habenda tenenda without the premisses of dedi concessi but St. Iames calleth those gifis which the Heathens called habits and we ought to look upon all our goods as gifts This was the voice of Iacob upon his Brother's question when he saw the Women and Children who are those with thee The Children which God hath graciously given thy Servant though Esau's reply in case of the Cattel only was I have enough my Brother without reference to the gift St. Paul joyns the having and receiving together What hast thou that thou didst not receive Let us interrogate our selves with St. Paul's question and likewise whether concerning almost all goods of Fortune as I may call them because it was the old denomination there was not a time when we wanted them and were content without them and when we have so done and looked for what is left we shall find a remnant perhaps a surplusage of enjoyments for there is not the meanest person but hath plenteous enjoyment In the case of privation by death there are but few that lose a Friend but may reckon too they have lost an Enemy which may be in some sence accounted a benefit and certainly there are but few from whom God has taken a Child but he has before taken away some Relation from the same person who living might have interposed between him and his it may be most delightful enjoyment And can we be content to part with the one but on no terms to be deprived of the other Shall others make room for us and ours none for others whom perhaps God has designed to advance by our seeming loss And shall we make our Eye evil because his is good to others who is Judge of all the Earth and as the Psalmist says pulleth one down and setteth up another But admit we cannot or will not see our enjoyments elsewhere yet God is so gracious to us that they may be found even in our very sufferings and we might even in them rejoyce What greater cause of joy can any man have than that it hath pleased God to make him instrumental in adding Saints unto his Kingdom of Heaven and undoubtedly such are all Children baptized and dying before wilful sin So as a man in this case might make the like reply to any one who should pity him as Cornelia Mother of the Gracchi after the loss of all her Children twelve in number did to her condolers That none could account her an unhappy woman who had born the Gracchi into the World And 't is a right rational inference for us to conclude that we are no ways unhappy by the translation of our Children into Glory where they are at rest and delivered from the evil to come But this happiness is the peculiar prospect of a Soul disjoyned from the Body and through the casement of the Flesh introduces but a weak and faint light and therefore let us endeavour to look every way for comfort And having considered seriously as I said 1. God's wisdom for us in our choices and our follies in our own Elections 2. That the very foundation of our sorrow we thus build on is but Straw and Stubble and 3. That notwithstanding our sins are the cause of all 4. That we have yet left us variety of Worldly objects sufficiently pleasant and comfortable if we would but make them so not only to support us from fainting but also to go on rejoycing in this our Journey Let us not by moaning or lowing after what we least need disrelish all our other more necessary comforts expecially let us not take up Iacob's resolution of going down into the grave mourning and refuse to be comforted That resolution of noluit consolari applied to Rachel is in my opinion a stubborn temder and methinks every one who is diseased in mind should as readily seek out and hearken after all means of cure as if he were diseased of body unless his Reason be infected too because of the two the wise man concludes the first is harder to bear And therefore although I thought the foregoing considerations of force enough if duly applied to put a stop to this head-strong passion of sorrow yet I was willing to search and try all ways and means to be thought on for a recovery and look into and examine every usual prescribed Antidote against it SECT III. Of the Nature and Origine of Sorrow That the rise of all Passions is from Love this particularly demonstrated in that of Sorrow IN order to which I did in my troubled thoughts endeavour as to define Sorrow what it is so to find out the right and true origine thereof and other turbulent passions of our mind I think it has been truly defined that Sorrow with the rest c. is Animi commotio aversa à recta ratione contra naturam And so they
and his Son Solomon the wisest of men have assured us in sundry positions that understanding takes her possession of the Soul with it and that through his Commandments it is that we are wiser then our Teachers And surely if there were not some defect in every man of these Graces by the intetposition of Sin and Satan he would sooner or later hear that gracious and effectual Eccho resound in his Soul from the Spirit of all true love and comfort Let not your hearts be troubled This is the only rational way I think of cure Redire ad cor and to get that clean swept and garnished that the Spirit of true love may enter in and keep possession against all unruly passions and I dare say whoever tries it will subscribe his probatum to it SECT IV. The Remedies which are ordinarily prescribed against Sorrow considered with respect to their force and efficacy and how little Philosophy of it self can do towards the conquest of it BUt as I said let us not altogether reject every prescribed alleviating Medicine Indeed there are many from our common undertaking comforters and we are ready to catch at them like Reeds in a sinking condition Although they are firm Truths and such as have been used by the greatest Philosophers and Divines towards the cure yet barely and simply considered all or either of them have not the efficacy to bring a man to any safe or quiet Harbour They may keep a man from drowning but withall they may and do often leave him plunging in the deep without the co-operation of some more Sovereign Medicines and are some of them fitter ingredients for a complicated disease where murmuring and repining are joyned with it than bare sorrow which I bless God I never was infected with for I own his Judgments just and am more apt to have St. Gregory's noise in my ears Tu vero bona tua in vita tua c. than the contrary But I mention them as I thought on them and leave them to others to make their best use of them which are these following 1. That death is a common thing and a debt we all owe to Nature and must shortly pay and therefore it should not so much trouble us to behold it in another 2. That we cannot recall our Friends and Relations by our mourning and therefore our sorrow is vain 3. That they whom we love are at rest and happy which is rather cause of joy 4. That 't is not our case alone we are not single but others daily suffer the like As to the first the thing is very obvious to the meanest capacity and perhaps if we did in our serious thoughts oftner behold death he might prove like Aesop's Lion to his Fox not altogether so terrible but yet he will be a Lion still and as Aristotle calls him omnium terribilium terribilissimum and further if we did look upon him at hand ready to seize us then together with us all worldly things would change their hue and put on as it were another face 'T is sure that Death passeth upon all men but as St. Paul says because all men have sinned and from thence it is that death hath such a sting And 't is sin that has made sorrow and trouble attendants on death as well as death on it both for our selves and others And therefore the contemplation of the primary cause of our sorrow should rather take up our thoughts as I have already said than the secundary For the thought of death certainly was never wholly absent from any man in his sorrows nor ever cured any but the true sense of his own deserts have As to the second every man knows it as well as the other neither was there ever any man yet that had his reason left him who thought to revive his Friend or Relation thereby or to awake him with his shrieks and cries It is every mans deepest corrosive that there is no redemption from the Grave And though in truth it be a vain thing to persist in that which profiteth us nothing yet that vanity will not be driven away by anothers barely telling us so or our own thinking or knowing it so The faculties of the Soul will not cease to work though there is knowledge that the operation is oft-times in vain 't is in vain we know to fear death but that knowledge will not cure a man of his fear Certainly the wounds of the Spirit are sharper and more malignant than those of the Body and 't is the same reason must argue us into patience of both But let her set us upon the Rack 't is in vain to cry out it will profit us nothing we shall scarce hearken to her and keep silence This advice best comes when we begin to be weary of our mourning and not before and then only will this reason be hearkned unto In the mean time let us consider if we can All things are vanity which are the causes of our vexation of Spirit As to the third I look on it as a good Christian contemplation and may in the declination of the disease prove a pleasant Cordial but in the state thereof of little prevalence to a cure because it is a thing we never doubted of but upon the first departure of the Soul of him or her who lived well c. think it received into Eternal bliss And therefore if these thoughts had in them any present sanative virtue they would rather keep us from sorrowing at all since they possess us as soon as our sorrow and are contemporary with our distemper The wise Son of Syrach allows us a moderate sorrow bids us weep for the dead but not over-much because he is at rest And St. Paul's advice or caution is that we sorrow not as others which have no hope that is with a desperate faithless sorrow as if they were eternally lost and that Christ should not raise them up at the last day But surely no man will charitably deny but that a strong Faith and a deep worldly sorrow may sometimes possibly subsist together and that there may be spe dolentes as well as spe gaudentes For I cannot so discard my own charity as not to think some very good men have gone sorrowing to their Graves and yet have rejoyced too in the hopes that God will bring with him those that sleep and they shall meet together But for our present pensive thoughts and mourning 't is sure they arise not only for want of this belief or from any supposed detriment happened or like to happen to our Relation or Friend whom we once enjoyed and now are deprived of but to our selves from our present loss For 't is most certain with every man that whenever any object has stollen into and possessed his heart and taken root there if the same be eradicated and snatched away though he suppose it planted in a more pleasant Soil there will immediately
are hidden but wilt thou refuse a present desire of return Shall I think of being forgot when I can say Lord remember me and all my troubles O let me not be forgot in the Land of the living If I have loved too much divert the current of that affection and let it return like a River to the Ocean of Love thy self Turn O Lord my affections as the Rivers in the South then shall I have hopes though I sow in tears to reap in joy Let me only desire thee rejoyce in thee fear thee and sorrow only for thy absence if but a moment Thou who assumedst flesh knowest how frail and weak our nature is thou hast said the spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak Thy Servant Paul by thee hath said There is a Law of the flesh warring against the Law of the mind and that in him that is in his flesh there dwelt no good thing Thou art the only Physician of the Soul and Body thou canst enliven my Spirit towards thee thou canst mortifie my lust thou canst allay all the unruly passions of the mind inflamed from the humours of the body and actuated by Satan O make me a clean heart and renew a right Spirit within me a Spirit of meekness working by true love and charity and in all things a contented Spirit Let all my inherent passions move only towards the good of community and thy glory Thou hast made all things chiefly for thy glory and praise and cannot I look upon the praising and magnifying thee a sufficient and satisfactory end of my peculiar being without either Children Riches or Honour Thou hast given me understanding which is the greater gift shall that be for nought or that my condemnation should be the greater can he that goes down to the pit praise thee But I will praise thy name O let me live and declare thy merciful loving kindness to my Brethren Let me after death praise thee with thy glorious Saints and Angels for to that end didst thou make man of nought Though thou slay me yet will I trust in thee Let me lay so fast hold on thy mercy that no terrours whatsoever loose me therefrom Rather in this World wound and afflict me but be thou merciful unto me and deliver me at the hour of death and in the day of Judgment Prepare me O Lord for greater Judgments and if thou hast decreed to bereave me of all Worldly comforts yet be thou my comforter And if thou seest it good to punish me let me only be as it were a Sacrifice for my Family and let them praise thee in the Land of the living But if herein I know not what I ask grant only what thou knowest good for me whose care and love never forsook them who did not first forsake thee Thy will O Lord be done thy will be done yet thou canst draw me to thee by the cords of Love and spare the remnant which is left Out of the remnant which is left raise up a branch unto thy self that may be an example of piety and virtue unto others One who may fear thy Name and think it a Kingdom to govern himself and rule his passions One that may look on all Graces and Moral Virtues as the greatest Riches and Treasure so as he may flourish likewise here on Earth O accept of the perfect obedience of thine own Son who suffered for me and mine in the room of my disobedience It was not for my Childrens sins I know O Lord thou so soon reassumedst those Spirits of thy giving to leave the filth and rottenness of the flesh proceeding from me They were indeed conceived and born in sin but received a new generation by thy gracious washing in Baptism Thou wilt raise them up again at the last glorious Bodies and shall that Body from which thou causedst them to proceed go into the bottomless pit I have declared thy wisdom and mercy and providence to my Brethren O grant that while I preach to others I my self may not become a cast-away Grant me true wisdom being a pure influence from thee and a brightness of thy everlasting Light The fear of thee is the beginning of wisdom and that fear is to depart from evil O grant that I may depart from every evil way It is wisdom to know what is pleasing to thee it is wisdom to depend on thee and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom Grant O Lord that I may be wise unto salvation then shall I see the vanity of being troubled at all other things Plant O Lord and water this root and I will not fear but that all other necessary goods will spring forth as the natural branches Grant me such sincere repentance and perfect hatred of all Vice that thou mayst be at peace with me then shall I not fear what man or Devil can do unto me Let my ways so please thee that mine Enemies may be at peace with me let me so live henceforth as that if any speak evil of me they may not be believed but at last be ashamed Let me provoke thee no more so that I and mine may be safe under the shadow of thy wings Thou art my shield and my buckler and the lifter up of my head Thou art that chiefest good which the wisest have so much puzzled themselves to find and the beams thereof here are rest and trust in thee The light of thy countenance here will bring more true joy and gladness to the heart than a multitude of Children or the abundant flowing of Riches and Honour Thou art the center of felicity and the nearer any one draws to thee he shall find the gleams of happiness I will flee unto thee with praises Praise the Lord O my Soul and all that is within me praise his holy Name while I have a being will I praise the Lord. Praise thou the Lord O my Soul praise the Lord. Amen A Treatise De ANIMA Containing several DISCOURSES OF THE Nature the Powers and Operations of the SOUL of MAN The Preface HAving received my Being Creation and Form like other men a lump of corruptible putrid Clay yet curiously and wonderfully framed and more wonderfully actuated by a reasonable Soul from whence I become enabled in some measure to consider and behold my self from that intuition there has often arose within me some limited desire that is so far as it should please my God and Creator to illuminate me therein in listening after the direction of the ancient Oracle to learn that Lesson of his and above all things else to Know my self The knowledge of the Soul if it might be known and its strange manner of operation has been that kind of worldly knowledge which by fits as it were I have most of all aspired after and my Soul seemed to will now and then to behold it self but being in conjunction with a Body it has in me as in others run wandring abroad to fulfil
we see hear or feel the Effects As concerning any such like future motion the cause of the Wind whence it comes or whither it goes which the Text tells us we know not that is Reason's inquiry and it must be Reason's eye that beholds ought thereabout And what is from thence brought into the Soul is of some continuance a thing no ways incident to Beasts and that which we call belief which whatever it be continues the same till Reason be consulted again and inform otherwise If I believe the Wind to be fluent air If I believe it to be caused by some fermentation like that in our Bodies upon meeting of divers humors upon the concourse of several Atoms If I believe it is sent out of the caverns of the Earth c my belief in each case continues all the while the same till Reason frame another in my Soul Nay Sense shall not alter a belief without some consult of Reason and therefore a belief once raised or framed do's upon every touch of Sense make a kind of resort to Reason for its allowance or disallowance for its continuance as it is or its change For instance if I once believe that you love me or have a kindness for me If after I hear otherwise from others or see a strangeness in your countenance or feel some hard usage from you before the alteration of this first setled opinion or belief there will necessarily be some consult of Reason whether this or that may not be and yet your Affection continue firm Now if Reason do not weigh things by it self but listens only to the introduction of Sense so far forth as to change my belief without due examination this is the thing which I call Credulity and for which Reason is negligent and to blame Though I allow a Will in Brutes Imagination or Cogitation Memory and such a kind of Reason as by and through Sense co-operating with those faculties guides them in a regular motion and may be said to create a knowledge in them yet without Sense it is idle and nothing And can neither put a stop to the Affections in opposition to Sense nor create any such thing as a belief which is a matter effected above and beyond Sense though not clean contrary to Sense as some would have us to believe and through human Reason and is the consequent in such a Soul only as shall be able to work when the windows of Sense shall be shut up or Sense shall be no more Many Beasts are quick of Sense and so of knowledge I grant and may be said to be sensibly rational but not rationally sensible or so much as to consider their Sense or raise any belief about it And this is the utmost I am able to judge of their capacity for I must confess and acknowledge that could I discern more or could any man discover to me some certain indubitable sign of any such rational motion in them at any time as to give a check to their Affections which is the thing I call Conscience or create a light in them out of the reach of Sense and raise an evidence of things not seen which is the thing I adjudge to be Faith or Belief and which the weakest human Soul is in some measure capable of and I doubt not but Divine Grace does sometimes shine upon such beyond our inspection It would overthrow my opinion of their annihilation or else much shake and batter my belief of our own Immortality The Fowls of the Heaven are of so quick Sense as that thereby perceiving the alteration of the Air by a kind of adjunct Reason accompanying that Sense they know their appointed time as 't is said of the Stork and move accordingly yet being uncapable to foresee or judge of any cause thereof they cannot be said to believe ought thereabout before or after Undoubtedly the Ox may know his Feeder from another man as sure as the Feeder knows the Ox from another Beast but the Ox cannot believe any thing of the Feeder that he may or will hurt him upon a displeasure as the Feeder may of the Ox for that must proceed from Reason's inquiry or information above or beyond Sense Many Creatures when they feel pain or are sick and sensible thereof have such a kind of Reason ready attendant as often effectually works their cure without inquiry into natural causes and so may be said to know the cure but yet without an inspect into natural causes 't is impossible to believe it and therefore 't is that rational sight only that creates a belief and is in no wise the sight of Sense Now when from Reason there is raised in the Soul of man especially with concurrence of some Sense collateral as I may say to the thing believed a firm and indubitable belief of any thing we make use of the word knowledge and say we know and yet in truth there is no more than a belief in the case For instance I know I shall dye Now if I had never seen man dy or heard of death I should by my Reason observing my decay and waxing old as a garment verily believe some such thing but withal seeing and hearing continually of the death of others I rest assured I shall dy and so say I know But my own death being absolutely out of the reach of Sense I cannot properly be said to know so much neither does what I say therein amount to any more than a belief And so it is in many like cases where we say We know as where Iob says as we translate it I know that my redeemer liveth there is no more to be understood than a firm strong Faith the like of St. Iohn Baptist giving knowledge of salvation And so I think is St. Paul to be understood in that Chapter where he mentions knowledge so often Now a Beast neither knows or believes any thing of his own death for that as the causes and symptoms of death are out of the reach of his Reason which only accompanies Sense and is nought without it So his very death is out of the reach of Sense it self and he cannot know it For this reason perhaps some may think them the more happy Creature but if we consider it and make good use of our Reason we shall find that over and above that superlative prerogative of beholding in a manner and so believing future happiness we have here a great benefit and advantage by it above other Creatures and are enabled from hence to quit the Affections which otherwise would be disturbed by the often false alarms of Sense to which they are subject and so keep our Soul from being wounded by any thing from without Knowledge I say is a thing of the meaner extract the product of Sense and in no wise of Reason neither is Reason the parent thereof in any case unless in some case of Conscience a thing so much talked of and which I