affirmed that they only were the people of Sion and that unless he joyned himself to their company in which alas there was no Peace at all he should never come to that City of God which he sought after The heads of these divisions made the world believe that they were the Torches which must light them through the darkness of errour the Pole-star to regulate their course in the search and discovery of truth and that unless men used their Clue which God knows was most wofully intangled they should never fail to be lost in the Labyrinths and Maeanders of Ignorance and Folly Nay to such a degree did they magnifie themselves as if Truth and they had been born at the same time or at least had come of Age together It seemed to be a secret till they appeared and to have been reserved from the beginning on purpose to discover it self to them in Markets and Camps if not in lewder places The most modest pretension was that Truth was but a stripling or rather went in side-coats till it came to their schools to be ripened into the wisdome of perfect men They spake of the affairs of Heaven as if they were Counsellors of State in that Kingdom and opened the secrets of Jesus Christ as if they were his Confidents St. John who lay in his bosom never delivered any thing with greater peremptoriness than these men did and had it not been that they wanted his charity they might have been thought by most as great Oracles as they thought themselves There seemed no difference between them and Prophets but only that they could not prove their mission else they had the gift of boldness and fell not short in their pretenses to inspiration In this conceit they thrust into the world a great number of books which were called the Word of the Lord and cryed up as the Maps of that heavenly Country and the exact Charts whereby men must steer their course if ever they meant to come safely thither Into huge Volumes these writings sometimes swelled and they were wont to collect and faggot together so many things and so vastly different that a man could not easily avoid to lose his way in this Wood while he was seeking his way to Jerusalem Especially since they never forgot to furnish these bundles with some lusty sticks wherewith to bang their adversaries and beat them down as low as hell For in the midst of such a fearful scuffle there was so great a dust raised that no man could tell where he was nor discern any thing but only this that he was not in the way to the Vision of Peace I need not relate how sorely it grieved the good mans heart to see so many different wayes every one of them laying so high a claim to truth and bitterly reproaching the rest as damnable Heresies He could bend his course to no quarter but he was in danger to be assaulted with some question or other and was put upon his desence against some man of brass who thought himself worthy to be one of the Champions of Truth The spirit of common Barretry did not seem a greater plague to him than these vexatious disputing people The fury of whom likewise was sometimes so violent that he thought he had made a good retreat if he were not bruised and almost beat in pieces by their rude blows whose opinions he adventured to thwart by any strong contradiction Nay they all taking distant paths and not going in streight and parallel lines but in oblique and crooked wayes which crossed each other very frequently they never met together but there was such justling and quarrelling about the road to Jerusalem that no man could be near them but they would ingage him to take the one or the other part in the Bloody conflict So I call it for they thought that they did God good service when they dispatched one of their enemies and that they made him a Sacrifice when they satisfied their own beastly fury And this indeed was the saddest thing of all to his thoughts that their heat and passion they had the confidence to Baptize into the name of holy zeal and that which was but the love of their own opinion they constantly miscalled the love of God and of his Truth Though those dayes as I have already said were very frozen and cold yet they cudgel'd one another so long till they grew not and then they cry'd the weather was very warm and the Sun in his highest elevation Gods enemies they thought they opposed in their own and they fancied themselves ingaged against sin while they were buffeting a contrary opinion There was no heat but they took it for divine though it were of their own kindling and so they were but all on fire they never doubted but it was from heaven For there was no sin in those dayes like Moderation and no vertue comparable to a furious and headlong zeal But yet he received this benefit by those unhappy feuds that they made him sometimes think it was no mean thing in the esteem of others as well as himself for which there was so many and so fiery contenders The Prize he hoped would prove glorious which had drawn into the field so many combatants and which with such zealous sticklings all sides sought to win The affliction also which he felt in his spirit when he beheld them so sharply ingaged had this good effect upon him that it made him more sensibly admire the goodness of God which had preserved him from listing himself in any of those angry parties and entring into those never enough to be lamented broils This put him likewise in some hopes that he would not suffer him likewise in some hopes that he would not suffer him to remain long without the knowledge of the Truth who had so gratiously prevented him from diverting into the paths of falshood This degree of understanding he had already acquired That Sweetness and Love Meekness and Peace were the Harbingers to Divine Knowledg and since they were become his Guests he hoped that would not be far behind But that any man who knows God to be Love should imagine that he will dwell in a mind where there is nothing but hatred to be found seemed a kind of Prodigy unto him And it did quite astonish him to see that so many men did dream that the way to The Vision of Peace lay through the field of strife and war and that we must come to live together in endless love hereafter by living in perpetual frays and brawls in the world where we now are CAP. IV. How he happily heard of a safe Guide unto it with a true Character of him AND he truly who is not wont to frustrate the expectations of such well minded souls did not use much delay before he gave him a sensible demonstration of that which he already believed He found that the God of peace could not make himself long a stranger to
that we cannot be certainly apprehended unless we talk a great deal more Of that said the Traveller who was desirous to know all he could in this matter I would willingly be informed by your self You would oblige me very much if you could think fit to resolve your own question For truly I love so dearly to understand what I hear as thanks be to God I do what you say that I wonder any men should go to seek for hard words when those that are plain do thrust themselves into their mouths I meant not replyed the Guide to draw my discourse to this inquiry but only to express to you by those questions the unreasonableness of such mens proceedings Yet since it is your desire and I am not willing to deny you any thing you shall know what I conceive in this matter provided you will be content with that answer which lyes uppermost in my thoughts and offers it self first to my mind They are not in love I am apt to think with such a definition of Faith as I have given you because it is Pilgrim-like plain as a Pike-staff It is in this case as in many other there are a company of men in the world who despise any thing which they understand easily and imagine there is no great matter in it if it be presently intelligible They admire that most which they do not comprehend and conceive there is some mystery and depth in it if it be difficult to be explained Just as you see abundance of men affect hard words nay bombastick language and a fustian kind of dialect though there be no greater eloquence then to speak naturally and with facility of expression So there are as many who love things obscurely delivered and which have a cloud about them though it be the perfection of our understandings to render our conceptions clear and easie to enter into the most vulgar capacities As they think him an Orator who mounts and soars aloft as they call it in high-flown words so they take him for a deep Divine whose notions of things are so expressed as they cannot presently sound and dive to the bottom of them Hence it is that they contemn such a familiar plain and facile explication of the word Faith as doth not intricate a man's conceptions but can at first sight be apprehended and they had rather have you speak of it in Metaphorical or borrowed words which belonging more properly to other things then they do to this make an uncertain sound and leave the mind in confusion If you say that it is a Taking of Christ of whole Christ an applying of what he hath done to the soul a cleaving to him or in such like words express your self all these seem to have more of mystery and Gospel-secrets in them then the poor Pilgrimphrase hath and so they win more credit with those men who are not wont to like any thing which every child may understand as well as themselves Besides it must be confessed that such words as those do not touch the bottom of the heart nor so instantly penetrate to the very quick as the other plainly do and so they must needs be better accepted in the world They do not so necessarily and clearly imply mens obedience to our Lord which in this that I mention is in direct terms expressed and so they will be sure to meet with kinder welcome and entertainment He was proceeding to add some other words much to the same effect when the Pilgrim begging his pardon for diverting him from his main discourse told him that he was too much satisfied in the truth of what he said and desired to hear no more of this folly of mankind But what think you added he of those other descriptions of Faith which tell us that it is A relying upon our Saviour cannot every body understand this language as well as that which you speak I grant it answered the Director but if it be not lyable to the first defect which I objected it is notoriously guilty of the last and worst for there is in it nothing of our obedience As the former were faulty in regard of their obscurity so this is manifestly chargable with lameness and imperfection You shall be convinced of the truth of this imputation in a very few words For first the most that can be made of this relyance on Christ for Salvation is that it is one act of Faith but there wants a great number more to make up an intire body of Christian belief And secondly as it is but one single act so it is far from being the first but must suppose many others that go before it As for example it is necessary we be perswaded that Jesus is the Christ of God that what he hath spoken in the Gospel is his will and that if we hope for salvation by him we must be conformed in all things to this will of God And then thirdly these perswasions or acts of Faith that thus precede must produce a sincere and cordial obedience to his laws before we can reasonably arrive at this confidence of relying upon him for salvation Now why this particular act of Faith should be alone mentioned in the definition of it which is but one and not the first nor chiefe and all the rest left out is past my capacity to understand When our Faith hath rendered us obedient to him then we may take the boldness to perswade our selves that he will save us and this is nothing but an obedience to his command also who hath bid us trust him and take his word that he will be the Saviour of all faithful persons But it is a presumption to do it sooner and the ready course to destroy the Religion of Christ to advance such an hasty and forward belief in mens souls And therefore let me beseech you as you love your soul to be a follower of faithful Abraham who as I told you was the founder of your Order Remember that such as he was such must you be if you hope to come to Jerusalem and inherit the land of promise and that in his example you meet with nothing earlier then this that by Faith when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance he obeyed and went out not knowing whither he went This was the first thing wherein his Faith imployed it self and the last was like unto it For when he was tryed by God he offered up his only begotten Son who was to be the heir of that inheritance which was promised to him From this active Faith no doubt it is that He and all good Christians are called Faithful and not from a lazy recumbency on Christ for Salvation or the strongest application of his merits to their souls If these were sufficient to make a person of that denomination then we need no better character of a faithful servant or steward which the holy writings sometimes mention then such
this occasion to instruct him a little further about those things wherein he had been so grosly abused Having let him know therefore that he was no less pleased than himself to see so sudden a fruit of his labours he proceeded to tell him that he had taught him nothing new in all his discourse nor spoke one syllable but what was comprehended in those few words if rightly understood Believe in the Lord Jesus For though Faith in Christ hath sometimes a restrained sense importing our trust in him for help and succour yet when it stands alone by it self it hath a more comprehensive meaning It is so far from denoting such a part of Religion as those now mentioned that it frequently comprises the whole and it must alwaies be conceived such a part as necessarily implies and inferrs all the rest I speak now of the Pilgrims Faith which you must carry along with you Of which whosoever gives you any other description than such as this doth but deceive you viz. that it is such an hearty perswasion of the truth and goodness of Gods Promises and of every thing else that he hath spoken as makes us obedient in all things to his commands There is nothing more visible than this in the very first man of the Order into which you are entring Abraham I mean the most ancient Pilgrim that I read of and the Father of faithful Travellers Who being commanded by God to leave his own Country his Kindred and his Fathers house most readily obeyed in a perswasion that God would be as good as his word and bless him with possessions somewhere else He was the man whom God called to his foot and who marched whithersoever he would lead him in resemblance to whom all his children are described in the Christian Church as those who follow the Lamb whithersoever he goes Conformity to Jesus is absolutely necessary to make us such believers as shall inherit the promises Though the general notion of Faith do not include obedience being only our perswasion of and assent unto the truth of what is delivered to us upon the testimony of God yet saving Faith that Faith which will carry us to Jerusalem can never be understood without it All the definitions you meet with whatsoever they be which separate obedience from this Faith I do confidently assure you are but a meer cheat and a dangerous illusion Obedience is so much of the nature of the Pilgrims Faith that I say it again it ought to enter its Definition Which is as much as to say that one cannot speak in any terms or phrases which are not deceitful and liable to be abused of that Faith which will bring us safe to Heaven but he must make mention of the obedience it produces to the commands of our Saviour This is the very thing that distinguishes saving Faith from that which is not saving and therefore if this be left out when we speak of it we may make men Hypocrites sooner than sincere Christians But if I may be so bold as to interpose a Question said the Learner I pray satisfie me why you call this the Pilgrims Faith is there any else besides There is replyed his Teacher we meet in this world with a Faith more gallant fine and delicate than the plain and homely belief which I have described A modish and courtly Faith it is which sits still and yet sets you in the lap of Christ It passes under so many names that I cannot stand to number them all now It is called a casting of our selves upon Christ a relying on his merits a shrouding our selves under the robes of his Righteousness and though sometimes it is called a going to him for Salvation yet there is this mystery in the business that you may go and yet not go you may go and yet stand still you may cast your self upon him and not come to him or if you take one little step and be at the pains to come to him the work is done and you need not follow him It is indeed a resting not a travelling Grace And such a grand secret there is in it that a man may rest before he stir a foot he may lean on Christ and approach no nearer him than he was before he may lay hold on him and yet remain at the greatest distance from him It will carry you to the end of your way before you are at the beginning The very first step of it is to stay your self the beginning of its motion is to be at rest Do you not see a strange inchantment in it already Is it not a magical operation or much beholden to strength of fancy and the witchcraft of imagination For my part I should take my self to be in a far worse condition than Cresinius was if I should be accused of vending such druggs and dealing in such dangerous charms I would grant my enemies had cause to exclaim and should never expect to clear my self if I stood charged with such incantations There is no jugling so artificial whereby I could hope to hide the deceit if I abused the world with these impostures My own conscience I mean would indict me and pronounce my condemnation though I think if the greatest part of the men among us were to be Judges I need not fear their sentence against me For the charm I observe is so powerful and the fascination of such pleasure that the numbers are not to be told which are bewitched with it The multitude goes in crouds in this wide rode the voice of the people cryes up this as the only way to Heaven All the lewd men in the world are well contented to take this journey which may be finished at one step and to run this race which may be accomplished in a breath and for which the last breath in their body may as well serve as any else There is no man but he takes hold of Christ and having heard that this is Faith do what you can it is not possible to beat off his hands There is not a soul so wicked but it applies to it self his righteousness and fancies all its sins to be covered therewith It is the sweetest thing in the world to cast themselves into his arms and expect not to go but to be carried to Heaven They rest on him and him only for Salvation They rest on him so solely for it that they are loath to stir a foot to contribute any thing toward it They would have him to take all the honour of the business to himself and are desirous to do not so much as one good action but leave him to do all and impute his doings to them Thus they imagine themselves to be the only advancers of Free Grace and they think there are none but they that set the Crown upon Christ's head Such an admirable subtilty there is in this Faith that they can serve their own interest by it and yet seem all the while to be the
an one as follows He is a person that relyes upon his Masters merits and depends only on the worth and sufficiency of his Lord. He trusts in his goodness for a pardon of all his faults and hopes he will esteem him a good servant because he is a good Master He leans upon his arm and clasps fast about him and is resolved not to let him go till he have paid him his wages He embraces him kindly and hopes he will account him righteous because he is so himself And in one word He applyes to himself all the good works that his Master hath performed and prayes to be excused if he do not his business because that his Lord can do it better Is not this a very ridiculous description or would you be content to be thus served Do not imagine then that God will be served after this fashion or that such an ill-favoured notion as this is the best that can be found to compose the definition of a true believer But first do all that you can and then acknowledge your self an unprofitable servant Let it be your care to follow your work and then rely only upon the goodness of our Lord to give you a reward Be sure that you be inwardly righteous and then no doubt the righteousness of Christ will procure you acceptance and bring you to that happiness which you can no wayes deserve CAP. XVII What place Prayer Hearing of Sermons Reading of Good Books Receiving the Sacrament have in the Religion of Jesus And of what use they are to Pilgrims AND that you may be able to make a better judgement of what I have said and I may also return to the occasion and beginning of this discourse let me intreat you to consider well the nature and ends of Prayer to God It is manifest from the life of Jesus that it is but a part of that duty and obedience that we owe to God and yet it is a powerful means to bring us to all the rest It is the converting and turning about of our minds and hearts to the original of our Being It is our reflecting and looking back upon him from whom we came It is our circling and winding about as Heathens themselves have well conceived to that point from which we took our beginning that we may be fast united to God and never be divided from him It is an acknowledgement of God in all his perfections An expression of our dependance and subjection an oblation of our selves both soul and body to him Think therefore to what purposes it most naturally serves for it being a thing of daily use you may judge thereby what the great business of Christianity or Believing is Doth it minister chiefly to our confidence of being saved and are we to swell our selves by this breath with great hopes that we are beloved of God Or rather is it not most properly subservient to the putting of us into a state of Salvation and the rendring us fit objects of the Divine Love It is not intended to inspire us with conceits that we are the children of God but to breathe into us the spirit of sons and to impress upon us the image of him upon whom we fix our eyes It is the elevation of our minds to him and the fastning of our eyes upon him in order to our being made more like him It is the oblation of our selves to his uses and service and not a giving of our selves to be saved by him Here we place our minds in the brightness of his heavenly light Here we expose our cold affections to the warmth and heat of the Sun of righteousness We behold our Lord most clearly in these devout Meditations and by the frequency of them we shall learn his carriage and gestures and conform all our actions to the excellent model of his I beseech you descend into your own heart and if you know what it is to pray tell me what Faith it is which you feel then most stirring in your heart Is it only a relyance on Christ and an application of his merits to your soul Or is it not rather a vigorous application of your mind to him that you may feel him more begetting and promoting his life in your heart Is it not a strong desire to be touched by him to be impressed with his likeness to be joyned to him and made one spirit with him and in one word that you may be made more ready and disposed to every good work I will evidently convince you that this is the great end of Prayer and consequently the main work of believing on the Son of God We are you know of kin to two Worlds and placed in the middle between Heaven and Earth With our Heads we touch the one and with our Feet we stand upon the other Man is the common term wherein these two meet and are combined By his superiour faculties he holds communion with the inward and spiritual world and by his lower he feels the outward and corporeal But there is a great difference between the correspondence which we hold with one and that which we maintain with the other For to this sensible World we lye open bare but between us and the invisible World there is a gross cloud and vail of flesh which interposes Or to speak more plainly Our senses have nothing that comes between them and their objects to hinder their free approach to them whereas our understanding hath those very objects wherewith they are prepossessed to interrupt the light of coelestial things which shine upon it The outward man is continually exposed to the strokes of the things of this outward World and without any difficulty or pains is moved by them but our Mind is not so patent to the things of the other nor is our Will so easily inclined by them For they being already impressed and engaged by sensible objects these lye between us and the higher Regions and they having enjoyed a long familiarity with them before we received notice of any thing else beside it will require some labour to bring us and those Nobler objects together In short the senses have nothing else to do but only to receive those things which present themselves before them nor are they solicited by any other enjoyments But our minds and wills are haled two waies and solicited by this World as well as by the other so that to perceive that which is Divine we must remove this out of the way and pull our souls from those thoughts and desires wherein these lower things have intangled our hearts Unless our Understanding draw her self aside to the contemplation of Divine Truths and thereby carry the Will to the taste of an higher Good it cannot be avoided but that we become meer men of this World and by being wholly carnal lose our acquaintance with the other caelestial Country We shall be altogether fraught with fleshly opinions and affections and have nothing remaining in us of
by the help of Heaven instantly to set forth in this way which you have described If I had been born your Son I could not have thought my obligations greater to you than now I feel them Nay I shall take the liberty to say That I stand more indebted to your Piety than I do to Nature For fancy oft-times makes Parents but it is only reason truth and goodness which have tyed my heart to you And therefore since I am the issue of your mind you may justly expect a greater reverence love and obedience to your commands than if I was the issue of your body I have heard your discourse Sir with great attention I have markt every particular passage of it with diligence and care and such a gust hath every word given me which dropt from your mouth that it hath seemed to me not many minutes long It is not to be expressed how your Golden Sentence pleaseth me which you have put into my mouth I am resolved to go along this Journey chaunting it continually with no less delight than the Birds are wont to do their Melodies Nay I cannot forbear and be not weary I beseech you Sir if I hold you longer than I thought but I must here before you renounce my own proper will and protest that I desire nothing but to be what Jesus would have me and to be where Jesus you say will bring me O thou enemy of God! my self-will that hast reigned so long come down from thy Throne I proclaim War against thee and am resolved from this day forward to oppose all thy desires I set my self here in open defiance to thee I will have no peace with thee for one moment because thou-art no friend of God to whom I now deliver my self Let him be pleased to come and reign in my heart for I am absolutely his May it be his will to accept of a poor Slave that devotes all his powers to his service This I will beg of him perpetually that he would vouchsafe to let me know what his will is and that shall be my Guide though my own will be never so desirous to hold a contrary course Let it pain me or let it please me I am resolved to bind my self fast to God that he may carry me not whither I would but whither himself thinks good Say the word O my God and it is enough I am prepared to be conducted by thee Lead me whither thou wilt O thou blessed Providence thou shalt have a faithful follower of thy wise Counsels I am no longer affraid of any dangers Those terrible Monsters Poverty Reproach and all the rest do strike no dread at all into me Farewell offices and honours if you must be the recompence of crimes Farewell my friends if I must be the companion of your sins Farewell all the world if it must be the price of my soul But as for you Sir I am loath to bid you farewell I must be snatched rather than go from your company For you are my Father my Oracle a Messenger sent from God to bring me to him And if you will go to Heaven without me I pray you once more to receive my acknowledgements which testifie that I would thank you if I were able both for your former Directions and for this Patience Truly replyed the Father I think my self rather obliged to thank you most heartily that you would come to me and being come that you would hear me not only with Patience but Acceptance For there is nothing I am so greedy of as to meet with a soul that is sincerely desirous to know the way to Jerusalem neither do I know any pleasure equal to that of pouring out my heart into such thirsty minds unless it be this of seeing them rellish those Waters of Life which flow from Wisdome's lips And that same Jesus who I see hath touched your heart already with his Love and excited you to take this Journey give you his Blessing and send his Spirit the Comforter to accompany you in your travels and assign you to some good Angel of his that may conduct you to that happy place the Heavenly Jerusalem where he lives In the way to which I am so desirous you should enter that I will not be your hinderance by any further discourses but shall be very glad as I told you to find you in safety arrived there where we shall never part more nor have any cause to say this sad word Farewell Must I part then with you said the Pilgrim Here he made a pause and tears spoke the rest of his mind for I could hear never a word he said till after a great many sighs hee thus proceeded Well let it be so It is part of my duty you say to be contented with every thing And therefore I now freely resume my former resolution and say in the words I hope in the Spirit also of Jesus Not my will O Lord but thy Will be done Onely let me again renew my desires that you would accompany me ever with your good Prayers for I hope it is not too great a gratification of my self to be pleased in your friendship and in the belief that you remember me Nor will it be accounted a crime that I am not willing to be left out of your thoughts especially when they are addressed in devout supplications to Jesus I have been long perswaded that I use to prosper the better in all my designes for the good wishes of pious persons and it hath been some support to me also when I have had no great store of good desires in my own heart or been but cold in those I had to think that the concerns of my soul were presented to God by some Friend or other in their more fervent Devotions And therefore it will be at the most but a pardonable error if I do with some Passion beg the prayers of such a person as you are and if I comfort my self sometimes with the interess I have in you and them Especially since I see by your charitable instructions and the patience you have used towards me that you have an heart so full of Love and Goodness that it will neither suffer you to remember me coldly nor to be weary in recommending me to the Grace of God The Father would not make any long reply to these words for fear they should never break off but be alwayes linkt together by the chains of this pleasing conversation and the delight which he perceived began to spring up in him by the interchanging so many expressions of their mutual Love But after he had assured him by a solemn promise that he would never fail to commend him to the love and care of Jesus they took their leave one of the other not without a great many embraces and hearty wishes to see each other again in peace at Jerusalem You may be sure the Pilgrim could not but often reflect with a sad heart upon this
not advance so fast as you would Do not follow your Saviour with a sowre heart dejected looks and faln wings as many are wont to do who perpetually lament their faults and cannot yet amend them But render him most humble thanks that he hath given you the knowledge of them and an earnest longing to be without them and a study to shake them off together with good hopes that they may be cured or that as some go to Heaven in the height of Vertue so others may accompany them with as much as they could possibly attain All have not the same Temper the same Diversions nor the same Businesses in the World and therefore be content with that degree which your condition will permit you to rise unto and resolve not to vex your self unreasonably about that which is not in your power to remedy You have often heard I believe that there is no Peace to be had here but by Patience And in my opinion he said true who told one of his Disciples That it is no Patience when a man is content to bear with his neighbour if withall he be not content to bear with himself Not to the end as I told you that he should indulge himself in idleness and not strive to grow better but that all the pains he takes to be so should not end in sorer pains and greater torments because he is yet no better Many other things he added to the same effect and at last prayed him that if he was faln into such a dislike of himself as to be weary of long discourses as well as of his condition yet at least he would observe these three things not unworthy of his notice though they were the advice of Heathens Hecaton hath this saying Askest thou wherein I have profited I have begun to be a friend to my self Such a man hath gotten very much He will never be alone but alwayes hath a good Companion with him And he that is a friend to himself will not fail to be a friend to every body else I believe you cannot deny that you might have made this Answer to the same Question You have begun to take a great care of your Soul Nay you have a long time made it your business to do it good And if you ask other men they will tell you that you are a friend to them and have done them also a great deal of good How came you to grow into this familiarity with your Soul What made you to let it have so much of your company sure it is a sign of some proficiency that you are so well acquainted with it And this brings to my mind another mark of your increase in Vertue which is visible even in your complaints It is an argument saith Seneca of a mind that is changed for the better when it is acquainted with those faults which it was ignorant of before To which I may add a third Do you not will and will alway the same things Are not those things the matter of your choice to day which yesterday you desired This is a testimony of your profiting to be constant to your self And therefore take heed I beseech you of this sowre loathing of your self for in time it will breed a dislike of your duty too and spoil your appetite to any thing that is good While you are inordinately troubled that you cannot do as you would you will not do what you can And in a multitude of confused desires after a better condition you will waste the time which ought to be spent in doing your best in your present estate With these good Counsels and other Remedies too long to be related he recovered the poor man to a better state of health and brought him to conceive a better opinion of himself And yet his health was not so confirm'd but that afterward he fell into a little distemper and languished under a new trouble very near of kin to this and which it brings to my mind It was a great despondency arising from the observation of some weaknesses he felt in his Soul which bred in him a diffidence and distust of his own constancy and a fear that he should never hold out in his Journey but at last sit down short of Jerusalem This madet him exceeding pensive and to go drooping a gread while because he thought that every mile would prove his last or at least that he should never be able to travel so long till he had finished his course Which jealousie discovering it self by some means or other unto his friend though he did what he could to conceal it He was moved with a great deal of pitty towards him And beseeched him earnestly not to let every suspition of himself which started up in his Soul make such a deep impression there before he had advised whether there were cause to entertain it or no. For if you had asked me about this matter as soon as you moved the doubt I could soon have made you give your self satisfaction and laid such a scene of new thoughts in your mind that you should have remembred the former no more For tell me I pray you who brought you thus far in this long Journey wherein you are engaged Was it your self or was it some body else If it was your self you know upon what reasons it was begun and if they were worth any thing they may make you to go on And it should seem also that you have more strength than you imagine if you have travelled so many leagues without any support upon your own leggs But I perceive you so ill opinionated of your self that you are inclined by that if there were no other reason to ascribe your happy progress to some higher cause Thither let us go then and ask of God if he uses to forsake the work of his own hands and to lose all that he hath done already for want of doing a little more Will he now forsake you after you have served him so many years Will he disown one that hath been so long a Client to him and still seeks for his wonted protection Doth he love his Friends no better than to shake them off when they grow old If I would at all have suspected his Constancy it should have been in the beginning of our acquaintance and not now that he hath been tryed for half an Age. Was there any reason at first why he should bear a good will to you or was there none If there was none then there needs none to move him now to continue his Love If there was any then there is a greater reason now because he hath loved you so long and you are also more worthy his Love Do him the honour then that you would do a friend to believe that he is not fickle and inconstant Or do but justice to him and think that he is not unfaithful but true to his word And then as long as your Lord lives you shall live