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A69655
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Autarchy, or, The art of self-government in a moral essay : in three parts : first written to a gentleman in the university, and since fitted for publick use.
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G. B. (George Burghope)
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1691
(1691)
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Wing B5730; ESTC R4200
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63,862
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179
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when you arrive at the End Be content therefore to be a Jewel though sometimes you lie neglected in the Dust and to shine though none takes notice of you 'T is a greater thing to deserve to be a Prince than to be one actually and he is indeed a King that reigns over himself and his own Appetites though he hath none other Subjects Remember that Vertue is its own Reward here though it had neither Riches nor Honours attending besides it must be rewarded hereafter Those internal Blessings of Peace and Joy are its own and when it hath no other Reward in this World which is very seldom God takes notice of it and his Reward is with him and the greater because deferr'd And therefore upon the whole matter I must conclude That Autarchy is the only way to true Glory here and Immortality hereafter § 12. By this time you must confess that Godliness and Autarchy is nothing else but the Power it exerts over the furious and raging Passions hath usually the promise of this Life as well as that which is to come That her outward Advantages are great as well as her inward Her ways are ways of Pleasantness and all her paths are Peace Length of days are in her Right hand and in her Left Riches and Honours These are the Privileges that Solomon annexes to a Heavenly Wisdom of which Self-Government is the greatest and hardest part I might here further add to its Advantages that of outward Peace with Men for Peace of Mind was proved to be her gift in the last Discourse the quiet I mean Good Will and Neighbourhood she would settle in the World and the Dissentions she would banish out of it It would restore the terrestrial Paradise again together with its pristine Innocence and make that a Tempel of God which is now become a den of Thieves It would cast out the Devil of Hatred and Malice of Self-Love and Covetousness of Pride and Revenge those Fiends that will not suffer us to live in Peace and restore Love Meekness and Humility to bring the Frame of Nature in order again Thus it would make us all happy if we would accept of Happiness and we should while we live here have some Fore-tastes of the Felicity we are to receive hereafter These are some of the Advantages of Autarchy I might add many other and make many ingenious and surprizing Observations thereupon But it is time to retire and try to practise mine own advices Besides I have in some measure discharg'd the Promise made in the First of these Essays and therefore after a brief review of the whole I will descend to the Conclusion § 13. You have heard therefore my studious Dorotheus in the First Paper the Doctrine of Autarchy explain'd together with the several Rules of Practice In the Second I have I hope satisfied you that its Pleasures are true substantial and durable whilst those of Sensuality are delusive uncertain and unsatisfactory That its regimen is not so grievous or difficult as the World would persuade you but that it is attended with the best inward and outward Pleasures In this Last I have endeavoured to shew its outward Advantages as Health Long Life Riches and Honours in this World as well as Eternal Life in the World to come if it fails in any outward Blessing 't is but in order to a greater it naturally leads to 'em and if it sometimes miss let not that be your discouragement Food may by accident cause Diseases and that which is the means of Life cause Death However it cannot fail of Life with the Ancient of days and the Riches and Honours of a Heavenly Kingdom This is the Argument of what I have writ upon this Subject and my Design and great End in all this is to excite you to the Practice of those Vertues included under the Notion of Autarchy and such are Patience Meekness Humility Temperance Continency Charity and such like And to this End I will commend to you these Considerations I. It is a Duty not only according to original and incorrupt Nature in which the lower part is design'd to obey the upper and join'd to it for its service but also worthy of it It is the peculiar Character of a good and wise man of him that lives the Life of Angels here and is design'd to live with them hereafter It is the only way to restore the defac'd Image of God recover our lost Integrity and the Aethereal Seats from whence we are fallen which is our business in this World for we are sent hither to be exercised in Vertue that we may be fitted for Light and Glory And he that doth not answer this end of his Creation in this Life shall sink down in the next he shall have cause to lament that he had any Being here and shall be so much the more miserable by how much he might have been happy II. It is an Exercise that hath the reality of all the true Pleasures that God usually bestows upon the Sons of Men in this Vale of Tears whilst the Pleasures of Sin are false counterfeit and momentary Besides it is a Preparative for future and greater Joys when God shall lift up our poor dejected Souls out of their terrestrial Prisons to the Aethereal Seats and Offices nearer to himself To which add That it hath as you have heard prov'd all the outward Advantages we can expect in this state of Darkness and Death For it hath been evidenced That nothing can tend more to Health and Long Life Riches Credit Respect yea an immortal Name if any such thing can be obtain'd here or is worth the pursuit than this Great Duty Thus 't is an Aggregate of all the poor present Joys of these lower Regions and an earnest of those of a higher and if any thing can make us happy here 't is only this III. It is an Exercise that the World as well as Religion will in some sense exact of us For though Christianity requires stricter Rules of Discipline for the Body by how much its Principles are higher nobler and more remov'd from Corporeity yet Autarchy is daily and in some respects must be used in every condition of Life Every prudent Man must use it and so hath done from the beginning and that Man doth not live who denies himself nothing If mortal Desires were all to be satisfied they would be soon too clamorous to be endured and would in a short time destroy themselves as well as us We daily deny our selves some thing and look upon it to be no burthen but are content so to do Subjects deny themselves the Pleasures of Regality and Princes willingly relinquish the Liberty and Recesses of Subjects The poor are contented â—o fare hard and be without the Varieties of the Rich Man's Table and the Rich Man is forc'd to want the Appetite and Freedom of the Poor We look upon it to be our Fate to be without many things upon prudential and
Interest it serves and as Visionary as the nightly Feasts of Witches As these imagine that they eat and drink and yet still find themselves pursued by the same hunger and Misery so Voluptuousness leaves us as empty as before and raises a greater Thirst than it allays nay more it is lost by Usage and the poor deluded loaths what he hath admires what he hath not is always to seek and is never satisfied he pursues an Aery Expectation and courts a Mistress that when once enjoyed inspires him with new Wants and puts him upon fresh Quests and Dangers Thus the Slave to his own Lusts rowls the stone of Sisyphus and carried by the Gyre of his untam'd Desires moves an unconstant constant Round till Sickness or Age disables him and Death arrests him and carries him to the Infernal Prisons where only he becomes Stationary And thus I have made some Reflections upon that Men call Fruition or Sensual Enjoyment And I have been the longer because if there be any Pleasure in Sensuality it must be in this By what has been said it will appear That there is not a greater cheat impos'd upon Mortals or rather that they impose upon themselves And I will be bold to conclude That Sin begins and proceeds by Delusion and ends in Misery That Voluptuousness is a Masque acted by Furies in disguise which towards the end they throw off and appear in their proper Shape For this is the true End of all Sinful Enjoyments which I must next demonstrate § 12. There is a way that seemeth right unto a Man saith the Divine Preacher but the End thereof is the ways of Death Prov. 14. 12. The End of Voluptuousness is always calamitous and that commonly in this Life Sin brings forth Shame and Sorrow and forbidden Enjoyments tend to the Destruction of that Body they are brought to gratifie Thus Intemperance weakens the Appetite and consequently the Body Thus Lust incites Ammon even to incest and then to hate even to Death till Drunkenness and the Sword of Absalom hath cut him off and so put an end to both Passions And as Sin at last brings a dismal Catastrophe upon it self so each Crime hath its particular Nemesis even in our own Conscience And I dare appeal to Experience whether when a Man's Passion is over and he is at leisure to consider calmly what he hath done he feels not Shame invade him and a natural Horrour dart through his Soul Whether he doth not run as it were from the Presence of God as Adam his Forefather did as asham'd of his Nakedness or sow some thin Fig-leaves together some poor Excuses to cover it Thus 't is at first till Conscience is seared or lull'd asleep and so becomes senseless Custom will take off the Dread of Punishment and because Vengeance seems to slumber the hardned Sinner removeth it far out of his Sight and yet for all this commonly Conscience at last awakes and laying before him the things that he hath done arraigns and condemns him the black Fumes of Atheism which hitherto have hid his Sin and Punishment will at last withdraw and the Deity just and terrible discover himself to his Soul and then learn from his own mouth the Agony of his distracted Mind when he considers that he must leave all his Pleasures Friends and Acquaintance and be carried alone into the dreadful unknown Abyss of Eternity When he begins thus to question with himself What if now at last there should be a God which I have not only provoked but denied a Heaven which I have slighted and a Hell which I have not only chosen but made it my Business and taken pains to procure What if this God shall meet me in the other World and convince me of his Being by his Justice in what a Condition shall I be then Why no worse than eternally and irrecoverably miserable And is it so I find then I have liv'd to a fair purpose I have enjoyed some few shadows of Pleasures and suffer'd many real Griefs I have been cheated all my Life time with Hopes Fears and Expectations and found all at last both Vanity and Vexation of Spirit And now I can perceive no glimpse of Joy no comfort to my Soul but a Darkness and Horrour and the Expectation of a dreadful Sentence when I shall depart hence But Oh sacred Vertue and you hospitable Graces of Integrity and Innocence who alone are able to banish these dreadful Apprehensions and bring home in Peace how have I slighted and despised you This is very probable to be the End of the Voluptuous because the nearer he approaches to his Death the clearer are the discoveries of his Misery yet I know very well that some die as well as live senseless and unapprehensive of future Danger but then their Condition is never the better because their Despair as well as Punishment are transferr'd to the other World The Rich man in the Gospel was never the happier in Hell because he perceiv'd it not before he opened his Eyes in its Flames § 13. I have led you my Dorotheus through the Folly to the Misery of Sensuality of living in Rebellion against the higher Powers of the Soul and working Wickedness with Greediness You may easily perceive upon the whole Matter That there is much Sorrow and very little Pleasure in Debauchery and that Hell stands at the end of it That those poor Pleasures that are enjoyed are little else but Cheat and Delusion and at last leave us not only disappointed but miserable Happy is the Man that can see through the Disguise and apprehend the Deformity and End of Vice Happy is he that by an early Conquest of himself and his Earthly part makes himself capable of the Pleasures of Autarchy of those that are to be found in the Paths of Virtue and the Regimen of the upper Soul And these are they which come next to be considered § 14. It was the wise Epictetus that reduc'd all Morality and his Readings thereupon to these two words mentioned in the end of the former Part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suffer and abstain These two infold the whole Duty of Autarchy and regulate at once our irascible and concupiscible Appetites The First of these tells us we must suffer Injuries Reproaches and Slanders patiently The Second enjoins us Abstinence from Sin I mean and from all Occasions and Appearances of it These two were the constant Doctrine of our Lord first and then of his Disciples only he went beyond Epictetus refin'd and exalted these Duties and made the first especially the hardest of the two one of the Beatitudes Matt. 5. Blessed are ye when men shall revile and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsly for my Names sake Rejoice and be exceeding glad for great is your Reward in Heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets that were before you The Conquest of our selves the Exercise of Self-denial and the patient bearing of Injuries is a