the smaller and unworthyer the object is the more shamefull is the despaire about it but in recompense it is more curable For then one is easily brought to consider in cold blood that the thing was not worthy either of his affliction or affection But when the object is great and worthy the despaire is more guilty and lesse curable Wherefore the worst Despaire of all is when one despaireth of the grace of God so farre as to hate him for nothing can be worse then to hate the Soveraine good onely worthy to be beloved with all the soul Many distrust the grace of God who are not therefore desperate though they think themselves so to be Let them aske of themselves whether they hate God and let them know that as long as a graine of Gods love remaines in them there is together a graine of faith though opprest and offuscated by melancholy For it is impossible that God should be their enemy and their Soveraine evill while they love him To them this comfort is addrest Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me and those that seeke me early shall find me And this likewise 1 Joh. 4.19 We love him because he first loved us If then we love him we must be sure that he loveth us and we must fight against the temptations of despaire saying with Job Though God stay me yet will I trust in him Job 13.15 and with Isaiah Isa 25.9 Loe this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord wee have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation Confidence is good according to the goodnesse of the subject that it reposeth upon Wherefore Confidence in God the only Soveraine good perfect solid and immutable is the best of all and the onely that can give assurance and content to the soul He that is blest with that confidence is halfe in Paradice already He is firme safe meek serene and too strong for all his enemies Psal 84.12 God is to him a Sunne to give him light heate life and plenty of all goods and a shield to gard him and shelter him from all evills ver 13. He gives him grace in this life and glory in the next O Lord of hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee CHAP. XVIII Of Pitty PItty is a Passion composed of love and sorrow moved by the distress of another either true or seeming And that sympathie is somtimes grounded upon false love because we acknowledge our selves obnoxious to the same calamities and feare the like fortune Pitty is opposite to Envy for Envy is a displeasure conceived at another mans good but Pitty is a displeasure conceived at another mans harme The Passion of Pitty must be distinguished from the vertue that beares the same name for they are easily confounded The Pitty of the vulgar which is imputed to good Nature and Christian charity comes chiefely out of two causes The one is an errour in judgement whereby they reckon many things among the great goods which are good but in a very low degree and likewise many things among evills which are not evill Hence it is that those are most pittied that dye and the best men more then any as though death were evill to such men and they that lose their moneyes which are called goods as though they were the onely good things and they that lose their lands which are called an estate as though a mans being and well being were estated in them The other cause of the Passion of Pitty is a sickly tendernesse of mind easy to be moved wherefore women and children are more inclinable to it but the same tendernesse and softness makes them equally inclinable to choller yea to cruelty The people that seeth the bleeding carkasse of a man newly murthered is stricken with great pitty towards him who is past all worldly sorrowes and with great hatred against the murderer wishing that they might get him into their hands to teare him to peeces But when the fellon is put into the hands of Justice condemned and brought to execution then the heat of the peoples Passion is altogether for pitty to him and that pitty begets wrath against the executioner when he doth his office So easily doth the passion of vulgar soules pass from one contrary to another from pitty to cruelty from cruelty to pitty againe and from compassion for one to hatred for another But all these suddaine contrary motions proceed from one cause which is the tendernesse and instability of weake soules whose reason is drowned in passion and their passion is in perpetuall agitation But the Vertue of Pitty which is a limb of charity is a firme resolution to relieve our neighbour that stands in need of our help and it hath more efficiency then tenderness This is the Pitty of generous and religious spirits aspiring to the imitation of God who without feeling any perturbation for the calamities of men relieveth them out of his mercy And whereas the Passion of pitty is for the most part caused by the ignorance of the goodness and badness of things he that is lesse mistaken in them is also lesse inclined to that passion for he calls not that misery which others call so Nec doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti Or if a wiseman pitty one dejected by poverty it will not be his poverty but his dejected spirit that he will pitty And so of him that is weeping for a slander a wiseman will pitty him not because he is slandered but because he weepes for it for that weeping is a reall evill though the cause which is slander be but an imaginary evill He will labour to get such a firme soul that neither the good nor the evill that he seeth in or about his neighbours be able to worke any perturbation within him The world being a great hospitall of misery where we see wellnigh as many miserable persons as we see men if we were obliged to have a yearning compassion for all the miserable we should soone become more miserable then any of them and must bid for ever Adieu to the peace of the soul and contentment of mind It is enough to give power to our neighbours to command our counsell our labour and our purse in their need but to give them power over the firmeness of our soul to shake and enervate it at their pleasure it is too much Let us depend of none if it may be but God and ourselves Let none other have the power be it for good or evill to turne the sterne of our minde at his pleasure It must be acknowledged that Pitty as weake as it is hath more affinity with Vertue then any other Passion and turnes into vertue sooner then any That way weake soules handled with dexterity are brought to meekeness and charity and that way many Pagans have bin brought to the Christian verity We owe the great conversions to the sufferings of Martyrs
to satisfie the desire of temporal things is to abridge it A counsel comprehending these two Not to depend of the future and to be content with little for the present Both are effects of an entire confidence in Gods goodnes and providence Of not depending upon the future I shall have several occasions to speake hereafter To be contented with little is an unspeakable treasure That way one may with much ease get plenty which a covetous man cannot get by heapes of money scraped up with a greedy labour He that desires onely what he can have obtaines easily what he will have And he that desires nothing but what pleaseth God hath obtained it already All things smile on him because he receives all things at the hand of God whom he knowes to be good and wise Little and much are all one to him for both serve alike for contentment as it pleaseth God to extend a blessing upon it Let us apply this to the three principal desires that cause so much tumult and disorder in the world Covetousnes Ambition and Voluptuousnes CHAP. V Of Desire of Wealth and Honour What I have sayd of wealth and honours will persuade any man of good sense that they are not satisfying objects of a mans desire therefore not to be eagerly followed It is our Saviours consequence Luk. 12.15 Take heed and beware of covetousnes for mans life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesseth It is also St Johns consequence who forbids us to love the world and the things that are in it because the world passeth away 1 Joh. 2. These are two powerfull reasons to moderate the desire of the things of this world drawne from their nature The one that they are not necessary the other that they are transitory And yet the covetous and ambitious seeke after them as if life consisted in them or they were to endure for ever Which they cannot thus desire without turning their affection from the onely necessary and permanent thing which is God Matth. 6.24 You cannot serve God and Mammon saith the Lord Iesus For as when a channel is cut for a river in a ground lower then her bed all the water will fall where it finds a slope and leaves her former channel dry Likewise the desire of man whose true channel is the love of God will turne the whole affection of the soule towards low earthly things when that slope descent of covetousnes and ambition is made in the heart and nothing is left for God For it is improperly spoken that a man pretending to great worldly honours is aspiring too high Rather he is stooping too low for the most precious things of the world yea and the whole world are very much under the excellency of mans soule and more yet below the dignity of Gods children Who so then enslaveth his soule of heavenly origine and called to a divine honour unto temporal things which in this low world cannot be but low debaseth his dignity most unworthily And in all earthly things high or low condition makes but little unequality for still it is earth Hills and dales are alike compared with their distance from Heaven But what as the Israelites quitted Gods service to worship the golden calfe the luster of gold and honour will so dazell mens eyes and inflame their desires that they transport unto things of this world that devout love which they owe unto God Wherefore St Paul saith that covetousnes is idolatrie Col. 3. And it is no wonder that the sensual objects prevaile more upon Nature then the spirituall Yet covetous and ambitious desires are not properly natural but enormities of nature for little provision serveth nature whereas if all the waters of the sea were potable gold they would not quench the thirst of covetousnes Nature is contented with a meane degree but crownes heaped up to heaven would yet be too low for ambition Greedines is an unthankfull Vice It makes a man so thirsty after that he hath not that he forgets what he hath and thinks not himselfe advanced though he see a great many behind as long as he seeth yet some before him He cannot enjoy that he hath because he hangs upon that he hath not Thus he is allwayes needy discontented unquiet and spares his enemies the labour to find him a continual vexation And whereas the proper use for which Desire was given to man is to supply his necessities he makes use of his desire to multiply his necessities To that sicknes these are the proper remedies The first is to abridge our desire and be contented with little To him that contenteth himselfe with little little is much But to him that is not contented with much much is little To abridge our desire wee must beare downe our pride That which makes a man think a great wealth to be too little for him is his too great esteeme of himselfe Whereas the humble and meeke though they have but little think they have more then they deserve Who so will calmly compare what he deserveth with that which God hath given him shall find great matter to humble himself and praise God and silence the murmuring of his greedines Let us remember our beginning Being borne naked a little milke and a few baby clouts served us Who would think that some yeares after whole kingdomes could not satisfie us Yet our need since that time is not much increased 1. Tim. 6.8 Having food and raiment wee may be therewith content A little is sufficient for necessary desires but for curious and superfluous desires the whole world is too little Let us employ our greedy desire to heale it self considering that this greedines for the wealth and honour of the world spoiles the enjoyment and takes all content from it for no man hath joy in these things but he that useth them as not using them That greedines makes us seeke them with torment possesse them with unquietnes and lose them with anguish Yea many times greedines hindereth the acquisition Good fortune seldome yeelds to them that will ravish her but to the wise and moderate who though they lose no opportunity woe her as little concerned in her and are alwayes prepared for the repulse That wee spend no more about worldy fortune then it is worth Put in one scale the splendour of honour and the plenty of wealth Put in the other scale the labour to get them the care and vexation to keepe them the peril the envy the losse of time the temptations offered to the conscience the stealing of a mans thoughts from God and the danger of losing heaven while wee goe about to get the earth Then the incapacity of those goods to satisfie the desire their weakenes their uncertainty and how one infortunate moment destroyes the labour of many yeares and then judge whether they be worth enflaming our desire and enslaving our affections With the uncertainty of these possessions consider the uncertainty of the possessours that
who makes Religion a generality of all good in this pregnant text Phil. 4.8 Finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest vvhatsoever things are just vvhatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise think on these things I hope with Gods helpe to justifie that unto true piety it properly belongs to set a man at peace with God with himselfe and with his neighbours to set a right order in his soul by rectifying his opinions and governing his passions to make him moderate in prosperity and patient in adversity wise tranquill generous and cheerefull as long as he liveth and glorious after his death In these few words I have set downe the argument and order of this Booke If all these are within the precincts of piety very little will remaine for humane wisedome separate from religious to make a man vertuous and happy Charron very wittily alledgeth that many Philosophers have been good and vertuous and yet irreligious To which the answer is that it is an indulgence when they are called good and vertuous without the knowledge and love of the divine and saving truth and that such of them as have been neerest to that title had reverend opinions of the God-head and despised the silly superstitions of that age Also that their want of religion hath made their pretended vertue maimed and monstrous as in the case of killing ones selfe which Charron after Montagne esteeme two much and dares not condemne it without a preface of reverence and admiration This he hath got by separating Vertue from Religion proving by his example that Nature without grace cannot but stumble in the darke and that to guide ones selfe it is not enough to have good eyes but there is neede of the light from above Whereas we should make a faithfull restitution to Religion of all that is vertuous in Pagan Phylosophy as descended from the Father of lights and belonging to the patrimony of the Church this man does the clean contrary robbing Religion of those things which are most essentiall to her to bestow them upon humane wisedome solliciting vertue to shake off her subjection to Religion her mother and Soveraine and to make her selfe absolute and independent Himselfe forgets to whom he oweth that wisedome of which he writes In the Schoole of Religion he had got his best learning to Religion also hee should have done his homage for it Can all the Bookes of humane wisedome afford such a sublime Philosophy aâ— that of the Lord Jesus when hee teacheth us to be prudent as serpents and harmelesse as doves Not to feare them that kill the body and cannot kill the Soul Not to care for the morrow because God cares for it and because to every day is sufficient the affliction thereof Not to lay up treasures in earth where the moth and the rust spoyle all but in Heaven where they spoyle nothing And when he brings us to the schoole of Nature sometimes to weane us from covetous cares by the examples of Lillies of the field which God cloatheth and of the birds of the aire which he feedeth sometimes to perswade us to doe good to our enemies because God makes his Sun to rise upon good and evill and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust How many lessons and examples doe wee finde in Scripture of heroicall magnanimity Such is the Philosophy of St. Paul who professed that when hee was weake then he was strong and that he fainted not because that while the outward man decayed the inward was renewed day by day Such is the Philosophy of the Hebrewes who bore with joy the spoyling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had a better and an induring substance Such also is the Phylosophy of David who was confident never to be removed because God was at his right hand and taking him for the portion of his inheritance he looked through death and the grave to the glorious presence of Gods face and the pleasures as his right hand for evermore This is Theologicall wisedome Is it all frowning chagreene austere servile sad timorous and vulgar Is it not all free chearefull lofty noble generous and rare Let us acknowledge that it is the onely wisedome that makes man free and content If the Sonne of God set us free we shall be free indeed Out of him there is nothing but slavery and anguish Satan the great enemy of God and men could not have devised a more effectuall course to disgrace godlinesse and cast men headlong into perdition then to separate wisedome from religion and portray religious wisedome weeping trembling with a frighted looke and hooded with superflition They that take so much paines to prove that religion and wisedome are things altogether different have a great mind to say if they durst that they are altogether contrary And if any be perswaded by Charron that to be wise and vertuous one needs not be religious he will come of himselfe to beleeve that he that would be religious cannot bee wise and vertuous Certainely who so conceiveth once religious wisedome in that sad servile and timorous Idea which Charron assignes to her must needs think that wisedome and vertue lose their name and goe from their nature when they will be religious There is then nothing more necessary in this age in which Atheisme is dogmatizing and speaking bigge then to demonstrate that the beginning and accomplishment of wisedome is the feare of God And in stead of that prodigious method to withdraw men from religion that is from God to make them wise and content that truth must be prest unto the heart that a man cannot be wise and content but by joyning himselfe with God by a religious beliefe love and obedience That we fall not into a contrary extreme wee must take heede of robbing humane wisedome of her office and praise And we must acknowledge that she needs to be imployed about many things in which piety is not an actour but an overseer But piety must never bee severed from her for where shee gives no rules yet shee sets limits Piety must bee mistresse every where humane wisedome the servant Now it is the servants duty to do many things which the mistresse wil not put her hand to standing more upon her dignity then to descend to inferiour offices In which although piety hath no hand yet she hath an eye to them and lets nothing scape her knowledge On the other side humane wisedome confines not herselfe to inferiour offices but assisteth Piety in the highest She doth her good service when she keepes in her owne ranck But she goeth out of it when she presumes to governe her Mistresse subjecting faith to reason and conscience to worldly interesses In this Treatise I consider piety and wisedome as the meanes to obtaine the peace of the soule and contentment of minde Not to vote for the
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
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
doth more harme then good to the living For one that is encouraged with praise to do well a thousand are thereby puft up with pride It is hurtfull to weak spirits and troublesome to the strong If praise were a real good every one ought to praise himselfe as one feeds himselfe And none ought to be ashamed to heare or speake his owne praise for none ought to be ashamed of good things That shame is a proofe either that praise is not good or that it belongs not to us This deserveth a deeper consideration Glory and praise among men are of those shades and images of divine attributes scattered in this inferiour world of which shades the substance and reality is in God Glory in him is a substance yea his owne essence and to him alone all Glory belongeth The sparkes of glory that are in creatures are rayes of that soveraigne splendour Now these rayes go not streight like those of the Sunne they go round and fetch a compasse to returne to the principle of their being Ps 145.10 All thy workes shall praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall blesse thee Since his works praise him by nature his Saints must praise him by will Those streakes of glory that are in his creatures as comming from him must returne to him by nature or by will For although man be not able to give any glory to God by praising God yet God knoweth how to receive from us that glory which we cannot give him and to make himselfe glorious in his owne workes Here is then the reason why men are desirous of praise and glory and yet are ashamed of it Their desire of it is a natural sence that it is good And that they are ashamed of it is another natural sense that it was not made for them Wherefore a wise Christian will desire and seeke the glory of God And when some image of that glory is given him by the prayses of men hee will presently bring that praise and glory to God as Gods proper goods saying Glory is a Crown that was not made for my head and on my knees I put it on the head of him to whom it properly belongs Such is praise in its Original and End both which do meet but being considered in its inferiour causes and conveighances as it comes from and through men it is a tide of popular applause as subject to go downe as to come up consisting in fancy exprest in talke rising upon small causes and upon small causes falling againe We must make more of our content then to pinne it upon such an uncertain possession never reckoning among our goods a thing lying in the Opinion of another and remaining in the possession of the person that gives it for humane praise belongs not to him that is praised but to him that praiseth since every one is or ought to be master of his Opinions and words They that give us praise retaine it in their power and may take it from us when they please CHAP. VI. Of the goods of the Body Beauty Strength Health FRom the goods of Fortune which are altogether out of us and many times consist in imagination we come to the personal beginning by those of the body The first is Beauty which among bodily goods may be called the first gift of God and the first advantage of nature I say not that it is the principal for health is farre above it in excellency But it cannot be denyed that it is the first since God hath placed it in the entry and on the front of this building of the flesh Beauty at the very first meeting winnes the good Opinion of beholders and gives an advantagious preconceit of a faire mind Beauty is a signe of goodnesse of nature The sweet vigour of the eyes the smoth skinne the lively white and red the handsome lineaments of the face and the comely proportion of the body are markes of a quick and well composed mind Which yet is not peculiar to Beauty For many persons in whom melancholy is predominant which tanneth their skin sets their eyes deepe in their head puts a sowreness on their brow have a penetrating and judicious understanding Open faces which are the most beautiful have commonly candid and serene soules but none of the craftiest The observation that Pride is a companion to Beauty is not naturally true but by accident for beautifull persons being praised and admired of all who can wonder that they grow proud since so much paine is taken to make them so A good presence is well sorted with valour and wisedome and doth excellent service to brave men if they spoyle it not by affectation Beauty is the loadstone of Love which courts her and calls it s her faire Sun And so she is for it gets heat by Beauty And as the heat caused by the Sun is allayed when the Sunne is set so doth the heat kindled by Beauty lose its flame when Beauty its gone When love outlives Beauty some other causes must keep it alive as vertue and utility Beauty is among desirable goods not among the laudable for nothing is laudable in us but the productions of our will and industrie For which reason handsome women ought to reject prayses of their Beauty for either these praises are injurious to God who as the Author ought to have the whole praise of his work or they are injurious to them and seeme to presuppose that they have made their beauty and sophisticated nature by art for none ought to be praised for that he hath not done Great and rare Beauty in its nature is desirable but by accident and as the world goes it is more to be feared then desired and does more harme then good It is hurtfull to the person that is endowed with it for it exposeth her to temptations and insolence which commonly make her wicked and miserable It is hurtful to the person that woeth it or enjoyeth it for it sets him as a marke for injuries Many might have led a tranquil life and escaped discredit quarrel ruine and stabbing in the end had not their wives bin too handsome But though beauty were not cumbered with all this danger the nature and price of it must be well considered that we may not expect of it a contentment beyond its kinde Beauty is the exteriour and superficiall ornament of a sickly and mortall body the inside whereof is unpleasing to the eye and would make the hearts rise of the admirers of the outside if they could see it It is a faire blossom onely for the spring of life which will fade with age or wither with sicknesse and cares in the very spring It is a cheater which promiseth much keepeth not promise for the most amorous never found in it a delight answerable to the desire that it kindleth Take the right measure of the goodnes of that so much desired possession of beauty so shal you not desire it above measure and when
you have it you shall reape from it a more sincere content because you shall require of it as much as its nature affords and no more Strength also and Health are things desired not laudable as things that come by nature not by will Great strength of body is commonly accompanied with a weake minde and that disproportion is augmented with much feeding and obligeth nature to bestow the maine Magazine of spirits upon disgestion distribution of meat and hardning of the brawnes of the limbs to enable them for strong labour leaving but few spirits to attend reasoning contemplating Speak to perpetuall hunters of the delight of speculation you shall finde them little more capable of it then their hounds which are the highest point of their meditation To their minde is very convenient the definition which Aristotle gives to the Soul that it is the first act that is the principle of the motion of an organical body for their soul seemes to be made for no other end but to move their body It is certain that too great excercise of the body dulls the mind The preheminency of man above beasts consisteth in reason and the capacity of knowing and loving God Men that are proud of their strength robore corporis stolidè feroces placing their advantage and content in a thing wherein they are inferiour to many beasts descend from their dignity and take place under their natural subjects He that with his forehead would knocke a great naile into a post to the very head deserved this praise that next to a Bull he had the hardest head of all beasts Health of all goods of the body is most to be desired yea more then life A truth not contradicted by the knowne Maxime that the end is better then the meanes for I hold not health to be subordinate unto life but life unto health Being is the meanes and well being is the end Non est vivere sed valere vita So Mecenas must be left to his owne Opinion desire who though he were maimed hands and feet and had all his teeth loose in his head and a bunch on his crooked back would think himselfe well if he had but life Yea if by enduring the sharpest tortures of the cross he might keepe life he would willingly endure them His enemies could wish him no greater harme then to buy life at that rate The body being made for the soul the true natural benefit of Health is not long life but the liberty of the actions of the mind For the minde stickes so to the body that it cannot act very freely in a body tormented with acute paine or pined with a lingring disease Wherefore that we may go through that necessary captivity as easily as may be an especial care must be had of the health of our body taking all occasion from it of accusing the excesses ill government of the minde for the corruption and inflammation of the humours behaving ourselves with our body not as living for it but as unable to live in the world without it Our minde was made for a better end then to serve the flesh Yet let us give it faithfully its due as to the horse that carryes us in our journey It must be fed and tended else it will faile us in the way Curious persons commit two faults about the care of their bodies They bestow much cost and labour to adorne them but they neglect their health exposing themselves halfe naked to cold aire to shew a fine halfe shirt as if they furnisht their roomes with rich hangings and suffered the raine to fall on them for want of repairing the roofe In matter of cloathes health and commodity are the best counsellors not the eyes and Opinions of strangers Health must be acknowledged the richest jewell of all temporal things yea preferable to many ornaments of the minde He that hath got much learning in the Tongues and hath diseased his body with watching hath lost more then he hath got But the healthfullest body of the world is a tottering house which must every day be underpropt with food and for all our care will fall in the end We must looke upon it as a tenement at will which we hold under God our Landlord not fearing but rejoycing that we must leave it knowing that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were disolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 LIFE I set neither among goods nor among evils for it is neither good nor evill in itselfe but the subject of good and evill like the painters cloath where all sorts of colours are couched Such as it is it must be put in the rank of those things that depend not of our will and therefore must not be accounted ours but used as a borrowed commodity We must say more of it when we speake of Death CHAP. VII Of bodily Pleasure and Ease OF all arguments of meditation there is none where writers shew lesse sincerity then in this Every one blames pleasure and ease and yet every one seekes it They tell us that it is the cause of all evill that it poisoneth the passion that it blindeth reason that it is an enemy to good counsell aad that it is impossible for Vertue to stand with Volupty Yet the same Authors love their ease and their very discourses of ease are effects of ease and productions of wits sweetned by prosperity Then they charge pleasure with the vices of men whereas it is not pleasure but men that must be blamed For pleasure doth not corrupt men but men corrupt pleasure It must be acknowledged good in it selfe It is the seasoning that God all-wise and all-good hath given to things profitable and actions necessary that wee should seek them Look upon a brave horse with a judicious eye After you have considered his great use and praised the bounty of God for making an animal of so much service and commodity to man praise God againe for making him so handsome and of such a gallant mettle And acknowledge that the gracious Creator regarded as well mans delectation as utility The delicious taste of fruits the fragrant smell and gay colours of flowers the fair prospect of groves meadowes calme and cleare waters and all the delicate variety of Nature speake very expresly that God as an indulgent Father hath taken great care to please and recreat us and condemneth that sad and sowre wisedome which deemeth to merit much by avoiding at least in shew all that is pleasing in Nature Of that kinde is this prayer which may be read in many Bookes of devote contemplation Lord give me grace to be delighted in no earthly thing Which is as much as saying to God that he was much overseen when he made his workes good and pleasant since it is ill done to delight in them That devotion wants common sence if it be serious and more if it be hypocritical We
become good or evill to us according to the disposition of our minds And of things within us there are but two in themselves evill Sinne and Paine Stoicians will not acknowledge paine to be evill because it sticks to the body onely which say they is mans lodging not man himselfe But what-man feels all the incommodities of that lodging The soul is tyed by personal Union with the senses and really suffers what they suffer So to maintaine that paine is not evil when one feels it commanding the outward countenance to unmoovednesse in the midst of the sharpe torments of the stone and the gout laughing when one hath more minde to cry is increasing paine with the addition of constraint and heaping folly upon misery But paine becomes a blessing to the wise and godly which learne by it to weane their hearts from the love of the world and themselves and to seeke in God that comfort which they finde not in this world and this life for all things helpe together for good unto them that love God Herein the senses may do good service to reason piety to find content in many things where others find the contrary Some will declame gainst the senses as ill Judges of the goodnesse and badnesse of things To whom we must say that the senses are never Judges but informers and that the ill information that our understanding receiveth of the quality of the objects ought not to be imputed to the senses for they plainly report what they perceive but to the prepossest Imagination which upon their simple information frameth false Ideas set off with colours of her owne which she presents to the Judgement and makes him Judge amisse through misinformation If we will then get good service from the senses for the right informing of our judgment we must obtaine of ourselves these two points The one not to receive their testimony but about their proper objects which are the outward qualities wherewith the senses are affected The other not to preoccupate them with Imagination Opinion and Passion So when they are confined to their owne province and become impartial witnesses it will be easy to perswade our reason rather to beleev our owne sense then the Opinion of another Thus when we desire to know whether we be unhappy because we are deprived of riches kept back from honours without reputation or ill reputed in the world we must not referre ourselves about that to the Opinion and talk of the world but to our owne sense Let us sincerely examine our senses what harme wee receive by it Are we more hungry or cold by these misfortunes Doth the Sunne shine lesse bright upon us Is our bed harder Is our meat lesse feeding If our senses thus examined have nothing to complaine of and yet we complaine that wee are come short of some hopes that others step before us that the world regards us not or speakes ill of us Let us ingenuously acknowledge upon the testimony of our senses that we are well if we can beleeve it and that it is not out of Sense but Opinion that we are afflicted This is the difference betweene fooles and wise men Fools consult Opinion and Custome Wisemen consult reason piety and nature Fooles regard what others think Wisemen consider what themselves finde and feele Fooles gape after things absent Wisemen possesse the present and themselves O how many men complaine that have no hurt but in their imagination which is indeed a great hurt and incurable many times When you see a man rich and healthful tearing his heart for some inconsiderable losse or for the rash words of an ill tongue desire him to aske his senses where the paine is And if he feele no paine by it why doth he put himselfe to paine Why is he ill when he may be well He is well if he can but heale his imagination Is it not a disgrace to a reasonable creature that whereas reason ought to rectify the sences the senses should need to rectify reason and that men who love themselves so much must be exhorted to do no harme to themselves when they feele no harme A rational godly man will examine what he feeles and will do no harme to himselfe when God doth him good And when his senses have reason to complaine he will quietly hearken to them and rather beleeve their report about the measure of the evill then the cryes of the by-standers that commiserate him He will not be easily perswaded that he is sicker then he is indeed and will not increase his paine with his imagination And whereas others make themselves sick out of imagination when they are well he will use his imagination to make himselfe well when he is ill Not that I would advise a man to blind himselfe for feare of seeing and dull his sense for feare of feeling evills For the better we know the nature of things the better we know how to deale with them that we may avoid or beare the evill that is in them But because imagination hath a real force to increase or diminish many evils it is the part of a wiseman alwayes to imploy the strength of his imagination to his advantage never to his hurt The evills where the indulgence of Opinion must be used to make them lighter are the evills of the body and fortune But as for the evils of the mind which are the vices of the understanding and the will there the flattery of Opinion is most dangerous for the principal sicknesse of the mind is that one thinkes not himselfe to be sick I have advised reason to take counsel of the senses when the imagination aggravateth the evil or makes it and yet the senses are free of paine But when the senses are offended in earnest then they must take counsel of reason and more yet of piety to finde some ease Let us meditate upon the nature of those evils of fortune and body so much feared in the world He that gives a right Judgement of the evill hath halfe found the remedy CHAP. IX Of Poverty THere be many degrees of civill poverty according to the diversity of conditions and businesses To a Soveraigne prince it is Poverty to have lesse then a hundred thousand pounds a yeare but to a husbandman it is riches to have twenty pounds a yeare rent free In all conditions those are truly poore that have not wherewith to maintaine that course of life which they have set up and all men that cannot satiate their cupidity Thus very few rich men will be found in the world since there are but few that aspire not to greater things then they can compasse and desire no more then they have All that finde want are poore whether their want be of things necessary or superfluous and among many degrees of poore men there is but one Poverty Yet those are the poorest that finde want of superfluous things because that kinde of poverty is made worse by the increase
unlooked for being fallen into their lap they have given over singing and turned sad and full of thoughts Anacreon came once to that trouble but he rid himselfe of it He was a Poet and consequently poore Polycrates the rich Tyrant of Samos bestowed two or three thousand Crownes upon him But Anacreon after he had kept them three dayes restored them to his benefactor because said he that-money would not let him sleep Which action was not the production of a Philosophical minde for by his Poemes now extant it appeareth that wine and women were the highest spheres of his contemplation but the true cause was that he found riches heavier to beare then poverty I was saying that Poverty beates down the courage and stupefyeth the wit but it is onely with them that had no great courage and no great wit before and they would have bin more beaten down and stupefyed by riches but in another way for riches swell indeed the courage with pride but they beat it down at the same time with feare and make it soft with voluptuousnesse they slacken diligence blunt the edge of industry but poverty whets it awakens and sharpens the wit if there be any Riches in a competent measure are more accommodate to the operations of the speculative understanding for high and curious contemplations require a minde free of cares and rested with plenty A man that wanteth bread hath no thoughts of finding longitudes and the pole of the load-stone or the exquisiteness of eloquence Magnae mentis opus nec de lodîce parandâ Attonitae Poverty is fitter for the operations of the practical understanding for necessity is the mother of arts Magister artis ingenîque largitor venter We owe most part of mechanique inventions to men put to their shifts The best thing that is in Poverty is that meeting with a sound and godly mind it helps to weane it from the world and raise it up to God which is the great worke of a Christian to which riches are a great hindrance He that hath but little in the world finds in his poverty a great motive to lay up treasure it heaven to which he is invited by the example of the Lord Jesus who made himselfe poore to make us rich in God To the poore was the Gospel first preacht and when it was preach to the rich and poore together the poore were the first that embraced it because they were lesse tyed unto the world and at more liberty to go to God It is most observable that all persons admitted by God to salvation are received in the quality of poore and the rich must make themselves poore before God through humility and meeknesse that they may be capable of that high blessing whereby Christ began his sermon Mat. 5 Blessed are the poore in spirit for theirs is the Kingdome of God To that Poverty in spirit the poverty in worldly goods is a great help A wise and godly man that knoweth how to get advantage by all things will prudently manage all the helps to heaven which poverty affords when he shall be brought to that condition He will become more serene in his devotions more resolute in his dangers more undaunted to maintaine the truth lighter to flee from one Citty to another in time of persecution and better disposed at all times to welcom death casting no back-look upon the world where he hath nothing to lose If he had once riches and hath lost them he will acknowledge that they were none of his since they could not stay with him for the true goods of a man are inseperable from him as being within him These goods are a right reason integrity of conscience the love of God faith in his promises and an appetite led by reason and piety With that patrimony he may say with more reason then Bias in what condition soever he be I carry all my goods along with me The goods of fortune deserve not the name of goods To him that desireth nothing but what is sufficient to Nature poverty doth no harme and to him that desireth more poverty doth good for it brings him to sobriety To have little and to be contented with it is a great wealth Poverty and riches having their commodities and incommodities the most desireable temporal estate is the midlemost which is neither and holds of both That state the wise man requested at Gods hands Prov. 30.8 Give me neither poverty nor riches feed me with food convenient for me Lest I be full and deny thee and say who is the Lord and lest I be poore and steale and take the name of my God in vaine But our condition is not in our choice Vertue and tranquillity of minde may be had in any fortune because they depend not of fortune CHAP. X. Of low Condition IT is in the Judgement of many worse yet then poverty and it is for its sake that they feare poverty It is of several degrees and is more or lesse grievous according to the diversity of persons and designes To them that aspire to honours but are kept back and think they lose all they cannot get it is unsufferable and more yet to them that had honours and were justled out of them for men will get up to honour with a good will but none descends from it unlesse he be hurled downe which hath given occasion to the institution of yearely Magistrates Others are bred in a low condition and aspire not much higher yet they groane under the yoake which their condition ingageth them unto Thus all are discontented and none are so high but think themselves too low The low condition indeed is slavish especially in France and Poland and he that can handsomely get out of the bottom where the land-flood of the publique stormes stayeth and take himselfe out of the number of the beasts of carriage shall do prudently to seek his liberty St. Pauls advice is judicious Art thou called being a servant care not for it but if thou mayest be made free use it rather 1 Cor. 7.21 If it be impossible for a wiseman to get that liberty let him consider that as the low condition is more onerous so it is lesse dangerous In France especially where although the armies consist of high and low yet the maine shock of battles falles upon the Gentry and the best of the Nobility The hazardous attempts fall to their share All may follow warre but the Gentry hold it their proper trade The French Gentleman is borne in a manner with his sword by his side Who so will observe how in noble houses two thirds of their branches are lopt off by warre shall finde that the Nobility and Gentrie pay deare for their immunities To beare with the low condition one should observe well the inconveniences of the high The higher a man stands the fairer mark doth he give to envy secret undermining and open hostility Great places are like stilts upon which a man hath but a
do him harme or hindred to do him good or deprived of the good he might do to the publique that worthy man must not altogether neglect to rectifye the misconceits taken against him which he may with lesse difficulty atchieve by a serene and constant course of integrity then by finding and proving confuting and keeping a great bustle to bring contrary witnesses face to face Innocency and the confidence that attends it must needs stand so high above the babling of the vulgar as to be no more moved with it then the Starres with the wind â—â—owing in the lower Region The dishonour that hath some ground in the truth must be wiped off not by excuses but by amendment Is one blamed for being vicious He must be so no more And that out of hatred of vice not of dishonour which being but a shadow of it will vanish at the rayes of Vertue CHAP. XII Of the evills of the body Unhandsomnesse Weaknesse Sicknesse and Paine OUr judgement being satisfyed that the good of the body beauty strength health and pleasure are none of the great goods we ought also to bee perswaded that their contraries are none of the great evills And if our very bodies must not be accounted ours because we cannot dispose of them at our pleasure and because by the undermining of age they sinke and slip away continually from themselves the commodities and incommodities of these fraile tenements at will where our soules are harboured for a few daies as ought not to disquiet us matters of any importance To beginne at Unhandsomnesse if a woman be unhandsome for that sexe is especially sensible of that disgrace let her stay but a while age will bring all the beauties to her row within few yeares and death after That last day draweth neere which will make faire and foule alike strong and weake sick and sound them that are tormented with dolour and them that torment themselves with voluptuousnesse and curiosity Whosoever is much grieved with those incommodities never apprehended aright the frailty of the opposite commodities We must not be vexed for the want of things which by their nature decay and perish very houre There are few incommodities but have a mixture of commodities which a wise lover of his owne tranquillity will pick and convert to his advantage The unhandsome woman shall not be admired but in recompence she shall not be tempted nor importuned as a prey by lust and insolence She hath with her a perpetual exhorter to humility piety and all vertue and to recompence the want of beauty with goodnesse Seldome is unhandsomnesse reproached to women but to them that aggravate with malice envy their disgraces of nature Beauty cannot be acquired but goodnesse may Yet among them that want beauty some are so wise and so good that they become handsome They are commonly more happy in marriage then great beauties for they give lesse jealousy to their husbands and study more to content them Persons of weak constitution are lesse obnoxious to acute sicknesses which many times will kil strong bodyes in three or foure dayes They are lesse tainted with that stupid pride which commonly attends great strength of body Finding themselves inferiour to others in excercises of strength they apply themselves to exercises of wit to which commonly they are more apt As weezels have more mettle and nimblenesse then Oxen there is often more industry and quicknesse of wit in little weak men then in men of of large and brawny limbs for the predominancy of blood and phlegme which makes the body large is the duller temper for wit whereas choler and melancholy which by their contractive quality limit the stretching of growth to a lesser extent serve also the one to sharpen the wit the other to give solidity to the judgement Weakenesse reads to a man a continual Lecture of prudence and compliance for being not able to carry on his designes with a high hand dexterity onely will serve his turne Also that want of strength teacheth him to make God his strength sticking fast to him by faith and a good conscience That way the weakest become too strong for all the world When I am weake then I aâ— strong saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 12.10 Of this Gods children have a blessed experience in sicknesse whereby God makes their body weake to make their faith strong and their soules by the dolours and lingring decay of their bodies susceptible of many salutary lessons for which health and ease have no eares Sicknesse and paine are evill in their nature but they are good by accident when God is pleased to turne evills into remedies to bring a man to repentance and make him looke up to the hand that striketh They are punishments to sin and wayes to death but to the faithful soul they become instruments of grace and conveighances to glory Many of them that beleeved in the Lord Jesus while he conversed among men were brought to it by bodily sicknesses And he when he healed a sick person often would say Thy sins are forgiven thee To give an impartial judgement of their quality and measure one must rather beleeve what he feeles then the cryes and compassion of them that love him and have interest in his preservation They say that a man is very sick when he feeles not his sicknesse Yet he hath so much good time till he feele it If the paine be sharp it is short If it be little it is tolerable If the evill be curable be patient good Cure will heale it If the evill be incurable be patient death will heale it No evill is superlative when one is certaine to come out of it By life or by death there must be an end of thy sicknesse All the remedies that Pagan Philosophy giveth in extremities come to this that patience is a remedy to evills that have none But here Christian Philosophy openeth the treasure of divine comforts which to make the faithfull man patient in tribulation make him joyfull in hope shew him the crown ready for him at the end of the combat In the combat he is strengthened by faith and the comforter whom Christ promist to his disciples powerfully assisteth him in his last agony Or if his triall be prolonged he tels him as Paul buffeted by a messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12.9 my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse By that grace sicknesse beates downe pride quencheth lust weaneth the heart from the love of the world makes the soule hungry and thirsty after righteousnesse Theodoricus Archbishop of Collen with great wisdome exhorted the Emperour Sigismond to have the will in health to live holily as he said when he was tormented with the gravel and gowte Sicknesses give to a godly man a sense of his frailty when wee feel these houes of mud our bodies drooping towards the ground their originall then doe we sigh for that building of God that house not made with hands
number that love the present world and cannot fixe their thoughts upon that which is to come imagin that when they dye they lose all A great folly They cannot lose that which is none of theirs They have the use of the world only til their Lease be out Death is the great proofe of that fundamentall Maxime which I so often urge and no oftner then I need That the things that are out of the disposition of our will are none of ours and such are riches honours our body and life it selfe To them that are so farre mistaken as to thinke themselves owners of these things death is an undoing not to them that acknowledge themselves tenants at will and look continually to be called out of their tenement The goods of the world are held by turnes When you have enjoyed them a while you must give place to others Make your successours case your owne How should yee like it if a certaine number of men should be priviledged to monopolize to themselves the goods of all the world for ever to the perpetuall exclusion of all others This reasoning belongs to few persons for it presupposeth plenty and prosperity But how few have plenty and of those few againe how few have prosperity with it One would thinke that distressed persons have no need of comfort against death Yet they that have the greatest sorrowes in the world many times are the most unwilling to leave it But certainly if life be evill it is good to go out of it All men being born under the necessity of suffering and misery being universall in all conditions Death which ends all misery of life is the greatest benefit of Nature Blessed be God that there is no temporal misery so great but hath an end Take me a man that hath nothing but debts that liveth meerely by his shifts and tricks that hath the stone in the bladder and ten suits in Law that flyeth from the Sergeants to his house and then flyeth out of his house relanced by the scolding of his perverse wife If in that flight he be suddainly killed in the street by the fall of a tyle or the overturning of a Cart that happy misfortune delivereth him from all other misfortunes The Sergeants overtake him and let him are All attachments and Subpoenas against him are vacated Hee is no more troubled where to get his dinner His debts breake not his perpetuall sleep He is thoroughly healed of the stone and his wife now desperaetly crying because she seeeth him insensible for ever and unmoved at her noise Certainly Death is a shelter against all inâ—uries Death puts an end to endlesse evills It is the rest after a continual toyle It is the cure of the sick and the liberty of the slave So Job describeth that quiet state Job 3.7 There the wicked cease from troubling and there the weary be at rest There the prisoners rest together they heare not the voyce of the oppressor The small and great are there and the servant is free from his Master It is a great folly to feare that which cannot be avoyded but it is a greater to feare that which is to be desired When we have considered the evills of life those that we do and those that we suffer after that to feare Death what is it else but to be affraid of our rest and deliverance And what greater harme can one wish to him that will not dye but that he may live alwayes and be guilty and miserable for ever If it be for the paine that we feare Death for that reason wee ought rather to feare life for the paines of life are farre more sensible then the paines of Death if in Death there is any paine of which I see no great likelyhood For why should we imagine the revulsion of the soul from the body to be very painful it being knowne that the vital parts as the heart and the liver have little or no sense No more sense hath the substance of the braines though the source of the senses for the head-ach is in the tuniques When the braines is benummed and weakened the sense of paine is weaker over all the body And generally when strength decreaseth paine decreaseth together Hence it is that most of them that are sick to Death when they draw neere their end feele themselves very much amended That state is called by the Italians il meglioramento della morte The decay of senses in that extremity is a fence against the troublesome diligence talke cries more troublesome then Death wherewith dying persons are commonly persecuted But as a man upon the point of death is too weake to defend himselfe against all that persecution he is too weak also to feele it much Then all suffocation is without paine that is the most ordinary end of life In the most violent death paine is tolerable because it is short and because it is the last It is a storme that wracks us but casts us upon the haven To that haven we must looke continually and there cast anchor betimes by a holy hope conceiving Death not so much a parting as an arrival for unto well disposed soules it is the haven of Salvation The feare of that which comes after death makes some mens lives bitter and through feare of dying after Death they have already eternall death in their Conscience They have eyes to see Hell open gaping for them but they have none to see the way to avoid it In others that feare is more moderate and is an ill cause working a good effect inducing or rather driving them to seeke and then to embrace the grace and peace that God offers unto them in Jesus Christ and together to do good workes which are the way to the Kingdome of heaven A man cannot afeare God too much but he may be too deeply afraid of his Justice And the feare of that death after death must be swallowed up by the faith in Jesus Christ who by his death hath delivered them who through feare of death were all their life subject unto bondage Heb. 2.15 He hath made death the gate of life and glory to all that trust in him and doe good Godly men will not feare death for the sting of it is pluckt off by Christ It is the terrour of evill consciences but the joy of the good It is this pleasant meditation that sweetneth their adversities and makes them joy Our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 The troubles of life are soone ended by death and after death comes a life without trouble and a glory without end Men may deprive us of life but they cannot deprive us of death which is our deliverance The same meditation will make us relish prosperity when God sends it for none can enjoy the goods of this life with delight but he that is prepared before to leave them Then are they
substance and intellectual faculties of our soul of immortal nature which cannot be so offuscated with the mists of the flesh but she is cleared of them when she is freed of the body The other is that supernatural wisedome when it pleaseth God to endow our minde with it even his knowledge his love conformity of our will unto his will and faith in his promises Of other ornaments of the soul we cannot certainly say what we shall keep and what we shall lose It will be therefore wifely and thriftily done to labour for that which wee may be sure to keep when we have got it and of which death that takes away all other possessions shall deliver us a full possession It is a great discouragment to them that stretch their braines upon Algebra and Logarithmes and arguments in Frisesmo as it were upon tenterhookes to think that all that learning so hard to get will bee lost in a moment Who would take the paines to load himselfe with it seeing that it gives nothing but vexation in this life and leaves in the soul neither benefit nor trace after death unlesse it be the guilt sticking to the soul to have mispent the strength of wit upon negotious vanities and neglected good studies Yet am I not so austere and peremptory as to despise all the spiritual endowments which we are not sure to keep after death For many of them are such that as we are not certaine to keep them after death so we are not certaine to lose them by death Many of those perishable ornaments are neverthelesse good gifts of God But our minde must be so disposed that in these several ornaments of the soul we seek a contentment proportionate to the assurance that we have of their abiding with us We are most certaine that the knowledge and love of God are permanent possessions and impart to their possessor their permanency there then let us apply our study and place our permanent content We are not certaine whether the other spiritual ornaments will continue with us after this life Then let us not bestow our principal study about those things which we are not sure to keepe nor place our chiefe content in them Let the Soul lose none of her advantages let her glory in her eternall goods and there fixe herselfe Let her rejoyce also in those goods which she hath for a time according to their just value which must be measured by their use Before we consider the several ornaments of the soul more particularly we must consider her substance and faculties The Soul is immateriall and Spirituall bearing in her substance the image of her creator and more yet in her faculties and naturall endowments which before her fall were in an eminent degree of perfection for to be made after the likeness of God includeth all perfection in so much that this high expression to be adequate unto man hath need to be contracted to the proportion of a created nature Of that primitive perfection the traces are evident still in that reasoning quicknesse and universal capacity that goeth through all things and compasseth all things that remembreth things past that provideth for things to come that inventeth judgeth ordereth and brings forth ingenious and admirable workes The principal is that the soul is capable to know God love him commune with him A priviledge special to Angels Souls of men above all creatures as likewise they are the only creatures capable of permanency which is a participation with Gods eternity such as finite natures may admit Humility would not give us leave to conceive high enough of the price of our soul but that the onely Sonne of God God himselfe blessed for evermore hath shewed the high account that he made of her So high that he thought it worth his taking the like nature in the forme of a servant and suffering death with the extremity of paine and ignominy that he might recover and save her when she had lost herselfe The soul being of such an excellent nature and after her decayes by sinne restored to her primitive excellency by grace is a rich possession to herselfe when God gives us the wisedome to obey that evangelical and truly Philosophical precept of Christ Luk. 21.19 In your patience possesse your soules not giving leave to the impatience of cupidity and feare to steal that possession from us But the soul never hath the right possession of herselfe till she have the possession of God To possesse God and to possesse our soul is all one for the spirit cannot be free nor happy nor his owne but by his union with his original Being whereby God and the soul have a mutual possession one of another A blessed union begun in earth by grace and perfected in heaven by glory The contrary state which is to be separated from God is the perdition of a man and the extremity of bondage want and misery Here to undertake an exact anatomy of the soul would be besides my theame and more yet beyond the possibility of right performance For as the eye cannot see it selfe the spirit of man cannot looke into his owne composure and in all the Philosophical discourses upon that subject I finde nothing but conjectural It is more profitable and easy to learne the right government then the natural structure of the soul It is part of the knowledge of the soul to know that she cannot be known and that her incomprehensiblenesse is a lineament of her Creatours image The spirit of man is more quick and stirring then clearsighted and many times is like a Faulcon that flyeth up with his hood on He hath a good wing but he is hood winkt How many wits take a high flight and know not where they be And where shall you finde one that understands thoroughly the matter that he speakes of The Authors that write of all animals and plants understand not the nature of a caterpiller or a lettice how then shall they understand the nature of intellectual substances Certainly all our Philosophy of the nature of things is but seeking and guessing Job 8.9 We are but of yesterday and know nothing because our dayes upon earth are as a shadow saith Bildad Our life is a shadow because it is transitory but more because it is dark The Earth where we live is inwrapt in clouds and our soul in ignorance as long as we live upon earth and yet we are as resolute and affirmative in our Opinions as if we had pitcht our Tabernacle in the Sunne We could not speak with more authority if we were possest as God is with the original Idea's and the very being of things A wise and moderate man will not be carryed away by that presumption neither of others nor his owne but with humility will acknowledge the blind and rash nature of the spirit of man that knoweth nothing and determines of all things that undertakes all and brings nothing to an end Pure truth and full wisedome
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
what God willes our will is alwayes done The will is the reasonable appetite of the soul besides which there is in the soul joyned with the body an appetite halfe reasonable and halfe seusitive which comprehends all the Passions some of which have more of the reasonable some more of the sensitive part according as they stick more or lesse to the matter They must be the subject of the next Book CHAP. XVIII Of the Ornaments acquisite of the understanding WE are so blind at home that we know less our natural then our acquisite goods Yea without acquisite goods we are little sensible of the natural goods of the soul The natural Ornaments of the Understanding quicknesse of wit fidelity of memory and solidity of judgement are seene onely in the acquisitions made by study use for they that trade not with that patrimony of Nature lose most part of it and differ little from beasts The acquisitions of the understanding may be reduced to these two heads Science and Prudence Science is the husbandry of the soul a field whose vertue is never knowne till it be husbanded Prudence is above Science in dignity but Science precedeth Prudence in order as the meanes go before the end This position that prudence is the end and sciences are the meanes gives the true light to choose those sciences that deserve a ferious study Sciences are multiplyed to a great number and growne to a goodly perfection in this Westerne world They have their several uses and beauties But because it is impossible to entertaine them all the prentiship being long and life short those especially should be followed which are wayes to true Prudence teaching men to live well and dye well It is the Learning so much recommended by Solomon Prov. 4.13 Take fast hold of instruction let her not go keepe her for she is thy life Of those that court learning some do it out of necessity to get their living They choose sciences as they do their wives those that are fittest for housekeeping Others that have wealth and leisure choose sciences as they choose their Mistresses the fairest and most recreative But of sciences as of women the most recreative are not alwayes the most honest as all sciences that are buzy about predictions for the future Of humane sciences the most part hath more luster then price Learning in tongues is a fine Ornament and of great use yet not answerable to the labour and time that it stands in When we have learned to name heaven and earth five or sixe several wayes we know their natures never the better for that A wiseman will rather seeke the use then the luster of languages And for his owne use he ought not to deny to himselfe that innocent delight to be able to relish the eloquence of the tongues which with great reason have the vogue among the learned there being nothing that doth more sweeten and polish the mind then good matter clad with a style simple and elegant like a smooth and well coloured skin laid over strong brawny limbes There are studies that have little luster and lesse price and yet by their severe garbe go for wise and serious Such is Schoole-philosophy which for three or foure hundred yeares hath reigned in our Universities and roughcast Divinity with barbarous termes and crabbed distinctions For as if Schoolemen would outdoe Pilates souldiers that crowned the head of our Saviour with thornes they have habited his doctrine with thornes all about from top to toe so thick that themselves can hardly see the day thorough The writings of Schoolemen are like Labyrinths which in a little peece of ground have a very long and intricate way For the learning of those ages being confined within a short compasse those resolute and irrefragable Doctors for so they style one another not being able to travel farre and yet eager of going did but turne and wind within their narrow limits and crost a thousand times the same way It is scarce credible how little there is to learne in all that huge masse of harsh subtility It is true indeed that in all studies of men there is vanity and the learning that succeeded that rusty learning hath a merryer vanity But since it is so that there is vainity in both give me rather a faire and smooth vanity then a grimme and rugged Si nugae saltem sint canorae Serious fooles are the most troublesome Arts that regard the civil good are of so much price as they bring utility to the publique and benefit to the professors Every one must get skill enough in his art to be usefull for society and to live in the world But there are some sciences which though especially profest by some belong alike to all and regard the profession of man as he is man For God hath created and placed us in the world to learne three things How the world is made What the world doeth And what we must do in the world How the world is made we learne by natural Philosophy the Sphere and Cosmography What the world doth we learne by Histories What must be done in the world we learne out of Ethicks and Politiques and especially out of Divinity These Sciences are beneficial and delightful and to be altogether ignorant of these is to live in the world not knowing for what A prudent man will pick out of these what is most fit for his principal end which is to glorifie God informe his judgement order his life and content himselfe All the Learning that we lay up must end in Prudence Wherefore those studies that forme the judgement must be more carefully tended then those that exercise the imagination Mathematical sciences are admirable but this they have that they take off the mind from matters of judgement and prudence and fixe it altogether upon quantity and material proportion Prudence is the guide of all vertues and marcheth before to give them light Yea she comprehends them all for nothing is ill done but for want of prudence and the great prudence is to be religious just constant and temperate Nullum numen abest si sit prudentia Solomon giving such an expresse charge and so often repeated to get prudence thereby recommendeth all vertues and above all the feare of God which is the beginning of wisdome Prudence is that eye which the Lord Jesus calls the light of the body Matth. 6.22 that is the conduct of life And whereas virtues consist in keeping a just temper betweene extreames they owe that skill unto prudence for unto it belongs the ordering and disposition of things Prudence sheweth what is requisite for every vertue Prudence governs all the free actions of life My end here is to know the price not to give the rules of prudence But those Authors cannot be excused that have set out treatises of prudence without giving any counsel for the direction of a mans behaviour in publique or private occurrences but onely definitions expounded at large
and ill wives they have need to learne obedience but in these bookes they learne soverainty Women being more given to these bookes then men shew that though they have lesse fougve of love then men they have neverthelesse a more constant inclination to it Who so will keepe himselfe holy in body and affection and preserve his soule serene and free from the tempest of that turbulent Passion must avoid the reading of such bookes whose proper office is to raise those stormes in a mans blood and appetite And I know not whether it be more dangerous to reade dissolute bookes which make of carnal love a jigg and a matter of sport openly shewing the ordure and the folly of it or dolefull amorous fables which make of it a grave and serious study and under the colour of honesty and constancy of love managed with an artificial and valourous carriage hoodwinke and bewitch the readers minde with a pertinacious Passion making their braines runne wilde after chimera's and hollow imaginations whereby some have runne mad Indeed one cannot follow the fancies of romances without straying from right sense Neither is there any thing that makes the heart more worldly and carnal and brings it further from God I will be judged by all good soules that would betake themselves to exercises of piety when they were newly come from this kind of reading Let them say in conscience how farre estranged from God they found themselves and ill disposed to every good worke Sure it is not without reason that these writers set up false Gods as being conscious to themselves that their writings are deviations from the true God and ashamed to name the God of truth among their fables Also because with some of them it is a prime piece of love-complement to make discontented lovers to wreake their anger upon the Deity they will have this excuse ready that they are not blasphemies against the true God but against the gods of Homer and Hesiod's making But from these blasphemous expostulations with false gods the readers learne to doe the like with the true and to avenge themselves upon him of all things that cross their impetuous Passion The same bookes set up the murtherous discipline of duells as a gallantry of love wherby lovers seale their affection to their mistresses by the blood of their rivals or their owne There are other matches of the wilde fire of carnal love which must be carefully avoyded wanton discourses vicious companies occasions to doe evil conversation with vaine malicious women whose chiefe aime and taske is to catch all the men that come in their way not that they may keep them but triumph over them and cast them away and feed their owne vanity with the disappointment of their suitors Take heed of idlenes it is Satans pillow the counsellour of vice and especially the procurer of lust He that doeth nothing thinkes on evill Take heed of intemperance Carnal love is so inbred with the matter that whatsoever heateth the blood sets the appetite on fire Wherefore Jeremiah sets intemperance and incontinence together Jer. 5.8 They were as fed horses in the morning every one neighed after his neighbours wife There be two great remedies to take downe that heate The one corporal which is mariage instituted by God for that end a holy and honourable state When both the parties are good and love one another it is the greatest sweetenes of life But whether a man be married or desire to be he must think on the vanity and short continuance of the most pleasant things of this world the frailty of life the certainty of death the uncertainty of the hour thence to inferre the conclusion of St Paul 1. Cor. 7.29 But this I say brethren that the time is short It remaines that they that have wives be as they that have none And so they that are woing must be as though they were not woing that is they must impose moderation upon their affections out of a wise apprehension of the vanity of the world and life ver 31. using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Wherefore should wee love with so much fervency that which wee cannot keepe when wee have got it which we must leave or which must leave us The other duty is Spiritual and it is that great and perpetual duty to Love God Let that holy Passion alwayes rule in our hearts Let us give to God his proper right which he demandeth in his word Pro. 25.26 My sonne give me thy heart and let us keep such a watchfull guard about it that none steale it from him and us Our love to a worthy Consort being so moderated will become both lawfull pleasant Humane condition hath nothing so delightfull as a reciprocal love Yea of all things to which mans will doth contribute it is the onely pleasant thing But as navigable rivers enrich a country with commerce and plenty when they keepe within their shores but ruine it when they overflow with a violent landflood Likewise love while it keepes within limits brings pleasure and utility when it exceeds them it brings displeasure and destruction Love that is not reciprocal will weare away in time But a wise man will shorten the worke of time with reason and will not obstinately court a person that will not love him For of what price soever she be in our regard she is of no price if she be not for us Wee must love our enemies but wee must let them alone CHAP. IV. Of Desire DEsire hath a neere kinred with love for it is the motion of the appetite towards the beloved object This is the difference that Love regardeth the present Desire aspireth to the future Some desires are natural some besides nature Natural desires are good and easily satisfied as long as they keepe within their mounds the first whereof is nature then reason to rule nature and piety to rule reason But wee must take heed of mistaking corrupted nature for pure Pure nature is contented with little but corrupted nature runs to excesse and embaseth natural desites with the allay of desires besides nature It is natural for a man to desire a woman but it is besides nature that he will have her so noble and so rich that he increaseth the desired object with imagination and kindleth his passion by difficulty It is natural to desire meate drink clothing but it is besides nature to desire great feasts gay garments and costly buildings Reason indeed was given us to embellish and inrich nature but Reason if it be well taught wil in all occasions make use of nature to rule the desire and teach it that besides Nature there can be no necessity Thus if your coach breake farre from the towne instead of grieving and fretting remember that Nature did not give you legs to sit in a coach and that it is not necessary for you to be carryed as long as you can goe If you be
nothing is frailer then mans life nothing more certaine then his death nothing more uncertaine then the hour What need we lay up much treasure since we must lose all What need to get up very high to fall to the ground and there to rot And whereas the tranquillity and contentment of man consisteth in the things that are within him not in them that are about him When he turnes his principall desire and the whole bent of his mind to things that are without he goeth out of himselfe and subjecteth himselfe to another He begs of another that which none but God and himselfe can give him He makes his content to depend on that which is out of his power A wise man will take heed of that and will call-in his desire to his owne breast where he shall finde God if he seek him well and in God his onely felicity Let us be covetous to be rich in God and ambitious to draw neare him Indeed since our body and life are maintained with things that are without us we cannot but desire them as things which our necessity calls for Besides which our condition and the course of the world makes many outward things to become necessary which in themselves are not so All these wee may desire so it bee with an infericur desire quietly subjected and subordinate to that Master-desire which must make a whole burnt-offering of the soul to God alone that we may say to God with an entire and free heart as Isaiah did Isa 26.8 The desire of our soul is to thy name O Lord and to the remembrance of thee With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seeke thee Blessed we that our spirit needs but to seeke within himselfe to finde the full satisfaction of his desire if he have the grace to desire what he ought CHAP. VI. Of Desire of Pleasure IT is easy to rule the Desire of Volupty when we have once well apprehended the nature of it The body hath the greatest share in the Pleasures which the world runnes after we must not then for their sakes subject our minde unto our body The pleasures of the body are short we must not then for a short enjoyment entertaine a long desire They are light and of a faint taste we must not then have a great Desire for a little Pleasure They promise much to the Desire and performe little Our desire then being forewarned of this will not lightly trust their faire promises and will looke more to their capacity then their invitation Some pleasures are altogether unlawfull Of which therefore the desire must be cut off altogether And before we give any admission to their flattery into our soules we must take time to consider the designe of him that sets them on work the Devill By them he seekes to blindfold us that he may lead us into perdition which he will be sure to do if we entertaine his false caresses for after blindfolding comes blindness in earnest errour in the understanding misrule in the affections beggery infamy hardnesse of heart a late remorse and eternall damnation Prov. 6.16 By meanes of a whoorish woman a man is brovght to a peece of bread and the adulteresse will hunt for the precious life Prov. 7.26 She hath cast downe many wounded yea many strong men have bin slaine by her Her house is the way to Hell going downe to the chambers of death He that hath the grace to consider so much before will step back when these inticements are offered unto him and say I will not buy a desperate repentance so deare Pleasures in themselves lawfull become unlawfull by accident when they are desired or enjoyed with excesse Moderation is the ballance of justice and the nurse of pleasure Without it Desire turnes into sorrow and Enjoyment into a severish fit Those pleasures in which a beast hath no share are more worthy of a man as those that are enâ—â—â—â—â— by contemplation For them we may allow 〈◊〉 â—â—ger tedder to desire For those that are 〈◊〉 â—ost betweene the body and the spirit as 〈◊〉 â—â—ghts of picture and musique the tedder must be tyed somewhat shorter not giving too great a scope to curiosity For the pleasures meerely corporall the tedder must be the shortest of all Yet in all humane delights whether of the body or the mind excesse is vicious and marreth the Pleasure Solomon found it in the noblest of humane delights Eccles 1.18 In much wisedome saith he is much griefe and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow It is one of the greatest proofes of the vanity of mans condition that in all humane things where the pleasure kindleth the desire the pleasure is afterwards choaked by the very desire for either we seeke in them the pleasure which they cannot afford or we seek it otherwise then we ought and even by seeking we lose it Which inconveniences are prevented or mitigated by moderation in the desire and pursuite For it will bring one of these two conveniences Either we shall more certainly get what we would have or if we misse it we shall not have the griefe to have lost much labour about it It were easy to draw a platforme upon paper of the most delightfull and compleat estate that humane desire can aspire unto in this world And that estate should be compounded with the three sorts of life contemplative active and fruitive A condition abounding with leasure to imploy it in the contemplation of things good noble and pleasant having businesses enowâ—â— be usefull in society and not so many as to weary a mans body and mind about things inferiour to the dignity of his soul enjoying sufficiency of worldly goods with peace and wisedome and a mediocrity of degree exempted from contempt oppression relishing the innocent contentments of life with sobriety and simplicity not fixing the heart upon them and therefore possessing the true use and and delight of them All that seasoned with health of body and serenity of minde and with a good conscience aspiring continually to a higher felicity enjoying it already by hope by a present sense of the blessed peace of God But we have not the liberty to cut our coat out of the whole cloath The skill of a good engineer does not consist in making a regular Fort upon a parchment or a ground chosen at will that hath all the natural advantages but in bowing his art to the nature of the place unto which necessity engageth him and overcomming by industry the incommodiousnesse of the seat Likewise a wisemans work is not to frame to himselfe poeticall felicities but to take things as he finds them and use them well for in mans condition on earth there is no seat so strong but is commanded or if it be not now it will be another time as being seated upon an unstable sand to day even to morrow uneven which no humane strength or forecast can keep unmooved
The life of man being compounded of so many different pieces in which vertue and prudence have but little share why should our desire be so eagerly bent upon those thungs which are besides the reach of our industry Though you had attained once to that high point of human happines that you might contemplate freely and with leasure doe usefull and illustrious actions in society enjoy well-gotten wealth an honorable degree a cheereful heart in a sound body how long can ye maintaine that state how many rubs shall you meete with in the fairest way A law-suit will make you goe up and downe and lay-by your contemplation Envy and obloquy will crosse and blast your best actions A little sicknes will take from you the taste of all the pleasures of life I leave out great calamities The torments of the stone the gowte The sudden floods of warre The total ruines by false accusations things which may happen to all because they happen to some Accidere cuivis quod cuiquam potest The most desirable things of the world being thus casuall and no delight constant The wisest and happiest are they that seeke not their constant delight in the world but stay their desire upon the right object which gives a sincere and durable content not subject to the tossing of worldly fortunes Let us have no fervent desire but for those things that are truly ours when wee have them once and which wee cannot lose against our will for in them consisteth true pleasure Those things are the true knowledge of God his love and union with him as much as human nature is capable of in this life For that union with God will breed in us a resemblance of his vertues and a participation of his serenity tranquillity constancy facility and delectation in well doing These in which true delight lyeth are also the true objects of our desire And here we must let the raines loose to Passion Since to possesse God is the infinite good and soveraine delight the measure to desire it is to have no measure CHAP. VII Of Sadnesse Sadnes is the dolour of the soule and the beating downe of the spirit This seemes to be the most natural of all Passions as hereditary to man from his first parents For to our first mother God sayd Gen. 3.16 I will greatly multiplie thy sorows and thy conception in sorrow shall thou bring forth children And to our first father v. 17. In sorrow thou shal eate thy bread all the dayes of thy life No wonder then that sorrow is the inheritance of all their posterity That first couple dejected with the sense of their sinne and punishment left a calamitous progenie Job 14.1 Man that is borne of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble But although this be a natural Passion yet it is an enemie to Nature for it makes the flowre and vigour of body and mind to wither and obscureth that goodly light of the understanding with a thicke mist of melancholy Some sadnes is necessary in its end as that which belongs to contrition and the zeale of Gods glory Some is necessary in its cause as that which proceeds out of a sharp bodily paine There is a constrained sadnes when one is sad out of good manners and for fashion sake Such is the mourning of heires whose teares in funerals are part of the ceremony Many times wee are sad in good earnest for being obliged to be sad in shew Then there is a wanton sadnes which soft spirits love to entertaine for weeping is also a point of curiosity and delicacy No doubt but they find delight in it for none ever doeth any thing of his owne accord but for his owne content Of Sadnes necessary in its end I have spoken in the chapter of Repentance and must againe in this after I have given some counsels for repressing the other sorts of Sadnes Those are lesse capable of counsel that are necessary in their cause as when the senses are pincht for then no reason can perswade them not to feele it or hinder the mind to have a fellow feeling of the paines of the body A Physician and a Surgeon will be fitter to abate that Sadnes then a Philosopher yet not then a Divine for Divinity makes use of the very paines of the body to raise up the soule of the patient to God In deed the counsels of piety do not take away the paine but they overcome it by the sweet persuasions of Gods love to us As for constrained and ceremonious Sadnes wee must avoyd the excesse of it and the defect also chusing rather gently to yeeld to custome then to be singular and contradict all that wee approve not keeping alwayes serenity within in the midst of these ceremonies more grievous many times then the griefe that occasions them Wanton and delicate Sadnes cannot be justified by the allegation of heavy losses and great wrongs For besides that most part of the evils that men grieve for are such onely in the imagination as a disdaine a reproach a slaunder the losse of some goods that did them nothing but harme suppose that all the evills that wee grieve for be evills indeed it followes not that wee must grieve for them according to their grievousnesse unlesse it appeare that they may be mended by grieving But never any dead man was raised from the dead by the teares that his widow shed upon his herse Never was a wrong repaired by the sadnes of the wronged party Adversity will cast downe poore spirited persons but raiseth the spirits of the generous and sets their industrie on worke The deepe sorrow that seizeth upon a weake woman at her husbands death makes her incapable to overcome the difficulties where he leaves her But a vertuous and wise widow hath no leasure to weepe sixe months close prisoner in a darke chamber rather she comforteth herselfe with following her businesses Also since time drieth up the most overflowing teares and a second wedding will take down the great mourning vaile it will be providently done to moderate sorrow betimes that the disproportion may not be too eminent betweene Sadnesse and Joy To attaine that moderation we must take away that false excuse of good nature and love to the deceased person from immoderate mourning for in effect it is no other love but the love of ourselves that afflicts us and not their losse but ours The true causes of immoderate sorrow for the things of this world are these two great errours against which I am so often necessitated to give warning to my readers as the springs of all the folly and misery that is in the world The one is the ignorance of the price of things for he that will value money honour and credit according to their just price and no more will not be much afflicted if he lose them or cannot get them The other is that we seeke out of ourselves that happinesse and rest which is no where
filial love confidence and obedience The other rule that wee may finde Joy in all things that are either of good or indifferent nature is to seeke it according to the kind and capacity of every thing To that end we must be carefull that the Joy that wee take in God be as little under him as it is possible to us and that the Joy that wee take in other things be not above them Since then God is all good all perfect all pleasant the onely worthy to be most highly praised and most entirely beloved wee must also most exceedingly rejoyce that he is ours and wee his and that we are called to be one with him As for other things let us judiciously examine what Joy they can give us and lose nothing of the content which their capacity can afford looking for no more For there is scarce any sorrow in the world but proceeds from this cause to have expected of humane things a Joy beyond their nature Now this is the great skill of a minde serene religious industrous for his own content to know how to fetch joy out of all things and whereas every thing hath two handles the one good the other evill to take every thing dexterously by the right handle A man that hath that skill will rejoyce in his riches with a joy sortable to their nature And when he loseth them in stead of grieving that he shall have them no longer he rejoyceth that he had them so long If he lose one of his hands he rejoyceth that God preserveth him the other If he lose the health of his body he praiseth God for preserving to him the health of his minde If slandering tongues take his good name from him he rejoyceth that none can robbe him of the testimony of a good conscience If he be in the power of them that can kill his body he rejoyceth that they cannot kill his soul If he be condemned being innocent his joy that he is innocent drownes his sorrow that he is condemned Love and Joy are the two passions that serve to glorifie God and praise him for his benefits A thankfull admirer of Gods wisedome and bounty hath a cheerefull heart All things give him joy the beauty variety and excellency of Gods workes makes him say with David Psal 92.4 Lord I will triumph in the workes of thy hands He rejoyceth in hope to see better works and the Maker himselfe in whose sight and presence is fullnes of joy If he look up to heaven he rejoyceth that he hath a building of God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 If he look upon his body he rejoyceth that in his flesh he shall see God If he looke upon his soul he rejoyceth that there he beares the renewed image of God and the earnest of his eternall adoption If he be poore he rejoyceth in that conformity with the Lord Jesus If he see wealth in the house of his neighbours he rejoyceth that they have the plenty splendor of it that himselfe hath not the cares and the temptations that attend it As many miseries as he seeth so many arguments hath he to glorifie God and rejoyce in his goodnesse saying Blessed be God that I am not maimed like that begging souldier nor lunatick like that bedlam nor going in shackles like that fellon nor a slave like that Counsellour of State He will keepe account of Gods benefits and considering sometimes his owne infirmities and naturall inclinations sometimes Gods wise providence in the conduct of his life he will acknowledge with a thankfull joy that God hath provided better for him then himselfe could have wisht that his crosses were necessary for him and that if he had had a fairer way he might have run headlong to ruine by his rashnesse It were infinite to enumerate all the subjects of joy that God gives to his children for his benefits are numberless his care continuall his compassions new every morning and the glory which he keepes for us eternall Which way can we turne our eyes and not finde the bounty of God visible and sensible Here then more evidently then any where else our happiness and our duty meet in one It is a pleasant task to worke our owne joy Now it is the task of Gods children in obedience to his express command by his Apostle 1 Thes 5.16 Rejoyce evermore See how urgent he is to recommend that duty Phil. 4.4 Rejoyce in the Lord alway and againe I say Rejoyce CHAP. IX Of Pride I Contend not whether Pride must be called a Vice or a Passion It is enough for me that it is an affection too naturall unto man the cause of many passions and a great disturber of inward tranquillity Pride is a swelling of the soul whose proper causes are too good an opinion and in consequence too great a love of ones selfe and whose most proper effects are ambition of dignity and greedinesse of praise Wherefore these two effects cannot be overcome unless we first overcome the cause which is presumption and a blinde immoderate love of a mans selfe It is impossible for a man to be tranquill and safe as long as he sits upon a crazy and tottering bottome Pride then making a man to ground himselfe upon himselfe cannot but keepe him in a perpetuall unquietness and vacillation How can ye beleeve saith the Lord Jesus to the Jewes which receive honour one of another and seeke not the honour that comes from God onely John 5.44 A text which taxeth Pride of two great evills That is robbes God of his glory and that it shakes the the foundation of faith For a proud man seekes not the glory of God but his owne and his owne glory hee doth not seeke of God but will get it of men by his owne merit Also it turnes his heart away from his trust in God to trust in his owne selfe Psal 10.13 The wicked boasteth of his hearts desire saith David that is he is confident that by his owne strength he shall compass all his projects And againe The wicked through the pride of his heart will not seeke after God for the one brings the other He that trusteth in himselfe and is highly conceited of his owne wisedome is easily perswaded that he hath no need of God That disposition of the mind is the high way to ruine Prov. 16.18 Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall For God to whom only glory belongeth cannot but be very jealous of those that wil ingross it to themselves declares open warre against them Psal 18.27 He will bring downe high lookes Jam. 4.6 He resisteth the proud but sheweth grace unto the humble Prov. 8.11 I hate pride and arrogancy saith Soveraine wisedome which is God As the winde hurts not the stalkes of herbs as long as they are supple and bowing but breakes them when they are become dry and stiffe The meeke and humble spirits that
a child should be used to be contradicted and as soone as the light of reason beginns to dawne in his young soul he must be taught to subject his will unto reason Growne men hardned in that vice by ill breeding and the flattery of men and fortune yet may be healed if they will remove the causes of the disease Since then Obstinacy is a compound of ignorance and pride they must strive against both Good instruction will expell ignorance and as knowledge growes especially that of God and themselves Pride will decrease and they will become docile and susceptible of better information And whereas Obstinacy puts reason out of her seat subjecting her to passion her naturall subject they must endeavour to restore reason to her right place and authority forbidding the will to determine before reason hath given her verdict or to give a resolution for a reason for if the resolution bee unreasonable one must go from it the sooner the better It is unworthy of a man to have no reason but his will and custome and being asked why he persisteth in this course not to give his reason for answer but his Passion Indeed obstinate men will give many reasons of their fixednesse in their opinion but let them examine soberly and impartially whether their opinion be grounded upon those reasons or whether they alledge those reasons because they will be of that Opinion While wee goe about weaning of our mind from obstinacy wee must take heed of falling into a contrary evill a thousand times more dangerous which is to betray truth and righteousnes to complie with the time For wee must never ballance whether God or men must be obeyed We must not follow the multitude to do evill though the world should charge us with Obstinacy If our conscience tell us that wee deserve not that charge wee may rest satisfied for wee are accountable to God of our opinion not of the opinion that others have of us It is Constancy not Obstinacy to maintaine truth and good conscience even to the last breath despising publique opposition and private danger I joine truth with good conscience because if the question be of a truth which may be left undefended without wronging a good conscience it would be a foolish Obstinacy to swimme against a violent and dangerous streame to defend it But if it be such a truth as cannot be baulked without breaking faith with God and turning from a good conscience wee must persist in it and resist unto blood when wee are put to it And better it is to be called opiniatre then to be perfidious CHAP. XI Of Wrath. I put Wrath among the retinue of Pride as descended from it To this one might oppose that wrath is attributed to God in many texts of Scripture And that the Apostle saith Eph. 4. Be angry and sinne not And therefore that anger is not evil and must be fathered upon a better Authour then Pride These objections will helpe us to know the nature of wrath It is certaine that there is no passion in God But it is certaine also that if anger were a vice it should not be attributed unto God The wrath of God is an indignation declared by effects shewing a resenting of the offense offered unto his glory As then the anger of God proceeds from his glory so the vicious anger of man proceeds from his pride which is a bastard glory As for the other objection out of St Pauls precept Be angry and sinne not whence it followes that one may be angry and not sinne wee must distinguish betweene good and evill anger The vicious anger comes out of pride which is the evill glory of man The good anger comes out of the glory of God for the anger of Gods children when they heare his name blasphemed or see some horrible crime committed with the ceremonies of devotion and justice is a sense which they have of Gods glory whose violation moveth them to jealousy It is good to be angry for such occasions but because anger is prone to runne into excesse and to mingle particular animosities with the interesse of Gods glory the Apostle gives us a caveat to be angry and sinne not Then the vicious and the vertuous anger differ in the object chiefely the vertuous regards the interesse of God the vicious the interesse of a mans selfe but both proceed from glory and have their motions for the vindication of glory For as religious anger hath for its motive the glory of God the motive of vicious anger is particular glory and the resenting of private contempt true or imagined The proudest men are the most cholerick for being great lovers of themselves valuing themselves at a very high rate they deeme the smallest offences against them to be unpardonable crimes Truly no passion shewes more how necessary it is to know the nature and price of things and of our selves above all things for he that apprehends well how small a thing he is will not think the offenses against him to be very great and will not be much moved about them The certainest triall to know how proficient we are in humility is to examine whether we have fewer and easier fits of choller then before Ignorance of the price of things and owning things that are none of ours are the chiefe causes of disorder in all Passions but they are more evident in the Passion of anger because it is more violent and puts forth those errours to the outside which other Passions labour to hide Besides these causes Anger flowes out of more springs as great and rapid rivers are fed by many sources Weakeness contributes much to it for although a fit of anger looke like a sally of vigour and courage yet it is the effect of a soft spirit Great and strong spirits are patient but weake and imbecill natures can suffer nothing and like doors loosely hung are easily gotten off the hookes The wind stirres leaves and small branches seldome the bodies of great trees Light natures also are easily agitated with choller solid minds hardly All things that make a man tender and wanton makes him also impatient and chollerick as covetousness ambition passionate love ease and flattery The same effect is produced by the large licence given to the wandering of thoughts curiosity credulity idlenesse love of play And it is much to be wondered at that anger is stirred by contrary causes prosperity and adversity the replying of an adversary and his silence too much and too little businesse the glory to have done well and the shame to have done evill so phantasticall is that passion There is nothing but will give occasion of anger to a peevish and impatient spirit The causes of anger being past telling our labour will be better bestowed to consider the effects sufficient to breed an horrour against that blustering passion even in those that are most transported by it when they looke back upon that disorder in cold blood Fierce anger
they have any godlinesse in them they will shew it in grounding those just hopes upon Gods mercy and promises The lesse invitation they have to flatter themselves with worldly hopes the more will they strengthen themselves with the hope of heavenly goods In both the fortunes a wise lover of his tranquillity will not feed or swell his hope but for one object which is The fullnesse of his union with God For any thing else he will clip the soaring wings of that aspiring passion and will not let her flye too high nor too farre In the appetite as there is a predominant love and a predominant desire so there is a predominant Hope When it is anchored upon the only good perfect and immutable object it keeps the soul firme and tranquill If it be moored upon quick-sand and such are all the things of the world in which there is no safe anchorage it will be carried away by every winde and tide and never keepe in a quiet station The vulgar thinkes it a wise and couragious part to be obstinate to hope well But a firme and unmooved hope ought not to be conceived or resolved upon but for firme and unmoved goods even those onely that are the subject of the promises of the Gospell But for things about which wee have no divine and especiall promise the more one is obstinate to hope well the more likely is he to speed ill because the obstinacy of Hope puts the judgement out of his office and leave tâ— no roome for Prudence And the ill successe is made more bitter by the preceding obstinate hope Whereas to him that stands prepared for the worst nothing comes against Hope And if good come he tasts it better for his successe hath exceeded his Hope The way to be little disappointed is to hope little and the way not to be disappointed at all is to confine our Hopes within us as much as we can and to the things above which the true Christian finds already within depending upon no future things but his perfect reunion with God Whosoever will proportion his hope to the nature of the objects shall never entertaine great hopes for worldly matters For there is a great imprudence in that disproportion to have great hopes for small things CHAP. XVI Of Feare FEare is a feeling beforehand of an evill to come yet uncertaine as least in the circumstance And when the evill is come Feare endeth and turneth to sorrow or despaire Feare is one of the most simple and naturall Passions It is found even in the most unperfect animals for God hath put it in all for their preservation The very Oysters will shrink for Feare when the knife doth but touch their shell As there are two evills to which men are obnoxious paine and sinne there are two feares answering these two evils the feare of suffering and the feare of sinning Of the first none is altogether exempt although the Spanish Scholler examined at Paris about his proficiency in Morall Philosophy and demanded what Feare was covered his ignorance with this bravado In nostra patria nescimus quid sit timor In our Country said he we know not what Feare is But without feare a man can have neither prudence nor valour for he that feares not the blow guards it not and is slaine without resistance The principall use of Feare is to prevent or avoyd evill But when the evill is unavoidable and now at hand then resolution must represse Feare Although even at that time feare doth good service for the feare of losing honour or life erecteth a mans courage Valour in combat is as often out of feare as out of magnanimity and it is often hard to discerne which of these contrary causes puts valour into a man The certainest marke of valour by feare is cruelty when he that hath disarmed his adversary in a duell kills him without mercy and after a field wonne puts all to the sword for he sheweth that he feareth his enemy even when he is out of combat But he that gives him his life sheweth that he seares him no more alive then dead The most valorous are not they that have no feare for it is naturall to all men but they that know how to moderate it A man cannot Feare too little for no evill can be avoyded by feare but may much better be avoyded by judgement To feare things which neither strength nor forecast can prevent is an anticipation of the evill It is a great folly to lose our present rest out of feare of future trouble as though it were not time enough to be afflicted when affliction comes But Feare doth more then to bring neere remote evills it creates evill where there is none And many evills which shall never come and are altogether impossible acquire by feare a possibility and a reall being We laugh at an hypocondriaque that thinks himselfe to be made of snow and is afraid to melt at the Sunne because he feares that which cannot happen to him But a rich man tormented with feare of falling into Poverty is much more ridiculous For which of the two is the greater fool he that feares that which cannot happen or he that makes it happen by fearing it The hypocondriack cannot melt at the Sun by the feare he hath of it but a covetous man by his feare of being poore is poore in good earnest so poore that he wanteth even that which he hath for he loseth the enjoyment of his wealth by his feare of losing it It may be truly said that there is no vaine Feare since all feares whether true or false are reall evils and Feare itselfe is one of the worst evils It makes a man more miserable then a beast which feeles no evill but the present and feares it not but when the senses give her warning of the neere approach of it But man by his feare preventeth and sends for the evill stretching it by imagination very farre beyond his extent many times also forging evill to himselfe where there is none and turning good into evill for it is ordinary with us to be afraid of that we should desire For remedy to that disease we must learne our Saviours Philosophy Matth. 6.34 To every day is sufficient the affliction thereof If the evill must come we must expect it not go fetch it Let us not make ourselves miserable before the time Let us take all the good time that God gives us Perhaps the evill will come but not yet Perhaps it will not come at all There is no Feare so certaine but it is more certaine yet that we are as often deceived in our fears as in our hopes And this good we reape out of the inconstancy of humane things against which we so much murmure that it turnes as soone towards good as towards evill Habet etiam mala fortuna inconstantiam or if it turne not to good it turnes to another evil The arrow shot against us with a small
which moved the beholders to compassion for that compassion made a breach into the heart and gave entrance into the understanding to that good confession which these holy men made in the midst of the fires for nothing is more perswasive then Pitty neither is there any fitter hold to draw and turne the soul But such compassionate soules may be as soone drawne to evill as to good by that hold Factious men brought to the gallowes for sedition have from that pulpit sowne the seed of mutiny into the minds of a compassionate multitude and those seeds like the teeth of Cadmus his Serpent have brought forth since a dismall harvest of intestine warre If then any good is formed in our minds by compassion we had need to lay a stedfaster foundation under it for the meere motions of Pitty are but fits and starts and are not actions but shakings of the soul A wise man will learne how to take hold of the spirits of men by Pitty but together will take heed that others hold him not by the like handle which therefore he will shorten and leave no hold but reason for others to take him by CHAP. XIX Of shamefacednesse SHamefacednesse is such a compounded passion that it may not be described in few words It is a sadness out of the sense or apprehension of a dishonest evill It is a selfe condemnation especially about matters of love and desires which one would satisfie in secret It is also a sudden amazement out of a diffidence of ourselves when we are surprized by some inopinate occurrence where we feare that more will be expected of us then we can performe And to give a more generall character It is a sad ressenting of ones owne infirmity with some inclination to goodnesse It is a cowardly Passion found onely in timorous natures yet in the more tender age and sexe it is pardonable and usefull too so it be not excessive for by good instruction it may be formed into a vertue but weake and sutable to the capacity of the subject Stronger spirits dyed with piety and wisedome abstaine not from evill out of Shamefacedness but out of knowledge and resolution But because strong spirits have bin weake when they were under age and the boldest have bin timorous unlesse they be altogether dull and bestiall by nature there is a time to frame them to vertue by shamefac'dnesse which may be called a necessary infirmity in the beginning And it is not expedient to remove it too soone from young minds by Stoicall precepts least they wanting that naturall bridle of the appetite and not being yet well trained and confirmed by reason let themselves loose to evill Children in whom no marke of Shamefacednesse appeares are perverse and ill natured and though they be merry sparkes they shall never be good nor able men Shamefaced children are towardly and disciplinable But in conscience is not the nature of men very weake and poore since their best naturall dispositions are infirmities and that there is need of those infirmities to bring them to some good Some natures are timorous in all the ages of their life by their native temper therefore more obnoxious to Shamefacednesse these are lesse capable of a great and heroicall vertue which is a compound of righteousnesse meekenesse and magnanimity but they are docible for a lesse eminent vertue and their inclination to shamefacedness is a pliable subject for good discipline That disposition must be well managed as the seed of modesty and in women the mother of pudicity their chiefe vertue How powerfull Shamefacednesse is with that sexe the knowne example of the Milesian Virgins shewes it There is another kind of shame recommended in Scripture That of Daniel O Lord righteousness belongeth unto thee but to us confusion of face Dan. 9.7 That of Ezra O my God I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face unto thee Ezra 9.6 And of the penitent publican that stood a farre off and would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven Luk. 18.13 But that shame which is a godly contrition for sinne committed and feare to commit more is proper to a spirit fixt and confirmed in the love and feare of God and hath nothing common but the name with the passion of shame which with all her utilities is but a weakenesse of minde and a childish perplexednesse A wise and godly man must be ashamed of nothing but sin The remembrance of the greatnesse presence justice and holinesse of God and the sense of our owne imperfection must keepe us in perpetuall respect and humility which is that good shame of Daniel Ezra and the repenting Publican But for our conversation with men when we are come to mans age let us weane ourselves as much as we can from boyish Shamefacednesse which dejecteth and perplexeth the spirit and makes a man lose the fairest opportunities of doing good OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT OF MIND FOURTH BOOK Of Vertue and the exercise of it in Prosperity and Adversity CHAPTER I. Of the vertuous temper requisite for Peace and Contentment of Minde THis Book is but a result of the two precedent for who so hath got a right Opinion of things and learned how to governe his Passions wants nothing for vertue and tranquillity these two articles being not onely the materials and the rules of the building but the whole structure And the order is as essentiall as the matter for the understanding must be illuminated and satisfied about the right judgement of things and know how farre they are worthy that our appetite should stirre for them before we undertake to instruct our appetite how to behave ourselves with them Out of the right opinion the well governed Passion ariseth the true temper of Vertue which is a calme state of the Soul firme equall magnanimous meeke religious and beneficiall to a mans selfe and to others All the imperfection that is in our Vertue is a defect in one of these two or in both And who is not defective in them Who hath not errour in his Opinions and by consequent unrulinesse in his Passion Wherefore our descriptions of perfect human Vertue are accidents without substance But what we must not set before us any lesse patterne then perfection Matth. 5.48 Be ye perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect The Schoole gives definitions and divisions of the severall morall Vertues which is no more then is necessary Yet to speake properly there is but one even that equal temper just proportion of all the faculties and motions of the soul which is Justice producing the like just temper abroad in all the parts of conversation for to be just is to do all the parts of a mans duty towards God towards himselfe and towards his neighbour Temperance and Fortitude are handled in the Schooles as vertues by themselves which is to very good purpose for a more distinct exposition but in effect they are parts of justice for
Temperance is the just proportion of the appetite and Fortitude is the constancy and magnanimity of the will requisite to keep one just Neither is fortitude a Vertue different from temperance for whereas of those two duties sustine abstine to sustaine and to abstaine the first which is resisting oppositions is ascribed to fortitude the other which is abstaining from the inticements of sinne is reserved unto temperance yet both belong equally to fortitude seeing there is as much if not more strength of mind requisite to stand out against alluring temptations as to encounter violent oppositions There are then two vertues in all the one intellectuall which is Prudence the other morall which is Justice I have spoken of the first and this whole treatise is but an exercise of it And of the second also of which the most essentiall part is the feare of God and a good conscience that is truly the prime Justice All human lawes if they be good are dependances of it if they be evill they are deviations from it Naturall equity sanctifyed by grace ruleth both publique and particular duties and both the outward and the inward man which is farre more then common and civill law can compass In all policies of the world Justice hath diverse faces The body of the Law especially in great and antient States hath statutes and cases without number which instead of clearing justice confound it All that legislative labour regards outward action and the publique peace But piety and true Philosophy rule the inward action and settle the peace of the soul with the right and primitive Justice Besides human lawes are most busy in forbidding evill and for that end make use of feare and the terrour of punishment whereas the inward law of Vertue is most busy in prescribing good and for that end makes use of the motive of love and reward But whether we need the motives of feare or love we have a Soveraine Court within our breast where the great Judge of the Universe is sitting continually There his Law is written and layd in view entering into the eyes of the understanding which seeth it even when he winkes that he may not see it And there a mans owne thoughts stand divided at the barre some accusing some excusing him out of that law compared with the records of the memory Of that Court St. Paul was speaking that the very Gentiles and heathen shew the worke of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts the meane while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 2.15 Before that Court that is before God himselfe and before us we must labour to be declared just and more to be so indeed There justice must be setled There it must be practised It will be well done to know and obey the formes of justice which publique order hath set over us but our maine taske must be to labour for an niward and habituall justice Let us obey cheerefully all good or indifferent human lawes but before all and after all let us seek and pray for that law of the spirit of life which may set a rule to all the unrulinesse within us and make righteousnesse and peace to kiss each other in our soules The ordinary definition of justice that it is a constant will to give to every one his owne as it is commonly understood regards onely the least part of justice which is the rule of duties betweene man and man But let us give it a fuller extent for to give every one his owne we must pay all that is due first to God next to ourselves and then to our neighbours Certainly the two former parts of justice are far more considerable then the third which is the onely cryed up though ill observed in the world for a man may and doth often retire from the society of men but he can at no time retire from God and himselfe and though a man were alone in the world yet should he have with him the chiefe subjects to exercise the vertue of justice We shall give God his owne by loving him with all our soul and with all our strength obeying his will carefully and cheerefully praising him for his love to us and for his owne greatness and goodness with a thankfull and a joyfull heart setting him continually before the eyes of our mind as alwayes present that we may walke unto all pleasing before his pure and all seeing eyes stick fast unto him by meditation affection and entire confidence And whereas man is the bond and the naturall mediator betweene the materiall world and the spirituall who alone must render for the whole Nature the due homage unto the great Creator Justice calls upon us to do that right to God Nature to knit Nature with God by our love faith obedience and praises Thus also we shall give to ourselves our due for to draw neere unto God is our good Psal 73.28 to separate from him is our destruction They that observe lying vanities forsake their owne mercy saith Jonas Jo. 2.8 meaning that they forsake him of whose goodness their being and wel-being depends This thought will renew the antient characters of the naturall notions of justice engraven upon the marble of our hearts upon which the corruption of the world and our owne hath bred as it were a thick moss which hides these characters But with the feare of God that moss is rubbed off and the law of God the originall justice written there with Gods finger appeares plaine and legible Who so then will do right to himself and recover his primitive dignity must study to know feare and love God perfect his union with him and associate himselfe with his Angels by obeying his will and tending his praise His saving eternall light is for us Wisedome righteousness sanctification and redemption are for us for he gives them to us liberally in his Sonne We do but right to ourselves when we study that those blessings which are for us may be ours And to lose such inestimable graces by our neglect is besides ungratefullness towards God a crying injustice against ourselves A maine point of that justice which we owe to ourselves is to labour to make ourselves possessors of ourselves and masters at home so untyed from all outward tyes that our content depend of none but God and ourselves and that rule over ourselves is attained by yeelding unto God the rule ver us To that end our first labour must be to traine well the Passion of love which is the great wheele mooving all the other passions for according to the subjects that we love and as we love them well or ill we are good or evill happy or unhappy To love what we ought and as we ought is the whole duty and happinesse of man Next our desires and hopes must be cut short which is not cutting downe Nature as greedy minds may think It is cutting off our bonds and
subjected and united to His that in the midst of afflictions he finds Gods will good pleasant and perfect and saith Gods will bed one He is all good and all wise And since he is as absolute and irresistible in his power as he is good and wise in his will it would be as foolish a part for me to hope to overcome it as impious to offer to contradict it This is the principal counsel against all Adversity yea the onely for we should need no other if we were come so far as to have no will but Gods will But to that high counsel many inferiour counsels are subservient Such is this When God sends us adversity that we may not thinke it strange to be so used let us compare ourselves with so many others that are in a worse case If we be prisoners in ourowne Country let us remember so many Christians that are captives of the Turkes and Moores Have we suffered some losse in our estates we need not goe farre from home to see whole nations driven out of their antient possessions shut out of their Country and reduced to mendicity Are you lame of a legge Looke upon your neighbour that hath lost both his legges by a cannonshot Thus the evils of others will be lenitives to yours It is a wholesome counsell to be more carefull to keepe a reckoning of the goods that remaine with us then of those we have lost He that hath lost his land must thank God that he hath kept his health He that hath lost health and temporall goods must thank God that none can take from him the eternall goods And whosoever hath lesse then he desireth must acknowledge that he hath more then he deserveth It is the way to keepe ourselves in humility before God and men and in tranquillity at home and turne murmuring into thanksgiving And whereas the remembrance of dead friends and lost goods fill us with sorrow it ought to fill us with joy If the possession of them was pleasant why should the remembrance be sad Why should wee entertaine more sadness because we lost them then joy because we had them it is the ordinary unthankfulnes of the world to reckon all the goods of the time past for nothing At the least affliction a long course of precedent prosperity is lost and forgotten like a cleare streame falling into a sink and losing its pureness in ordure Let us thank God for all the good dayes of our life so may me make present ill dayes good by the remembrance of good dayes past and obtaine of God new matter of thanksgiving We must use the world as a feast using soberly and cheerefully the fare that is before us and when it is taken away We must rise and give thankes We may justly be taxed as greedy ghests unthankfull to the master of the feast that hath so liberally feasted us if we Grudge when he calls to take away instead of Thanking him for his good cheere As he is our magnificent Inviter he is our wise Physitian Sometimes he sets his good plenty before us sometimes he keepes us to short dyet Let us receive both with an equall and thankfull mind All his dealing with us is wisedome and bounty Here let us remember this Maxime which I layd before as a maine ground of our tranquillity that the things which we lose are none of ours else we could not have lost them We were borne naked all that was put about us since is none of ours Yea all that was borne with us is not ours Our health our limbs our body our life may be taken away from us by others We must not then reckon them as ours But our soul which cannot be taken away and the best riches of our mind are truly ours All losses and paines fall onely upon the least part of ourselves which is our body and the senses and passions that are most conjoyned unto it if we may call that a part of man without which a man is whole But the true man which is the soul is out of the worlds reach and with it all the Christian vertues For which reason our Saviour bids us not to feare them that can kill the body and cannot kill the soul To be much cast downe with temporall losses shewes emptiness of spirituall riches to be very impatient of the incommodities of the body shewes that one hath more commerce with the body then with themind else a man might find matter enough of joy in the soul to conterpoyse worldly losses and bodily paines As a body that hath the noble parts sound will easily inure it selfe to beare cold and heat and all the injuries of the aire Likewise he that hath a sound soul and is strong within in faith integrity divine love and right reason wherein the true health of the soul consisteth will easily beare with all Adversities and retiring within himselfe when he is assaulted without he will take care before all things that it may be well with his inside and that nothing there be put out of order by the disorders without That serene state of the soul is the fittest for the vertue of prudence and the exercise of it in Adversity For to get out of the difficulties of life wee must maintaine our judgement free and our conscience sound And if the Adversity be of such a nature that it be past the helpe of prudence such as are sharpe incurable paines yet there is none but may be eased by reason faith and the comforts of Gods love For what Life is short no evil is very great when it hath an end No bodily paine can last longer then our bodies and no Adversity of Gods children either of body or spirit can continue longer then life But the inward assurances of our peace with God and the sweet entertainment of his love to us and ours to him are earnests and beginnings of a felicity without end By them the soule shut up in this prison of flesh looks out with her head forth ready to flye away She riseth againe with Christ in this very world by a lively hope Col. 3.1 She seekes those things that are above where Christ is sitting in the glory of his father She is in heaven already and hath onely the body upon earth To this the afflictions of our body contribute much 2. Cor. 4.17 For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While wee looke not at the things which are seene but at the things which are not seene for the things which are seene are temporal but the things which are not seene are eternal for wee know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved wee have a building of God an house not made with hands ternal in the heavens This is a high point of resolution and joy in afflictions which pagan Philosophie could never reach to beare the afflictions of this life
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
of curiosity to inquire after the future Whereas we ought to acknowledge that our ignorance of the future is the onely infirmity which we have reason to be well pleased with God hath done much for mankind to have hid the future from them For if besides present afflictions we had distresses to come before our eyes there is no constancy but would breake under that weight Many owe their present tranquillity to their ignorance of the calamities that waite for them But it is not the hope of future wordly content that must hold up our minds The life after this life is the onely future upon which we must depend And after we have sublimated our hopes and untyed our affections from the earth if it please God to send us some worldly prosperity it will be the more welcome because it will come unexpected as a gaine over and above the bargaine CHAP. III To retire within ones selfe HE that hath learned to know the world and himselfe will soone be capable of this counsell The world being foolish and wicked it will be a wise part to retire as much as the duties of conversation will permit from that contagion which may impaire us Persons that have some goodnesse in their soul have a closset where they may retire at any time and yet keep in Society That closset is their owne inside Whereby I understand not all that is within man for the Appetite is not the closet but the outward Court where all the tumult is there the Passions are entertaining the externall objects or quarrelling with them But that inside to which the wiseman must retire is his judgement conscience thence to impose silence to passions and hush all the noyse below that with a calme and undisturbed mind he may consider the nature of the persons and things which he converseth with what interesse he hath in them and how farre they are appliable to Gods service and to the benefit of himselfe and others We judge better of things when we are little interessed in them for then we are lesse apt to forestall our judgement with our affection Then to possesse a cleare free and uningaged judgement among the things of this world we should learne well how little interesse we have in them and that we are strangers in earth whence inferre St. Peters doctrine Dearely beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes abstaine from fleshly lusts 1 Pet. 2.11 For why should we entertaine any eager desire for things that concerne us but little Even among Pagans the wisest lookt upon the goods of this world as things which they needed not and retired within their own breasts which they called their home there to enjoy vertue their onely good The wise Christian having that high advantage that he may enjoy within his breast both vertue and God himselfe hath more reason to keep within that home and look upon things without with an indifferent eye For when as Pagan Philosophers called themselves Cittizens of the world the Christian acknowledgeth himselfe astranger in it for he doth but travell through the earth to his heavenly Country which they knew not A traveller looking out of the window of his Inne upon a country Faire doth but lightly amuse his eyes with the variety of course pedling wares and the buzy stirre of buyers and sellers but his minde is upon his journey and he will not make one in that crowd With the like indifference the wise Christian looks upon the hurry of the world and the confused diversity of humane things not crowding for them or setting his heart upon them for his journy towards heaven calls him away and to heaven he hath already sent his heart before That disinteressed disposition towards the things of this world ought not to make us carelesse and negligent neither must we do any businesse by halfe Keeping that prudent and godly temper to apply our mind not our heart to worldly things never forgetting while we tend them with diligence and industrie that they are unworthy to possesse the whole man who is made for better things There is no possession sooner lost then that of ones selfe The smallest things rob us of it A sight worthy of contempt if not rather of compassion is a man sharp-set upon play whose spirit hurried out of his true home by the greedines of gaine is swelled with hope and quaking for feare hanging upon the chance of the dice. Had one driven us from our house we would cry aloud for justice against him But we dispossesse ourselves from the possession of our reason by our violent passions and refuse to do justice to ourselves How many for a Mistresse or a preferrement lose their meat and their sleep have no other thought all the day long and no other dreame all the night their soules are no more at home but dwell with their neighbours if we may call dwelling a perpetuall running after hopes that flye from them To such men this counsell is most proper Tecum habita Dwell at home Keep possession of your soul Suffer not any thing to steale you away from your selfe There is neither profit nor pleasure worth so much that the soule should goe from home to get it Let none sooth up his eagernes about his sports with the plea of lawfull pastimes Nothing is lawful that steales the soule from God and a mans selfe When I see a man running after his bowle and following it with blessings or curses Another melting with sweat in a tennis-court more overheated yet in his passion then in his body contending with high words about a chase then say I with compassion Alas here is a soule put out of possession of herselfe a man that hath forgotten his origine and his dignity having his reason enslaved to his passion and his passion subjected to things of no value which being in their nature uncapable to be his masters he hath found a way to make them so by his wilful slavery One is allwayes a looser at that game which robbes his soule of serenity It is an unlucky game that gives to the noblest part of man those great irregular motions which should not be pardonable for the conquest or the losse of an Empire Nothing is so great that for it we should set our mind out of frame A wiseman neither in jest nor earnest ought to subject himselfe to any external object or suffer his soule to stirre out of her place and runne into disorder Utility and Pleasure sought by disorderly motions are lost even by seeking Of this counsel to retire within onesselfe this is a branch To keepe company with a few well chosen persons lending ourselves freely to them but giving ourselves to none but God nor suffering friendship to grow to slavery With all sorts of men we must deale ingenuously yet reservedly saying what we think but thinking more then we say least we give power to others to take hold of the rudder of our mind the thing
he must looke for errour impertinency in al sorts of acquaintance let him put every one upon the discourse of those things that he understands best so shall he doe a kindnes to the company for every one loveth to speak of that wherein he is expert he shall benefit himselfe fetching from every one the best that is in him Let him also fit his minde for all kinds of buzinesses thinking none too great when they are not above his capacity for those affaires that have more dignity have not alwayes more difficulty And on the other side thinking no buzines too low when it is necessary or when it gives him occasion to doe good But in general let him charge himselfe with as few buzinesses as he can I meane those buzinesses that engage a mans minde in the tumult of the world without which he may find buzines enough to keepe him selfe well imployed Want of preferment is better than want of peace Let him avoyd those imployments that give vexation and yet draw envy where a man must continually stand upon his guard imbark himselfe in factions and live in perpetuall emulation and contention The man to whom God keepes the blessing of a quiet life shall bee kept by him from that glittering rack and golden fetters but the man whom he will aflict shall be given over to be tossed betweene the competition of others and his owne ambition David shewes us how great is Gods goodnesse which he hath layd up for them that fear him namely that he wil hide them in the secret of his presence from the pride of man he will keepe them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues Psal 31.19.20 But what there are some spirits that love noise and live by Contradiction and when old factions are worne out hatch new ones sowing quarrels that they may be sticklers and in such sort arbitrating differences as to make them immortall that so they may never want business To such men no worse imprecation can be made then that they may alwayes have the business which they love for as they serve the father of discord they are like to share in his reward But those are worthy of his compassion whose serene religious soules capable and desirous of high contemplation are aspiring towards the God of peace but are distracted with contentious businesses and prest down with worldly imployment though perhaps too high for their condition yet too low for mind which measuring the height of things by their distance from heaven finds the great Offices of the State very low because they are deeper in the earth and further from heaven then other Offices of an obscurer note Who would not pitty a great person that hath scarce time to eate and sleepe that must have a light brought to his bed to make dispatches before day and when he goeth to the Court hath much adoe to get out of his yard through the crowd of suitors and in that clogge of businesses what time hath he to examine the state of his conscience and labour to advance his union with God Where is any gaine able to countervaile that loss But there are more persons undone for want of businesses when they have not the capacity to find themselves worke of some utility especially when the love and feare of God have not taken root in their hearts For there being in the soul three Offices or audits the first for contemplation the second for passion and the third for action when a mans mind is unfit for contemplation wants action he giveth himself wholly unto passion Then a man tickleth himselfe with evill desires and vaine hopes gnawes his heart with envy and spite and torments himselfe with impatience these vices being bred and fed by idlenesse Such men having nothing to do devise evill or uselesse businesses going up and downe all day long like swallowes that flye round not knowing for what walking from one end of the Town to the other to visit one that will not be at home when they aske for him or is put to his shift to be rid of their company Of that kind are most of those that thrust one another in the street as buzy as if they had three Chancery suites to solicit then returne home late weary and sweating having found the invention to tire themselves and do nothing In effect an idle life is more painfull and wearisome then an active and negotious life It makes one sad troublesome and vicious He that doth nothing cannot but do evill as grounds left untilled will bring thistles But he that hath an ordinary employment of some utility to the publique hath no leasure to attend vaine and evill actions nor to be sad By doing good he contenteth his conscience and maintaines the serenity of his mind so that he embrace no more then he can hold They that will doe too much good do it ill and do harme to themselves It is a preposterous diligence when it brings vexation to a mansselfe Rich old men should do wisely to give over busy imployments of the world vvhich require a whole man to give themselves wholly to the office of man as he is a man and a Christian If they be speculative judicious and experienced men they may do more good to the world in their retirement then in the crowd of businesses They that lead an active life ought not to give but lend onely their mind to the businesses of the world A wise man will follow his worldly occasions with diligence and industry but he will not transubstantiate himselfe into them In our busiest imployments let us retire often within to enjoy God and ourselves labouring chiefly to preserve his favour and our peace Without these all labour is superfluous or evill and gaine becomes damage CHAP. VII Of Moderation in Conversation IT is a most necessary provision for any man that will lead a peaceable life in this age and these regions torne with diversity of parties Mens minds being so generally exulcerated that in casuall meetings either they cast a suspicious eye upon their Contreymen because they know them not or abhorre them because they know them Here then there is need of a meek compliant industrious and universall mind retired within himselfe and healed of that epidemicall itch of light-brained men to declare all their opinions and inclinations and quarrell with all that are otherwise disposed It is an old and usefull observation that God hath given us two eares and one mouth to teach us that we ought to heare more then speake To which it may be added that we have no eare-lids to keep our eares from hearing and often must heare against our will but our mouth shuts naturally and we may keep our tongue from speaking unlesse by our intemperance we lose that priviledge of nature God indeed hath not given us a tongue to hold our peace But that we may use it so that our neighbours may receive good by it and
we no harme there is need of a great measure of charity and discretion To that end a wise man will not be the chiefe speaker in an unknowne or dangerous company but be content to second those that are more able or more willing to speake unlesse the discourse be like to turne to a contentions matter for then it will be prudently done to put the company upon some innocent discourse acceptable to all But companies are apt to speake of that which hath the vogue of points of State in factious times and of points of religion almost at all times As for points of State any man may be bold to interrupt the discourse saying Let us leave State businesses to Statesmen The discourse of religion the great occasion of falling out must be turned if we can to the use of comfort and amendment of life rather then arguing about points of beleefe Indeed we we are commanded to be alwayes ready to give an answere to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us 1 Pet. 3.15 Which when we are called upon we must doe it as the text modifieth it with meekenes and feare not with bitternes contention And the Apostle requires of us to be ready to answere not eager to question Reason serveth to convince but charity is the chiefe and welnigh the onely way to perswade Vehemence will make an adversary stiffer for even the force of an insoluble argument though calmely propounded makes no other impression upon prejudicate spirits but to make them startle and finding no helpe in reason to leane the more fiercely upon passion Though you stop your adversaries mouth you shall not thereby convince his reason and though you convince his reason you shall not turne his beleefe For that you must winne his affection and affection is not wonne with Syllogisms for I speake of men not such as they should be altogether ruled by right reason but such as they are for the most part blinde and heady having their reason enslaved to custome and passion There is great difference betweene convincing and converting The first may be done by the goodnes of the cause or the subtility of the disputant But converting is the worke of God onely It is enough to perswade us that spirit and soule are too different things when we see spirits capable of the highest Philosophical reasons to be unable to understand plaine reasoning about matters that concerne their salvation In vaine shall you convince the spirit with reason unlesse God open the eares of the soule In such meetings in stead of seeking wherein we differ and falling out about it we should seeke wherein we agree and praise God for it If newes were brought to us of the discovery of a great Christian Empire in Terra Australis where they beleeve the holy Scriptures and the Creed and receive the foure first General Councels No doubt but it would rejoyce us much and we would love them though they differed from us in the doctrines built upon those common grounds And why doe we not beare with our neighbours and countrey-men who agree with us in so many fundamentall points who worship the same God Father Sonne and Holy Ghost who embrace the promises of the Gospel in Jesus Christ and endeavour by the love of God and the exercise of good workes to glorifie God and attaine to his kingdome Could we abhorre one another more if one partie worshipped Christ and the other Mahomet Even where the quarrel was onely about points of Discipline the dissension was heated even to confiscations battells and sacking of townes So furious is superstition and funest in its effects what party soever it take for it is found in good and evill parties being natural to all weake and passionate soules If it maintaine falshood it dishonoureth the truth by putting a wrong byasse upon it It is a compound of ignorance pride rashnes and cruelty All which moulded with a bastard zeale and infused in black choller make up the most malignant venome of the world For one that is of the stronger party it is insolence to provoke him that is of the weaker in the most sensible point of all which is conscience And for him who is of the weaker party to provoke him that is of the stronger it is both insolence and folly In a milde and well composed spirit the dangerous errours of others moove pitty not hatred And if pitty sets him on to reduce them to the saving truth prudence will take him off betimes from that designe when he seeth it impossible And it is impossible when charity will not doe it which must not be violated for any pretence whatsoever Psal 85.10 Mercy and truth shall meet together righteousnes and peace have kissed each other Truth cannot be establisht without mercy nor righteousnes without peace Making breach in charity to preserve faith is demolishing the roofe of the Church to mend the walls Having found by the trial of a hundred yeares that battells and syllogisms will bring no general conversion let us fight no more but by prayers and let all parties strive for the palme of charity and moderation The two rivers of Danubius and Sauns falling into one channel goe thirty leagves together unmingled If the difference of our opinions will not suffer us to mingle yet we may joine Let us goe quietly together in our common channel the State where we live tending to the same end the publique peace and the glory of God This conceit I owe to that blessed sonne of peace that rare teacher and high patterne of moderation and tranquillity of minde the right Reverend Bishop Hall who hath not written one onely booke of Christian moderation but all his learned and gracious workes and the whole course of his wise and religious life are a perpetual comment upon that golden vertue When we conferre of any matter with persons of a different tenet our end must ever be to find the truth not to get the victory And that end must be sought with a meeke and moderate way That milde course will yeeld us a double benefit for it will preserve the liberty of our judgement which is taken away by the heate of dispute and precipitation A hasty disputant will soone be brought to non plus Besides when good sense is assisted with moderatiō it sinks better into the adversaries reason as a soft showre soakes the ground better then a stormy raine A moderate rational man either shall win the assent of his adversary or his good opinion Railing and insultation are offensive more to him that useth it then to them that are misused by it for when passion riseth high in words it giveth a prejudice to the hearers that reason is out of combat Anger is an ill helpe to reason for it disableth reason from helping itselfe Dogs that bark much seldome bite for it is feare that makes them barke Great and good workes are done with little noise So was the