Selected quad for the lemma: honour_n
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A81837
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Of peace and contentment of minde. By Peter Du Moulin the sonne. D.D.
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Du Moulin, Peter, 1601-1684.
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1657
(1657)
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Wing D2560; Thomason E1571_1; ESTC R209203
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240,545
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501
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getting our liberty That way plenty pleasure and joy are bought at an easy rate for very little will content a mind weaned of superfluous desires and he hath little or no matter left for sorrow feare anger hatred and envy the tormentors of the soul What is able to disquiet that man that thinkes nothing to be his but God and a good conscience and possesseth the things of the world as not possessing them But to quiet the murmure of love and desire which are querulous and unlimited passions we must do them such equall justice that while we stop them one way we open them another Being kept short for the things of the world let them have free scope towards heavenly things to love God and desire his spirituall and permanent goods without limit and measure The great injuries are those which a man doth to himselfe when to obey lust or anger or coveteousnesse one makes himselfe guilty and miserable when for the love of the world one loseth the love of God when out of miserablenesse the body is denyed his convenient allowance When for things of no worth a man prostitutes his health his life and his conscience When men will sinne for company cast themselves into ruinous courses out of compleasance and damne themselves out of gallantry Who so will seriously think what he oweth to himselfe and what account of himselfe he must give unto God will endeavour to keepe the precious health of his body and the golden serenity of his conscience he will enjoy with simplicity that portion which God giveth him of the contentments of life and above all things he will carefully keep his onely good which is God Justice being well administred within us will be practised abroad with facility and delight Rom. 13.7 Render to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custome to whom custom feare to whom feare honour to whom honour Let the debtour be more hasty to pay then the creditour to receive All the Law-bookes are but comments upon this precept of Justice to render to every one his owne Yet they omit the most essentiall parts of it the duties of charity humanity and gratefulness Which being without the rules of civill lawes have the more need to be learned and observed by ingenuous and religious soules And we must beleeve contrary to the vulgar opinion that they are debts and that doing good to them that stand in need of our helpe is not giving but restoring Therefore the workes of mercy are represented in the CXII Psalm as works of Justice He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore his righteousnesse endureth for ever Let us then be perswaded that when we do all the good of which God giveth us the faculty and the occasion we do but justice Let us pay due assistance to him whose need claimes it counsell to him that is in perplexity kindness to them that have shewed us kindnesse pardon to them that have offended us good for evill to them that persecute us love to them that love us support to the weake patience to the impatient reverence to superiours affability to inferiours All these are debts Let us omit no duty to which we stand obliged by the lawes of civill society Yet that is too scant let us omit no duty to which we have the invitations of piety and generosity All the good workes that we may do are so many duties It is the large extent that St. Paul gives to our duty Phil. 4.8 Finally bretheren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things And the fruit of that study in the following words is that which we seeke in this Book the Peace of the Soul our union with God Do these things and the God of peace shall be with you Truly peace quietness and assurance are the proper effects of righteousness are as naturall to it as the light to the Sunne Isa 33.17 The worke of righteousness shall be peace saith Isaiah and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever Considering Justice as the solid stemme in which lyeth the substance of all vertues as her branches I will not follow every bough of that that tree Two Vertues onely I will stand upon as the preserving qualities of that universall Justice These are meekeness and magnanimity They are the necessary dispositions to frame a right vertue in the soul and peace with it Under meekeness I comprehend humility and docility which are but diverse aspects of the same face that meeke and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 As for great edifices there is need of deepe foundations likewise to edifie the soul and build vertue and peace in it there is need of a profound humility which being joyned with faith is the foundation of the structure and the perfecting also for we must be humble that we may be vertuous and the more we are vertuous the more we are humble With that meekeness the word of God must be receaved which is the doctrine of Vertue and salvation Jam. 1.20 Receive with meekenesse the engrafted word which is able to save your soules saith St. James Isa 61.9 God hath anointed his Sonne to preach good tidings unto the meeke Psal 25.9 The meeke will he guide in judgement and the meeke will he teach his way A mind well-disposed to Vertue and the peace of the Soul will distrust himselfe as a shaking unsound foundation to repose his trust wholly upon God He will labour to heale himselfe of all arrogant opinions and obstinate prejudices being alwayes ready to receive better information and submit himselfe unto reason It belongs to that meekeness to be free from the impetuosity of the appetite for that which St. James saith of the wrath of man that it worketh not the righteousnesse of God Jam. 1.21 may be said of all other Passions they are evill if they be vehement for in a spirit agitated with vehement passions justice cannot settle that very vehemency being an injustice and a violation of that sweete and equall oeconomy of the soul fit for justice and peace Passion goeth by skips and jolts but Reason keeps a smooth even pace and that pace is fit to go on Justice's errand To meekenesse magnanimity must be joyned Meekeness makes reason docile and pliant in goodnesse Magnanimity makes her constant in it Both are the framers and preservers of righteousnesse meekenesse because it humbleth us before God and subjecteth us under his good pleasure magnanimity because it raiseth our minds above unrighteous ends and wayes and makes us aspire to that great honour to have our will conformable unto Gods will and become partakers of his Nature which is Righteousness itselfe St. Paul makes use of magnanimity to sollicite us to holiness Col. 3.10 If ye be risen with Christ seeke those
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God When the glory of the world fills a mans thoughts while it doth lift him up with pride it brings him down by cupidity under those things that are under him But when the glory of God ruleth in our hearts it brings us low with humility and together raiseth us up by faith and a holy generosity far above all humane things even as high as the right hand of God with Christ there to rejoyce in his love and sweetly repose our hearts upon his fatherly care None shall attaine to that blessed state of the soul which is already a heaven upon earth unlesse he beate downe his pride A vice which makes a man incompatible with God for it pretends to that which to God alone is due which is glory incompatible with his neighbours for it perswades him that all things are due to him and that the honour and advancement bestowed upon any but himselfe is ill bestowed and incompatible with himselfe for it tortureth a mans minde with envy makes him secretly murmure against God and men and renders him incapable of the grace of God which is onely for the meeke and of his kingdome which is onely for the poore in spirit Matth. 5.3 Here this method must diligently be observed to rectifie our opinion first that we may rule our Passion To bring downe the tumour of Pride let us get a right opinion of ourselves How we are begotten like beasts borne in lamentation lying a long time in our ordure living in a sickly flesh wilde and foolish in our thoughts corrupted in our affections vaine and wicked in our conversation blind wretched and guilty before God and after a few evill dayes returning to the ground of our ignoble principle In the midst of the gawdy luster of the world let us looke to our end a winding sheet putrefaction wormes mourning of our heires for a little while and then perpetuall oblivion Let us beare these things in mind and then be proud if we can Many Passions have their origine from Pride which must be called to our barre after their Mother CHAP. X. Of Obstinacy OBstinacy is a compound of pride and ignorance It is an overthrow of the right polity of the soule where the will must consult reason but Obstinacy makes reason to consult the will so that a man will do or maintaine a thing not because it is reasonable but because he did it and maintained it before Ignorance begins which hoodwinks the understanding with errour Then comes Pride which pins that hood fast about his eyes pretending that it is a shame for a man to go from his opinion By Obstinacy a man comes to that desperate case of the soul which Philosophy calls feritas that is a savage brutishnesse incapable of all vertue and discipline For he must be either in god or beast that takes his instinct for his perpetual rule and sets before him his present will and doing as an immutable patterne of that he must will and do for ever after When Obstinacy hath thus shut the dore unto discipline and stopt a mans ear against counsell one of these two evills followeth Either he is hardned in evill without remedy Or if by chance he light on the right side he spoiles it as farre as in him lyes maintaining truth and equity not because it is so but because he will have it so There is no greater enemy to Christian wisedome then that stubborne disposition For thereby a man stands in direct opposition against God challenging to himselfe that which belongs to God alone even to make his will a reason and a law When the light of reason or the word of God or the manifest course of his providence declares to us what the will of God is neverthelesse to set our will against it out of a pretended constancy in our former opinion and inclination what is it else but to make warre against God As Obstinacy is odious to God so it is odious in society It makes a man troublesome ridiculous and the undoer of himselfe And of his Country also if he be assisted with power and hath many persons and businesses depending upon him Expect neither wisedome nor faire dealing nor serenity within nor good actions abroad where the will takes no counsell of reason There is no place left for amendment when one thinkes himselfe obliged never to alter his minde As Obstinacy hardeneth opinions it doth the like to passions to those chiefely that have melancholy for their fewell as sadnesse hatred envy and love also for of these growne once inveterate many times a man can give no reason but that he will continue as he hath begun This vice is a bastard imitation of Constancy whose name it borrowes but very injuriously for constancy consisteth not in stedfastnesse to a mans own will but in a firme adhering to goodnesse That which is good one time perhaps will not be so another time Righteousnesse indeed is alwayes one and the same but variety of incidences and circumstances makes it change faces As the needle of the compasse that stands so fixt upon the North not to be mooved from that point by the greatest tempests yet will in an instant turne to the South when the ship is gone beyond the Equinoctiall line and to that contrary point will keep with the like stedfastnesse so long as it is in that hemisphere Likewise a wise and good man will be firme in his resolutions where his duty calls him So because his duty lyes not at all times the same way his resolutions also are not bent at all times the same way but will turne with his duty Jeremiah desired sincerely the preservation of the Kingdome of Juda the liberty of his Country But after that Zedekiah had taken the Oath of allegiance to the King of Babylon he adviseth Zedekiah and his people to yeeld Jerusalem to him In vaine Obstinacy aspireth to the praise of a great and brave spirit it is rather a womanish narrowspirited weakenesse It was the proper saying of a femall Mene incoepto desistere victam Must I be overcome and desist from my purpose Great houses have some roomes for winter some for Summer and severall apartements for severall Offices But in small cabines the kitchin and the bedchamber are all one and the same still in all seasons Even so great spirits have a space for diversity of counsels according to the diversity of occurrences and various constellations of times and businesses which continually alter but they are narrowbreasted men that have but one resolution and one course to carry them through all things and times It is for a low and timorous spirit to be afraid to change fashion and think himselfe lost when he must travell by a way that he never went before whereas great spirits are complying facile universall and their knowledge of the world makes them finde nothing new or strange Obstinacy should be overcome from the cradle Even then