lyeth in the bosome of the Father of lights Our soules are little unclean narrowmouthed vessels uncapable to receive it but by smal drops that little we receive we taint by our uncleanness In our soul we conceive two intellectual faculties the understanding and the will In the understanding three imagination memory and judgement Imagination is that which makes all the noise entreth every where inventeth reasoneth and is alwayes in action To it we owe all the ingenious productions of eloquence and subtility It s the inventor of arts and sciences the learner and polisher of inventions It is of great service and gives great content being well managed and employed in good things The office of imagination being to transforme itselfe into the things that it takes for objects it is transformed into God when it applyes itselfe unto God and is transformed into the Father of all evil when it applyeth itselfe unto evill Memory is the Exchequer of the soul keeping that which the imagination and judgement commit to her trust In the primitive ages when the world stood in need of inventions a quick fertile imagination made able men But in these last ages a well furnisht memory makes a rich and a full mind so she be not destitute of the two other faculties In vaine doth the imagination invent and collect industriously and the judgement prudently determine if the memory be not a faithful keeper of the inventions of the one and the determinations of the other and together a ready prompter at need of that she hath in keeping It is memory that keepes this good treasure of which the Lord Jesus speakes Matth. 12.35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things But she keepes evill as well as good and often more firmly then good An evill man out of the evill treasure of his heart brings forth evill things Of her nature she is indifferent to good and evill as a paper to write what one will upon and a chest that will keep any thing According to the things that are put into that chest it is either a cabinet that keepes jewels or a sink that receives ordure If we will have the right use content of our memory we must furnish her with good and holy things that she may alwayes prompt matter to our minde to commune with God to direct and comfort ourselves For when she is fraught with evill and vaine matter she will thrust evill and vaine things upon us when the occasion and our owne minde calls for things good and serious as an idle servant that brings his Master a pare of cards when he calls for a Book of devotion Many times we heartily desire that we could forget certain things which our memory importunately sets before us on all occasions Judgement is the noblest part of the soul the Chiefe Justice determining what the imagination discusseth and the memory registreth Imagination makes witty men memory learned men but the Judgement makes wise men The wise man is he that judgeth aright not he that discourseth finely nor he that learneth well by heart For the strength of the several faculties the natural temper of the braines doth much but study perfecteth them the judgement especially for some have made themselves a judgement by use and experience who had none in a manner by nature Of these three faculties the Imagination which is the seat of wit and invention hath a neerer kindred with judgement then memory with either for wit will ripen into judgement in distracted braines both are imbezelled together while memory remaines entire It is ordinary to see dull fooles have a great memory And it is credible that the largenesse of the memory especially when it is streacht with overmuch learning lesseneth the two other faculties as in three roomes of a floore if the one be made very wide the two others must of necessity be little The Judgement calls all things before his tribunal and examines them upon two points whether they be true or false good or evill There he stayes when the subject requires contemplation onely but when it requires action then the determination of the judgement makes the will to move towards that which the judgement hath pronounced to be true and good for to move towards that which we judge to be false or evill we cannot For although our will follow many times false and evill objects the judgment alwayes considers them to be true and good in some respect Neither would our will so much as bend towards any object unlesse our judgement did before warrant it to us true and good Truth and falshood have their springs without us But moral good and evill as farre as they concerne our innocency and guiltinesse have their springs within us and both spring from our judgment to which we must atribute what is ascribed to the heart by Solomon in whose tongue one word signifies both Prov. 4.23 Keepe thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life Herein then lyeth wisedome the worker and keeper of contentment of mind to give a sound judgement of objects and thereupon to give good counsell to the will for embracing that which is good and resisting all oppositions to it by the armes of righteousnesse on the right hand and on the left so that the soul as a well balasted and a well guided ship cuts her way through the waves and makes use of all winds to steere her course to the haven of salvation and Gods glory possessing calme within among the stormes abroad But for that wise and blessed temper there is need of a higher wisedome then the strength of Nature and the precepts of Philosophy can afford to the judgement By the Judgement men are wise but by the Will they are good Wisedome and goodnesse alwayes go together when they go asunder they are not worthy of their name For that man is not wise that instructeth not himselfe to be good and that man is not good that doeth good actions not out of wisedome and knowledge but out of superstition or custome The chiefe vertue of the understanding is the knowledge of God and the chiefe vertue of the Will is his Love These two vertues comprehend all others and help one another They joyntly give tranquillity and content to the soul when we exercise our selves in the knowledge of God because we love him and when we love and obey him because we know him to be most good most wise most perfect and most worthy to be loved and obeyed The right bent and true perfection of the will man is an entire concurrence with the will of God in all things both to execute the will of his command and undergo the will of his decree in both walking so unanimously with God that man have no other will but God's He that hath thus transformed his will into Gods will possesseth a quiet and contented mind For when we will alwayes
declination of our body will miss us and hit our neighbours head A little winde will turne a great storme A sudden commotion in the State will create every where new interesses He that held us by the throat will be suddenly set upon by another will let us go to defend himself If we see no way for us to scape God seeth it After we have reckoned all the evill that our adversary can do we know not what God will do In the creation he made the light to shine out of darknesse and ever since he takes delight to fetch the comfort and advancement of those whom he loveth out of the things they feare That which we feare may happen but it will be for our good Unto many the bed or the prison hath bin a Sanctuary in an ill time Unto many the publique calamity hath bin a shelter against the particular Many times that which lookes grim a farre off smiles upon us neere hand And what is more common then to be promoted by those things which we feared most Exile and confiscation condemne us often to a happy tranquillity taking us from the crowd and the tumult to set us at large and at rest These considerations serve to decline not to overcome the evill Wherefore there is need of stronger remedies For that we may be healed of Feare it is not enough to say Perhaps the evill will not come or will not prove so terrible as it lookes Say we rather Suppose the evill must unavoydably come I do imagine the worst Say it be poverty close prison torture the scaffold the axe All that can take nothing from me that I may call mine God and a good conscience are mine onely true goods which no power and no violence can take from me All the rest is not worth the feare of losing Isa 12.2 Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song he also is become my salvation Then the remedy to the shaking ague of feare consisteth in knowing these two things The evill and the liberatour The evill cannot be very great since it hath an end No evill of this world but ends by death Death it selfe is good since it ends evills how much more when it begins eternall goods to the right Christian death is not a matter of feare but of hope Let us take away from the things we feare that hideous vizard which imagination puts upon them calmely looking into their nature and getting familiarity with them by meditation Let nothing that is incident to humane condition seeme strange or new to us What happens to one may happen to any other The ordinariest cause of feare is surprise That we be not surprised we must think betimes upon all that may come and stand prepared for all So nothing shall seeme strange when it comes But the chiefe remedy against feare is to lift up our hearts to the great Liberatour that hath goods and evills in his hand that sends afflictions and deliverances that brings downe and brings up againe that gives us strength according to the burden which he layeth upon us and multiplyeth his comforts with our afflictions Being perswaded that God is most wise and most good and that all things work together for good unto them that love him we will represse our feare of the accidents of life and second causes saying The will of the Lord be done we are sure that nothing but good can come to us since nothing can come but from God Wheresore instead of fearing to suffer evill we must feare to do it which is the safest course to prevent suffering He that commits sin is more unfortunate then he that suffers paine for suffering moveth Gods mercy but sin moveth his indignation That man cannot but feare sinne that beareth in mind that God hates it and markes it There then we must feare and the chiefe deliverance that we must aske of God is that he deliver us from every evill worke 2 Tim. 4.18 As we feare sufferings because of themselves so must we feare evill workes because of the evill that is in them besides the sufferings that attend them soone or late This Feare of love and revecence towards God puts out all other Feares He that feares God needs not Feare any thing else CHAP. XVII Of Confidence and Despaire OF these we need not say much having spoken before of Hope and Feare for confidence is the extremity of Hope and Despaire is the extremity of Feare Confidence which otherwise may be called a firme expectation is a certainty that we conceive of a future desired good or of the love and fidelity of a person whereby the heart is filled with joy and love Despaire is the certainty that the mind conceiveth of a future evill very odious or of the enmity or infidelity of a person whereby the heart is seized and in a manner squeazed with sorrow and hatred These Passions being so opposite yet ordinarily will passe the one into the other I meane Confidence into Despaire from Despaire to pass to Confidence it is rare The surest course to avoyd falling into Despaire for things of the world is to put no great confidence in them Moderate hopes being frustrated turne into moderate feares and sorrowes But a great and joyfull Confidence being disappointed will fall headlong into extream and desperate sorrow as they that tumble from a high precipice get a heavy fall One subject onely is proper for mans entire Confidence which is God all good all mighty and all wise Without him all things that men use to repose their confidence upon are waves and quicksands Men are mutable and though they could give a good security for the constancy of their will they can give none for the continuance of their life The goods of the earth faile our expectation or come short of our satisfaction or slip from our possession They will leave us or we them No wonder if they that repose their full and whole confidence in them are seene so often to fall into despaire Here then the true counsell for tranquillity is to trust wholly upon none but God on other things according to their nature and capacity They shall never deceive us if we require nothing of them above their nature There is a kind of Despaire improperly so called which is no more but to give over hoping a thing which upon our second and better thoughts we have found either inconvenient or impossible That Despaire will rather bring rest then trouble to the mind Wisemen are pliable and easy to be satisfyed with reason It is wisedome to despaire and desist betimes from unlikely and unfeasable designes It is a true Despaire when one seeth himselfe absolutely disappointed and excluded from the object of his chiefe love desire hope at which the soul is smitten with such a sorrow that she hates all things yea the very thing that she desired so much and herselfe more
our hearts from the world and make his heavenly comforts more welcome to us Truly the faithfull soule that knoweth how to make the right use of good and evil shall find experimentally the truth of St. Pauls sentence that all things are for our sakes 2 Cor. 4.25 Also this peace with God brings us peace with our neighbours For he that hath a comfortable seeling in his conscience that God is reconciled with him will easily be reconciled with his brethren holding it a point of equity generosity and gratefulnes after that his Master hath forgiven him ten thousand talents to forgive his fellow servant an hundred pence If all men had the peace of God in their hearts there would be no discord in the world But because most men want that good peace and they that have it have it but imperfectly therefore peace between men can hardly be well cemented When you see men professing piety and sound doctrine tearing and devouring one another with warres or lawfuites you may be sure that the peace of God rules not in their hearts surely not in the hearts of the authors and fomentors of discord though they should pretend the zeale of Gods glory who hath no need of mens turbulent passions to advance his kingdome which is all peace In heaven where the peace of God abideth in its fulness and filleth the hearts of every one of his Saints there is also of necessity a perfect peace between them for they must needs have all one love since they have all but one interest which is the glory of him that loveth them and for ever glorifieth them with himselfe CHAP. IV. Generall meanes to preserve that peace with God and first to serve God purely and diligently HAving spoken of the true and onely foundation of the peace of the soule and contentment of mind which is the confidence that God is appeased to us through Jesus Christ Let us now use the meanes to preserve that peace and stand firme upon that solid ground beginning by the more general The first is to serve God with purity and diligence for which this consideration is essential that our reconciliation with God was made by way of purchase and that when wee were lost and estranged from God he was pleased to redeeme us by his Sonne Wherefore as they that bought servants expected service from them God also hath bought us to be served by us That end of our redemptiō is thus set down by St. Paul Tit. 2.14 Christ gave himself for us that he might redeeme us from all iniquity and purifie unto himselfe a peculiar people zealous of good workes It was the custome over all the world in S. Pauls time to buy sell servants As then servants could not expect the favour of them that had bought them unlesse they did them good service we that are purchased by God with such a great price must not expect to enjoy his peace and gracious countenance if wee doe not serve him according to his will Wherein our utility meetes with our duty for of the service which wee yeeld unto God the whole benefit results unto us Before all things wee must looke well that our service to God be pure and such as he requireth for without that purity all our diligence to his service would be not onely unless but hurtfull One cannot goe to God turning his back to him The more we labour to serve him otherwise then he hath commanded the more wee offend him The pure way of Gods service is set down in his written word wherein although many places are too high for the understanding of the most wise and learned yet the things necessary for the duty and salvation of man are so clearely exprest that this commendation is justified by experience which David giveth unto Gods word The entrance of thy Words giveth light it giveth understanding unto the simple Thy word is a lamp unto my feete and a light unto my path It is one of the chief duties of Gods service to reade and carefully meditate that good Word lend a devout attention to them that announce it For by it God speaks to us as a father to his children and none but unnatural children refuse to hearken to the voyce of their Father This duty brings its recompence for the holy word of God is the glad tydings of the peace of God with men and the onely doctrine that frames that peace within us For which reason the Prophet would heare it Ps 85.5 I will heare what God the Lord will speake for he will speake peace unto his people and to his Saints To that holy word as to a sanctuary troubled consciences must have recourse to get the peace of God Yet the faithfull soule ought to be more studious to learne in it how to please God then how to get comfort Those Christians are yet upon the lower degrees of their regeneration that practise the duties of Gods service only to work their salvation Wee must read and hear Gods word for a higher end even to conforme our wills to the rule of his declared will and wee must think more of his glory then our felicity If faith in his promises make us say joyfully with David Ps 32 1. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered the zeale of his glory must make us say with more joy and affection as the same David Ps 119.1 Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walke in the law of the Lord. Blessed are they that keepe his testimonies and seek him with the whole heart v. 5. O that my waies were directed to keepe thy sttatutes v. 7. I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments And all along that great Psalme he uttereth the unspeakable joy that he took in meditating and doing Gods commandements one may see that he cannot say enough to expresse how heartily he was affected to it If wee love the holy word of God for its own sake and converse often with it with reverence and affection because it is the word of our heavenly father and the declaration of his nature and will wee shall finde our peace in it though wee seeke it not and get a satisfaction not to be parallelled by any joy for the things of this world To this duty of hearing God speaking to us in his word the next is to speak to him by prayer whether it be to implore his grace or to thank him for his benefits or to praise him for his infinite perfection By these two duties of hearing God and speaking to him we begin in this world that good intelligence and holy communication with God in which the heavenly peace and soveraine felicity of man consisteth By prayer wee seeke and meete that peace of God which is announced to us in his word and whoso seekes it well will be sure to meete it for to this seeking is the promise made Math. 7.8 Every man
wee beare to God is the love that he beares to us wee must before all things study to conceive as well as wee may of the great love of God to us-ward Behold what manner of love the father hath bestowed upon us that wee should be called the sonnes of God 1 John 3.1 This is the principall point of his love where all other testimonies of his love doe beginne and where they end Without this none can say that he is beloved of God For to be the work of Gods hands and maintained by his providence is common to all creatures and to be made after Gods image and by his liberality to enjoy the plenty and service of nature is common to all men good and evill But because creatures without reason and men without goodnesse beare no love to God it cannot properly be said that God loveth them though he be their maker and preserver Love being the bond of perfectnesse Col. 3. Gods love would not be the bond of perfectnesse if he loved those things that never return him love For that love may be a bond the two ends must meet knit together now these two ends knit when a creature beloved of God beares a reciprocal love to him For thereby not onely the man that feareth God joyneth with him but the whole nature also and all the creatures are re-joyned with their principle and Origine And whereas some creatures cannot others will not love God the true child of God because he gets some utility out of them all yea of those that are Gods enemies loveth him and gives him thanks for and in the name of all and so by this meanes love proveth a true bond of perfectnesse which proceeding from God and knitting with God againe embraceth and holds fast together the whole creation and brings it back to its Creator A consideration which cannot but bring a singular content and a great peace to the soule Being perswaded of the love of God to us whereby we are called the sonnes of God we looke upon all creatures as the goods of our fathers house prepared for us And though others which are none of Gods children enjoy them also yet they are for us since the wicked are for the good either to exercise their vertue by tryals or even to serve and sustaine them For as the angry waves roaring and foaming about the ship where Christ was with his disciples yet were bearing the ship likewise the enemyes of God and his Church while they are beating and storming against it beare it up in spite of their hearts The agitations of the great sea of the world make Gods children more sensible of the great love which the Father hath bestowed upon them to have given them his beloved sonne to be in the ship with them to keep them safe in the storm and the dangers that overwhelme others are helps for good unto them that love God All the deliverances that God sends them all the blessings that God powreth upon them they take them as productions of the fatherly love of God who hath adopted them in his Sonne They taste that love in the enjoyment of present goods they breath that love in the enjoyment of future eternall goods they rest upon that love when they sleepe they leane upon that love when they walk they find that love in all the occurrences of their life with what face soever the various accidents of the world looke upon them they see through them the evident love of God being certaine that nothing happens to them but is directed by the good hand of their loving Father These pleasant rivers of the love of God conduct our meditation up the streame to the great Source that love which passeth knowledge that mysterious deepe love which the Angels desire to looke into whereby of his enemyes that wee were he hath made us his children giving for us even to death his owne precious Sonne entitling us by him to his eternal glory and giving us the earnest of it by his good Spirit crying in our hearts Abba Father O incomprehensible love which hath undergone overcome death to give us life and that he might have from us an immortal love That immortal love ought to be the effect of this meditation So that having conceived to our power how much God loves us wee may also to our power apply our heart to love him acknowledging that all our heart all our soule and all our understanding is yet too little to returne him love for his love It it true that this is a debt from which we can never be acquitted and wee owe it even after wee have payd it But as this debt must be payd continually the continual payment yeelds a continual satisfaction to him that payeth it oweth it still For whereas pecuniary debts make the heart sad this debt of love makes it glad when our duty meetes with our inclination and when wee most desire to dok that which wee are most obliged to doe Besides this debt is of that nature that when wee pay it wee make together an acquisition for although the love began by God he takes it upon him to repay us the love that we pay him Ps 91.14 Because he hath set his love upon me saith the Lord therefore will I deliver him I will set him on high because he hath knowne my name Pro. 8.17 I love them that love me and they that seeke me early shall finde me But love is due to God not onely for the love that he hath done us and for the good that wee hope from him but for the good that is in him and because he that is the soveraigne beauty and goodnes must be beloved in the chiefest highest manner All that is beautifull and good in Nature the glory of the celestial bodies the fertility of the earth the shady greene of trees the fragrancy of flowers the variety and utility of animals the rational inventive vivacity of intellectual natures the admirable order of the Universe both in disposition and conduct All these are so many productions of the great bottomlesse depth of beauty bounty power and excellency and who so wisely considereth them presently conceiveth that the Authour is possest of an infinite perfection onely worthy to be beloved for his owne sake and that all the good and beautifull things that he hath done must be beloved onely in relation to him and for his sake To which if you adde two other points of which Nature cannot sufficiently informe us and wherein the Word of God supplies the deficiency of Natures teaching which are the justice and the mercy of God towards sinners O who would not love that infinite love and excellency though he had no interest of his owne in it But how can we barely consider Gods excellency in it selfe with an abstraction of our interest Certainly the consideration of our concernment will go along though unsent for with the contemplation of Gods supreme
vertue and goodnesse And it is impossible to consider God as the onely worthy object of love without conceiving even with the same thought that our soveraigne good consisteth in loving him reputing what a height of honour and content it is when that great Creator who is all bounty all beauty and all perfection is pleased to contract amity with the creature For in this consisteth the great and only excellency of man that God hath given him a nature capable to entertain freindship with his Maker A capacity which being obscured by sin is restored to him by grace And God who as the only absolute Soveraigne is above all Laws condescended so farre to us as to binde himselfe to the Laws of friendship with man which Laws on his part are most inviolably kept the whole defect in that mutual love is from man As then friends disjoyned in place are joyned by love so are God in heaven and man upon earth God indeed is every where yet God and man are more remote in degree of nature then any two can be in place But they are joyned in a way farre more excellent real for the thoughts of two mortal persons make no mutual impression when they are without the line and reach of communication whereas God is never remote from the faithful soul and they may commune together at any time God makes his love sensible to the faithfull soul and saith to it by the presence of his spirit Soul I am thy salvation and the soul saith to him Lord thou art my God I am thine save me teach me to do thy will God communeth with the soul by his word and spirit and the soul communeth also with God by her word and spirit that is by prayer and holy aspirations It is also a law of friendship that friends bear the one with the other and that the strong support the weake Wherefore God all perfect having knit a friendship with the creature subject as yet to much imperfection supporteth her defects with his love and covereth her sins by his righteousnesse Man also for his part must patiently bear what chastenings God layeth upon him taking all kindly at his hands for as he must be assured of his love he must also be certainly perswaded of his wisdom and beleeve that Gods dealing with him is all love and wisdome It is a law of perfect freindship that friends declare their secrets one to another So God deals with his freinds and Jesus Christ useth this for a reason why he calls his Disciples his friends John 15.15 Henceforth I call you not servants for the servant knows not what the Lord doeth but I have called you friends for all things that I have learned of my Father I have made known unto you And Daniel saith that the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him not the secret of his Councel but that of his Good will towards them in that which concernes their duty and their salvation which is the sence of the following words and he will shew them his Covenant We then to shew our selves true friends to him that honoureth us with that title must also disclose unto him the secrets of our hearts It is true they are open to his all-seeing eyes and if we would hide our secrets from him we could not But God takes a delight that we give him an account of our selves not that He may be better informed but that we may be better and happier for they that disguise themselves before him are incapable of his grace and dissembling is a violation of the lawes of friendship It is the comfort of the godly that while they confesse their sinnes to God as unto their clear-sighted Judge they discharge together a duty of friendship declaring to their supreme friend their private infirmities and secret diseases to call upon his help What benefit we may expect by that free dealing with God we learn out of Davids experience who speakes thus to God Psalm 32.5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee and mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions unto the Lord and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him Into the bosome of that friend we must powre our secret sighes to him we must lay open our most intimate desires and feares that we may say to him with David Psalm 38.9 Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Which as it is true in regard of Gods all-seeing knowledge let it be true also in regard of our sincere unbosoming of the secrets of our souls before God Now that the secrets of our soules and the meditations of our hearts may ever be acceptable in his sight and because the heart of man is so close and full of windings of hypocrisy that man himself cannot finde the bottom of his own inside let us call upon God to assist us in that search by his good spirit saying Psalm 139.23 Search me O Lord and know my heart try me and know my thoughts And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Before we have sincerely laid open before God all that is within us we have no reason to expect the blessing of serene and innocent peace in our soul For God who is jealous of his glory takes it as a high contempt when his creature will offer to avoid the all-seeing eyes of the Creator besides he is jealous of our love taking it as a derogation to the love due to him when we go about to conceale our thoughts our affections and our projects from him Wherefore the sence that the conscience hath of this jealousy of God holds her in continual anxiety Whereas he that is true to a resolution to call God to witnesse of his most secret actions and intentions as he is whether we will or no gets two benefits that way The one that finding himself obliged to impart all that he hath in his heart to God his eternal friend he will take heed of doing yea and thinking any thing that is displeasing unto him and by his uprightnesse will prevent the shame of opening many impurities before that holiest of Holies The other that by this free and open dealing with God he shall get a great tranquillity in his conscience For if in humane friendships we presume that by disclosing the secrets of our hearts to a generous friend we oblige him to love and fidelity and after that action of freedom we find our heart much eased how great must our ease and contentment be when we have poured all our heart into Gods bosom that perfect friend who is truth and sincerity it self It is a wise part to conceale nothing from God The only way to possesse our soul with
with sicknesse and age 2 Cor. 5.1 Knowing that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be cloathed upon with our house which is from heaven It is by hope that the Martyrs all that suffer for righteousnesse see the crown layd on the top of their crosse and rejoyce in this promise of their Saviour Matth. 5.11 Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evill against you falsly for my sake rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven By hope we behave ourselves wisely in prosperity 1 Cor. 7.31 using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Hope beats down pride refraines lust and weans our hearts from the world Worldly hope disordereth the soul and makes a man go out of himself depending of the future and losing the present and is alwayes wavering and feaverish But heavenly hope although it transport the soul above herself and make her depend upon future goods sets her neverthelesse in a quiet steady frame because the soul rising to God receiveth God who makes her his home so that a man by hope enjoyes beforehand part of the goods which he aspires unto Hope groweth like rivers more and more as it draweth neerer the end of its course And when it hath brought the godly soul into the Ocean of felicity there it loseth the name of Hope and becomes Enjoyment CHAP. VIII Of the duty of Praising God SInce wee already embrace eternal goods by hope as wee desire to beginne now the joyes of heaven we must resolve to beginne the dutyes of that blessed Estate To seeke the first without the second would be an ungenerous disposition and an impossible undertaking If wee apprehend aright that the felicity of man consisteth in his duty and that the glory of the blessed Saints in heaven consisteth in glorifying God we will seeke in that great duty our felicity and delight to sing our part even in this life in the hymnes of those glorious spirits Nothing gives to the soule so great a peace Nothing elevateth the soule to such a Paradice like Joy The love of God is preferred before faith and hope because these seeke their owne good but that seeketh Gods glory Which to a godly soule being much more considerable then her owne happines yet is found to be the soveraigne happines of him that seekes it before his owne good Neither is there any more certaine and compendious way to get glory to ourselves then to seeke Gods onely glory In this then the godly man must delight and can never want matter for it all things giving him occasion to praise God either for his mercy to his children or his justice to his enemies or his power and wisedome eminently shining in all his workes or the infinite perfection that abideth in himselfe God hath made all creatures for his praise and none of his material creatures can praise him but man onely And of all men none but the godly praise him Or if others doe it for company it becomes them not neither are their praises accepted Then upon the godly lyeth the whole taske to praise God for other creatures that cannot or will not praise him But that taske is all pleasure as nothing is more just so nothing is more delightfull then that duty Look about upon the fields richly clad with the plenty and variety of nature Looke up to heaven and admire that great light of the world the Sun so wonderfull in his splendour vertue and swift nesse When he is set looke upon the gloryes of the night the Moone and the starres like so many bright jewels set off by the black ground of the skie and setting forth the magnificence of their maker See how some of them keep ea certaine distance among themselves marching together without the least breaking of their ranks some follow their particular courses but all are true to their motions equal and infallible in their regulated periods Then being amazed and dazelled with that broad light of Gods greatnes and wisedome let every one make this question to himselfe Why doeth God make me a beholder of his workes Why among so many different creatures hath he made me one of that onely kinde to whom he hath given reason to know and admire the workman a will to love him a tongue to praise him Is it not that I might render him these duties in the name of all his other workes And to this duty I am obliged by the lawes of thankfulnes since all these other workes are for me good reason then that I should be for God lending my tongue and my heart to the whole universe to love praise and blesse the great and good authour of this rich and beautiful Nature O the greatnes the goodnes the wisedome of the incomprehensible Creatour And among all his attributes manifested in this admirable workmanship O how his tender mercies are over all his workes How every part of this great work is compleat How all the parts are well sorted together helping and sustaining one another with a wise Oeconomy O if the worke be so perfect what must the workman be If the streames be so cleare what must the source be Upon these if wee fix our meditation with a holy attention wee shall heare that speech which St John heard being rapt up in spirit Rev. 5.3 I heard saith he every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them saying Blessing honour glory and power unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lambe for ever and ever From Nature looking to Providence let us observe how notwithstanding the opposition of spiritual malices and the preversnesse and blindnesse of men yea and by these very things God advanceth his glory maintaineth his truth and formeth a secret order in confusion For the execution of his decrees a Million of engines are set on work subordinate or co-ordinate among themselves wherby things most remote yet meet in the order of causes to produce the effects appointed in Gods counsel Where the chief matter of wonder is that many of these causes are free agents which doing what they will bring forth most part of the time that which they will not and by the uncertainty of their giddy agitations arrive to the certain End determined by God Who can comprehend the innumerable multitude of the accidents of the world all written in Gods Book and dispensed by his providence that infinitely capacious and ever watchfull wisdom ever in action though ever at rest which by the order he gives to the greatest things is not distracted from the care of the least He makes the heavens to move and the earth to bear and disposeth of peace
and warre in the world and of the subsistence and revolution of Empires Who would beleeve that at the same time he tels the number of our hairs and that not so much as one sparrow falls to the ground without his speciall appointment but that we are told it by his own mouth and that our experience assureth us of his care of the least of our actions and accidents of our life Here wee must rest amazed but not silent for our very ignorance must help us to admire and extoll that depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God whose eye and hand is in all places whose strength sustaineth whose providence guideth all things and taketh as much care of each of his creatures as if he had nothing else to looke to If our minds be swallowed up in the depths of Gods wisdome this one depth calls in another deep which brings no lesse amazement but gives more comfort that is the fatherly love of God to us his children Eph. 3.18 O the bredth the length the depth the heighth of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge the bredth that embraceth Jewes and Gentiles having broken the partition wall to make a large room to his wide love that his way might be known upon earth his saving health among all Nations Psalm 67.2 The length which hath elected us before the foundation of the world and will make us live and reigne with himselfe for ever The depth which hath drawne us out of the lowest pit of sorrow death to effect that hath drawn him down to that low condition The height which hath raised us up to heaven with him and makes us sit together with him in heavenly places With what miracles of mercy hath he preserved his Church from the beginning of the world How many graces doth he poure upon the several members thereof nourishing our bodies comforting our souls reclaiming us from iniquity by the gift of repentance and faith keeping off the malice of men and evill Angels from us by the assistance of his good Angels delivering our life from death our eyes from teares and our feet from falling But before and after all other benefits we must remember that principal benefit never sufficiently remembred Col. 1.12 Giving thankes unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light who hath delivered us from the power of darknesse and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Sonne in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgivenesse of sins This is the highest top of our felicity the main ground of the peace of the soul and the incomparable subject of the contentment of our minds Yea if we have such a deep sence of that heavenly grace as to praise God continually for it with heart and mouth For as we praise God because he blesseth us he blesseth us because we praise him and by his praise which is the eternal excercise of his blessed Saints we become already partners of their imployment their peace and their joy CHAP. IX Of good Conscience ALl that we have said hitherto regardeth the Principal causes both the efficient and the instrumental of the peace with God There are other causes which of themselves have not that vertue to produce that great peace yet without which it cannot be preserved nor produced neither these are a good conscience and the excercise of good workes Not that the reconciliation made for us with God by the merit of his Son needs the help of our works but becaus the principal point of our reconciliation and redemption is that we are redeemed from iniquity which is done by the same vertue that redeemes us from Hell and by the same operation For it is a damnable self-flattery and self-deceipt for one to beleeve that he is reconciled with God if he feele in himselfe no conversion from that naturall enmity of the flesh against God neither can he enjoy a true peace in his soul In that reconciliation God makes use of our wil for in all agreements both parties must concur and act freely And to make us capable of that freedome God by his spirit looseth the bonds of our unregenerate will naturally enthralled to evill But it will be better to medle but little with the worke of God within us and looke to our owne learning the duties which wee are called unto as necessary if wee will enjoy that great reconciliation The first duty is to walke before God with a good conscience for in vaine should one hope to keepe it tranquil and not good Conscience is the natural sence of the duties of piety and righteousnes warning every man unlesse he be degenerated into a beast to depart from evil and doe good And a good conscience is that which obeyeth that sense and warning But the ordinary use which I will follow by a good conscience understands onely the first part which is to beware of evil This good conscience is so necessary for the enjoying of that peace of God applyed to us by faith that the A postle to the Hebrewes requires it that wee may stand before God with a full assurance of faith Heb. 10.22 Let us draw neere saith he with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washt with pure water And St Paul chargeth Timothy 1. Tim. 1.19 to hold faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack shewing that faith and a good conscience must goe hand in hand and that the losse of a good conscience ushereth the losse of faith which is consequently followed with the losse of inward peace Whereas a good conscience brings forth confidence as St John teacheth us 1. Joh. 3.21 Beloved if our heart condemne us not then have wee confidence before God By a conscience that condemnes us not wee must not understand a conscience without sinne for there is none such to be found Much lesse a conscience that condemneth not the sinner after he hath sinned for the best consciences are those that forgive nothing to themselves and passe a voluntary condemnation upon themselves before God by a free and penitent confession But the good conscience that condemnes us not according to St Johns sense is that which beares witnes to a man to have walked in sincerity and cannot accuse him to have shut up his eyes since his conversion against the evident lights of truth and righteousnes or to have hardned his heart against repentance after he hath offended God The godly man will remember that the peace betweene God and us was made by way of contract whereby God gives himselfe to us in his Sonne and we give our selves to him If then any refuse to give himselfe to God there is no contract God will not give himselfe to him and so no peace for every contract must be mutual When the one party
beard a childish understanding authoritatem senum vitia puerorum But certainly this is a false ugly vizard set upon a handsome and gracious face there being nothing more serene and pleasant then godlines and a good conscience A good conscience is that merry heart which is a continual feast To doe Gods will with a good will keepes a mans heart cheerefull to God and pleasant to himselfe Will you then make your hope sure of an eternal rest and of those pleasures for evermore at the right hand of God Doe but take the first course to make yourselves content and joyfull in this life which is to walke before God unto all pleasing to your power and to be rich in good workes Was there ever a more winning invitation then this Make yourselfe joyful and contented in this life that you may be eternally joyfull and contented in the next CHAP. XI To redresse ourselves often by Repentance Wee have meditated upon the peace of God and the way how to get it in our souls and keepe it That peace brings a golden serenity and a solid content to our hearts But because the godliest persons in this world are subject to sinne and by sinning to trouble that peace and serenity it is necessary to redresse ourselves often by repentance Of that duty I have spoken in the third chapter of this first booke as the necessary way to embrace by faith our reconciliation with God and a maine part of the great worke of our conversion But after wee are reconciled and converted wee are men still Neither is any conversion so great in this life as to roote out sinne altogether out of mans nature Whosoever then will preserve his integrity and peace for these two commonly goe together must have this warning continually in his mind Lét him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall 1. Cor. 10.12 And if he fall let him take up himselfe presently by a godly repentance The more he esteemeth himselfe advanced and confirmed in piety the more let him mistrust himselfe and beware of the temptations of Satan For after holy resolutions and elevations of zeale and devotion great sins very often are committed because then the conscience is most subject to relent as over-confident of her good estare Much like besieged souldiers who after a brave sallie will remitt of their watchfulnes despising the enemy whom they have beaten and in their security are taken by surprise Conscience will fall asicepe but Satan never sleepeth and never misseth to take advantage of our negligence Heb. 12.1 Sin that doth so easily beset us saith the Apostle to the Hebrewes By saying us he comprehends himself acknowledging that the most perfect are easily beset by sin Some sins are presently felt and leave a sting as the Scorpion doth To that sting the remedy must presently be applyed by repentance and a faithfull recourse to Gods mercy through Christ also the assistance of his Spirit must bee implored else the venome will spread and the wound become mortal Other sins are lesse felt or creep in undiscerned yet leave a heavinesse upon the heart and make it slower to godlinesse and good workes Then the businesses of the life intervening the remembrance of many sins will slip out of our memory which neverthelesse worke their effect upon the conscience blunting the sense of piety and setting the soul further from God Wherefore it is the part of a wise Christian often to revisit the state of his conscience call himselfe to account and by a pious solicitude of repentance pick and sift out even the least dust that sticks to us of the worlds uncleannesse and our own scowring out that rust which conscience like iron will contract if it be not often handled If the uncleane spirit will not dwell in a mans heart unlesse he find the house empty swept and garnisht Matth. 12. that is void of all goodnesse and furnisht for his turne We must not expect that the holy Spirit will dwell in our heart unlesse we bestow our best care to sweepe it for him emptyed of the immundicities of sinne to garnish it with holinesse He will not keep house under the same roofe with the unclean spirit And unlesse we speedily put that enemy out of doores God may in his displeasure leave him the whole house Whereas if you keep it swept for God with daily repentance he will make it his Temple and say Psal 132.14 This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I delight in it But that our hearts may be cleane habitations for him we have need to call for the assistance of his grace Psalm 51. Create in us a cleane heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within us Since the Son of God honours us so much as to call us his friends let us religiously observe the lawes of friendship with him Even in humane friendships if we have sometimes the missorutne to give offence to one whom we especially love and respect we cannot be at rest till we have given him satisfaction And should we be so imprudent as to neglect God our great friend after we have offended him Shall we let the Sunne go down upon his wrath and our offence Let us returne to him without delay and humbly seeke his peace The speediest reconciliations are the best In this returne to God which must be every day let us call to our remembrance all the sins of late date and others of elder date not sufficiently repented of confessing them to God with contrition and craving pardon for them with humility and faith through the merit of his Sonne which to all repenting sinners is an exhaustible spring of mercy open at all times Zechariah meant this by that Fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleannesse And becaure many trespasses of ours are out of remembrance and some we have run into without our knowledge we must beseech God with David to clense us from secret faults Psalm 19.12 and that he be pleased to forget those sins which we have forgotten To that daily returne to God some extraordinary returnes must be added where fasting and alms be joyned to prayer Thereby these clouds shall be cleared off which trouble the serenity of the conscience and the soul shall get a great help to rejoyce in the love of God and glory in his bounty When one is come to that blessed state of the soul he must wipe off the teares of repentance and drowne that sadnesse in a thankfull joy For the sorrow of repentance is good by accident only because there is some evill to be healed It is like a medicine which gives gripings and disquieteth nature therefore not to be used but to recover health Although we cannot repent too much to have offended God there may be excess in the sorrow of repentance To seek merit or ostentation in penitent sorrow which is the face that vulgar soules give to
of riches To such men God is just and merciful together when he healeth that wanton-need with a pinching need of things necessary Need is the thing that is generally most feared of all men Certainly it is most incommodious even to the wisest Wherefore the Wiseman in the 30. of Proverbs besought God that he would not send it him It is an ordinary theme for eloquence and flourishes of wit to maintaine that Need is not evill and they that descant more upon it are they that lesse feele it as Seneca a man of prodigious wealth who many times commends extream poverty or the condition that is not farre from it They say indeed that it is to the wise onely that need is not evill but because that must be proved by the experience of a true and perfect wiseman we would have the testimony of such a man but such a man we finde not neither do all the sects of Philosophers that profest poverty afford such an example For we will not stand to the arbitrement of that sawcy begger Diogenes a vaine sordid and affected man in all his words and actions who tooke a nasty pride in an impudent mendicity If poverty did not make him evill he made poverty evill turning it into a profession and instead of making it an exercise of vertue using it as a pretence of idlenesse and licentiousnesse To the ordinary sort of minds Need is a gulfe of misery Prov. 14.20 The poore is hated even of his own neighbour Every one hides himselfe from him Need makes men ashamed and shame increaseth their need Some also by Need are made shamelesse and in the end bold theeves Qui paupertatem timet timendus est Need is an ill counsellor It makes men murmure against God and finde fault with the distribution of his goods It beates down the courage stupefyeth or sowreth the wit and clips the wings of contemplation It is hard for one to have high conceits when he wants bread Yet to speake properly Want doth not all that evill but the evill disposition of men that have not weaned their heart from the world nor sought their only treasure in heaven have not chosen God for their portion No wonder that their spirit is beaten down as well as their fortune when the worldly ground which they had built upon sinkes under their feet But he that despiseth the world and the life of the world despiseth also Want so much feared by others For take things at the worst a perpetual rule of wisedome about casual future things the worst that can come to him that is without bread is to be without life which a thousand other accidents may take from us Life is a depositum which God hath committed to our keeping No lawful diligence and industry must be omitted that we may preserve it and give a good account of it to God And himselfe having trusted us with it assists us to keepe it Very seldome it is heard that any persons dye for lack of bread But precious in the sight of God is any death of his Saints Psal 116.15 Neither is there any more curse in dying of hunger then of a surfet Of all kinds of death but the suddaine I hold death for want of food to be the easiest It is no more but letting the lamp quietly to go out Atticus after a long fast to overcome an acute sicknesse having lost the appetite of meat lost also the appetite of life and refusing to take any more meat dyed without paine And so Tullius Marcellinus after an abstinence of three dayes Mollissime excessit et vitae elapsus est he departed most quietly and escaped from life saith Seneca He spake better then he meant saying that he escaped for such a volutary death was an escape from the station where God hath placed him He went from life without commission for God had given him wherewith to keep it But he to whom God giveth no more wherewith to keep himselfe alive must acknowledge that his commission is out depart cheerefully For to prevent death by sordid and unlawfull wayes is more then God calls him unto and more then life is worth To say necessity compels me to these wayes and otherwise I cannot live is an ignorant or wilfull mistake of Necessity The wayes cannot be necessary when the end is not so And before a man conclude that such wayes are necessary because without them he cannot live he should consider whether it be necessary for him to live It is necessary for us to be righteous and generous not to live Who so conceiveth no necessity in life and no evill in death which to Gods children is the end of all evills and the beginning of all happinesse will soon rid his heart of that cowardly fear of dying for want and reject the temptations to lead an ill life that he may keep life The feare of Want is for want of obeying Christs command Matth. 6.34 not to take thought for the morrow and for want of observing the course of his providence which provideth for his creatures that cannot provide for themselves Beasts sleep quietly not knowing and not thinking where they shall get meat the next day You will say it is because they have no reason and no foresight and were it not better to have no reason then to make no use of it but for our vexation Were it not better to be incapable of thinking on God as beasts are then to think on him onely to mistrust and murmure against his providence A poore man to whom God giveth health industry to get his living is possest of a great treasure and a stock yeelding him a daily rent His condition is incomparably more happy then that of the noble and wealthy The labour that gets him bread gets him also an appetite to eate it and sleep to refresh him when he is weary and health to continne his labour Eccl. 5.12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet whether he eate little or much but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep His many children give him lesse care then fewer children to the rich and lesse paine also to provide for them For whereas in noble houses the câ—arge groweth alwayes as the children grow in poore families that live by labour the charges grow lesse as the children grow the Sonnes serve the Father in his worke the Daughters spin by their Mother Children are the riches of poore people and the impoverishing of the rich Then to give them portions the Father that hath no land is not troubled to engage the Lordships of the eldest Sonne for the marriages of his Daughters nor to charge the land with annuityes for the younger Brothers Each of them hath the whole succession which is their Fathers labour No doubt but that is the most tranquil condition of all The examples are many of those that lived merrily and sung at their worke as long as they were poore but an inheritance
prisoners friends from him but he cannot shut out comfort and tranquillity from his soul CHAP. XV. Husband Wife Children Kindred Friends Their price their Losse IT may seeme that these should have bin put among the goods of fortune To which I might answer somewhat Stoically that it is not altogether certaine whether they must be put among the goods or among the evills for they may be either as it falls out But I rank them with neither but among exteriour things of which we must labour to get the right Opinion To that end we must alwayes consider them two wayes as they are good or bad and as they are neare to us in blood or bonds of duty Neither must the second relation hinder the first so forestalling the mind with the relations of Husband or Wife Sonne or Brother that one be incapable to make a right Judgement of their disposition and capacity and set a just price on them The onely relation of Parents must spread a vaile of reverence betweene our eyes and their imperfections that we may see nothing but good in them There it is wisedome to be somewhat deceived Though it be not my theame to speak of the duties to be rendred to our several relations yet because I seeke the contentment of mind I cannot chuse but say that of all civill and natural duties none is so contenting to him that payeth it as the duty payd to Parents Herein Epamimondas Judged his victories most fortunate unto him that he had obtained them in his Fathers life time who did much rejoyce at them To other relations we must also pay their proper duty Of which wee must remember this general rule That it is impossible to get content by them unlesse we do our duty towards them For that content must not be expected from them but from ourselves The content that one takes with a deare Wife a good Brother and a well chosen Friend is more that which he giveth then that which he receiveth It lyeth in the testimony of his conscience that he hath rendred to them the true offices of love Without prejudice to those duties we may and ought impartially to consider their inclinations and abilities and what may be expected of them In those relations which come by choyce as of a Husband Wife and friend the judgement must precede the affection to finde what is fit for us before we fixe upon it But in relations of Kindred made by nature without us the affection must go before and the judgement must follow that we may know them so well that though we love them we trust them proportionably to their honesty and capacity and no more In this point the vulgar sort making many grosse mistaks For it is an ordinary but an evill expression I would trust him as mine owne Brother Yet most knaves have Brothers who should do very unwisely to trust them The style of Merchants selling their ware is more ingemous when they promise to a Chapman to use him as if he were their Brother for they would not scruple to cozen their Brother And truly hence the word of cozening had its Origine because it is usual to make use of the bond of Kindred to be trusted enough to deceive enough For counsel and conversation we much choose the wisest and worthiest rather then the nearest in blood But when there is occasion to give or need to seeke help we must runne to the neerest in blood rather then to the worthyest if they be but honest So much we must deferre to the choyce of Nature that if there be any vertue in them though but small we be neerer to them in affection then blood Solomon saith that a Brother is borne for adversity Prov. 17.17 because other friendships by differences intervening of parties interesses and Opinions are subject to coole and untie but among Brethren those differences are overcome by the strength of nature and in adversity either good nature or feare of blame makes Brothers give real help to Brothers Wife and Children are the strongest trials of a magnanimous spirit for they make a mans heart tender and in the pinches of adversity make him descend to ungenerous shifts He that hath none shal have lesse delight lesse sorrow Yet must we acknowledge that a mariage wel sorted betweene two persons of merit is of all worldly felicities the greatest Of children expect noe good but the satisfaction to have done them good and to see them doe wel for them-selves For in this relation the nature of beneficence is to descend seldom to remount Nothing is more pretious among humane things then a vertuous loving freind kinne or no kinne And if he be one story above us in nobility and vertue he is better then lower Equality indeed is requisit in friendship but friend ship it selfe worketh that equality where it is not And there is need of it for it is impossible to find two friends in the world altogether equal in al respects The price of friendship is according to the price of the person whom therefore we must study to know wel that we may love no person above or under his right value A reasonable benevolence of a man of great merit is more obliging then the ardent affection of an Idiot From the former you may receive instruction honour and content From the second importunity and the disgrace to be paired with a man of no worth Such a friendship will end in a breach and so in repentance Whether friendships be knit by nature or by choyce that we may not expect of them a content beyond their nature we must remember that our freinds are men whose love may and whose life must faile The use of them we may have not the possession The best and most powerfull freinds are weake reeds which we must not leane upon with all our weight lest they breake in our hand and we take a sore fall Thus saith the Lord Cursed is the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arme Jer. 17.5 As this is a sentence given by God against them that put their confidence in man it is also a natural consequence of the nature of the fault For puting our confidence in man is going out of our selues It is going out of God It is making men Gods for unto God only is that homage due of an absolute and total confidence Noe wonder that God thereby is moved to jealousy To that evill Pagan Philosophers give a remedy little better then the disease which is To put confidence in ourselves This being a most erroneous Doctrine is nevertheless halfe the way to the truth for they had very well observed that a wise wan must not depend from another but retire within himselfe where all the good and evill of a man lyeth But while they enjoyne a man to retire within himselfe they leave out the maine precept proper to a higher School then theirs that a man should seek God within himselfe and to find
smal vertue unlesse it please God himselfe to fetch him out of it by strong hand and a stretched out arme And of him before and after all remedies we must begge the remedie against Sadnesse Melancholy is the seat and fastnesse of the Devill whence none but God alone can thrust him out Every time that Sadnesse offers to deject our spirits let us raise them againe presently chiding ourselves as David did who three times in the XLII and XLIII Psalmes tooke up his drooping minde with this encouragement Why art thou cast downe O my soul and why art thou disquieted within me Hope thou in God for I shall yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God CHAP. VIII Of Joy JOy is the acquiescence of the Appetite in the acquisition of a desired good or in the expectation of it Joy is more naturall then sadness for sadness though naturall yet is an enemie to nature but Joy is natures friend Then sadnesse is never without some degree of precedent constraint and even they that are obstinatly sad are sorry to be so But the heart applyeth it selfe freely to Joy Sadnesse is ill in itselfe and is good but by accident but Joy is good in itselfe and is ill but by accident Therefore considering both naturally joy upon a false ground is preferable to sadnesse upon a true ground for joy is a true good at least for a time though the ground be false but sadnesse is a true present evill be the ground true or false But considering these passions morally by the effects which they produce by accident joy doth more harme in the world then sadnesse For Joy naturally dilating the spirits brings the mind to a loose carriage and takes the fence of warinesse from about it commonly joy is the mother of rashnesse But Sadnesse contracting the spirits keeps the mind within the limits of sobernesse and brings it to serious thoughts Eccles 7.2 Hence it comes that it is better to go to the hoùse of mourning then to the house of feasting for that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to his heart Eccles 3.4 Sorrow is better then laughter for by the sadnesse of the countenance the heart is made better The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fooles is in the house of mirth For of passions we may say as of men Our friends flatter us but our enemies tell us our faults Joy which is a friend of nature doth flatter it into errour and seduction but sadnesse which is an enemy to nature undeceiveth it and layeth open before a man his fault and his danger The sanguine temper which is most given to joy is most subject to folly But the temper where melancholy beares a moderate sway is the fittest for prudence But there are melancholy as well as sanguine fooles And sadnesse gives evill counsel as well as Joy The ill counsels of joy are more frequent and hot and make more noise The ill counsels of sadnesse are lesse frequent but they are darke mischievous and recompense their rarity with their malignity The Italians call mischievous and dangerous men huomini tristi It is a fine consideration how these two passions though contrary yet are next neighbours and how in Joy there is an ayre of complaint and in sadnesse a tickling of pleasure That contemplation is more naturall then morall It is more usefull to learne how Joy brings to sadness than how it is mixt with it It is an old expostulation that the case of men is miserable to have their joyes attended with crime and their pleasures ending in a bitter farewell of remorse and sometimes of despaire But that is an unjust re-jecting of the fault of the persons upon the things The reason why our Joy is attended with crime and misery is because it mistakes both the matter and the manner We neither rejoyce for what we should nor how we should The first mistake is in the object For our desire aiming at Joy applyes it selfe to false objects and very often misseth them or when it obtaines them finds not in them what it sought And because the appetite obstinately bends itselfe to finde in them more joy then their capacity can afford and goeth about to stretch them beyond their strength it marres them and loseth the use of them whence necessarily joy is turned into pettishnes and griefe There is no sincere joy but that which ariseth out of our inward wealth which no outward opposition can take from us But we make it depend upon things without us and are so unreasonable as to require a solid permanent ground of joy of things weake and transitory Can we expect any thing but sorrow from an ill grounded joy since by placing our chiefe joy upon unsound and deceitfull objects we bereave ourselves of the true and solid ground of joy which is our union with God For my people hath committed two evills saith God by his Prophet Jeremy they have forsaken me the fountaine of living waters and hewed them out cisternes broken cisternes that can hold no water Jer. 2.3 Then as we choose poore and weake subjects for our joy we choose weak and evill waies to obtaine them yea so farre that many times the joy aimed at is made more precious commendable unto us by the crosseness and unluckinesse of the way Some hold that there can be no honest joy and all lawfull pleasures are tastlesse unto them because they are lawfull These reape commonly a sutable harvest to their seed Or if they get lawfull joyes by lawfull meanes they make then unlawfull by their impetuosity And as women with child that use wicked meanes to be delivered before their time lose their fruit likewise hastinesse brings but an abortive joy and fervent desire loseth its fruit by precipitation Here is then a very ill account of all human joyes They that seeke them misse them commonly or when they have gotten them they find no solid content in them To come neere them they goe farre from God They corrupt them by evill wayes They lose them by rashnes and excesse The worst is that the men lose themselves also for while they seeke to glut themselves with bastard joyes they cast themselves head long into endlesse sorrowes What then must wee seeke no Joy in any thing of this world It is the opinion of some more grave then wise not mine I professe it Rather I think that there is nothing in the world but affords matter of rejoycing to the wise Christian Two rules onely must be observed that wee may rejoyce as wee ought in God and his creatures and all the accidents and occurrences of life The one is to hold it for certaine that there is no solid Joy in any thing displeasing to God for all such joyes will bring great sorrowes Wherefore that wee may have Joy in all things we must in all things seeke to please him by a
it will please them to provoke us to anger Yet a wiseman may expresse indignation without anger and an effectual vigour making others tremble himselfe standing unmooved Out of the anger of others wee may fetch three good uses The first is to learne to hate that passion and take heed of it seeing how it is imperious and servile together ugly unbecomming unreasonable hurtful to others and more to a mans selfe The second use is to gather carefully the wholesome warnings which an angry adversary will give us for he will be sure to tell us all the evill he seeth in us which ourselves see not A benefit not to be expected from our discreet friends The third is the noblest use To study the science of discerning the spirits considering with a judicious eye the several effects of every mans anger for no passion discovereth so much the nature of persons It layeth a man starke naked Ifone be a contemner of God as soone as he is angry he will be sure to wreake his anger upon God with blasphemies If he have piety and ingenuity he will make them pleade for him but lamely as discomposed by anger If he be a coward he will insult over the weake and if he find resistance you shall see him threaten and tremble together like base dogs then barking most when they runne away If he be haughty his anger will expresse it selfe in a malignant smile and he will boast of his blood and valour The occasions of anger will better discover what a man is inclined unto for every one will be sooner moved for those things where he is most interessed As in anger so in reconciliation a discerning eye will reade a character of the several humours The vaine and haughty man after he hath done wrong stands upon reparation The baseminded man is threatened into submissions after the injury received The covetous wretch will have reparation in money and puts a rate upon every bastinado The conscionable meeke and generous man is facile both in giving and receiving satisfaction and easily pardons another mans anger his owne with much adoe From this let us reflect to the first use that wee must make of the anger of others He that will mind well how wrath betrayes a man and layeth open his infirmities and how the man that hath no rule over his owne spirit is like a citty that is broken downe and without walles will fence himselfe against that treacherous passion by Christian meekenes and moderation and will learne to be wise by his neighbours harme To that meekenes we shal be much helped by the remembrance of our sins whereby we daily provoke God and for which wee mought have bin cast headlong into hell long agoe but that he is slow to wrath and abundant in goodnesse Exod. 34.6 To expect that God our father be slow to wrath towards us while we are hot to wrath against our brethren is the extremity of injustice and unreasonablenesse To conclude since we seeke here our tranquility which we have found every where inseparably conjoyned with our duty let us observe our Saviours precept grounded upon his example Matth. 11.29 Learne of me that I am meeke and lowly in heart and ye shall finde rest unto your soules That way the Lord Jesus the great Master of wisedome found rest unto his soul the same way shall wee finde rest to ours CHAP. XII Of Aversion Hatred and Revenge AVersion is the first seed of Hatred and hath a larger extent for hatred regards onely persons or actions but many have Aversions for unreasonable or inanimate things wherefore those Aversions are commonly unreasonable whether it be out of naturall antipathy or out of fancy wantonnesse Persons subject to those Aversions have commonly more Passion then reason and are such as are made tender and are soft spirited by ease Ladies have many antipathyes but among country wives and milkmayds you shall find but few that will swound at the sight of a spider or a frog A wise man must impartially examine those Aversions if he have any whether they consist in fancy or nature and not flatter himselse in such capricious weakenesses He shall do much for his rest and credit if he can weane himselfe altogether from them He that can command himselfe to have no Aversion of which he may not give a reason will traine his passion that way to have no unreasonable Hatred against any person Hatred is an indignation for an injury received or imagined or for an ill opinion conceived of a person or action This description is common to it with anger Herein they differ that anger is sudden and hath a short course but hatred is meditated at leasure and is lasting Also that anger seeks more a mans vindication then the harme of others but hatred studieth the harme of adversaries Hatred as anger is a compound of pride and sadnesse I meane the vicious hatred and the most common It proceeds likewise out of ignorance of ones selfe and the price and nature of things This Philosophy we learne of St. John 1 Joh. 2.11 He that hates his Brother is in darknesse and knowes not whither he goes because that darknesse hath blinded his eyes for ignorance is the darknesse of the soul As then blind men are commonly testy the blindnesse of ignorance will make men prone to hate their neighbours and hatred afterwards increaseth that blindnesse By the same ignorance whereby we love some persons and things without knowledge and reason we hate also some persons and things without reason and many will choose rather to lose a friend then a shilling Hatred is naturally good serving to make us avoyd things hurtfull and it is morally good when we use it to oppose that which is contrary to the Soveraine good which is God When we hate that which God hateth we cannot do amiss so that we be very certaine that God hates it such are the unjust habits and actions condemned by his word and by that law of nature written in mans heart But as for the persons because we have no declaration of Gods love and hatred to this or that man we must love them all and never feare to offend God by loving that which he hateth for we cannot offend him by obeying his commandement Now he commands us to love our neighbours as ourselves No doubt but we must love many persons which God hateth neither will it be time to hate them till we have heard the sentence of Gods personall hatred pronounced against them I say Gods personal hatred because there is a hatred of iniquity in God against those that oppose his glory which obligeth us to hate them also with that hatred of iniquity and to oppose them vigorously as long as they oppose God Of that hatred spake David when he said Psal 139.21 Do not I hate them O Lord that hate thee and am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee I hate them with a perfect hatred
alone what one loveth and shame of what the world may say of it this last especially tears amans soul with extream violence so slavish is the voluntary subjection of weake spirits under the opinion of others A wise man will keepe himselfe from that sharp yet imaginary evill by a sincere love to his party for perfect love casteth out feare 1 Joh. 4.18 He that loveth his wife well will trust her and that trust will make her faithfull or nothing will Fidelem si putaveris facies To that counsell of trusting his wife the husband must joyne a resolution not to mistrust himselfe For here one may lawfully put on a good opinion of himselfe the question being onely to compare himselfe with others about pleasing a woman which is obliged to study to please him and cannot without grievous crime and conceiving an enormous disproportion of merit betweene him and others bestow upon them that love which is due to him A husband betrayeth himselfe and tempteth his wives weakenesse when he discovereth a distrust of himselfe and a feare that she preferre other men before him This sheweth her the way to value them above her husband and she thinkes herselfe justified so to do by her husbands judgement He must learne also to be credulous for his owne content and of hard beleefe in the causes of discontent For here it is better to be deceived in evill then in good and it is better alwayes not to search an evill without remedy then to finde it especially when by seeking it we make it come The dishonour of cuckoldry consisting onely in opinion it is healed also with opinion and he that feeles it not hath it not This inconvenience is prevented by making choice of a vertuous wife and using her well for restraint and hard usage doth but draw the evill Also by keeping us free from defiling our neighbours bed This will give us a great confidence that God will not suffer any to defile ours Most jealous men are adulterers fearing what they have deserved But when one hath made an ill choyce neither kindness nor justice nor prudence can keepe a light and ungratefull woman to her duty When the wrong is so manifest that it is impossible for the husband not to know it and dissembling would be imputed to insensibility or even to consent the right counsell for the exteriour is to be divorced from a wicked wife But if one can neither marry againe nor live without a woman and feareth that he shall hardly be able to keep himselfe from harlots of all harlots let him make use of his owne It is better yet to keepe a lawfull whore then an unlawfull As for counsels for the interiour one must practise the grand remedy to remedilesse evils patience God in this as in other sorrowes of life will finde wayes of comfort reliefe for those that trust in him even where there is no way The good company of so many brave men that are in the same row is a help to beare it A wiseman will make no more strange of it then of wearing a hat a la mode He must keepe fast to that true Maxime that he cannot be dishonoured but by his owne faults not by the faults of another A vertuous mans honour hangs not upon a light womans behaviour If it did it should lye very unsafe No more doth it depend upon his neighbours opinion Persons of honour and judgement will never disesteeme an honest man for it And as for the talk of the vulgar honour and good fame depend no more of it then of the gabbling of geese CHAP. XV. Of Hope I Have spoken in the first Book of the Christian Vertue of Hope Here I speake of a naturall Passion Yet it is certaine that they differ onely in the degree of perfection and in the object Naturall hope is wavering Divine hope is fixt Divine hope regardeth eternall goods Naturall hope lookes for naturall and civill goods Yet the object of Divine hope is not denyed to the naturall but when that passion is determined by grace unto supernatural goods it becomes a vertue Hope is a compound of courage Desire and Joy but hath more of the first and second ingredient then of the third Also a graine of feare enters into the composition for if there were none it would not be hope but expectation as on the other side there is a graine of Hope in feare for if there were no Hope it would not be feare but despaire Hope hath this common with love and desire that it regards a good object at least in the intention But Hope considers foure particular qualities in her object That it is absent that it is future that it is possible and likely and that it is yet uncertaine at least in some regard if not in the substance at least in the circumstance for even the certainest Hope of all that of eternall goods grounded upon Gods immutable promises is neverthelesse uncertaine of the degree the manner and the time of the enjoyment hoped for Laying aside that prime object of hope it is hard to say whether Hope doth more good or harme in the world For on the one side it raiseth the courage and animates good enterprises with vigour On the other side it blinds the reason which instead of good chooseth a disguised evill or turnes good into evill by rashnesse unquietnesse Hope sets the mind on gadding and aspiring higher then it can reach all wayes discontented with the present and hanging upon the future And how deceitfull are the promises of Hope Of ten one comes not to effect With hoping good and suffering evill mans life passeth away Yet must we acknowledge the obligation that men have to hope for it makes them subsist even while it deceives them What makes Negro's confined to the mines there to eate and drinke It is Hope What makes gally slaves to sing while they are rowing It is Hope And would so many persons whose dayes are a continuall torment consent to maintaine their wretched life but that in a bottomlesse gulfe of evills they will obstinate themselves to hope well and after all goods are flowne away Hope stayeth behind Hence it comes that many unfortunate persons will stirre up their industrie awake their vertue strengthen themselves in faith and live to see better dayes So to answere the question whether Hope must be reckoned among the goods or among the evills it may be said that it is the evill of them that are at ease and the good of the miserable For such as have meanes and dignity have also many designes and chained hopes which keepe them hanging in chaines while cares and feares like ravens are tearing their hearts Besides they that are inchanted with many worldly hopes conceive christian Hope but remissely Whereas they that are in adversity being not tickled with those delicate hopes which a man dares not recommend unto God will fixe upon just hopes suggested by necessity And if
fortune hath her inconstancy as well as the good and the calme will come after the storme The proper exercise of vertue in Adversity is to imitate God who fetcheth good out of it and makes it a discipline of godlines wisedome and tranquillity to his children It is not enough to hope that after the storme the calme will come wee must study to find tranquillity in the very tempest and make profit of our damage Having spoken of the particular Adversities in the second booke I will endeavour here to set downe general remedies for all sorts of Adversities saving one the Adversity which a delicat man createth to himselfe out of a conceited tendernes for to such wilfully afflicted persons the counsells of reason are uselesse till they be afflicted in earnest They have need of real afflictions to be healed of imaginary To them that are sick with too much ease a smarting Adversity is a wholesome plaister As to the hypocondriaque who had a false opinion of a wound in his left thigh the surgeon made an incision in the right to make him feele the difference betweene real wounds and imaginary Indeed the most part of persons afflicted are more so out of opinion then any true ground but the wanton melancholy of some that were all their time dandled in fortunes lap addeth to that epidemical disease Wee will let them alone till they have reason to complaine and desire them that groane under some apparent Adversities to examine seriously whether they be such as they appeare For there are some Adversities or called so which rather are prosperities if they that complaine of them can obtaine of themselves rather to beleeve their owne sense then the opinion of others and to have no artificial and studied sense but meerely the natural Thus he that is fallen into disfavour whereby he hath lost wealth and honours and hath kept liberty and bread enough to subsist retired remote and neglected is very much obliged first to the envy and after to the contempt of the contrary prevailing faction if God give him the understanding to enjoy the prosperity created by his adversity It is a happy misfortune for a little barke to be cast by the storme upon a smooth shore where the Sea ebbing leaveth it dry but safe while the rest of the fleet is torne by the tempest The wave is more favorable if it thrust the ship upon the haven Now the godly wiseman finds a haven any where because God is every where Sitting under the shelter of his love and providence he lookes with compassion upon the blinde rage of parties flesht in the blood of one another praising God that he was hurled downe from a stage where they are acting a bloody tragedy that he may be an actour no more but a beholder onely disinteressed from the publique contradiction His ruine cannot equal his gaine if by the losse of his estate he hath bought his peace and the uninterrupted contemplation of God himselfe and the world It would be a long taske to enumerate all the commodious adversities for which neverthelesse comfort is given and received with great ceremony Many accidents bitter to us for a time turne afterwards to our great conveniency Some should have missed a great fortune had they not bin repulsed in the pursuite of a lesser Many teares are shed upon the dead but more would be shed if some of them should rise againe God hath so enterlaced good and evill that either brings the other If wee had the patience to let God doe and the wisedome to make use of all wee might finde good in most part of our Adversities Many persons ingenious to their owne torment are like the boulter that lets out the flowre and keepes the bran they keepe disgraces and misfortunes in their thoughts and let Gods benefits goe out of their minde It had bin better for them to resemble the rying seeve that lets out ill seedes and keepes the good corne taking off their thoughts from that which is troublesome in every accident of their life unlesse it be to remedy it setting their mind upon that hath which may yeeld profit or comfort Thus he that received some offence in company by his indiscretion in stead of making that offense an occasion of quarrel must make it a corrective of his rashnes He that is confined within the limits of a house and garden instead of grieving that he hath not the liberty of the street must rejoyce that he hath the liberty of a walke And how many crosses come upon us which being wisely managed would bring great commodities if anger troubling our judgement did not make us forgoe the care of our conveniency to attend our appetite of revenge Could wee keepe every where equality and serenity of spirit wee might scape many Adversities or make them more tolerable or turne them to our advantage All afflictions are profitable to the wise and godly Even when all is lost for the temporal there wants never matter for the principall Advantage which is the spiritual There wee learne to know the perversity and inconstancy of the world and the vanity of life that wee may not repose our trust and bend our affection upon it Since a curse is pronounced to the man that trusteth in man and to him that trusteth in his riches the way to the kingdome of heaven is as impassable as the going of a cable through a niedles eye and we notwithstanding these divine warnings are so prone to trust and love the world God therefore in his wisedome and mercy suffers that unsound reed which wee leane upon to breake in our hand and our love of the world to be payd with its hatred that wee may learne to settle our confidence and love in a better place Hereby also a man comes to know his sin and Gods Justice Though we be prone to attribute the good and evill that comes to us unto second causes there is such an affinity betweene sin and punishment that even in the most obdurate hearts affliction brings sin to mind and gives remorse to the conscience But in godly soules that remorse is salutary David having sayd to God Psal 32.5 Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me my moisture is turned into the drought of summer addeth I acknowledged my sin unto thee mine iniquity have I not hid I said I will confesse my transgressions and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin And whereas the appetite will run wilde when prosperity opens the broad gate of licentiousnesse Adversity comming upon that holds a short hand upon the appetite and awakes piety and wisedome David speakes of this experimentally Psal 119.67 Before I was afflicted I went astray but now have I kept thy word ver 71. It is good for me that I have bin afflicted that I might learne thy statutes Prosperity is an evill counsellour and all her adresses are to the appetite but Adversity crossing the appetite calls upon the judgement
Repentance and Faith are seldome set on work by prosperity but Adversity raiseth our hearts to God and the feare of danger makes us flee to his Sanctuary A wise godly man will manage affliction for that end not contenting himselfe with the first pious motions suggested by feare and sorrow He will husband that accidentall heat of distresse to warme his zeale and having sought God out of necessity he will seeke him out of love The unkind entertainement he findes in the world will helpe him to take off his affection from it and transport his heart where his treasure is Acknowledging Adversity to be the wages of sin he will learne to walk before God in feare and from the feare of his judgements he will rise to the feare of his holiness esteeming that the greatest Adversity not to beare his heavy plagues but to transgress his holy will This filial feare of God is the way to prevent or avert many afflictions for they that humble themselves in prosperity need not to be humbled by Adversity Many times the repentance of the sinner hath wrested the destroying sword out of Gods hand Many times when good men have bin beset on all sides the feare of God hath opened them a gate to go out for he that feareth God shall come forth of all Ecces 7.18 Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all he keepeth all his bones not one of them is broken Psal 34.19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous because God formeth him to patience and perfecteth his faith by long exercise which endeth in comfort as he wrestled with Jacob a whole night and blest him in the morning He deales otherwise with the wicked for he lets them thrive a while but when he takes them in hand with his justice he destroyeth them utterly Psal 92.7 When the wicked spring as the grass and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish it is that they shal be destroyed for ever God exercised his people of Israel with diverse trials for forty yeares in the wilderness but he extermined the Cananites suddenly God forbid we should be of those to whom he gives but one blow Rather let him wrestle with us a long time with his fatherly hand which with the tryall brings strength to them that are tryed and gives them the crowne in the end of the combar Here is the patience and the faith of Saints Our very nature ought to acquaint us with adversity For suffering is the naturall condition of men Job 7.1 Is there not a warfarre appointed to man upon earth To be cast downe with sorrow for the adversities incident unto mans life sheweth ignorance of our condition The way not to be surprised with any thing is to be prepared for all and to think that the evill which happens to one man may happen to any other since all are men alike As at dice whosoever playeth is subject to all the casts of the dice he that is engaged in the game of life is subject to all the events incident to the living and must be prepared for them But because it is not fortune but providence that disposeth of the accidents of life the greater is our obligation to beare good evill accidents with a holy equanimity because all that happens to us is unavoidable as ordained by a fatal and eternal law Upon that wee must conceive as well as wee can that humane events and several personal interesses are so interwoven by that high providence that they have a mutual dependance among themselves and their meetings which in our regard are casual are twice necessary in regard of God both because they are decreed in his counsell and because they are requisite for the execution of many things To which if wee adde that God all-wise and all-good doeth nothing permitteth nothing but for a good end wee cannot reasonably complaine of any crosse befalling us though wee had not deserved it For wee must consider ourselves as pieces of the universe and engeenes which that great workman sets on going for the execution of his ends which being all good all meanes also tending to them are good in that regard Our crosses then being determined and directed to some good by the good hand of God which wee must firmely beleeve we must also beleeve them to be good because they serve for Gods end which is alwayes good So not onely wee must beare them with patience but receive them with content yea with thankes rejoycing as happy that even in suffering wee are instruments in the good hand of God to doe his work and advance his glory which many times we see not but he seeth it and that must silence and content us Being thus disposed this advantage we have above many of the wheeles and weights of that great machine of Providence that whereas some of them have no will some an ill will our will is acting with Gods will and our love to him boweth our self love to his pleasure so that for his glories sake into which all things end our afflictions appeare good unto us and so they are indeed since by them God is glorified Events being thus chained up and interlaced together it is a great injustice against God and the order by him settled in the universe to grudge at any thing that happens to us as though wee would have God to unweave in our behalfe the web of his providence create a new decree and make a new counsel-booke for us Let us goe willingly where Gods decree leads us for goe wee must howsoever Is it not better to goe streight forward where God will have us to goe then to be dragged backwards Indeed there is no need of a high reach of reason to perswade a man to bear with unavoydable accidents and to will that which it were to no purpose not to will But when wee consider besides that it is the will of God if wee be his true children we shall will cheerefully what he wills When we are in prosperity there is no praise to will what God willes for then God willes what wee will But that is pleasing to God to consent to his will when he smites us and to say after the Lord Jesus the patterne of all perfection Father not as I will but as thou wilt That resolution brings a great rest and a great perfection to the soul for by that meanes our will is changed into Gods will The way to have all our will is to will nothing but what God wils When God sends us affliction thereby He gives us a great matter to glorifie him and to draw a blessing upon ourselves For whereas unavoydable Adversities make us worse when we pull against them they worke in us a peaceable fruit of righteousnes when we not onely beare them patiently but receive them joyfully as comming from God I verily beleeve that God beholds nothing from heaven that pleaseth him more then a will so
cheerefully out of hope of eternal felicity after death It is pittiful to behold what paine these old Philosophers tooke to arme themselves against death and how the seeming lofty peace wherewith they marcht towards death is like that of a starting hors blowing and pricking up his eares at the entry of a dark place whereas the good Christian goeth gently to it with simplicity joy and considence Why the Pagans knew not whither they went and conceived of death as of a ghastly darke denne but the right Christian seeth his way and thinking of death saith I know whom I have beleeved He gives thankes to the father who hath made him meet to be partaker of the inheritance of the Saints in light His desire is to depart and to be with Christ remembring that Christ went before and sayd to all his disciples both present and to come when he went up to heaven I goe to prepare a place for you So whereas pagan Philosophy seekes comforts against death Christian Philosophy presenteth death as a comfort Fellons condemned to the gallowes heare not with so much joy the grace and pardon that giveth them life as good Christians heare the glad tidings of their approaching death for death is a grace unto them since it opens them the prison doore If they be dangerously sick the way to cheere them up is not to say Be of good heart you shall recover but be of good heart you must dye for they conceive of death as of their haven of salvation after a stormy voyage That hope sweetens all their Adversities It is a corke that keepes up their spirits above the most raging waves not suffering it to sinke under any sorrow It is the charme of all cares which makes the Christian to say when he loseth his earthly goods Now I am unloaden of that luggage I am the lighter for my journey to the Kingdome of heaven and there I have my true goods which no man can take from me So were the Hebrewes disposed that received with joy the spoyling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance Heb. 10.34 This also makes the Christian disgest injuries and contemne contempt saying Earth is not the Country where am I to expect glory I shall have enough in heaven shortly I am little concerned in the Opinion of men during this life of few dayes and I am yet lesse concerned in that they shall say of me after my death Of all sufferings the sufferings for righteousness have the surest comfort Christ saying so expresly Matth. 5.10.12 Blessed are they that are persecuted for righteousnesse sake for theirs is the Kingdome of God Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven Since by many afflictions we must enter into the Kingdome of heaven we perceive by the thornes which we were told we should finde in the way that we are in the right Any way is pleasant that leads us to salvation Finally this heavenly hope abates the tediousnesse of sickness and the chagreene of old age For the godly soul finding her house of flesh ready to fall prepareth herself with joy to come out at the breach and finding the race of this life neere done stretcheth herselfe towards the prize which the great Saviour holds her up from heaven Thus faith is found to be the most sublime Philosophy for it takes off the heart from things transitory and raiseth it up to the eternall It is the chiefe valour for it is victor over dolour and armeth the weake with invincible strength It makes the Christian to walke in the midst of calamities with a resolute and undanted march and to grow familiar with death finding in the principall subject of humane feares the great subject of his confidence and joy and in the cross a ladder to glory OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT OF MIND FIFTH BOOK Of Peace in Society CHAPTER I. Of Concord with all men and of Meeknesse OUr first Book hath bin imployed about the Peace of man with God The three following about the peace of man with himselfe To confirme himselfe in these his next care must be to have peace with his owne kind For in vaine should we hope to keepe peace with God and our owne selves if we live in wilfull discord with our neighbours these are things altogether inconsistent If a man say I love God and hateth his brother he is a lyar for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seene how can he love God whom he hath not seene and if a man be at odds with God and his brother how can he have peace at home We are commanded to follow peace with all men Heb. 12.14 Which because it is more easy to follow then to obtaines the Apostle St. Paul prepares us to meet with opposition by these termes If it be possible as much as lyeth in you live peaceably with all men Rom. 12.18 Now what lyeth in us with Gods assisting grace to live peaceably with all men is exprest in two counsels in the words next before The first is to recompense no man evill for evill It is impossible to go through the croud of the world and not to be thrust Fooles returne the like and thrust againe and thrusting brings striking The wise passe quiet and unconcerned As we must beare one with another for Gods sake that commands it we must do it for our own sake to keep tranquillity of mind the losse whereof cannot be recompenced by any satisfaction of revenge if revenge ever brought any Most part of injuries consisting in opinion the remedy consisteth in the same They hurt not him that resents them not Injuriarum remedium est oblivio But if the injury bee such that we must needs resent it Pardoning is the best resenting and the honorablest revenge of all is To recompence good for evill The other counsell is Provide things honest in the sight of all men For whether we live with good or bad men which are the greater number it were impossible for us to compasse all our designes if they were layd open in the sight of all men they must be so honest that when they are ripe for the knowledge of all men we need not be ashamed of them And if in the following of honest and beneficial designes we meete with opposition we must behave ourselves with so much meekenes that we make it appeare that we seeke not our advantage by the ruine of others and together with so much vigour that none be encouraged by our pusillanimity to crosse us There is no harder taske then to keepe ourselves free from dissention in this age which may be called the reigne of discord Here then wee must bestow the greater care to keep tranquillity in our conversation and more in our minde As for publique quarrels a wise man will wedde himselfe to no party with eagernes and if it be possible he will looke upon the game and himselfe
will be but dissimulation and though it get us peace abroad it will not give us peace within My little children saith St. John let us not love in word neither in tongue but indeed and in truth 1. Ioh. 3.18 Then he addeth that hereby wee know that wee are of the truth and assure our hearts before God A text shewing that charity to our neighbours fills the minde with saith peace and assurance a doctrine justified by the experience of meek and charitable soules The same charity that unites us with Christ as our head unites us also with our neighbours as his members or at least as his creatures that beare his image In the one or the other of these relations we must love all men for Gods sake and render to them all possible duties of humanity To the practice of these duties we are more especially called by the necessity of our neighbours and by their vertue Necessity affords us a perpetual occasion of charity Matth. 26.11 For ye have the poore alwayes with you saith the Lord Jesus Others that are not poore in estate are poore in counsel or health or friends or comfort Let every body give of that he hath to him that hath not and he sheweth charity to the rich if he doe him good expecting no reward Workes of charity doe good both to him that is relieved and to him that relieveth But he that doeth good gets more reliefe by it then he to whom it is done for it is a thing more happy to give then to receive Act. 20.35 saith St Paul after Christ first because of the good treasure which is layd up thereby for the future Pro. 11.25 The liberal soul shall be made fat and he that watereth shall be watered also himselfe Giving charitably is casting a seed bringing an everlasting harvest It is sending up sweete vapours to heaven which are thickened there into a raine of blessings to showre downe upon the head of the charitable person To which we may joine the great and present content accrewing to the soule in the very act of giving for good workes give a ready pay to the doers This made Solomon to say The merciful man doeth good to his owne soul Prov. 11.17 for the workes of mercy give a great joy to the doer And he that gives his bread to the poore is more satisfied with it then he that eates it It is a divine felicity to doe good to many for it is the greatest imitation of God who gives to all and is never weary of doing good Herein onely dignities and riches are good that they enable a willing mind to doe much good As the necessity of our neighbours invites us to charity so doth their Vertue which is the better invitation The first sort of Charity which regards more the need then the worth of the person is humanity and mercy that which regardeth Vertue is friendship or at least a beginning of it Friendship to deserve fully that name must be reciprocall the parties loving one another dearely because they deserve it and because they see the graces of God each in the other Friendship that regards profit and pleasure deserveth not that name since it is neither for the love of God nor for the love of the person that such a Friendship is contracted but out of selfe-love Friendship cemented by Vertue and riveted by likeness in inclinations manners and opininions is the sweetest of all human things For besides counsell and mutuall help and the delight of enterchanging thoughts and discharging cares in the bosome one of another the union of affections and the assurance to be beloved of the beloved person is a content not to be exprest there is something heavenly in that harmony It is a little imitation of the union between the persons of the Trinity which make themselves happy by their mutuall love There is nothing neither in heaven nor in earth that giveth content but friendship Nothing is pleasant without it And if I were asked what is the greatest of all joyes I would say that it is to love and to be loved againe and know it But it must be acknowledged that this perfection and felicity is more in Idea then in reality among men and we must go higher then human Society to find it For whereas it is hard to find a vertuous man in the world it is harder to find two And it is harder yet to make these two meet in opinions in inclinations in interesses in place of habitation and in the like course of life for the want of one of these particulars hinders the knitting of the bond of friendship or makes it shortlived or abates the comfort of it The description which Pagan Philosophy forgeeth of perfect friendship is a fair imagination of an impossible thing They require two friends or three at the most but such as were never found endowed with perfect vertue That for that vertue these persons love one another without any other obligation or collaterall respect That these perfect soules be so plunged and blended one within another that they can not owne themselves singled and asunder That they be but one soul dwelling in severall bodyes That a friend give himselfe so absolutely to his friend that he live no more but for him yea in him and that his goods as himselfe be his friends whose interesses he wholly seekes not his owne I wonder that among Christian Philosophers none hath hitherto observed for any thing I know what it was that bred that Idea of friendship so high and remote from the nature of things in the fancy of Pagan Philosophers which yet placed vertue and felicity in living according to Nature why they have so universally adored that chimera which is found no where among men like the Athenians that had set up an Altar to the unknowne God This is then the origine and ground of that high imagination of those Pagans They had found by searching the nature of man that nothing can make him happy but love And that for a beatificall love a man hath need of an object all good all wise and all perfect so perfectly united with him yea so totally that both passe the one into the other and make a mutuall free and absolute gift of themselves But the poore men did not know that object of transcendent goodness onely worthy to be loved with all the heart and soul and if some of them acknowledged God to be the Soveraine good they beleeved not that he could have such a communication with man that both might enterchange a mutuall gift of their owne selves so that man should dwell in God and God in man Thinking not then that there might be a contract of friendship betweene God and man and seeing that it is friendship that must make man happy they forged that Idea of friendship betweene man man of which the condition of man is not capable requiring for that friendship that which indeed is requisite
readers to be made by their countenance free denizon of England if they like it Let me not be the onely writer of these times that dares not coine new English Accortize is a pliableness and dexterity to fit oneselfe to all businesses and persons and times And first for businesses a wise and accort man must make unto himselfe an universall and complying spirit versatile ingenium to whom nothing seems strange or new not so much affected to some certaine things as to be unfit for all other things Thales the Milesian Philosopher being mocked by some Merchants of Miletus upbraiding him that he declaimed against riches because he felt himselfe uncapable to get them began a traffick whereby in one Summer he engroced the whole trading of the Towne to himselfe Then having shewed what he could do he left trading and returned to his Philosophy It is a shame for a man of reasonable parts to be fit but for one thing but certainly if one can sort his imployment to his proper genius he shall do much for the liberty of his actions the successe of his enterprises and the contentment of his mind As we must comply with buzinesses so we must with persons whose several natures we should therefore study To this natural Philosophie will helpe us much for the inclinations and manners of men will commonly follow the temper of their body But experience and observation are the best schooles for that skill We must carefully observe the humours of those persons that are within the sphere of our activity that we may take every man in his humour marking what things they are most bent upon and wherein they are most impatient to be crost Of all the miraculous gifts of the holy Ghost which are ceased I finde none so much wanting as the gift of discerning the spirits for want of which we misse so often the compassing of our ends with our neighbours either for their good or our owne Jer. 17.9 The heart of man is deceitfull who can know it And some natures are harder to know then others and need a longer observation Some having planted orchards with great care and cost at thirty yeares end beginne to perceive that the soyle was not fit for trees And many fathers have missed that comfort which they might have had from their children because they have knowne their nature too late and set them upon a course of life unsuitable to their minds and abilities If fathers are thus short in the knowledge of their owne children and ourselves with much adoe attaine the knowledge of our owne nature how shall we be able to know the nature of so many persons with whom we must converse having to doe every day with new men which shew nothing but a plausible and artificial outside In that great art of Discerning the proper handles to lay hold of the several spirits which is the great work of acccotize honest and worthy men must have an emulation not to be overcome by impostors and juglers that make it their whole trade Truly the children of light have need in this point to turne disciples of the children of darknes They know how to perswade the generous with honour the timorous with feare the covetous with profit the voluptuous with pleasure the proud with praise the devout with conscience Of that manner of commerce of which something is to be taken something left the sincere and prudent must learne enough to avoyd circumvention and to know the several avenues of the spirits with whom he is to converse Accortize having taught a man to fit himselfe for the several buzinesses and persons her third worke is to make him discerne the nature of the times and comply with them as farre as he may with a safe conscience Every age of the world hath its proper genius which a wiseman must observe daily studying the raigning humours the ebbes and flowes of customes and the signes of approaching revolutions either to make benefit of the tyde or to decline it with as little harme as may be if it suite not with his conscience and inclination He that will maintaine or advance himselfe in a time full of revolutions and quick turnes hath need to be of the nature of ivy which takes hold of all that stands neere gets roote every where even upon stones and followeth all the turnes of the tree or wall that it sticks unto Many might have advanced themselves in the world had their conscience bin as nimble as their industry But it is not advancement but the peace and contentment of minde that a wise and godly man must looke for Conscience and simplicity are not able to follow all the giddy turnes of the world especially when one hath a publique imployment where it is as impossible to be hid as it would be treacherous to be indifferent But when conscience lyeth not at the stake a wiseman finally must yeeld if he cannot overcome He must not blow against the wind nor justle against a windmill turning with impetuosity The difficulties of life being great and many and every one being more cleare sighted in his neighbours case then his owne we must in our difficulties aske counsell of those whom we know to be wise and honest and to have no interesse but our owne in the buzinesses upon which we consult them It is better to consult those that are lesse wise then ourselves then to take counsell of none but ourselves in things important For two eyes see more then one Though another have not better eyes he may looke upon the buzines by another by as and if he be not capable to give us counsell he is able to forme objections which will be so many overtures of counsel We must heare all 1. Thes 5.21 Prove all things hold fast that which is good be free and benevolent to all trust but few but shew no mistrust to any without necessity Two contrary faults are the ordinary ruine of businesses The one is too much fervency and haste to bow the occasion to our desire whereas we should gently bow our desire to the occasion and stay till it be ripe The other is negligence and security presuming of ones owne merit and fortune despising oppositions and letting occasions slip But many times rash men from one of these contraries passe to the other for fiery and hasty men will soone relent and utterly ruine by their negligence what they had spoiled before by their hastines It would be endlesse and beyond my subject to specifie all the precepts of prudence Others have eased me of that labour I doe but recommend the study and practise of them to such as will enjoy peace and contentment of minde We are not Mastes of events but we ought to be Masters of counsels If a good counsel be followed with a sinister event we beare it more easily when we can beare witness to ourselves that it is not for want of a wise diligent and honest care But he that
to him With whose constancy we have some participation when we stay ourselves upon him our present and eternal good and depend not upon the uncertaine future The godly wiseman aspires onely to one certaine future the full possession of his soveraine good which as yet he doth but unperfectly possesse As for the doubtfull future he leaves it to Gods providence in whose respect that which is doubtful to us is certaine and infallible Since our care can alter nothing in it why should we vexe our heart about it If evill must come let us not hasten its comming by our apprehension and if good must come let us not spoile it by our impatience The consideration of the decrees of Gods providence which ought to ease us of care must not bereave us of prudence for the prudence of man is employed by the providence of God for the execution of his counsels So when prudence calles upon us to give order for the time to come we need but follow this rule To doe what we ought and can doe and let God doe what he will By that meanes we shall keepe the wise medium between diffident care and imprudent negligence Following with an ingenuous simplicity the dictates of prudence and conscience trusting in God and doing good we shal not be distracted betweene trembling feares and ardent desires for the time to come being confident that whatsoever may happen to us either good or evil all will turne to our good as long as we stick fast to our soveraine good which is God That we may not depend of the future we must study to keepe our minde free of that disease of the vulgar sort the curiosity of things to come whether they concerne them or no onely because they are to come This is a natural inheritance of the presumption of our first parents who would know that which belonged to God onely to know For the knowledge of the future belongeth to God onely and yet men pretend to it Both the knowledge which is proper to us and that which is forbidden is set downe in this divine lesson Deut. 29.29 The secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever that we should doe all the words of Gods law Neither is that curiosity excused with the desire of avoyding evill to come for if it must come it cannot be avoyded by knowing it before It is enough to expect inevitable evils we need not send for them by our curiosity Observe that the most curious of the future are none of the best men but persons of an unbridled greedines and set upon ill ends None consulteth southsayers to doe a vertuous action A good soule that trusteth in God and feares him will patiently expect his good pleasure saying Isa 12.2 Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afrayd Come what will it will come from God and nothing but good can come to me from that good hand since God is my father But evil consciences tremble at the thought of the future and at the same time burne with desire to know it and because they cannot know it of God they are easily perswaded to aske it of the devil As they are none of the best so they are none of the wisest that are most carryed away by that curiosity but the weakest natures as simple maydes that easily find inventions to see in their sleepe what they desire when they are awake Persons of the meanest condition and capacity are most eagerly set upon the knowledge of the future and finding some fright in their conscience when they goe about those inquisitions they stop their eyes not to see the iniquity of their ends and wayes That wilfull blindnes is increased by the craft of Satan presenting wayes in themselves indifferent to these silly curious minds which consider not that the harme doth not consist in using such words or gestures but in ascribing to them an unnatural vertue without warrant of the Master of nature and in seeking to see that which God hath hidden Certainly since God hath hidden the future to goe about to lay it open is a worke proper to the profest undoer of Gods workes Curiosity of the future carryeth many so farre as to make a covenant with the devill Who yet stands not so much upon his points as to refuse to be consulted by those that have made no covenant with him No doubt but this pride is tickled with a mischievous delight when he seeth men seeking to him for that which is proper to God and herein yeelding to him divine service Which service that he may receive in a civil and occult way from the fine sort of wits he hath devised some seeming sublime divinations perswading them that the decree of God about humane events is written in the motions and several aspects of the starres and therefore that this sort of divination is lawfull yea divine The evills that come from that perswasion are numberlesse for the silly reverence which vulgar spirits deferre to these predictions makes them wilde and sets them upon the fullfilling of them because they account them unavoidable The worst evill is that thereby mans minde which ought to dwell at home is transported out of himselfe instead of reposing upon the love and wisedome of God is suspended upon the Dragons tayle and the Ascendant of an Horoscope The histories of the Greeke Emperours Alexius and Manuel are lamentable examples how credulous persons are undone by the imposture of Astrologers when they expect from the Starres those successes which ought to have bin wrought by piety prudence and valour That unlucky art cuts the sinewes of industrie and makes men idle greedy and inconsiderate This reasoning I recommend to the calme judgement of the lovers of that Science All affirmation is grounded either upon reason or authority The assertions of judiciary Astrology are of the last kinde for no reason can be given of their Maximes Now the authority upon which these Maximes are grounded must be either divine or humane or devillish They are not grounded upon divine authority but are expressely forbidden by it God will not have us to be dismayed at the signes of heaven for the heathen are dismayed at them Jer. 10.2 and threatens the Astrologers the starre-gazers monethly prognosticatours that they shall be as stubble the fire shall burne them Isa 47.13 Human authority in this case is of no weight for who hath given power to men to dispose of the severall Offices and preheminences of celestial bodies It remaines then that these maximes are grounded upon diabolical authority In effect since they are not grounded upon reason either they are forged by men or delivered by revelation and if that revelation come not from God it must needs come from the devill The truth of this sentence that man is an enemy to his owne content is seene in nothing so much as in that itch
grace is joined with ours we have but our performance to examine looking upon Gods worke with reverence and ascribing to him all the good that is in us Which reverence must be redoubled when we consider in us that worke of grace where the worke of man hath no share and such are the heavenly comforts and spiritual joyes Of these we must not curiously examine the manner and measure as though the seale of our adoption consisted in these for it is not in feeling comfort but in departing from iniquity that this seale consisteth as we learne of St Paul 2. Tim. 2.19 Confidence is a great evidence of grace but Love is a greater Let us imploy spiritual joyes when it pleaseth God to send them to improve love and gratefulnesse in us Do we find ourselves destitute of those joyes let us study to find out in our conciences the causes of that want that we may remove them labouring to clarifye our souls of all mire of the earth that they may like pure Crystals receive the gratious and comfortable rayes of the Sunne of righteousnesse But as long as God gives us the grace to love him and cast ourselves upon him Let his grace be sufficient unto us for his strength is made perfect in weakenesse 2 Cor. 12.9 Joy and comfort cannot but follow faith and love Perhaps not very close but feare not they will and must needs follow Let us expect their comming in silence and hope and take heed of putting them back with curiosity and impatience CHAP. VI. Of the care of the Body and other little Contentments of life SInce we seeke the content of the mind the body must not be forgotten for as long as they live personally united in this world they can hardly be content the one without the other That the body may do good service to the mind the mind must be a good Master to the body and maintaine it with great care I say with great care not with much tendernesse for we must use it to be contented with little and with things easie and ordinary looking lesse for pleasure then health which yet is the way to get a lasting pleasure Of all earthly treasures health is the most precious Without the health of the body the mind hath much adoe to maintaine his liberty and stability The disorder of the humours of the body makes the mind turbulent froward and sometimes reason is quite turned upside downe by a corporall indisposition It is then the part of a wiseman to take a most speciall and exact care of his health It is preserved by these three principal meanes Serenity of mind a sober diet and exercise Of these three antidotes against all diseases the chiefe is Serenity of mind This and the health of the body maintaine one another But the mind is a more powerfull agent upon the body then the body upon the mind A meek and cheerefull spirit keepeth his body healthfull whereas frequent excessive fits of choler and deep sadnesse sowre the whole masse of blood and poyson the fountaine of animall spirits Whereby the body loseth his lively colour and his good plight and droops into a lingering consumption Heavinesse in the heart of man makes it stoop By sorrow of heart the spirit is broken A merry heart doth good like a medicine but a broken spirit dryeth the bones saith Solomon And to get that merry heart he enjoynes us to keep our mind in a milde temper Prov. 11.17 The mercifull man doth good to his owne soule but he that is cruell troubleth his owne flesh The body thus preserved in health by the serenity of mind payeth him readily for that good office for the mind is kept tranquill and serene by the good constitution of the body To preserve both sobriety is necessary there being nothing that weares the body and sets the mind out of frame so much as intemperance doth Neither are those that glut themselves vvith meate and drink the onely that need to be exhorted to learne sobriety Many that go for sober need that exhortation For generally all that live with some plenty eat and drink too much and confound in their stomack too many various ingredients giving to nature more then it needs and more then it can dispense Which superfluity that especially of the third concoction turnes into ill humours whence variety of diseases is bred answerable to the variety of our dishes as in the Commonwealth uselesse persons and such as have nothing to do are they that stirre seditions and trouble the State Then naturall heate which serves to the nutritive faculty weares away before the time when it is put to an overgreat labour and the spirits serving to make the pot boyle below leave the intellectual part ill served in the upper roome That overplus of aliment growing to pride of blood breeds no better effect in the soule then to swell the appetite and stirre it to rebellion against the reason If we could bring ourselves to a more simple and lesse abundant dyet both our bodies and minds would enjoy more health The fewer vapours the belly sends to the braines besides the necessary the clearer is the skie in that upper region Therefore to keepe health and serenity such as have a daily plentifull fare and feare that their stomack hath more appetite then strenght shall doe wisely to fast sometimes to give it time to rest and recover strength Most sicknesses in their beginnings may be healed by abstinence On the other side they that use a more sparing dyet should allow to themselves some intervals of good cheere It oppresseth those whose ordinary meales are so many feasts but it reneweth the vigour of those that use it seldome Wine is especially given of God to make glad the heart of man Psal 104.15 It is of singular vertue to charme cares Two draughts of it extraordinary when the minde is vexed with crosses will put upon a mans buzinesses a smoother and calmer face The third preserver of health is Exercise without which the body becomes an unwieldy bagge of corrupt humours Great eaters need more exercise But the most sober need some The naturallest and pleasantest is walking to which they that lead a sedentary life must allow some time But to most men their buzinesses give bodily exercise enough many times too much to the prejudice of the minde which thereby is neglected and made servant to the body If one be shut up or hath lost the use of his legs he must invent some other way instead of walking to exercise his body and prevent sicknes And if he cannot put his body to any exercise he must cate and drinke the lesse It is a wise course to harden the bodies of children and young men especially against cold the cause of most sicknesses in aged persons But when one hath bin tenderly brought up it is imprudence to goe about to inure his body to hardnes in his declining age The minde may be capable of that
is that peace of God which passeth all understanding and keeps our hearts and minds through Jesus Christ It is a transfiguration of the devout soul for an earnest of her glorification It is the betrothing of the Spouse with Christ and the contract before the marriage After that all the Empires of the world all the treasures of Kings and all the delights of their Court deserve not to be lookt on or to be named If that divine Embrace could continue it would change a man into the image of God from glory to glory and he should be rapt up in a fiery charet like Eliah To enjoy that holy Embrace and make it continue as long as the soul in the flesh is capable of it We must use holy meditations prayers and good workes These strengthen those two armes of the soul faith and love to embrace God and hold him fast doing us that good office which Aaron and Hur did to Moses for they hold up the hands of the soul and keep them elevated to heaven And seeing that God who dwelleth in the highest heavens dwelleth also in the humblest soules let us indeavour to put on the ornament of a meek quiet spirit which in the sight of God is of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 It is a great incouragement to study tranquillity of minde that while we labour for our chiefe utility which is to have a meek and quiet spirit we become of great price before God and therefore of great price to ourselves How can it be otherwise since by that ornament of a meeke and quiet spirit we put on the neerest likenesse of God of which the creature can be susceptible For then the God of peace abiding in us makes his cleare image to shine in the smooth mirrout of our tranquill soul as the Sunnes face in a calme water Being thus blest with the peace of God we shall also be strong with his power and among the stormes and wrackes of this world we shall be as safe as the Apostles in the tempest having Christ with them in the ship It is not possible that we should perish as long as we have with us and within us the Saviour of the world and the Prince of life The universall commotions and hideous destructions of our time prepare us to the last and greatest of all 2 Pet. 3.10 when the heavens shall passe away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat the Earth also and the workes that are therein shall be burnt up In that great fall of the old building of Nature the godly man shall stand safe quiet and upright among the ruines All will quake all will sinke but his unmoved heart which stands firme trusting in the Lord. Psal 112.7 Mountaines and rocks will be throwne downe in his sight The foundations of the world will crack under him Heaven and Earth hasting to their dissolution will fall to pieces about his eares but the foundation of the faithfull remaines stedfast He cannot be shaken with the world for he was not grounded upon it He will say with Davids confidence Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord alwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoiceth my flesh also shall rest in hope For thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell neither wilt thou suffer thy holy One to see corruption Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore A Table of the Books and Chapters of this Treatise THE FIRST BOOK Of Peace with God Chap. 1. Of the Peace of the Soule pag. 1. Chap. 2. Of the Peace of Man with God in his integrity and of the losse of that peace by sinne pag. 6. Chap. 3. Of the Reconciliation of Man with God through Jesus Christ pag. 16. Chap. 4. Generall meanes to preserve that peace with God and first to serve God purely and diligently pag. 25. Chap. 5. Of the love of God pag. 35. Chap. 6. Of Faith pag. 45. Chap. 7. Of Hope pag. 49. Chap. 8. Of the duty of praising God pag. 53. Chap. 9. Of good Conscience pag. 59. Chap. 10. Of the exercise of good works pag. 66. Chap. 11. Of redressing our selves often by repentance pag. 72. SECOND BOOK Of Mans peace with himselfe by rectifying his Opinions Chap. 1. Designe of this Booke and the next pag. 77. Chap. 2. Of right Opinion pag. 80. Chap. 3. Of Riches pag. 87. Chap. 4. Honour Nobility Greatnesse pag. 92. Chap. 5. Glory Renowne Praise pag. 98. Chap. 6. Of the goods of the Body Beauty Strength Health pag. 104. Chap. 7. Of bodily pleasure and ease pag. 110. Chap. 8. Of the evils opposite to the forenamed goods pag. 116. Chap. 9. Of Poverty pag. 121. Chap. 10. Of low condition pag. 130. Chap. 11. Of dishonour pag. 134. Chap. 12. Of the evills of the body unhansomenesse weakenesse sicknesse paine pag. 136. Chap. 13. Of Exile pag. 142. Chap. 14. Of Prison pag. 144. Chap. 15. Husband Wife Childen Kinred Friends Their price their losse pag. 147. Chap. 16. Of Death pag. 155. Chap. 17. Of the Interiours of Man pag. 163. Chap. 18. Of the ornaments acquisite of the understanding pag. 177. Chap. 19. Of the acquisite ornaments of the will pag. 188. Chap. 20. Of the World and Life pag. 195. THIRD BOOK Of the Peace of Man with himselfe by governing his Passions Chap. 1. That the right Government of Passions depends of right Opinion pag. 205. Chap. 2. Entry into the discourse of Passions pag. 211 Chap. 3. Of Love pag. 214. Chap. 4. Of Desire pag. 231. Chap. 5. Of desire of Wealth and Honour pag. 237. Chap. 6. Of desire of Pleasure pag. 243. Chap. 7. Of Sadnesse pag. 248. Chap. 8. Of Joy pag. 257. Chap. 9. Of Pride pag. 265. Chap. 10. Of Obstinacy pag. 273. Chap. 11. Of Wrath pag. 278. Chap. 12. Of Aversion Hatred and Reuenge p. 289 Chap. 13. Of Envy pag. 298. Chap. 14. Of Jealousie pag. 305. Chap. 15. Of Hope pag. 309. Chap. 16. Of Feare pag. 313. Chap. 17. Of Confidence and Despaire pag. 319. Chap. 18. Of Pitty pag. 323. Chap. 19. Of Shamefacednesse pag. 327. FOURTH BOOK Of Vertue and the exercise of in Prosperity and Adversity Chap. 1. Of the Vertuous temper requisite for the peace and contentment of mind pag. 331. Chap. 2. Of Vertue in Prosperity pag. 344. Chap. 3. Of Vertue in Adversity pag. 357. FIFTH BOOK Of Peace in Society Chap. 1. Of Concord with all men and of meeknesse pag. 375. Chap. 2. Of brotherly Charity and of friendship pag. 387. Chap. 3. Of Gratefulnesse pag. 395. Chap. 4. Of Satisfaction of Injuries pag. 399. Chap. 5. Of Simplicity and Dexterity in Society pag. 402. Chap. 6. To have little company and few businesses pag. 412. Chap. 7. Of moderation in conversation pag. 421. SIXTH BOOK Some singular Counsels for the Peace and contentment of minde Chap. 1. To content our selves with our condition pag. 431. Chap. 2. Not to depend of the Future pag. 436. Chap. 3. To retire within our selfe pag. 443. Chap. 4. To avoyd Idlenesse pag. 448. Chap. 5. To avoid curiosity in divine matters pag. 451. Chap. 6. Of the care of the body and other little contentment of life pag. 458. Chap. 7. Conclusion Returne to the great principle of the peace and contentment of mind which is to stick to God pag. 468. FINIS
by it wee appeare righteous before God This is the summary of the Gospell This is the onely comfort of the faithfull That being justifyed by faith wee have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 5.1 Without that persuasion all the moral precepts and all the reasons of Philosophy cannot set the mind at rest much lesse the riches honours pleasures and pastimes of this world for who can have peace with himselfe while he is in dissention with God And who can have peace with God but by the mediation of his beloved sonne Jesus there being no other name under heaven by which wee must be saved The chiefe impediment of the tranquillity of minde being the remorse for sinne against God and the apprehension of this just and terrible threatning Cursed is he that continueth not in all the words of Gods law to doe them Whosoever embraceth the merit of Jesus Christ by faith is fenced against all the threatnings of the law and all the accusations of his conscience For to them he will answere As Gods threatnings are just so are his promises now he hath promist that if wee judge our selves wee shall not be judged of the Lord. 1. Cor. 11.31 That he that heareth the word of the sonne of God and beleeveth on him that sent him hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is past from death to life Joh. 5.24 That the blood of Jesus Christ the sonne of God clenseth us from all sin 1. Joh. 1.7 That he hath blotted out the hand writing of ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his crosse Col. 2.14 Wherefore these threatnings that God will bring every work to judgement and that even for one idle word account must be given reach not to those evill workes of which beleivers have repented and embraced the remission by faith in Jesus Christ Those threatenings of judgement doe not reach me since I have already past judgemont upon myselfe by a serious contrition and have received my Absolution by the merit of him that was judged and condemed for me If account must be given for my sinnes Christ must give it who charged himselfe with them But that account is discharged My sins are put out of Gods score The curse of the law to a soule that beleeveth in Christ as I doe is a handwriting taken out of the way a Bond torne and nailed to the crosse of Christ God is too just to make use of a bond vacated to proceed against me the merit of his Sonne which he received in payment for me is of too great value to leave me in danger to be sued for the debts which he hath payd for himself was arrested by Death the Sergeant of Gods justice and put in that jayle whence there is no comming out till one hath payd the utmost farthing and being come out of that jayle by his resurrection he hath made it manifest that he hath payd the whole debt which he was bound for in our behalfe unto Gods justice What though my sins be great yet are they lesse then the merit of Jesus Christ No sinne is so great that it ought to take away the confidence in Gods promises No sinne is so great that it may damme a soule beaten downe with contrition but together raised by faith and washt in the blood of the sonne of God Indeed the remembrance of my sins must be bitter unto me yet that bitternes must be drowned in the joy of my salvation my repentance must be a step not a hinderance to my confidence So I will say to God every day with a contrite heart Forgive us our trespasses And at the same time I will remember that I make that prayer unto our Father which is in heaven who commands me to call him Father to assure me that he will spare me as a man spareth his owne sonne that serveth him Mal. 3.17 to stile him heavenly father to whom the kingdome and the power and the glory belongeth to lift up my hope to that celestial glory which he fully possesseth and which he will impart to his children in their measure I will walke before God with humility and feare thinking on my sins past and my present weakenes and sinfulnes but together I will goe in the strength of the Lord and make mention of his righteousnes The righteousnes of God that frighteth sinners comforteth me and his justice is all mercy to me For the infinite merit of his Sonne being mine he is now gracious unto me in his justice Hereby the peace and assurance which I enjoy through faith is advanced to a joy of heaven upon earth and to this song of triumph Isa 61.10 I will greatly rejoyce in the Lord my soule shall be joyfull in my God for he hath cloathed me with the garments of salvation he hath covered me with the robe of righteousnes as a bridegroome decks himselfe with ornaments and as a bride adornes herselfe with her jewells This is the peace and contentment of the faithful soule that feeleth and relisheth her blessed reconcilation made with God through Jesus Christ For he that hath peace with God hath peace also with himselfe And the love of God powerfully growing in his heart by the consideration of the bounty of God whose sweetnes wee may taste though not conceive his greatnes breeds there together the peace of God which passeth all understanding banisheth tumultuous and unlawfull affections and brings the lawfull under its obedience so that all the affections of the regenerate soule meete in one and make but one which is the love of God as many brookes that lose their names in a great River When the love of God brings not that great peace to the soule and the absolute empire over the passions it is because love is as yet imperfect and the cause of that imperfection is the deficiency of faith which doth not yet embrace aright the reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ and faith is deficient when it is not maintained by good workes her food without which it pines away and falls into a shaking palsie and when that foundation is shaking all that is built upon it cannot but be tottering This then must be our first and earnest taske to make our selves sure of our peace with God by a lively faith whereby our hearts may be purified from evill workes and made fertile to all fruits of holinesse For hereby we shall have peace with our selves and shall be masters at home Hereby also wee shall have peace with Gods creatures receiving temporall blessings as testimonies of Gods reconciliation with us and in every bit of bread wee shall taste his love Prosperity and adversity will prove equally good unto us being dispensed by his fatherly care If God multiply our afflictions it will be onely to multiply our deliverances He will never put us to the tryal but to refine our faith weane