barely without the agitation or help of an affection and so were the first inlet of things to the affections by and of it self it s own peculiar seat were then the proper attribute and adjunct for it and it would or might be said the imagination of the Brain instead of the imagination of the Heart for there doubtless we imagine in dreams and when the affections are most quiet and may seem only to move if they do then move from the imagination But on the contrary we read in Scripture of the imaginations thoughts and conceptions the meditation and study the intents and devices the inditings and reasonings the understanding and errors of the heart After this manner speaks St. Paul that when in a whole days discourse from morning to evening he found he could not move the affections of some of his Countrymen cites them these words of Esaias the Prophet The heart of this people is waxed gross c. lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and should be converted As if the heart must be opened and the affections first move to let in understanding All which considered we shall not find it any absurdity in our Litany to pray against blindness of heart In these places with many more like the Holy Spirit of God pitching upon the affections or the chief seat of the affections for the whole Soul it seems to me to point out some potent if not some leading quality in them And therefore do I think we have not translated that Mandate of St. Paul to the Colossians amiss by these words Set your affections on things above not set your minds I know the original is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 superna sapite or de supernis cogitate and so primarily respects the mind But 't is also frequently applied in Scripture to the affections so our Saviour uses it to St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thou savourest not the things that be of God And although we render it Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Iesus yet it must needs be there meant rather of the affections viz. an humble mind and void of pride because of the immediate subsequent declaration of our Saviours humility And as the Scripture speaks after this manner of the Imagination so it doth also of the Memory which though I have in some sort before defined to be the Treasury or Storehouse of the Soul seated in the Brain yet the affections do seem to ingross that title too and that there is not only a savour or sense but a laying up and keeping in the heart as well as Brain So it 's expressed of the Virgin Mary and our Saviour seems to inferr it by telling us A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things As if all our good or evil acts had their stamp or coinage from the Affections SECT III. That it may seem to be in some affection from Humane conjecture and allowance HUmane thoughts and cogitations seem unto me like Clouds in the Air some vain and empty and like unto Smoak some full and weighty some bright and pleasant some black and dismal succeeding each other in time and place always in motion and sometimes quick and violently agitated upon divers occasions from divers quarters which though they may be said sometimes to refresh the Earth and make her good and fruitful and that without the fall of them upon her she were an insignificant dry heavy lump without activity or cause of vegetation yet certainly those Clouds were first insensibly created raised and sent up from her whom they again sometimes refresh and sometimes drown Indeed to me the affections do no otherwise appear than that Earthy part of the Soul and so we sometimes term it and that not improperly while 't is imployed on Earthly things which though it have not that splendor nor is beheld in any wise so admirable or excellent as those glorious Lights above from which it receives influence yet does rather seem to precede them in time And it may be no false assertion to say of them as the Scripture does of the other they were ordained to give light upon the Earth which was before them The intellect must be owned by all as the affections light and Reason as our present Sun able in some measure to correct their barren churlish nature and quality and now and then dispell those unwholesom and unpleasant mists and fogs springing or arising from them But yet this Earth of ours as all things was created good and in no wise to be wholly rejected contemned or despised and for ought I am able to perceive might be the chief cause why the others were at all Whoever shall tell me 't is some more noble faculty in my Soul than an affection that gives being to this very enquiry I must acknowledge somewhat of truth in the allegation and probably my suggestant may do no less in first acknowledging some kind of appetite or desire in my Soul to enquire and search Desire as it preceded our first unlucky knowledge so it continues surely a fermentation in all our learning at least some affection does and works that which our natural light would not attain to of it self We have a saying Si natura negat facit indignatio versum Indignation is an affection in the Soul and often at least helps aids and assists the more noble faculties to work and so do other affections too as well as Indignation The great pretended Rationalist of the World the Atheist has ready at hand another such like verse and if we talk of God will forthwith bring it out and tell us Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor That it was not our Reason was able to find them or our Imagination to conceive them of it self It may be true in some sort and it might be happy for these Rationalists too if fear could set their intellectuals on work as well as ours since love does not or will not However from them who deny the Author or Inspirer of the Soul 't is agreed that the passions if any part of the Soul must first find him and surely I might no less properly before have resembled Affection to a Whetstone than I did Reason to a Touchstone For though it be Reason which tries whether they be pure or impure false or currant yet 't is an Affection that always give an edge and vigour even to Reason as many of our quickest Wits have owned and that without the rubbing or motion of some Affection there would be little of sharpness or so much as brightness in any other faculty of the Soul SECT IV Of the potency of the Affections THough we should not or do not allow the affections precedency by
which hurry us headlong we know not whither are grounded in opinion and fancy 'T is not barely application of Truth from without but serious consideration of Truth within must cure us And every one perhaps will do it best in following Cicero's way when he could receive no comfort from his friends upon the death of his Daughter Tullia and compose a cordial de consolatione himself This was the way of my cure and this I conceive is best for every man But he who cannot do this of himself may yet think well of that medicine the operation whereof has been experimented by the Author and rather take his probatum est than anothers opinion and to such do I propose my case and the considerations respecting it And because the perfect knowledge of the cause may be sometimes thought as material and necessary as the disease it self and men being apt to take up that exclamation in relation thereunto Was ever sorrow like my sorrow c. and think another mans cause but trivial I am content whoever sees this should know and judge of mine It was thus My Ancestors having continued many descents possessed of a small but competent Estate under the notion of antient Gentlemen left me the eldest and I fear the last of the family to struggle with and retrive their several former incumbrances which my care and assiduity with God's blessing performed I married the daughter of a Gentleman of an antient honourable Family and by her had several Sons and Daughters to reap the fruit of my care as I thought whereupon I was ready to say I had all that my heart could desire And though I might place my Affections on some other things more than was either becoming in bare sobriety or requisite in prudence yet these stole away the strength thereof and I took greatest complacency therein After I began to sing this earthly Requiem to my Soul it pleased God to put some stop thereto by taking away one or two of my children and at length to leave me a pledge of his mercy I trust and not a subject for his future trial of me one only Daughter remaining The death of each of my children were arrows which stuck fast in me and pierced me sore but the last coming on the suddain upon the most healthful and least expected and in the neck as I may say of another made so deep a wound in my Soul that it caused me to despise all other his worldly blessings and to begin to question with him like Abraham Lord God what wilt thou give me seeing I go childless Such an overflowing frothy sorrow it begat in me that the very allaying thereof in some measure I have Reason to impute to the merciful loving kindness of a bountiful good and gracious God assisting and strengthening me 'T is true there yet remain such reliques of the Disease that whenever either the countenance or pretty Sayings of any of my Children offer themselves to my thoughts it causes a chillness over all my Spirits which I look on as remediless in any one who carries about him the least bowels of natural Affection and such I trust may well consist with Grace But I have brought it to that that the smart is no greater than the Wound requires in any one whose bowels are not petrified and whose heart is not wholly senseless and mortified Next and immediately under God's grace this cure has been thus far effected by my own thoughts and consideration if they may be said to have been mine And after the cure I was willing to make them publick that I might not hide his righteousness within my heart or keep back his mercy and truth but declare the same to those who come after Indeed I cannot but here acknowledge that these thoughts or Meditations brake forth very abruptly and it may be in many particulars blame-worthy from the heat within But to hear one man speak feelingly may sometimes work deeper impressions upon an Auditor than another eloquently and a poor Prisoner who has found out a way to free himself from his Fetters may gain more attention from his discovery than a great Professor in the Art My thoughts have been too much busied God knows about the World and besides that my Calling and Profession never required Books adorned with Rhetorick as some of those who may chance to see this know to make their exit in any artificial dress and if in a plain garb they shall work any good Effect upon any other labouring under or in danger to labour under the same or the like disease Let that person then assuredly know that God had a design for his good as well as mine in my particular Affliction And indeed such is the universal care he has of Mankind that every one might if he would reap some benefit in anothers loss He who is not at present assaulted may yet prepare himself for a defence and he who beholds the bruises of another may walk more carefully and take heed lest he fall He who has lost no Children or has none to lose may yet see and consider the vanity of disquieting himself in heaping up riches and knowing not who shall gather them These my rude thoughts which have eased me may possibly incite another to more sober considerations of God's Wisdom and Providence and Man's folly And then I hope that man will not blame me for thinking only according to those abilities God has given me since every one of us will confess that the wisest of us are but the best conjecturers and 't is God only that knows and though I have thought rudely and amiss yet it being not willingly I hope my want of Learning or Wisdom may receive Pardon from God and at least a charitable Censure from man I was somewhat the rather induced to commit these my rambling Thoughts to Paper from some hopes that such as chance to see them would not look on them as the Cry or Trumpet of one that indeavours to drive men into the Sanctuary from a gainful Art and yet stays himself without the Vail but the genuine search and effect of trouble and sorrow which never finds Rest till it enters there Here are indeed some little Essays of our own sufficiency but tending and pointing to a better Physician of our Soul and Body to one that is able to shew us the true method of cure and without whom we shall never be able to find the shadow of any certain rule but groap about till wearied and fainting and find our Errors only on the other side of our Graves THE CONTENTS BOOK I. SECT I. Considerations against immoderate care for a man 's own Posterity and Sorrow for the loss of Children taken in general from the Providence of God from the usefulness and necessity of Afflictions and those brought down to the case Page 1 SECT II. Particular considerations to moderate our passions such as 1 the advantage of God's
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
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
when it seems wholly to go alone unless by the first guidance of some outward sense yet in that very case as there is an assent of the Will and Affections too so it s very ramblings windings and turnings may be orderly unravelled like the hanging together of Links and Chains though of various forms as if some reason for its very wandrings were to be given For though in short space it run from the greatest State or Monarch in the World to the smallest Insect there is still some concatenation of them together and it never skips wholly from its subject matter without some sudden new introduction from sense or the Affections or Reasons recall as if some of them set it on work or at least it wrought not for it self As for instance I walk into my Orchard and there I espy Fruit-trees in their tender bud spoiled and devoured by Caterpillers upon which I seek in my mind somewhat of the cause how these Insects are bred as from drought Easterly winds or the like Now if Fruit were one of my chiefest delights and a thing in desire Reason would somewhat fix my thoughts and busie them in finding out with its assistance some way or means for the prevention or destruction of this creature but being not forthwith from them my thoughts are carried rambling after all those peculiar Trees on which these Insects usually feed straightways experience informs me the Oak for one then I think how that Tree amongst the Heathen was sacred to Iupiter then it may be I think on the story of the Royal Oak and the miraculous preservation of our Sovereign from thence my thoughts travel to and ramble over the greatest Monarchies in the World and from thence mount to Heaven and think on him who is the establisher of all Monarchies and by whom Kings reign anon Reason puts a stop to this career of the Imagination and perhaps fixes it for a while in some regular course and then perphaps for want of better imployment it unravels it self backward again to the Caterpiller finding out all the ways and steps it went before and all that to as little purpose as its former journey and travel And thus do we often more litterally than those of whom David speaks imagine a vain thing This faculty seems only able to behold it self and its own vanity and this is the faculty over which Reason has the least power and for whose extravagancies we may readiliest expect pardon since it casually works for others and cannot be at rest Free-will and power and a kind of dominion over every of our faculties nay our whole selves as well as others seems to be in some degree or measure inherent in our I will not say our nature desires and therefore the very power of reducing to subjection this one faculty to what we call our Wills may now and then seem to please us in imagination or wish and that if it were so we might govern our selves alone as we pleased and so become wise and happy for we would then think of nothing but good This perhaps is now and then our desire but surely hitherto every man's Imagination has been and is the framer of his Will rather than that any man's Will ever was or can be master of his Imagination or else there would never have been forged and framed in the Soul such a Will as now and then there is And 't is the goodness of a wise and gracious Almighty power that there is no absolute power in man over this faculty or such a Will in him as were able at all times to bring it to subjection or obedience Indeed when the heart seems well tuned and to be fixed as David says and we are praising God with the best member we have it is an unhappy thing our thoughts should be rambling as I remember St. Hierom said of his as far as Rome or Carthage But the natural course of its rambling duly considered is undoubtedly a great mercy to us for 't is to be feared Evil would be as often present with us as our Wills as St. Paul saith and then a power over the imagination would little avail In the main it is our great advantage and happiness too that this one faculty of the Soul cannot possibly be fixed long on any one thing without wavering to and fro or be made the constant attendant of any predominant affection if it could it might I fear often prove to us an Hell upon Earth rather than an Heaven and by gratifying even one of our affections should it alway hold a glass to sorrow and sometimes we seem to will that or rather fear how miserable were we Even the poor Prisoner going to Execution hath this happiness that his imagination is a wanderer without any absolute controul and that every moment almost his thoughts are for some short space diverted from death towards other things by some sense or other though they presently return again or else it would be truly said from the steadiness of the imagination that the pomp or usher of death and so of all other evils would be far more powerful than the hand of the Executioner The Psalmist seems to me to have had some such thoughts when beholding death in himself at some further distance he suddenly crys out O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before thee according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die We cannot well think or imagine how and after what manner this faculty works in Beasts we may conjecture perhaps that it 's chiefly according to sense or is more easily turned about by sense and therefore makes not so pleasing or irksom impressions nor yet so lasting as upon our selves This is certain in our selves 't is not always readily diverted by sense but is now and then so intent and fixed upon some peculiar object as that at that instant we may be said neither to see hear tast feel or smell though indeed we do And how rambling and volatile soever it may be in it self yet it makes and sometimes leaves in the Soul such an Impress or Effigies as is for continuance which we call Memory and that I shall now consider SECT V. Of the Memory MEmory is some remaining mark impress or footstep in the Brain or a collective faculty there of somewhat before rouled over by the Imagination or examined by Reason whether introduced by sense sent thither and actuated by the affections or native in the Imagination and becomes a treasury or storehouse for the Imagination and Reason to resort unto Generally I think that according to the strength of the Imagination those marks or strokes it makes do remain and that he who hath a smart conception or invention and a good superintendent that is Reason seldom has a bad or weak memory And therefore those men of parts as we term them who often pretent forgetfulness rather pretend