himself to it to mediate this reconciliation he that could not rob God of any thing by his equalizing himselfe to him seemed to rob God of all his Majesty by this his equality with man by this stripping and exinanition of himselfe taking upon him the forme of this disfigured servant here we may ask with the amazement of the Apostle who hath been thy Councellor in this incomprehensible designe which man could not have so much as wished for himselfe And Saint Paul resolves us God for that great love wherewith he loved us hath raised up our dead nature and made it sit in as heavenly a place as even the person of God And indeed love could only render this act worthy of almighty God all the other of Gods benefits might be referred to his glory without any relation to his love the creation of all out of nothing might relate to the manifestation of his omnipotency and the order of his providence and administration of the world might be referred to the magnifying of his wisdome and the exalting his glory by his diverse communications to his creatures But this exinanition of himselfe could not consist with Gods dignity if it had not flowed from the immensity of his love So as this act confirmes Saint Johns definition of God that he is love for in this testimony God appeares nothing else all his immensity and infinity is extant onely in love since in this act of Gods incarnation even his Omnipotency may be said to be exhausted in obliging man when there remains neither power in God to do nor wisdome to excogitate a greater benefit then this selfdonation O immense beneficence and excesse of love which terminates even the divine omnipotency shall not this then subdue mans infirmity and appropriate all his desires to the study of loving this God who having given man even all his divinity by his love shall not man give this divinity all his love methinks it is now unnaturall since God is become man by love to him that man united to this God should not become all love of this divine Essence How can man then finde now so little of God in his nature as to plead his own infirmity for not loving God when by this gift he is made a consort of the divine nature as Saint Peter tels him and thereby inabled to love God by a participation of the same love with which God loves himselfe so that the donation exceeds so much the delinquency as Saint Austin votes a congratulation to our humane nature which being assumed by the Son of God is constituted immortall in heaven and exalted so as to sit at the right hand of the Father who then ought not now to congratulate his nature thus immortalized in Christ when he may hope to rise to the same immortality by this assumption So much strange incomprehensiblenesse followes upon Gods incarnation as our nature is dignified above what it hath a faculty to conceive for the soul of man shall not rightly apprehend the honour of this union with our flesh till she be sever'd her selfe from this connexion so great is the mysterie of Gods taking flesh and blood upon him as man must devest his before he can comprehend it for we see the more we are immersed in flesh and blood the lesse we discerne of it the carnal man is the worse inquisitor into this incarnation but the benefit and mercy is no lesse then the mysterie for Gods incarnation inableth man for his owne decarnation as I may say and devesture of his carnality and by imitation of this divinâ— man Christ Jesus shewes him how to weare his flesh in s 〈…〉 proportion as Christ wore his namely as a garment that did not defile what it cover'd Who then will chuse to cleave to our nature in the impurenesse of her owne carnality and bewaile that infelicity for an extenuation of her foulnesse rather then recur to this capacity which is imparted by the two natures of Christ unto ours viz to refine her selfe to so much cleannesse and spirituality as Saint Paul doth not feare to exalt our spirits to an identity with Gods he doth not wonder at any thing in consequence of this first gift of God himselfe given to our nature for he concludes that he who did not think his owne Son too much how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Insomuch as we may justly now say with S. Paul Therefore O man thou art inexcusable when thou judgest thy nature as incapable of victory over her infirmity for there is no such predominant malignity in her as thy enemy would insinuate the belief of the worst part of thy weaknesse is this querilous diffidence for in that ill feature thou shalt finde no similitude in the person of Christ in all thy trials and temptations thou mayest finde some resemblance in his figure even in the anguish and attristation of thy spirit but none in the yeelding and surrender of thy confidence for he felt our infirmities that we might not faint under them so that the similitude of his temptation is the succour and security of our defence in all our tryalls They then who in the pressures of their frailties shal faintingly say who shal shew us any good have their answer following in the next words the light of thy countenance is sealed impressed upon us for now the light of Christs divinity is not only shining on our nature but even in it as being now the orbe of the sun of righteousnes insomuch as the eyes of God may be said not onely to be upon us now in all our conflicts but likewise to be concerned in our contentions as members of that head whose eyes are his and consequently they do not only animate us but act and second us insomuch as the Apostle S. Paul chuseth his infirmities only to glory in to magnifie the triumph of Christ Wherefore they who behold the splendor of Christs divinity now shining in our nature need not lament the destruction of the first Temple when they contemplate this re-â—dification of this second Sanctuary but may confesse with one of Gods witnesses that the glory of this latter House is greater then that of the former for our nature is more dignified in the person of Christ then it could be depressed by the fault of Adam since not only the holy Angels adore now humane nature in the person of Christ but the very revolted spirits are punished even by the consequences of their malice to it for the bruised heele stands now trampling upon their subjected heads and it is not only in the glorious person of Christ that our nature triumpheth over her enemy but even in many other persons mortall and charged with her infirmities which make the weight of the shame the heavyer she treades victoriously upon the Basalisk vilifying all the malicious powers and principalities who are the governours of the
all Times to study And surely all such Images of Gods so remarkable Meâ—cy and Indulgence ought to endeavor the resembling in some proportion these two great Paterns in this special similitude of immediately not condescending to flesh and blood and of laboring more then others this was S. Pauls method and S. Augustines maner of copying him and surely God may justly require a singular rectitude in the courses of such as he hath raised from then falls by his special hand of Compassion and this not onely upon the account of their own debt but also in order to the benefiting their Brothers since we know the people came more to see Luzarâ—s risen then Iesâ—s who had revived him Certainly all great Spiritual resuscitations are more attended and reflected on then such as seem Natural lives of Piety and some special demonstration of gratitude is so much conditioned in Gods notorious Pardons as even the looser part of the world expecteth some extraordinary recognition from them and their uncorrespondency to that measure of Edification which is looked for by unreformed observers doth discredit to the world those invitations to amendment which are commonly made by the first perswasive fervors of zealous Converts For one patern of relapse and retrogradation substracteth so much from the efficacy of such Examples as that defection is apt to render many sincere progressions in the first fervor suspected of unsoundness and recidency And by this suspition of unperseverance there may well be blasted much of the fruit of extraordinary Conversions for Libertines with a little tincture of Truth in such recesses from zeal will colour a great deal of witty impiety So that this scandalous remisness seemeth to give a fair pass for Prophaneness to make reprisal upon Devotion which doth take from Libertines so many affected freedoms so great a detriment doth a little Scandal procure to Religion in such as have the seal of Extraordinary Pardons upon them evidenced to the Eye of the world And on the other side when such remarkable vocations continue so exemplary as they answer all equal and just expectations and obstruct all licentious tongues the benefit they impart unto the world is likely more then the native piety of many unseduced persons Me thinks the prevision of this utility may be given for a handsom reason of the rejoycing of Angels in one Conversion more then in the persistency of many vertuous tempers for Humane Nature which the Angels are better acquainted with then we as being incharged with the conducting it to Spiritual improvements is well charactered in the stiffness and indocility of the Pharisees since it is apt to be demanding a Sign from Heaven for Reformation of corrupted Customs and desperate Spiritual recoveries seem so many openings of the Heavens in the descent of the Holy Dove visibly to the standers by wherefore the Angels upon their precognition of the extraordinary efficacy of such Conversions may well be speculated to ground this exceeding joy and exultation Not that we intend hereupon to conclude That such Prodigals have greater portions of Grace then those elder Brothers who may justly say We have served so many years and have not transgressed the commandments We do confess where the special preventing Grace of God bestoweth an exemption from the stains and inquinations of youth when one may truly say I have observed all these precepts from my youth that such a condition is preferable to this recanting state of I have sinned against heaven the having been always so clothed as our turpitude hath not been discovered is a better posture then the casting off our rags to put on the first robe so that I purpose chiefly to incite these yonger brothers to an eminent humiliation not to elate them in the preference of their conditions before other states of innocency that have never been tainted by the contagious air of the world and have remained as the virgin Apostle saith The first fruits among men to God and the Lamb without spot before the throne of God Surely all notorious cures of such as have faln into the thiefs hands between Iericho and Ierusalem are never so perfect as when the Scars or Cicatrices remain in the eyes of the Patients rather as marks of their misery then pledges of their continuing health and so their lives which are set out to others by God as Ensigns of victory must be looked upon by themselves as wrecks saved and set up in their own thoughts for memorials of the danger whereunto they are still exposed for God doth often set up in publike such figures of humane misery and divine mercy not only in commiseration of the particular subjects but in condescendence to the bent of our common nature which runneth after example and seemeth but dragg'd after single precepts Wherefore all remarkable Converts should account themselves as sent from the dead upon the suit of their necessitous brothers in Gods compassion to them as well as to themselves the world being much better disposed to hear such messengers then Moses and the Prophets and in this respect they should study to live exactly by this rule of St. Paul Yield your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead And surely this expropriation of themselves and transaction over to the uses of others which the Apostle denounceth to all Christians is more especially relating to them then to any others for they may be most pertinently served with this holy writ You are not your own being bought with a great price therefore glorifie God and carry him in your body so that those who as our Savior saith have heard his voice and are come out of their graves and live must remember as they have a kinde of fraternity with Lazarus in this spiritual resuscitation that they strive to live as brothers of the Blessed Magdalen and that after their first alliance in this point of having had much forgiven they be very studious to fraternise with her in this other part of loving much By this exhibiting the obligations of a true Convert I have recorded my own bonds I may hope that God by his infinite liberality will be pleased to inable the rest of my life for some competent discharge of this great ingagement For me thinks I hear the voice of our Savior to him he had dispossessed of a legion of evil spirits Go home to thy friends and tell them how great things God hath done for thee I am therefore come back thus ad domum Caesaris to the house of Cesar which in reference to many of my Duties I may presume to call my home but most particularly in order to my discharge of this Commission of announcing quanta mihi fecerit dominus how great things God hath done for me wherefore I do not owe this Manifest onely as an office of Recognition unto God but do stand me thinks charged with it as a condition of my Absolution by which I conceive
place the taste whereof doth disrelish the savor of Devotion and breed many obstructions in the body of the inward man This Court-disease is excellently described by the Wiseman The dalliance with trifles darkeneth to us better sights and the waveringness of our cupidities turneth the minde into a diziness unawares to it self I may hope to be hearkened to in the crying down of these toys having been so long a Pedler of them And as devotion may truly say of me He that persecuted us sometimes doth now evangelize the saith which he did once impugn so I beseech God I may deserve the other following words of And they glorified God in me I have thus much towards this hope that I may be well perswaded of the good sâ—ting and adaptation of my advices even by the prejudices of my unhappy experiments For certainly as an ordinary Courtier who is acquainted with the humor and interests of the favorite may be more dexterous in forming welcome Propositions then a greater Forraign Statesman who designeth all by the general maximes of policy so one who is well versed in the intimate and favorite affections and passions of the times may apply motives likelier to work upon them then some who are much better grounded in the solid rules of grace and sanctity for such is the weakness of our vitiated nature as it is more wrought upon in piety by proportions then by perfections Considering then the duties I have specified I humbly present the Court with this discharge of my Commission aâ— the dispossessed native did preach to Decapolis but I hope the consequence will resemble more the enuntiation of the 〈…〉 〈…〉 her town for of the effect of his preaching we read only that all his to 〈◊〉 wondred at him which is a more familiar answer at Court to such vocations then the believing and going out to meet Christ as the men of Sichem did wherefore my humble prayers shall be joyned to inforce my perswasions that it may be truly said in this occasion Many believed in Christ by the word of him that did testifie of him To conclude although I may better intitle this an expiatory offering then a propitiatory the first being in order to the discharge of a debt the last to the impetration of some favor yet I may presume to pray in it against the common iniquity which is noted in time that the currant thereof may not bear up and carry down my lighter papers upon it and let sink these my more solid and weighty cogitations And to obtain all the blessing I petition for upon this design I shall humbly present it to you with this reference of St. Paul To him who is able to do more abundantly then we can either desire or conceive according to the power that worketh in us to him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus unto all generations Wa Montagu Non solum mihi laboravi sed omnibus inquirentibus veritatem Ecclesiasticus 24. Miscellania or Spiritual Essays A TABLE Containing the several Treatises as they stand divided into Sections TREATISE 1. A Map of humane nature divided into two Sections page 1 Sect. 1. Treating the Original rectitude of mans nature and the present obliquity thereof ibid 2. Of mans abusing what he might learn by the mortality of the creature and the frailty of his nature evidenced in all sorts of persons and trials 6. TREAT 2. Handling the reparation of humane nature in two Sections 11 Sect. 1. Of the admirable means God chose for this work and the rehabilitation resulting to man from this Order of God ib. 2. How even mans infirmities may afford him glories with motives to joy and correspondence to the grace of Christ incarnate 16 TREAT 3. Of Religion in two Sections 21 Sect. 1. Considering it under the general notion of some reference to a Divine power ib. 2. Treating the best habit of minde in order to the finding a rectiâ—ied Religion 24 TREAT 4. Of Devotion in two Sections 27 〈◊〉 1. 〈◊〉 regularly definâ—d 〈◊〉 some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 〈◊〉 Devotion described a more famil 〈…〉 way and the best natural 〈…〉 in order thereunto 31 TREAT 5. Discoursing whether sensible pleasures may consort with devotion in two Sections 36 Sect. 1. Rectifying our affections chiefly our love in the sense of beauty ib. 2. Ambition rightly examined and discreet condescâ—ndencies proposed respectively to diverse vocations 42. TREAT 6. Of disabuse to the Rationalists and Sensualists concerning temporal happiness and devotion proposed for security of a happy life in three Sections â—0 Sect. 1. The vertue of Devotion exalted and the vanity of some Philosophers detected ib. 2. A conviction of Sensualists declaring how grace emancipateth us from the bands of the creatures 55 3. Resultancies from the meditation of humane frailty and a resolving the right of happiness as belonging to devotion 60 TREAT 7. How true Devotion induceth those notions wherein consisteth the happiness of this life in three Sections 64 Sect. 1. The fallacy of opinion and the vertue of truth discoursed ib. 2. Sacred examples shewing what may be said to be a rejoycing in the truth of temporal goods and how eveâ— secular evils afford joy by the same method of a right understanding them 69 3. The fallacies of some Objections solved and the rejoycing in truth concluded for our real happiness 73 TREAT 8. Touching the means of possessing that truth wherein the happiness of this life is stated in two Sections 78 Sect. 1. Diffidence in point of obtaining spiritual lights reprehended and prayer 〈…〉 in order to this designe 78 2. What sincerety in prayer is requisite for this effect and what kinde of peace is to be expected 74 TREAT 9. Of the condition of Courts Princes and Courtiers in three Sections 86 Sect. 1. The best notion of Courâ—ts proposed ib. 2. The vitiousness of the heathen Courts censured and the consequence of the Examples of Princes urged as a charge upon the vertue of their lives 90 3. The importance of their company for the education of Princes and a rule proposed for Counsellors and Companions to both ruling and yong Princes 94 TREAT 10. How a good conscience and a good Courtier are consortable with one another in seven Sections 98 Sect. 1. The temptations of Courts acknowledged great but not insuperable ib. 2. Real humility recommended discerned from Courtship and proved consonant to the state of Courtiers 102 3. The vitiousness of flattery displayed with an allowance of decent civilities in exchanges of Courtship 107 4. The use of sober praises treated and reciprocal civilities regulated 110 5. The advantages of the vocation of a Courtier ballanced with some prejudices in point of piety 113 6. Some notorious errors remarked and what facility the breeding of Courtiers may bring towards an excellence in Religious duties proved by examples 117 7. Comparisons between vocations disavowed and advices offered in order to a due correspondence with the grace
instrument sized and fitted to worke upon our natures and he who was the best Moral Chymick that ever wrought upon the matter of temporallities by the experiments of all fruitions extracted this as the quintessence of them all Vanity of vanities all is vanity under the sunne and vexation of spirit Here then is the product and summe of all our loves and fruitions in this world and after this convincing manifest of the worthlesnesse of all other creatures alas how much a more deplorable conviction hath he left us of the vanity of man by his owne fall and prevarication when in the splendor of all this light of verity a few fading colours in a womans face dazel'd even his Eagles eyes and so his blindnesse and infatuation is become a clearer evidence of the infirmity of mans nature then even all the beames of his illuminating pen. They who will look attentively upon this naked image of Solomon need no other character of our humanity there they shall discover all that the world accounts the security of happynesse to be the likeliest betrayers of it For he whose knowledge exceeded the stock of nature and whose possessions were equall with all natures provisions may be said to have fallen by the weight of his felicities how infirme a thing then is man that cannot carrie even his own wishes without falling under them when he is charged with their successes for alas how much doth familiar evidence attest this truth that man in honour becomes like the beast that perisheth May not our carnall nature then be justly discredited to us by considering that our life is either a perplexity of wishes or a perversion of successes and this convincing evidence which common experience offereth proveth what Solomon sayes that this is the affliction which God hath given to the sons of men to exercise them in it since indeed this world is but a stage for their wrastling and contention And if we look upon our nature in the exercise and triall of it in the other extream of affliction we shall finde their feeblenesse even in those pillars that were the strongliest supported by grace namely Elias who seemed to have had so little mixture of the elements in his nature as he is called by the holy spirit a fire and a burning light yet even he in his fiery triall had so much earth about him as to faint under his carriage and to cry out to be delivered even of his life as of a burthen thus strong was that little weakness of our nature he had about him holy Jer. who seemes to have brought none but holy earth out of his mothers wombe by the testimony of his sanctification in it yet even this sanctified oare had so much drosse found in it when the burning fire was shut up in his bones as to run over even into the cursing the day of his birth and to prepose his mothers being a tombe for him before a deliverer of him into that light wherein he saw so much misery and affliction May we not well say then in reference to that of Solomon if the best men on earth make this confession of the misery of their nature what doe the worst and the most depraved Thus have we seene frailty and infirmity of our corrupted nature taken from the best figures of it in diverse postures of temporall felicity and affliction and we perceive that in one state it is so unhappily disposed as the pronenesse of it to ingratitude is raised by the very degrees of obligations and benefits it receiveth Insomuch as the plenty of temporall blessings proves often an over-ballancing even of the power of abundant grace as we see manifested in the infidelityes of Solomon and againe we find in the other triall how the weight of sufferance boweth and deflects a little even the strongest pillars of humanity among which we doe bring in Saint Pauls deposition of this truth where we make upon all these surveys this his reflection O wretched man who shall deliver thee from this body of death and corruption But we are not so miserable as not to have a present answer to this sad question the grace of God by Jesus Christ our Lord. Wherefore let us goe on and look upon our nature as it is Deified in him and as the other representations might make us lament our birth with Job upon our dunghill so this aspect of it in the person of Christ may recall us to rejoyce with Zachary in the Temple and allow our nature this selfe-ascription justly assumed by the second organ of the reparation thereof henceforth all generations shall call me blessed this assumption may be well allowed our nature when we look upon it with S. Paul not living in it selfe but Christ living in it The second Treatise The reparation of Humane Nature divided into two Sections §. I. Treating the admirable meanes God chose for this worke and the rehabilitation resulting to man from this proceeding of God HAving seene the figure of man made much liker the image of him who said he would raise himselfe and become like God then like God himselfe who made man after his own image what meanes is there left to restore that which all the subtilty of the supreamest Angel had much adoe to disfigure when ruine is so much easier then reparation If Lucifer himselfe had applyed all his abilities to have given man satisfaction he could hardly have excogitated such a meanes of mans redintegration for it may be disputed whether it had not been a higher pitch of disrespect to have designed God to have put on this wretched nature of man then it was to project for his own Angelicall nature an independency on the divine So here the spirits of men and Angels are confounded when they consider both these natures of God and man first apart in their peculiar properties and then behold them united in this incomprehensible manner in the person of God here Saint Austins exclamation is more proper then any inquisition one Abisse calls on another the Abisse of misery attracts that of mercy here is the transcendency of all wonder that the unworthynesse and demerit of humane nature should prove the exaltation of it For now the Church doth not stick to say foelix culpa proclaiming even the fault to have been happy that procured such a redemption and a melioration Lord what was man that thou should'st be thus mindfull of him who had nothing left to move thee but his being become worse then nothing did this invite thee to shew thy selfe more God in his refection then in his creation wherein his nullity had thus much towards his being viz. no actuall opposition to thee which his iniquity had and so his reparation seemed more incapable of thy love then his nothing was of thy omnipotency in his first production In this deplorable state of humane nature become even Gods enemy he did not only reconcile but even subject
darknesse of the world Such honour have many of Christs members even in this life being inabled to walk in it and yet not war after the flesh having such spirituall weapons as cast downe all imaginations that rise up in defence of their own impotency and suggest their incapacity of subduing their enemy §. II. How even Mans infirmities may afford him gloryes and consequently Motives to joy and correspondence with the grace of Christ incarnate REflecting duly on what hath been premised we may justly sing an Hosanna to our humane nature as she is now participant of the virtue of God himselfe in the person of Christ since she is so fortified for triumph and victory over all the devills forces and her own frailties as I may say it is a greater shame for man not to overcome now thus joyned with Christ then it was at first to yeeld to the devil and the woman joyned He who is clothed with light as with a garment when he bowed the heavens and descended taking our nature as a cloud for his vestment might have purged it of all frailty and infirmity by his merits in it and have re-estated it in the originall integrity but he seemes to have chose the leaving of this infirmity to exalt the fidelity this thought may be supported by his deniall of Saint Paul the removing from him his reluctancies because virtue is perfected in weaknesse so having left our nature with this life-guard about her of my grace is sufficient for thee he hath inabled her to rise to a higher degree of honour by victory then she could have done by security for then our nature would have wanted the similitude and configuration with the image of Christ tempted suffering and triumphing which is a diviner figure then the safe unexercised condition of Adam And why may not we conceive that the miseries left in our nature by so mercifull a God were intended as seeds of a more fruitfull glory since not only our own sufferings are now allowed as good evidences for the claime of our feliciâ—y but even the distresses of others are assigned for our qualifications for Christ in his last account with man produceth nothing but miseries of nature for mans merit to him sickness â—unger poverty and captivity are brought in as the only contributions to mans glorification and by Christs words we finde that even he inhabiteth still in the infirmities of our nature insomuch as to reconcile us to the most aversing part of our nature we may look upon Christs personation in it for he seemes at that day when he shall in our nature judge both natures of men and angels to own his residence most especially in all the distresses and indignities of humane nature and to admit the communication and familiarity we have had with such miseries as the only claime to our eternall association with him and thus having a capacity imparted by all our infirmities to merit at Christs hands by his owne sentence our lyablenesse to them may be thought a nobler state then would have been our exemption from danger And to support this supposition we may conclude that our arrogant enemy who affected to be like Christ in his glory but never emulated his humility is more tormented now by mans triumphs over his angelicall powers and his owne humane weaknesse then he would be by mans state of impeâ—cancy for even that spoil this enemy now makes upon us doth not at all ease or relieve him whereas the defeats shames he received by our victories over him strain the rack of his pride upon him torturing him by this vilifying his power by which means even our infirmities may be said to serve Christ against the great maligner of both his Natures which admitted they who complain of the infelicity perversion of our nature may be advertized that they have a means to rectifie this crookedness even by the impulse of one of the most vebement corruptions thereof namely the passion of revenge since this redress may be wrought by their attempting continuall vindications against the procurer of all our misery by a victorious fidelity to our maker whereby even our infirmities being overcome are converted into the torments of our pretending tormentor and may the thussting of the serpent be retorted into his own bosome when his assaults return him more the sight of his own impotency then of our frailty And how feisable this way of revenge is made S. Paul assureth us both by his life and Doctrine when he defieth Angels Principalities and Powers to joyn with his infirmities and yet glorieth that in all these oppositions man may be more then conquerer by him who hath loved him How many virtuous Trophees are there now erected in Christianity of the victories of humane nature over our most powerfull infirmity What numbers wear the vestures of their humanity shining in the candour of innocence and chastity in so pure a manner as they seeme rather living transfigured with Elias and Moses upon Tabor then comming disfigured with Adam out of Eden So much doth even the frailest portion of our humanity triumph now over the greatest frailty of our nature and from the infirmity of the flesh derive rather consequent merit then actuall infection so that the proud spirit findes oftentimes by this repulse rather the misery of his destitution of grace then the infirmity of our nature being succour'd and supported by an accession of the fortifying grace of our Head Christ Jesus In which respect Saint Augustin sayeth elegantly the nativity of Christ was the renascency of man as flesh had wounded thee so it now healeth thee the Physitian ministred a receipt composed of our own infirme nature and by the infirmity of his flesh cured the infection of ours And for an intire re-inforcement of our humane nature which consisteth of spirit and flesh our spirit seemes to have yet a more intimate union with God for our flesh was but a supervesture or upper Garment to the Son of God The two natures of God and Man remaining distinct and not intermixed but our spirit is sealed and impressed by the holy Ghost and so seemes identified with the Spirit of God in some such sort as the impression left is the same image with the stampe which impresseth it and in this respect the Apostle tells us that he that is joyned unto God is one spirit with him we need not speculate so curiously the radiant beames of the Word of God as to dazle or dissipate the sight of our minde in this mysterious expression of the holy Spirit as much as is competent with our eyes is the perception by this dazling light of what great dignity and excellence our humane nature may now own in which the intire Trinity doth reside the Son of God in Person the holy Ghost or Spirit of God by Character and impression and consequently God the Father by the indivisibleness of his essence from their presences therefore we
tender of this highest Prerogative which is to impose virtue by their practice of it this Spirituall levy made upon the mindes of the people facilitates the raising upon them all other tributes Therefore Princes should be as religious in their lives as they are politickly just in their coines they must take heed of crying up any base species to an over-value since their stamp and impression makes all their morall coyne so currant in their Court by reason the images of their humor are as it were privy seales for the receit of those images wherewith their followers are most affected and because it is no crime to counterfeit this kinde of the Princes signature but rather a warrant for their pretensions likely the whole Court is a stamp of the Kings humour and affection This influence of Princes upon the dispositions of their Courts needs not the deposition of examples since it hath the Authority of a knowne principle therefore I shall only offer one precedent in the case in which the example and extravagancy is so singular as the very foulnesse of the Testimony must make the proofe the fairer and the more irrefragable There was a Grecian Emperour called Constantinus surnamed Copronimus which Surname he gave himselfe before he could speake when he was first brought into the Church by fouling it as much as his nature could then extend unto and afterward his life was a truer performance of that unclean promise he made himselfe then of those bonds of Christianity and purity he entered into by his sureties for this first was the least uncleannesse wherewith he polluted the Church in the rest of his life This Emperour who seemed to have a soule meerely vegetative by the inclinations of it for it grew thrived only upon dung had such a fancy to the smell of horse-dung as he besmeared himselfe with it and all his Court in complacency to that fancy qualified themselves for his company with the same perâ—umes and so offered him continually this odor which was fiâ—incense for such a deity and this naturall immundicity was but a figure of that spirituall impurity of him and his Court for in this Princes humour this was the least brutish of all his other bestialities so that his Court was rather a parke of the locusts and scorpions of the Revelation then a Congregation of reasonable creatures This is an unhappy trophee of the power of example in Princes erected to evidence that conclusion The sacred History is so pregnant in these examples how the prevarication of the Prince hath alwayes beene the perversion of the people as I shall not need to instance any therefore I may properly apply to Princes this advise which was given by a holy Father of the Church to Priests Since they speak as Oracles let them live as Deities for the lying spirit is often more credited in their mouthes then in those of the Prophets And this same prescript is likewise very requisue for all persons neere in office trust or familiarity with Princes since there is a naturall influence from such conversations even upward upon their superiours according to what some Physitians hold in point of a circulation of the blood to wit that which is in the feet to have a reflux back into the heart This motion may be truly affirmed in the course of the spirituall blood in the civill body of society for the affections and habits of the inferiour parts of the company flow often upward upon the superiour as well as they runne downward by their influence on the lower stations wherefore this morall circulation of virtue and vice in humanity makes the infection of any parts of the company familiar with Princes very dangerous for their contagion we see this in Roboams young Councellors who were not only the mediate instruments of rendring the Kingdome but also in some relation were the erectors of Jeroboams calves §. III. The importance of their Company for the education of Princes and a rule proposed for Counsellors and companious to both ruling and young Princes UPon this information let the Familiars and Counsellors of Princes understand they have a very precise charge of integrity upon them in their morall conversation as well as in their politicke comportments for indeed their vocations in many respects are rather sacred functions then simply civil conditions in regard they are imployed in the ministeries of the most speciall images of God on earth in which respect the scandall of their lives is not only prophanesse but a kinde of sâ—câ—iledge as it endangers the violating of the most sacred part of a Princes Character which is the divinenesse of his life and Government The life of King Joas is an unhappy precedent in this case who while he had Joh 〈…〉 a in his eye was himselfe a singular patern of piety to the people and eminent for the reparation of the Temple but after the change of such a companion when the Princes of Juda came and adored the King he being moved by their insinuations concurr'd with them quickly in leaving the Temple he had so much merit in and followed them into the groves to secke out and set up new Idols This was the sad effect of infectious familiars therefore such as are neer in office or privacy to the persons of young Princes have a most strict obligation to be virtuous and exemplary in their lives and conversations for humane Nature like Jacobs sheepe in the aâ—dor and â—eat of youth is very apt to conceive with some tincture of the colours it sees in those waters whereof it drinks in that season the conversations of our familiars are the waters where with our imaginative faculty is nourished and so Princes had need to have them kept very cleere and serene for according to the colours they looke upon in them their conceptions likely prove whereby the issues of their mindes become sported and staind according to such images as are represented to their imaginations in the pregnancy of their youth In this regard they who have choice of those to whom they will commit such trusts as the company and familiarity of young Princes should noâ— be lesseâ—â—act then when their Pictures are to be taken for which alwayes such who are the best reputed are preferr'd for indeed their familiars doe this intellectuall office to their mindes though this spirituall worke is done by acuite contrary manner to that of the images of their persons for the familiar companions of Princes may be said to worke upon the image of their mindes by sitting to them that is by exposing their owne figure to the young fancy they draw the other to that resemblance such is the active virtue of example upon the tender age of education Surely those then who are trusted with this office of being a familiar object to young Princes which is a nobler place then they can conceive by any name it hath at Court should set their dispositions in a
testimony to the beatification of it I shall descend to the other two which are more terrestial and of my familiar acquaintance Wherefore I may hope to give some more pertinent information of the nature of them for as I may truly say I have neither learnt wisdom nor have I the knowledge of the Saints so I may also own That I have seen many things by erring and going astray whereby I have found that the sensitive part hath often an equal voyce with the rational in the election of this second state of Solitude which I have stated as Neutral and so will treat of it in the middle between those two I have termed Voluntary and Violent as mixed and partaking of them both What hath been said of the great Patron of Solitude John Baptist may in my conceit sort well with this particular I now describe to wit That he was the Horizon of the Law and the Gospel his state being a kinde of middle Circle that did divide those two Haemispheres touching upon each of them Such a position doth this Neutral Solitude seem to have of being an Horizon between the two states of purely Voluntary and Violent Solitude as it is a middle term between both of them which parteth and disterminateth them from one another and partaketh of either of them For indeed it toucheth both upon Freedom and Constraint on the first as it is an act of Election on the latter as it is an effect of some exterior compulsion which notwithstanding it cannot fully distrain the will yet it lays such forcible motives upon it as carry away the election in a posture mixed between Consent and Coaction and this is the maner of our willing in many occasions when our Imagination suggesteth to our Will some apparent good under the form of Real and moving this choyce in a kinde of imperious maner of perswasion carrieth the election which although it be always voluntary in the act yet may be said to be violent in respect of the means that wrought it forasmuch as that voluntary act holds more of the imperfection then of the perfection of Free-wil as being an act contrary to the order of Reason thatdoth dictate rather the choyce of the real good then the apparent which is preferred in this election To elucidate this point we may consider That the Angels now cannot make such a choyce in respect their free-acts are always perfect and regulated by right Reason though before they did see God it was not so as in Lucifer is clear when therefore such a vote is passed by our Will it must needs argue a kinde of violence and tyranny indeed excerseded over our Reason and consequently this choyce partaketh of violence in point of perfection of the act however it is likewise voluntary in the order of our imperfect Natures that are less truly free then Angels albeit we may be said to have an extension of liberty above them viz. that we can choose as well to do evil as good which amplitude argueth in effect imperfection and deficiency of liberty no◠any compleatment or perfection thereof And for this reason That by the order of Nature the understanding ought to command in all rational elections wherefore it is rather a regulation of Nature to restrain the Will unto Reason then any violence upon Free-will to have it so confined or restrained In proof whereof we may consider That even mans Will which is now in via rebellious when it cometh to be perfectionated in Heaven or in patria as Divines call it will be reduced into this order and conformity so while we finde this order inverted by the irregularity of our corrupted Nature we may say many of our voluntary acts partake of a kinde of violence when by the predominating of our Will over our Reason they are rendred acts imperfect however we may call them free From whence ariseth this mixed amphibious kinde of election which nevertheless doth not infringe the liberty of the Will since that electeth always freely for no force of motives can rise to a direct compulsion of the Will and the efficacy of extrinsecal impressions in this case may be fairly illustrated by Gods maner of working upon the Will which he moveth efficaciously to his own end yet freely in order to her Natures preserving his power and her liberty After such a sort do external Motives very often carry the elective faculty of the Minde to some choyces and resolutions moving the Will with efficacy and withal conveying it with freedom to the determination And this is the case I suppose of what I term Neutral or Mixed Solitude when any exterior injury from the world presseth the Will vehemently to elect this state of life which is often chosen as in this mixed Disposition hath been represented Wherefore the chief intendment of this Discourse shall be to furnish the Will with such precautions as may fortifie her against such violent assaults of the Imagination in this act of so great importance §. II. Treating divers Motives that solicite this vocation THe Soul of man being the seat of the Divine Image in Humane Nature the instinct of sociableness may be said to be the eye or the sight of the Divine Image in it for as the eye is the organ of light which conveyeth to us the chiefest society of all material things and thence is the noblest maner of Commerce the Body hath with the World as consequently the worthiest portion of our sensitive Nature So the instinct and Natural appetency of Society is the noblest faculty of our intellectual For by Society we receive all our rational light as by the Eye we take all visible species and the love of company is not imprinted in us so much for our own private solace as for the support of the common frame of Humane Society So that the sociableness of Humane Nature is in order to the conservation and comfort of the whole by a convenient union of the parts And the same reasons that require a due disposition of the several parts of our Natural body for the decency and health of it hold in the constitution of the Spiritual frame of our Nature so as the love of Society is referred to the constituting of order which consisteth always of parts and is nothing but a due marshalling and ranking of divers and distinct portions either in material things or rational designs Whereupon since order is in Nature the final end of this impression of the love of Society an inordinate love of Company may be out of the order of the sociableness of Humane Nature as it may aim onely at some propriety that respecteth some such single desire as is much severed from the common good of Society and so many self-assignments may be in this respect said rather to tend properly to Singularity then Society According to this rule all the busie negotiation of our passions in the world do rather break the chain of Society then make
of a Courtiers profession 121 TREAT 11. Of Medisance or detraction in 2. Sections 125 Sect. 1. The true nature of the crime of detraction and the subtilty of it in disguising it self ib. 2. Some rules whereby to square our discourse and an expedient offered towards the correction of Medisance 131 TREAT 12. Concerning scurrility or foulness of speech 〈…〉 three Sections 〈…〉 Sect. 1. Of the dangerousness of these liberties and the familiar ex 〈…〉 made for them 〈…〉 2. Some special causes of the growth of this licentiousness and some 〈◊〉 pedient proposed towards the suppression thereof 1â—0 3. What circumstances augment these faults and women incharged 〈…〉 severity in opposition to them â—4â— TREAT 13. Whether to be in love and to be devout are consistent in eight Sections Sect. 1. The nature of love and devotion compared 〈◊〉 2. Some subtle temptations detected and liberties reproved 1 〈…〉 3. The errors of prophane jealousie argued and a pious jealou 〈…〉 proposed 1â—â— 4. The deceit of passion in promise of mercy and power of resistiâ—g temptations 1â—â— 5. The faultiness of flattery to women discovered and disswaded 1 〈…〉 6. Presumption upon our vertue discussed and the danger thereof remoâ—strated 1â—6 7. Some scruples resolved about the esteem of beauty and the friendshiâ— of women 17â— 8 The conclusion framed upon the premised discourse and our love safe 〈…〉 addressed 179 TREAT 14. Concerning the test and ballance of filial and mercinary love in five Sections 181 Sect. 1. Of the value of love and Gods tolerating some mixture of self respects in it ib. 2. Mercinary love defined and the relying much on it disswaded 184 3. Filial love described and some strong incentives presented to kindle it in us 187 4 Motives to filial love drawn from our several relations to God as also from the dignity and advantage of this sort of love 191 5. Advices in order to the preserving this sort of love and fraternal dilection represented as a gracious rule whereby to judge of our rectitude in filial love 194 TREAT 15. Of the duties of a Christian towards enemies in five Sections 265 Sect. 1. The precept of loving enemies sweetned by many reasons drawâ— from Christs injoyning and his acting it ib. 2. The avâ—rsness to this duty riseth from our corrupted nature promoted by divers subtle temptations of our great enemy 270 3. The relation wherein all enemies are to be loved and what Offices are indispensably due to them the omission whereof can be redeemed by no other sort of piety 274 4. The inordinateness of our love difficilitateth this duty dissimulation in this conformity reproached and many benefits derivable from a sincere compliance represented as also presumption upon the Theory of this duty disswaded 282 5 The best preparatory disposition for the acting this duty the which maketh no obstruction in the course of justice as also powerful persons admonished of their temptation in this point of revenge and animated by their exceeding merit in this â—idelity 287 TREAT 16. Of considerations upon the unsuccesfulness of a good cause in six Sections 291 Sect. 1. That much Religion is requisite to assist us in this probation ib. 2. Motives to constancy after a prudent election of our cause 294 3. The variableness of the vulgar upon eventâ— and a prudent conduct proposed 297 4. An information of what kinde of conformity we owe Gods declared will in adverse events 299 5. The infirmity of our nature comforted by examples holy and prophane and the acquiesâ—ence to Gods order with constancy perswaded 302 6. The conclusion regulating all humors in this probation 310 TREAT 17. Of Solitude in two Sections 315 Sect. 1. The most useful order in describing the nature of solitude ib. 2. Solitude divided into three sorts and the first discoursed of 318 TREAT 18. Of a mixed sort or of Neutral solitude in three Sections 324 Sect. 1. Explaining this term by exhibiting the state of mans will in his elections 324 2. Treating divers motives that solicite this vocation 327 3. How God worketh and how the devil countermineth in this vocation wherein a safe course is directed 330 TREAT 19. Of violent solitude or close imprisonment in eight Sections 338 Sect. 1. How unwillingly our nature submitteth to the loss of liberty and society ib. 2. The deficiency of single natural reason argued for consolation in this case and the validity of grace asserted 340 3. Great benefit acknowledged to moral Philosophy and the right use thereof directed in order to our solacing 345 4. The disposure of our time treated and advised for improvement as well as easing of our minde 350 5. A method proposed in point of study and the use may be derived from story towards a right understanding of Divine providence 355 6. Some special meditations proposed for the divertisement of our minde 361 7. Some speculations suggested to recreate our spirits in sufferance and to invigorate our Faith 365 8. The final and most solid assignment of comfort for this condition 370 TREAT 20. Of the contempt of the world in 2. Sections 375 Sect. 1. Arguments to discredit all the attractives of this earth and Gods contribution thereunto produced ib. 2. Motives by the property of a Christian to contemn the world 384. TREAT 21. Of the preheminence of a true contemplative life in five Sections 385 Sect. 1. Contemplation defined and some excellencies thereof discoursed ib. 2. The gradations whereby we do ordinarily ascend up to this station 385 3. The requisitenes of lecture in order to this spiritual elevation 39â— 4. Speculation placed aâ— the last-step in this ascent of the soul 39â— 5. Of the sensible delight springing from this head of contemplation 401. The first Treatise A Map of HUMANE NATURE divided into two Sections §. I. Treating the Originall rectitude of Mans nature and the present obliquity thereof AS in Navigation Cosmographie is no lesse usefull then Astrologie by reason it is by some relation to the earth that all measures are taken and all reckonings are made in the severall courses of our saylings even so in our spirituall voyage through this life it seems no lesse requisite to study the Map of our own Earth we carry about us then to speculate the Globe of heaven whereunto we are steering in regard the constitution of our infirme Nature ought to be understood in order to the conducting of the Vessell to her supreme and heavenly designation And the knowledge of our selfe is as it were the Compasse whereby we must set our course since it is out of divers knowne properties of humane nature that we forme points of direction by which we judge how neere our actions and designs stand to the right course of a rational nature And as the soule and bodie in man hold an analogie with the firmament and the earth in point of constituting but one world of these so differing substances So shall we doe well to consider the spirituall and corporeall substances in man
as making one coexistence whereby we may the better understand the nature of the subject we discourse upon and reflecting on man's consisting of two so diverse portions as spirit and materiality we shall wonder the lesse at those so discordant qualities which are found in this compound nature of Man If Faith did not oblige us to beleeve our own originall integrity we have scarce vertue enough left to own it our reason is so degenerated as she hath no mind to claime by that prescription the dominion of our sensitive appetites which are her naturall subjects she seemes so much better pleased to yeeld unto their government but let us move Reason by the dignity of her prerogative and the debasement of her condition in submitting to the rule of our passions to endeavour the recovering as much of her Rights as can stand with the forfeiture of her first state God made man so noble a creature as even in his obnoxiousnesse to misery there was an excellence of nature For the freedome of his will was one of the chiefe prerogatives of his state and the abuse of this power declares the dignity of it by the severity of God's vindication since upon the first defection of mans will from him God did teare and divide the Kingdome he had given him rending the sensitive powers from the dominion of the rationall And in this breach he left mans reason though not wholly deposed yet so much distressed by the powers of the other revolted Tribes as she needs now a forrein succour not onely prevenient but actually concomitant for her support in this continuall warfare against her naturall subjects our affections and sensitive appetites which have set up idols of their own making like Jeroboams calves the delights of the senses to maintaine this division and independencie upon the soveraignty of reason to which they were at first subjected looking alwayes up with the eyes of the Hand-maid upon the eyes of the Mistresse sincere and rectified reason This first happy state of man we are bound to beleeve even in this deplorable condition we now find him for the spirit of his Creator assures us that God made man upright he intangled himself in all his perplexities We may therefore well ask the Prophets question O how didst thou fall in this Morning light when there was but one block in all the earth to stumble at Thou wert made to tread upon the earth onely as on a stage beautified and adorned for thy passage over it in triumph up to heaven not to sink into it and be wrapp'd up in it in this foule and dark conveyance of thee whereunto thou art now sentenced Thou wast created to have been served onely by the mutations of all creatures not to have suffered with them by any change which should have been in thee onely a translation of thy earth to heaven not a resolution of it into dust for mans soule as having never been offended by his body should never have put it away and left it to his owne vility but should have gratified the services thereof with an immediate preferment to glory and impassibility O! what can be answered by man for this selfe-destruction Me thinks Man replyes that the weight of the then greatest of all created substances falling from heaven fell upon him and thus shiver'd him into dust indeed this is all can be said to move compassion for him and this prevailed so much with his Maker as Man's fall was commiserated and redressed and he that fell upon him was left fastned to the abisse of his own precipitation What a sad contemplation is this that the morning star who was created to feed onely on the increated light was so soone condemned to feed on dust as being falne from an Angel to a Serpent and Man who was to rise up to the Purity of Angels and to know no foulenesse by the way was quickly sentenced to the becomming dust so that by this commerce with the Serpent Man is become his food O then as the Wise-man sayes sure it is the tongue of the Serpent while he fed first upon thee that infused the poyson of pride into all thy corruption For mans nature savours so of this venome by which it was first tainted which came from the Serpent who retains his pride in all his debasement as even through all the veines of mans infirmities there runs still this mortal spirit of self-love and presumption though he be reduced daily to plead the misery and infirmity of his nature in defence of his reproachable imperfections There seemes to be no better Character of the infelicity of humane nature then is made by those who inveigh against the weaknesse of it yet claime that as an authority for all their faults making the propensity to ill the patronage of it as if the forbidden fruit were now become medicinall for a weak conscience That is as if our inward frailty might serve for a purgation of most of our faults This is a confection the Serpent offers us often which his tongue may be said to make against the venome of his teeth For how familiar is it to accept this prescription and to apply thisreceipt of it is not I but sin that dwels in me for the cure of all the stings of conscience as if the accusation of the wretched man were sufficient for the acquittance of him before God For how many when they are ingenuous in this confession think they are dispensed with for many grosse infidelities so as even the discovery of the nakednesse of our nature passeth often to our sense for the cover of all her deformities how familiar this selfe deception is I need not argue but rather complain directly in these tearmes of the Gospel since the light that is in thee is darknesse how great is that darknesse This being our case when the knowledge of our infirmity becomes the despaire of our recovery This considered may not we say that the Serpent while he feeds upon our dust that is prevaileth upon our frailties blowes part of it into our eyes to blind us raising this cloud out of our infirmities that we may see no way out of them which subtilty prevaileth so much as despairing often of our constitution we consult our poysoner for receipts onely to give us a fair and easie passage through this life and for allaying the disquiets of our nature he gives us such remedies as are pleasant for our senses to take which are variety of sensible fruitions that rock our childish nature into some rest by the motions of her owne infirmities Thus commonly our life is but a continued slumber in which our reason lies bound up and our fancie is the onely loose and living faculty of our soule which raiseth to us but dreames and similitudes of good and evill sometimes vaine images of joyes and other amazing phantasmes of fears and in this dream of opinion and imagination we usually passe our lives seldome
waking and comprehending the true nature even of the things wherewith we are the most affected In so much as while the truth is that our life in this world is but a kind of dreame or shadow we dreame so strongly as we doe not discerne it to be but a dreame for the momentanynesse and inanity of our life seldome comes into our fancie which though it be so susceptible of all levities yet seldome admits the thought of mans owne lightnesse into it the vanities of our life shadow and cover to us our lives being but a shadow and thus while we breath continually in this element of vanity it becomes as the ayre to us which we feele not sensibly in our familiar respiration and yet our breath is nothing else but aire after this manner while our life is nothing but vanity we are the lesse sensible of this constitution So vaine a thing is meere humane nature as when your wit hath fancyed the most ayerie and light conceptions it can for images of this inanity man seemeth yet so much vainer then all those expressions as even all of them leave no impression on man of his owne vanity for he makes no use of those his apprehensions but lives as if hedid traduce and abuse himselfe in his conceptions and expressions of his owne vacuity and emptinesse and falls not at all into consideration of those disabusing notions and thus he verisies what the holy Spirit sayes of him that man compared to vanity is found lighter then it For as if the variations and instability of his owne state were not sufficient for his vexation doth not man adde to them the changeablenesse of many other creatures more vanishing and fleeting then himselfe by fastning his love to them namely to riches honour beauty and the rest of this worlds flashes and blazes of delectation which goe out very often even before they have so much as warmed our senses §. II. Treating Mans abuse of what he might learn by the mortality of the creature and the frailty of his nature evidenced in all sorts of persons and tryals ALL the creatures seeme to tell man in their perishing variations that they were made so transitory to passe away as attendants on the flux and motion of his life whereby to instruct as well as serve him by their subjection yet is he so little advertised by them of his own frailty as he rather applies their variations to amuse him in the imperception of his owne instability For while all his pleasures are derived from the continuall changes and mutations of things even out of this variety of delights he drawes the inconsideration of his owne continuall flux and consumption For he neither seemes to beleeve the nature of the things themselves in all these evidences of their mutability while he fixes his heart upon them as if they were immoveable nor doth he so much as learn the variablenesse of his own minde by the experiments of so frequent alterations of it which happeneth after even without so much cause as satiety meerely by the lightnesse of his owne constitution Doth not this seeme a strange incongruity in the nature of man who while he states all his delectation in the intermixture of changes even of his owne minde as well as of forreine fruitions that in this occupation he should divert himselfe from the animadversion of his owne vanity and impermanency How justly may it be said then O wretched man who shall deliver thee from this body of delusion When all the creatures that passing away and dying open themselves in an Anatomie of thy fraile nature thou wilt not so much as looke upon thy owne frame and composition which thou canst not see in those living figures thou art playing and sporting with for the life of man cannot see it selfe truly but by reflex from death and every perishing dying or dead creature reflects to man his own image and yet as the Apostle sayes Man so frequently beholding his naturall face in this glass of death forgets what manner of man he is Therfore the Author of life in his Word hath often set his hand to his manifest of the creatures which they all make for Man in their successive corruptions and in very pregnant tearmes he hath declared to man That his life is but a vapour that appeares but a little time and then vanisheth If then our life which is the foundation of all our vanity be but so slight and subtile a thing what can we say of riches beauty and honour and the like temporalities which are but the accidents of that substance which is it selfe but a vapour Wherefore all they seem but colours diversified by the severall variations of that light which is but a flash of lightning for life it selfe is but such an esclat of light This considered when the nature of all the worlds toyes and nugacities is rightly discussed all the specious good of them is found to be but opinion and imagination which may be tearmed the fume of this vapour of our lives as it is exhaled and vanisheth away and yet this fume of opinion darkens to us the nature of our lives as smoake often doth the matter out of which it is raised For how familiarly the eye of our reason is deprived of all exercise by this smoak of opinion I need not urge since every one that goes abroad into the aire of the world palpably seeth what sore eyes Reason hath almost every where by living in this smoak of opinion O then how much worse then nothing is the life of man thus lightned and evaporated by his own fancie when at the best of his carnal nature in the holy Spirit 's account it is but a shadow a dreame or a vapour And certainly it was an expresse act of Providence relating to our undeceiving this of Gods choosing Solomon among all his Secretaries to make the most ample and precise manifest of the nature and conditions of all temporalities for as Alexander is said to have furnished Aristotle largely with expences requisite for all sorts of Anatomyes when he designed him to write the history of Nature that his experiments might afford him both light for himself and credit with others so God seemes to have provided Solomon an abundance and affluence of all those creatures in their best degree of sincerity and perfection whereof he was to deliver to the world the nature and properties that the sensiblenesse of his experience might move and affect the world joyntly with the charity of his speculation S. Iohn Baptist who had the same spirit of truth I by an immediate infusion but did never exercise it in any practical experiments had not been an organ of this truth so proportinate to our infirme apprehension which embraces truth sooner clothed with sensible particular experiments and so becomes as it were palpable then in the universality of notions while it remaineth more abstracted in speculation King Solomon therefore was an
see Christ promiseth us in expresse termes the company of the Father and his residence in us Wherefore Now O happy man that thou art look not down upon the stage of the Serpent where he lyeth still hissing at thee to call thy thoughts to the earth since thou didst first hearken to him But raise thy lookes upward to the throne of Heaven where the splendor of thy humanity at the right Hand of God reflecteth to thee thy owne dignity for even in the mirrour of the word wherein God the Father seeth himselfe man may now see his own image there man may see not only his nature made after Gods image but God himselfe in the image of his nature Correspond with thy own worthynesse then O exalted creature and live as if thou had'st never seene thy selfe in any other glasse for here is that eminence truly conferred on thee which thou did'st at first so vainly affect of being like God and the holy Spirit is thy councellour in this claime of thy divinity and thy comforter against the disswasions of thy first projector who would now divert thee from the aspiring to the consort and participation of the divine nature which is offered to thy aspiring This premised and ponder'd man may say I rejoyce even in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me and triumph in me for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse and may consort the harp of David to the same tune of praysing mans condition professing thy friends O Lord are become exceeding honourable their principality is exceeding strengthened for when mans infirmities appear in temptations and suggestions to deface the image and Character of the holy Ghost in him then hath he the holy Spirit to second him in the defence of his own image So that by the adjunction of these helpes even all mans infirmities may be converted into his glories and man hath nothing left to undeifie him now but his owne preferrence of degeneration and flavery to the enemy of his nature before his adherence to her Author Finally upon all these representations I may justly re-extoll and magnifie the dignity of humane nature which we may consider sent down at first from Heaven as Gods image and next as a state to which God himselfe did vouchsafe to come down in person and taking it upon him will inhabit therein eternally and then that the holy Spirit of the Father and the Son abideth in it as in his Temple which he sanctifies incessantly nay more that it is designed to partake the same glory which the whole Trinity injoyeth by being promised to be made like him who hath it all the God and man Christ Jesus O then he that may hope this let him never plead his frailty or infirmity in discredit of his nature let him not in a dejection of spirit seek to cover his pusilanimity with O wretched man I finde a Law reluctant in me against all these motives and incentives of my aspiring to divinity but rather let him boldly pronounce in such a holy confidence as is prescribed him I can doe all things in him that strengthens me for since God is in so many sorts with us who shall prevaile against us Therefore in all these reluctances let us aspire to be more then conquerors by him who so much loveth us The Third Treatise Of Religion §. I. Considering it under the generall Notion of some reference to a Divine Power REligion riseth in the first dawning of the light of nature for the soul as soon as she doth but see her selfe by the reflex of any discourse discernes her own relation to some superiour cause to which she assigneth some present reverence and reason as it riseth and ascendeth breaketh the day a little further but leaveth the mind still in such a twy-light as the understanding doth hardly distinguish singularity in the supremacy discryed above it selfe for reason doth but as it were feele out her way to Divinity by a kinde of palpation and sensible touches upon materiall creatures and cannot by an immediate elevation of her faculties to immateriall notions raise her selfe up to the speculation of any spirituall substance much lesse to the supreme spirituall Essence So that by the meere light of nature the mind oftner scatters and breakes the object of Divinity then singleth it into unity This deficiency appeareth in the speculations of most of the Philosophers who all looked naturally upward for some supream reference and asscription of their being but unto most of them Heaven like a crack'd mirrour broken by their various imaginations reflected multiplyed images of the Divinity whereby we may discerne that the perception of unity in the divine Essence is not derived so much from the emission of the rayes of naturall Reason as from a reception of a supernaturall light whereby reason is rather illuminated from above it selfe then singly producing this selfe-illustration and this forrein clarity diffused upon our reason is the Grace of the Divine essence which elucidates to our minde the simplicity and indivisiblenesse of the object from whence this gracious splendour issueth upon our understanding Grace thus inspired worketh by the soule as light doth by the sense not inducing the faculty but only the exercise of sight for grace doth not conferre any new faculty to the soul but only perfecteth the capacity of naturall reason in this act of singling the notion of the Diety and settling the unity of a Creator in our beleef And this first position alwayes suggesteth some Religion taken largely as a recognition by some exteriour homage of one Supreamacy above our Nature but this estate admits of much diversity in Religious beliefs in which even the wise men of the World as Saint Paul termeth them did stray and lose themselves growing vain in their own imaginations for by a seeming pretext of piety namely of making religious addresses enough to God they made many Gods under the colour of one Supream addresse By this Errour we may perceive that naturall reason needeth still a further conduct from grace to lead it to a rectified Religion Certaine it is that the materiall and visible species of this world afford some notion of the invisible producer as in mines whereof the specificall matter is of a much meaner substance there are found some veines of Gold and Silver so out of the grosse masse of nature those that work upon it by single reason may easily extract some Spirituall ore of Religion for through the elemented body of the universe there run some veines of intimation of a spirituall nature independent on all matter which reason may discerne and so resolve some Religious acknowledgment of a Divine principle as the producer of subordinate causes and effects but how apt humane reason is to sever and disunite this principle we may easily judge when we remember how soone reason forgot her owne origine and as if having lost the unity of the
god-head she could in number have made up that losse of quality she brought in all the celest all bodies into the account of Divinity serving the Militia of Heaven instead of the maker and we may call to minde that as humane bodies grew Giants mindes seemed to shrink into dwarfs when they fell in love as I may say with the daughters of men that is the conceptions of their owne naturall Reason in this point of Divinity And we may well suppose that the Giants soules in the law of nature became so by espousing this daughter of God which we may properly call Grace whereby their heads passed the skie and touched Heaven it selfe in this beliefe of the unity of the godhead and by this conjunction with grace reason produced their issue of a rectified Religion hence is it that we finde the Patriarks frequently visited by celestiall spirits as the allies as I may say of this daughter of Heaven they had espoused and most doe conclude that all those who in the law of nature continued in a rectified belief and worship of God were maintained in that state by grace supplementall to the virtue of single Reason How far humane Reason may alone finde the way to rectified Religion is a question to exercise curiosity rather then excite piety and very commonly reason in the disquisition of faith doth rather sink the deeper into the earth by falling from her over aspiring then she doth six her selfe upward in her proper station and besides this danger me thinkes there is this difference betweene them that are working upon reason to extract Religion and those that are feeding upon sincere faith that the first are labouring the ground for that fruit which the last are feasting on or that the first are plowing while the last are gathering of Manna I shall indeavour therefore to serve in this spirituall refection ready to be tasted treating of faith already digested rather then to be provided by ratiocination for devotion is faith converted into nourishment by which the soul contracting a sound active strength needs not study the composition of that aliment it finds so healthfull §. II. Treating the best habit of mind in order to the finding a rectified Religion ME thinks Religion and Devotion may be fitly resembled to the Body and the Soule in Humanity The first of which issues from an orderly procession of nature by a continuing virtue imparted all at once to mediate causes the last is a new immediate infusion from heaven by way of a creation continually iterated and repeated So Religion at large as some homage rendred to a supreme relation flows into every mind along with the current of natural causes But Devotion is like the Soule produced by a new act of grace directed to every particular by speciall and expresse infusion and in these respects also the analogie will hold that as Religion hath the office of the body to containe Devotion so Devotion hath the function of the soule to informe and animate Religion And as the soule hath clearer or darker operations according as the body is well organized or disposed so Devotion is the more zealous or remisse proportionately to the temper and constitution of the Religion that containeth it Sutable to the Apostle Saint James his intimation to us that Pure Religion keeps us unspotted from the world I shall not take upon me the spirituall Physitian to consult the indispositions and remedies of differing Religions but relying more upon the Testimony of confessed experiments then the subtilty of that litigious art I shall prescribe one receipt to all Christian tempers which is to acquire the habit of Piety and Devotion for this in our spirituall life is like a healthfull aire and a temperate diet in our naturall the best preservative of a rectified faith and the best disposition to recover from an unsound Religion for the Almes and Prayers of the Centurion were heard and answered when they spoke not the language of the Church and the Angel was sent to translate them into that tongue in which God hath chose onely to be rightly praised that which his Eternall Word Christ Jesus hath peculiarly affected and annexed to his Church this shews the efficacie of piety and the exactnesse of Gods order who hath inclosed his eternall graces within those bounds into which he brings all that shall partake of them and so doth naturalize all such strangers as he intitleth to them doth not allot any portions to aliens but reduceth all them he will endow into that qualification he requireth which is into the rank of fellow-citizens of the Saints and of the houshold of God he leaves none with a dispensation of remaining forreiners The Angel that called the Centurion directed him to the gate of the Church Saint Peter did not bring him a protection to rest in his owne house with the exercise of his naturall pieties and so for those that are straying without the inclosure of the Catholique Church if they walk by the light of naturall charity morall piety and devotion in their religious duties this is the best disposition towards the finding of the way the truth and the life of whom the Psalmist sayes He is neere to all those that seeke him and those who are thus far advanced in morality may be said to be in atriis Templi in the Church-yard which is in a congruous disposition for farther advance into the body of the church I shall endeavour then to affect every one with the love of purity and holinesse of life for to those that are already rooted and growing in the Church this disposition will be are that fruit the Apostle soliciteth for them that their love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgement And in those who are yet strangers and forreiners as he calls them this reverentiall feare of God seemes to chase the wax for the seale of the holy Spirit for Prayers and Almes doe as it were retaine God for their Counsel and as his Clients open their cause to him in these tearms of the Psalmist Lord cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soule unto thee And such may be said to be halfe way towards their end that doe worship in a zealous spirit and are likely never left there but helped on to the other part of worshipping in truth by him that hath ordained our worship to consist of Spirit and Truth so that devotion sincerity in any Religion are the best Symptomes of our designation to the true and sincere Religion Wherefore having made this generall presentation of piety and virtue to all parties I shall not stay to wrastle in the Schooles but rather strive to set such Church-musick as all parties may agree to meet at the service and this I presume may sound in tune unto most eares that where consort and harmony in faith appeareth it is a good note of that
this precept requires not only a fervour which we feel our selves but a splendour that may illuminate others by the edification of our lives When our Saviour stateth us as pilgrims in this transitory world he advises us to have our Loynes girl and our Lights burning which intimateth promptitude to the exercise of Charity and fervency in the act of our love And Devotion comprizes fully this equipage for our journey since it collects us and strengthens us for motion and is likewise that fire which is the best security we can carry with us in our passage through the wildernesse we travail to arme us against all the wild sensualities that lie in our way since it hath this speciall virtue to fright and disperse all that is irrationall And this spirituall fire hath many analogies with materiall insomuch as the holy spirit sayes of it The coales thereof are coales of fire and have a vehement flame and me thinkes this one remarkable similitude betweene them may be fitly applyed viz. as fire doth convert many substances which were unfruitfull unclean into a matter both generative and clensing by the consumption and reduction of them into ashes which have both these qualities so Devotion by consuming our passions which were both barren impure converts our affections into the love of penance and mortification which are the ashes of our consumed offences and so are made both fruitfull and purging by this conversion into matter of humiliation by which kind of soyling many converts improve much the good seed fal'n into their hearts for that penitent reflexion Devotion makes upon our vaine and foul passions and affections which is the consumption and incineration of them becomes purgative by sincere contrition and generative of all fruites of Charity since the zeale of mortification is not only a marke of our repentance but a meanes of our perfection when holy David sayes he eate ashes like bread they were made of his loose passion consumed by the flame of his Devotion and so converted into seeds of penance and we know how fruitfull these ashes proved to his former sterility The water of expiation in the Law was made with the infusion of ashes and certainly there is nothing more clensing then the matter of our offences consumed by Devotion and aspersed upon our memories for nothing makes us more zealous to take out all their staines upon our lives according to the Apostles observation of the effects of godly sorrow What carefulnesse what clearing of our selves what indignation what vehement desire what zeal yea what revenge it workes so as you see what fertility Devotion raiseth out of the consumption and ashes of our sinnes which is the Apostles godly sorrow §. II. Devotion described a more familiar way and the best naturall temper in order thereunto BEcause Devotion hath hitherto spoke the Language of the Church it may seeme uneasie unto many to be understood therefore I shall put it into the vulgar tongue of the Court and so make it more familiar for apprehension and by the warrant of S. Pauls condescendence to the capacities he wrote unto I may speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh and therefore venture without any levity to say Devotion is a Divine passion Love raised to the height of passion upon humane objects is a power in our mind whereon most of the world doth rather pretend an excellency over others then plead any excuse for such an incapacity in their nature wherefore this will be an expression of devotion that will serve and fit most apprehensions And certainly as strangers doe discreetly to change their habit when they come to dwell in forreigne parts especially if they be rude and uncivilized so pure devotion being a stranger to our carnall nature which is of it selfe wild and undisciplined comming to plant it selfe and live with it may be better suited for the purpose of introduction with the apparell of passion which is native then with her owne habit of purity though more decent and becoming for this exteriour simil 〈…〉 de may give the love of God at first more convenient conference with our sense which usually doth but looke strangly at her when she appeares first in her owne spirituall habit which is so different from the spotted garment of flesh and blood So that Devotion being thus put into the fashion and speaking the language of the place it comes to may hope for admittance without much wonder unto our understandings and by acquaintance with them informing them of the benefits of her association may obtaine a plantation in our wills and affections and thus by degrees come to be naturaliz'd in our dispositions and by this easie way of introduction Devotion may come to get possession in some minds by commerce of a good companion sooner then by open claime of her owne rights for we may conclude what right Devotion hath to our mindes by this that when prophane passion seekes to value it selfe and to possesse the minds of others it puts on a heavenly habit and speakes the language of Devotion in reverence and adoration thus as it were confessing the due interest piety hath in our hearts May not piety then to recover the easilier her due without irreverence be put into the lighter figure of passion I may therefore in order to a pious successe propose the being devout under the tearmes of being in love with Heaven because it is the likeliest way of perswasion to the world to propose not the putting away but the preferring of their loves and so transferre them to a fairer object not extinguish the fervency of their act and I believe without any levity of conceipt that hearts wrought into a tendernesse by the lighter flame of nature are like mettals already running easilier cast into Devotion then others of a hard and lesse impressive temper for Saint Austin said the holy Magdelen changed her object only not her passion and one may joyne him with her to authorize this opinion for love like gold though it be cast into an idol the perversion of the forme doth not disvalue the mettall and we know the same gold that Gods People tooke from his Enemies in the forme of their idols after it was purged by fire was consecrated to the tabernable and then it seemed to have a double capacity of honouring God as an offering of his servants and as a trophe from enemies so when the flame of the holy Spirit which is Devotion hath purged and purified our loves that were cast into the images of humane passions the same love is sanctified and assigned to Divine Service and brings a more speciall glory to God as it is not only an oblation of his children but also a spoile of his enemy This is not meant to countenance the alienation of our loves at any time from God but to commend that disposition of nature where love seemes the predominant instinct for
certainly such a temper is apter for a right conversion then a harsh and sowre constitution of the mind the first is a good mould of earth with ill seed cast into it and so the fruit may be ill while the pregnancy of the earth is good the other is a heath naturally unfruitfull and requires much more manuring to make it beare Wherefore that nature which hath not a kindly pregnancy in it to beare love is not the best mould for the seed in the Gospell for though it may render thirty it can hardly yeeld the increase of a hundred fold in Devotion Certainly we may then very religiously preferre the constitution of such mindes whose powers are best disposed for the act of loving for love as it is the greatest treasure of our soules so is it the only security stands bound to God for all our debts all the other faculties of man seeme to be receivers only and this the discharger of all their accounts but love hath this extraordinary blessing the greater expense it makes upon this occasion the richer it growes for the more our love payes God the more it improves the same estate but we can assigne nothing but this pure species of love to the receipt of heaven Wherefore all empty formalities and unsincere affectations in exteriour exercises that would passe for Devotion are me thinkes like servants that have got on fine clothes of their Masters by which strangers may mistake their quality but their Masters are not deceived by them so these garments and coverings of Devotion may abuse the eye of the world but we know the master of all sanctity distinguishes dissimulation in all the specious similitudes it weareth And I should beleeve a varnished hypocrite may be more offensive to the sight of God then a zealous unvailed idolater for this is but mistaken in God and the other seemeth to suppose God may be mistaken in him and certainly there is nothing more capitall against the lawes of Heaven then counterfeiting the coyne which piety may not improperly be tearmed as being the price and measure of all exchanges between heaven and earth of these false coyners King David sayes They slatter God with their mouth lye unto him with their tongues and he gives them Gods answer thus The Lord shall laugh them to scorn We may conclude then that the sincere love of God is the spirit and soul of Devotion and therefore is to be intire in every severall part of our religious exercises when God dignifies man with similitude to his own image it is the soul not the body that hath this Divine relation so in the service of God which is a consistence of two such parts united of spirit and of matter the spirit and breath of life doth not reside in the materiall part which is sensible religious offices but in the informing and animating part which is Devotion the which answereth to the soule in humanity as I have endeavoured to demonstrate And thus I hope that I have not indecently apparell'd Devotion in the habit of the place it is recommended to clothing it in this soft rayment of passion being to come unto the houses of Kings But now me thinkes I heare some sensuall and voluptuous persons cry out to warne their passions to stand upon their guard objecting that I like a pyrat have thus put up friends colours while I am in chase calling devotion love and passion that it might the easilyer enter our hearts which when it hath done it takes and imprisons all our humane delights To these I may answer that I have put up these colours indeed that those vessels I would speak with might not fly from piety at first sight as from an enemy to pleasure that speaking with them I might shew them how Devotion comming and possessing our mindes doth rather compose the munity then infringe the true liberty of our affections For grace findes Humane Nature like a vessell richly fraught for commerce with Heaven most commonly in a mutiny where the affections that should saile her rise up against their Commander resolving to make spoile of their commodities and to turne to the piracy of sense taking all whereof sensuality can possesse it selfe and if Devotion enter and compose this sedition and convey the affections cheerefully to their direct commerce with Heaven this may be rather thought a delivery then a violation And surely our senses cannot more justly complaine of Devotion as a dispossessor of their properties then wilde people can call a Law-giver a tyrant For piety doth but regulate the functions not ruine the faculties of our senses and licentiousnesse cannot more rightly be called the mindes liberty then nakednesse the bodies freedome For lawes and apparell doe both in their kinds cover natures nakednesse and lawes like clothes impart conveniencies the one to the minde as the other to the body without impeaching the decent and proper exercises of either and so Devotion doth but reduce the wild multitude of humane affections and passions under the Monarchall Government of the love of God under which they may enjoy a more convenient freedome then let loose in their owne confused Anarchy which they confesse when they are converted by God to this belief of their condition that to serve God is to raigne The Fift Treatise Discoursing whether sensible pleasure may consort with Devotion In two Sections §. I. The rectifying our Affections chiefely our love in the sense of beauty UPon the title of this Chapter me thinkes I see our humane affections stand with the same perplexed attention as a condemn'd multitude at the reading of a Proclamation of Grace to some particular specified names each one watching and praying for his owne Thus doe our humane passions seeme now concerned believing themselves all condemn'd by piety each one me thinkes in a frighted and tacit deprecation of their censure is expecting with anexity to know whether Devotion will allow them life and consistence with her edicts The answer to this must be that I shall only put to death the blind and the lame whch are commonly set to keep the strong hold of our corrupted nature against virtue As they were upon the walls of Sion to keep out David Such Devotion must destroy for they are hated by her Soule and are not to be admitted into the Temple Secular justice is allowed a latitude in mercy to which this spirituall judge cannot extend his favour viz. rather to save diverse guilty then to cut off one innocent for Devotion must rather put to death many innocent affections then save one criminall by reason that in this case mercy renders the judge a complice of the crime so that our Devotion must not looke upon the face of any of our affections but judge by the testimony our conscience brings in against them Yet piety is not so inhumane as many may apprehend that know not the nature thereof for it delighteth not in the death of our
are not like thy 〈◊〉 for even the speculations of our own inventions do not so much as create that reall peace of mind which is concluded by devotion This metaphor of Physick suggesteth to me the carrying it a little further on to my purpose for me thinks I may truly say of the spirit of devotion what some curious Naturalists have vented of a medicinall extraction they call the spirit of the world which giveth vegetation to all bodies they affirme it to have the vertue of restoring nature from decay to integrity and to preserve mans body long in an indeficient vigour and propose contrary effects produceable by this spirit respectively to divers constitutions but still to the benefit and redintegration of nature in each individuall whereunto it is ministred I may without questioning or signing this position make this application of it and affirme that these properties are really verified in the virtue of this supernatural spirit which I call Devotion so that I need not feare what I promise to perswade the taking it in that manner I have formerly receipted it whereupon I propose to every regular user thereof no lesse benefit then the conferring on them their finall desire in this life which is comprized under this notion of happinesse by which terme we understand the resting and quieting our mindes in the fruition of goods convenient and agreeable to our nature in which state I propose to shew that Devotion doth establish the minde of man in order whereunto I may well prefix this Axiome of Saint Augustine Lord thou hast made the heart of man for thy selfe and therefore it is alwayes restlesse untill it requiesce in thee Nothing hath so perplexed the wit of man as to determine the supreame felicity of this life The Phylosophers have been so divided about it as they seeme to have passed their lives in a continuall warre upon one another in the very treaty of this generall peace they sought to establish it seemeth Almighty God in revenge of the partitions and fractions they made of his unity broke their opinions into so many pieces as they could never joyâ—ne in one uniforme conclusion but as Saint Paul saith of them They grew vaine in their imaginations and in the darknesse of their hearts every Sect had a severall Phantasme of happinesse appearing to it Surely God who saw with what presumption they were building up the designe of their security in this life by the modell of their owne naturall Reason sent this confusion of opinions like that of the tongues amongst them to ruine that structure of humane felicity the wisdome of the world was raising for her refuge shelter against the stormes of Heaven And so these bricklayers of humane happinesse which they may be properlytermed in respect they wrought only upon the matter of the earth tempered by humane wisdome and with that stuffe thought to build up their forts of felicity were struck from Heaven into this confusion of language and dispersed into severall Sects in which every one spake a different tongue and never concurr'd in an intelligence to constitute one unanimous position touching the supreame felicity This point of mans constant happinesse seemeth to be in Morall Philosophie the great secret in search whereof most of the speculative Sages have imployed their studyes and have advanced no further then the naturall Philosophers have done towards finding the famous Elixir for the Moralists have made many usefull discoveries by the way whereby they have composed diverse excellent medicines for the infirmities of the minde but never any of them though they have much boasted it did attaine unto that consummate virtue which could settle the minde in a perfect tranquillity and invariable temper This virtuous power in morality as it answereth adequately to those properties the Chymicks attribute to their great worke so is there this Analogy betweene them that they both seeme much more feisable by their speculative rules then they are found by practicall experiment The swelling science of the Ancients which had never heard of the fall of Humane Nature grew too well conceited of her sufficiency thinking the perversity and wrynesse of the superiour part of the minde to grow only by an ill habit of stooping and bending towards the lower portion which is the sensitive appetite thus the Stoiks concluded that single reason might by the reflex of discourse see this indecent posture whereunto custome inclined her and so by degree rectifie and erect her powers to such a point of straightnesse as neither the delights nor the distresses of the lower and sensitive part of nature should ever bowe or decline the evennesse and rectitude of the minde and by this means they arrogated no lesse to mans sufficiency then even the power of remaining in a calme apathy and impassivenesse in all offensive emergencies But alas the wisdome of the world knew nothing of that inward bruise our nature had in her fall which keepeth her too infirme to be reduced to that perfect activity whereunto pure speculation might designe her we understand that repugnant law in our members by which all their imagined tenures of security were voyded when they came to their triall but they understood so little this law as what we know to be the defect of frail title namely our nature they took for the security of their estate of peace Me thinkes the Ancient Philosophers with all their wisdome and precaution were served by their owne nature as children use to doe one another at a certaine schoole-play when he that hides striketh him he holdeth blinded who being thought out of play is never guessed at and thus did our corrupted Nature while she her selfe held them blinded strike them and she was never suspected of the blow but the accidents of fortune were only taken for the strikers with which singly those Sages thought their mindes were exercising themselves for they never misdoubted this infidelity in Humane Nature they thought her intirely sound and selfe-sufficient to afford this consummate tranquillity of spirit in all seasons and thus they were like children kept blinded and strucken by the same hand which they never suspected charging fortune as a forreine actor with all those blowes that provoked their passions Upon which ground they presumed on the sufficiency of naturall Reason even to extinguish all passion or distemperance in their mindes but to these presumptions the Apostle answereth While they accounted themselves wise they became fooles And surely these Morall Ideas conceived by the Stolkes may well be coupled with the naturall Ideas supposed by the Platonikes out of which principle there may be some light drawne towards the inquiry into the nature of formes abstracted from matter although the position be erroneous After this sort we may derive much clarity towardes our discerning the latitude and power of morall virtue by these maximes of the Stoiks which are not sincerely true in their conclusions I may therefore justly bring in this
evidence of the wisest of men against this Sect of pure Moralists presuming upon the Stock of naturall wisdome You have said you would become wise and it departed farther from you The felicity of a Christian is stated upon a farre different principle namely in the perception of the defectivenesse of our Nature as being maimed by her first fall and in the acknowledging the insufficiency of our single Reason to moderate and compose the disquiets of the mind without a supernaturall adjunction of Grace by which we are as Saint Peter telleth us called out of the darknesse of the Phylosophers into this admirable light to see the curse that is upon our earth and to discerne that we are not in this life Lords of our ease but tillers of this foule earth of our corrupted Nature which we can never weed so perfectly as to gather out of it a pure and immixed felicity it is by a supernaturall light shining in our dark places that we are inlightned in a right apprehension of what degree of happinesse we may project in this life and Grace doth us this good office by a detecting to us the nakednesse of our nature not by a covering and palliation of her disfigurements and in the point of establishing our happinesse Grace may well be said to instruct Reason as her Disciple in the termes of Truth himselfe to his Disciples Abide in me and I in you For as the branch cannot beare fruit of it selfe except it abide in the vine no more can Reason unlesse it abide in Grace when our Reason which originally consider'd is properly a branch of the root of Grace doth abide therein it bringeth forth much fruit of such felicity as the season of this life can afford for our resection §. II. A conviction of Sensualists declaring how Grace emancipateth us from the bands of the Creatures NExt we will take into consideration the case of those who state the happines of this life in a plentiful fruition of all temporal accomodations and such are in my mind much easier confuted then the former Rationalists we have examined for these whom I tearm Sensualists may be in great pain and incertainty to get but so much as the ground or subject of their happinesse which are wealth and sensuall pleasures whereas the other have the foundation at least of their work namely Rectifiable Reason much more attainable by a sincere pursuite so that notwithstanding they are abused in the degree of sufficiency they assigne to this rational composure of mind yet have they alwayes some fair proportion of contentment in this attempt whereas the Sectaryes of voluptie part with their Peace before-hand upon no security of their projected satisfactions for commonly they are first much troubled with an unassurance of compassing any of their desires and then in case of successe much perplexed in point of preserving them and at the best are alwayes disappointed of somewhat they expected even in the possession of their desires Since propriety in our fickle nature doth deduct much from the prefanfied value of such pretensions Such therefore as state the felicity of this life in the full and constant satisfaction of their senses are much easilyer confuted then the other we have treated of for they seem to designe the imposing upon Reason a degree of Passivenesse as much lower then it can fall as the other do aspire to raise it to a point of activity above the sphere of our vitiated nature Since the Sensualists me thinks pretend to reduce the Rationall part of the mind to as much submission to the sensitive appetite As the Moralists did design the quite contrary subjection For they would have Reason murmure as little against all the appetites and fruitions of the senses as these would have the mind remain unaffected inviolable by all sensible vexations neither of which projects are effectible in our humane constitution for experience disabuseth us in both these proposals but most especially in this point of sensualities being able to suspend silence reason so fully as it shal interpose no disquiet or dis-savour in the eases suavityes of corporeal fruitions for even the highest degree of irrational pleasures which doth the most alienate and suppresse the acts of Reason are of little continuance and our reason soon returnes and bringeth with her such reproaches as break the entirenesse of the delight and so leave all voluptuary happynes at the best but an intermitting and discontinued peece of satisfaction For this interposition of the reasonable power of the soul induceth alwayes some accusation of the unreasonablenesse of those delights upon which we assign our selves felicity and our understanding sets our memory very often even against our will to remember the dignity of our Intellectual nature which we endeavour to debase by a preference of her own natural servants and there is no state of sensuall voluptie so wel guarded by the attendance of all earthly commodityes whereinto the depressed power of Reason doth not often get accesse and then it woundeth that tender portion of the mind we call conscience so farre at least as to manifest to us the unsoundnesse of that sort of our imagined happinesse Nay abstracting from all religious reflexions doth not naturall experiment familiarly teach us that our sensitive nature is not to be trusted when she proposeth the satisfaction of her appetites for security to our happines Since our carnall affections even in their dearest ingagements break their word so commonly and run away as I may say from those appetites they were contracted to before they have so much excuse as having attained to their proposed tearm to justifie their change of desires and how seldome do our passions maintain themselves in any vigor in the state of a lawfull conjunction and fruition of their most servent pursuits Nay doth not a Legitimate propriety which in reason should indear them commonly make the right we have to be pleased with such possessions the onely reason of our disvaluing them These notorious Infidelities may justly evacuate all the title Voluptie can claime unto this lifes felicity Must we not then resort to a Superior power for the stability of our happynes such a one as may be able to fix our affections and not leave them in their own naturall trepidations and Retrograde motions by which we can never keep a true account even of our desires So farre are we from assuring our delights and for the fixing of our volatile Nature there is no humane art to be consulted the Author of Nature reserveth to himselfe this great secret Since Nature then is so discredited in order to this great work we must have recourse to the peculiar secret of Christianity which is the grace of God infused into our hearts by the holy Ghost By the advise whereof our hearts are taught not to work upon temporal felicity which may aptly be resembled to quick-silver as Alchymists do upon this minerall with a
designe to fix it and so convert it into earthly treasure but as good Physitians do onely in order to the extracting medicines and remedies out of it And by this Method as they render Mercury beneficiall by drawing from it some good quality and fixing that upon some other body while that substance remaineth unfixed and volatile We may likewise without setting our thoughts to work upon temporall goods in hope to make our happynes by the fixure of them wel derive great utility from them by the infusion of some of their virtue making thereof remedyes for the necessityes of our neighbours Such an extraction Daniel counselled the King to draw out of his perishable felicity and by this Method while the matter of worldly goods remaineth fluent and transitory there may be great utility derived even from the consideration of these qualities For by using this matter according to the nature of it by keeping it passing and transient through our hearts and hands we may provide a fixed and eternall happinesse This advice is given us by the Author both of Nature and Grace to make out of the unfaithfull company of this worlds friendship such loyall friends as shall receive us into those tabernacles where no good is lesse then eternall This is a practicall use which Devotion will alwayes introduce in our temporall possessions There is also another speculative influence which it hath in order to the settlement of our mind namely the frequent meditation on the instability of all things sublunary which cogitations are pregnant seeds of the contempt of this world whereby we learn to draw the cure of the venome out of the bowels of the beast it self distilling out of the serious contemplation of the mutability of all worldly happines a remedy against the evill of that ficklenes and impermanency and by this course we raise some succour out of the adverse party of our own frailty For they who ponder frequently how all things sublunary move continually in an interchangeable flowing and refluencie may easily learn not to imbarque their mindes in any earthly delights never so fairly secured without expecting adverse revolutions and repeales of those joyes and by this preparation Devotion doth by degrees teach us to make our peace Postable upon all the tides of fortune understanding them to be truly the current of Divine providence This light we can receive onely from the beames of Grace and they shine the clearer in our hearts the more Devotion is kindled in them For this Spirituall flame as it riseth alwayes attracteth more of that first fire that lighted it and thus from our affections being inflamed by devotion our understandings take this light whereby they discerne the greatest security we can contrive for our contentments in this world to be the being so prepared for mutations that our wils may be so loose from anchorage upon any earthly pleasure as they remove easily from their hold on that delight and put out to the sea of Gods providence in all the stormes of adversity And considering how Gods way is in the sea and his paths in many waters and that his foot-steps are not to be discerned Our affections may easily repaire their earthly losses by that treasure they may find in this Ocean of Gods will the riches whereof we make ours by entring into his will as often as we are driven out of our own by the variations of this world and by this Pious acquiescence to all vicissitudes of this life we shall come to a constant good habit of mind as men at sea obtain an unmoved state of body for as they do not confirm their health by the steddynesse of the vessell in a calme but by the custome and habitude of the rowlings and tossings of it in severall weathers So shall we settle the peace of our mind not by the calme equality of a prosperous condition but by the acquaintance and inurement to severall adverse revolutions And this is undoubtedly the best Method in point of attaining a good constituton of happynes in this life for King David himself found little security in this I have said in my prosperity I shall never be moved For he seemeth to retract this opinion all in a breath the next words confessing Thou hast hid thy face from me and I was troubled Wherefore his reflexion upon the instability of our humane condition proved a more assured stay for him in his agitations when he concluded Doubtlesse all things are vanity every man living surely man passeth as an Image yea and he is troubled in vain §. III. Resultancies from the meditation of humane frailty and a resolving the right of Happynes as belonging to Devotion THe state of humane Nature being thus determined me thinks there may be an excellent medicinall extraction drawn by prudence directed by Grace out of the nature of temporal felicity in order to the fortifying our minds which may not improperly be tearmed the Spirit or salt of humane frailty since it may work upon the mind as Phisitians say those kind of Diaphoretical medicines do upon the body the which although they do not produce any violent sweat yet they clense by opening the pores and keeping the body in a continued transpiration and breathing out of the Malignity After this manner may our minds be purged and rectified by this meditation of our frailty which notwithstanding it forceth not out any notorious expressions of the contempt of this world in a sensible alteration of our course of life yet it may maintain the mind in a constant temper of purifying by a soft evacuating much of the uncleannesse of her sensitive appetite through an insensible perspiration of mortifying thoughts and the proper time to minister this receipt is in the health of our fortune while we are in an easie fruition of the joyes and solaces of this life for then the perswasion of their insecurity holds us loose from that dangerous adherence which carryeth away our peace along with their removals but this prescript looseth much of the efficacy when it is taken but after our mindes are decayed and infeebled by the sadnesse and weight of affliction because in that ease they commonly want that vigor of reason which should cooperate with this remedy and in that respect what might have been a sufficient stay to our minds while they stood straight and upright may not be able to redresse and erect them when they are faln and dejected I will therefore leave this prescription thus signed by the Holy Spirit Say not I possesse many things and what evill can come to me hereafter but in the good dayes remember the evill for the malice of one hour maketh oblivion of great voluptuousnesse and therefore in another place the same hand giveth this advice From the morning to the evening the time changeth All things are soon done before the Lord A wise man will fear in every thing But lest me should conceive happynes to be
inconsistent with this injunction of continuall fear we must understand that there are two feares respecting this world which may stand in morality answering most of the properties of the same in Divinity viz a filiall and a servile feare the first whereof feareth but as a child of humanity by the knowledge of the frail Nature of all temporalities the other as a slave to mundanities being mastered and subjected by Sensuality So that the filiall fear riseth from an ordinate love and right apprehension of the condition of the Creatures and the servile springeth from a misprision of their Nature and an undue subjection unto them wherefore this first filiall fear is but virtuous and precautionall and so compatible with a happy constitution for it perplexeth our present fruitions no more then the generall notion of our mortality offendeth our present health the knowledge that we must die doth not make us sick no more doth the understanding that our temporary delights are to passe away disrelish their present savour Let this prenotion then of intervenient changes in all our most secured conditions of stated as requisite for the settlement of tranquility in our mindes since at all times temporall felicity is either going away from us or we from it for whatsoever the best of our times bring us in their revolutions they carry us away from them at the same time by the motion of our Mortality in proof whereof the Spirit of Truth telleth us we are but a breath of aire passing on and not returning Thus have I after the method of Saint Paul with the Athenians indeavored to confute the two Sects of the Stoicks and Epicureans and I conceive to have voyded both their titles to happinesse the first claiming it in the right of our single Naturall Reason the other challenging it in the name of our satisfied senses to neither of which I hope in God to have shewed that felicity can rightly be adjudged by reason the speculations of the Stoicks are but like well painted scenes which at a convenient distance seeme to expose reall fruits waters and shades but when you come into them you finde nothing but paintings and barren colours Much after this manner while you looke upon the pure Theory of their maximes they seeme to containe peace serenity and satisfaction of spirit iâ— all the earthquakes of this world yet this faire shew lasteth but while our conditions are at a convenient distance from a necessity of acting those principles for when we are pressed under the ineumbeâ—t miseries of this life to practise this I deal self-sufficiency we are then brought as it were into the scenes of those maximes for then we finde all those figurings of apathy and impassivenesse to prove but coloured and fruitlesse conceptions in respect of those Soveraigne effects were promised the minde at the distance of speculation And I presume to have cast the other Sect by these two evidences brought against it viz. the unfaithfulnesse of all materiall goods in point of duration and fixure and the ficklenesse even of our owne affections in the esteeme of such fruitions wherefore the former of these two Sects stands convinced of stating happinesse in what can never be obtained and the other in what can never long be preserved whereupon they may both justly receive their sentences the first from the Apostle pricking thus their swelling knowledge If any man think that he knoweth any thing he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know and the case of the other stands thus judged by the Prophet you shall conceive heat and bring forth stubble your spirit as fire shall devoure you May I not then say that felicity is in the worlds opinion as the unknowne God was in the Religion of the Athenians for though it have an Altar assigned unto it yet neither the true nature of happinesse is rightly apprehended nor the addresses to it duly determined and the termes of Saint Paul on that occasion will very â—igh fit my purpose What therefore you ignorantly pursue that I declare unto you and manifest how the true felicity of this life dwelleth not in temples made with hands that is to say it is not seated in the speculative edifices of Philosophy nor in the materiall structures of sensible fruitions but resideth in this spirituall mansion of fervent and rectified Devotion which produceth a right understanding of the value of all things transitory and induceth a confidence of enjoying eternall peace of mind and invaâ—ible felicity of body I have already set up before you an entire figure of Devotion by which you may draw the just proportions of that virtuous bit which calmeth all humane passions in that degree our nature can be serened and quieted in this life instructing us how Gods universall order admitteth not our being happy in all our temporall desires and therefore Devotion fixeth all our desires upon Gods order and so maketh the accomplishment of his designes the chiefe terme of our wishes and by this course as God changeth his exterion sentence sometimes but never his i 〈…〉 councell so godly and devout soules may â—ary in the apparencies of their present happinesse but never alter in the inâ—rinsique state of a blessed condition For as much as in all extrinsique changes Devotion hath this rest of the Psâ—lmist when upon the vexations of the senses the soule 〈…〉 s to be reduced to My soule refused to be comforted there followeth presently I was mindefull of God and was delighted in this mindfulnesse of God Devotion sixeth all our security and by fastning our mindes to what is immoveable they themselves are rendered as it were unalterable Upon what we have discoursed I may conclude my proposition firmely established and resolve by the Authority of the wisest of men The heart that knoweth the bitternesse of his soule in his joy shall not the stranger be mingled That is an advised man man admits an exterior foundation of his happinesse And for an unquestionable security of my promise I will leave you this ingagement of the Psalmist Delight in the Lord and he will give thee the petitions of thy heart The seventh Treatise How true Devotion induceth those notions wherein consisteth the happinesse of this life In three Sections §. I. The fallicies of Opinion the Virtue of Truth treated ME thinkes I heare many very impatient to see some more sensible object of temporall happinesse exposed by Devotion for our nature is not easily drawn to looke off from the delights it seeth as I may say face to face and turne to those that are seene but darkly as through a glasse which are the joyes of the other life speculated only through the perspective of faith I will not therefore propose to those vocations which are the addresse of my perswasions the putting their nature into any severe straights or pressures in hope only of remote reversions I will assigne present conveniencies for the entertainment of our
the earth is thine In this verity he rejoyced extracted out of all his transitory felicity And King Ezekias having his treasury and cabinets filled with all pretious stores might have rejoyced in the truth of those blessings without deriving from them vanity and presumption as much as he boasted of them to the Babylonians so much untruth he found in that felicity whereof he seemed to have forgot the changeable property and was quickly instructed by the Prophet in the insecurity of such goods whereby he discerned how he had rejoyced in the untruth of his temporal happines out of which he might have extracted matter of a true and sincere rejoycing for Gods Spirit attesteth to us that he doth not cast away the mighty whereas he himself is mighty All the attainders lying upon great and rich men in the Scripture are brought against such as rejoyce in the errours and deceits of temporall goods such as either sacrifice all their wealth to the Idols of their fancy or such as make an Idol of their wealth and offer up all their thoughts unto it The voluptuous or the avaritious are those that fall under the sentence of the Gospell and their crime is not what they possesse but what possesseth them when they doe not rejoyce in the truth of their goods but delight themselves in contriving errours and fallacies out of them and as the Apostle sayes Change the Truth of God into a lie So that the defectivenesse of their happinesse ariseth out of their degression from Truth and whence doth all the blessednesse which Christian faith annexeth to sufferance issue but from this spring of verity which streameth out that joy and exultation is proposed to us in the afflictions of this life How come the thorns of sufferance to beare grapes the wine whereof rejoyceth the heart while our senses are prickedct wounded with this spinous or thorny matter Surely this cordiall is made of the Spirit of Truth which may be extracted out of all the asperities of this life first by considering the true state of Humane Nature designed to sufferings not only by sentence but by Grace in order to the aversing us from the love of this world next by contemplating the truth of those glorious promises which are made to a virtuous correspondency with Gods Order in his disposure of his creature so that both the materiall goods and evills of this life afford no legitimate joy but what the mind beareth when she is teeming with Truth we may therefore resolve with King David that when Truth doth spring out of the earth righteousnesse shall looke downe from Heaven §. III. The fallacies of some Objections solved and rejoycing in Truth concluded for our reall Happinesse BUt now me thinkes having determined the happinesse of this life in the loving and rejoycing in Truth many that thinke themselves unhappy wonder at this conclusion and conceive me disproved by their defeatures perswading themselves to have beene alwayes suitors and lovers of Truth when the Truth is that they doe not first seeke verity for the object of their love but conclude they have found it in what they have placed their love Supposing their opinions of such joyes as they pursue to be sincere and solid truthes insomuch as I may well resolve such sonnes of men that They love vanity and seek after lies In that region of the world which I have travelled the most I may reflect to the inhabitaints of it one raigning error which may convince many of insincerity in their addresses to Truth for the ground of their happinesse this it is the trusting the infidelity of fortune to others for our owne felicity designing our stock out of the spoiles of our fellowes and in this course doe we not fixe the hopes of our happinesse upon what can never passe to us but by such an infidelity as must assure us we are in continual danger of a like dispossession this must needs be our case when the expectance of the unfaithfulnesse of fortune is made the assignment of our prosperity And yet we see how Courts are commonly divided into these two partyes of some that are Sacrificing to their owne nets and others that are fishing for such nets the first is the state of such as are valuing themselves for what they have taken the second of those who are working and casting out how to catch what the others have drawne and in this manner there are many who pretend to be lovers of Truth that make these fallacies the very ground of that web of happinesse they have in hand This is so preposterous a course for ingenious spirits in order to true felicity as surely there is much of a curse in this method and God warranteth my beliefe both by the Prophets and Apostles when speaking by the voyce of Esay to this case he saith They have chosen their owne wayes wherefore I also will chuse their delusions and by Saint Paul the holy Spirit saith Because they received not the love of Truth for this cause God sends them strong delusions that they should beleeve a lie Let the worlds darlings examine what they confide in for the security of their joyes and they will finde it is the Father of lies they trust for the truth of their felicity who being not able to diminsh the increated verity sets all his art to deface all created Truthes which worke in this region of the world I now treat of he designeth by such a course as he used with the Person of Truth it selfe when he was upon earth for he carryeth up our imagination to the highest point of esteeme he can raise it of earthly possessions from whence he exposeth to our fancies the glories and beauties of this world in deceitfull apparencies as if they were permanent and secured fruitions and our wills are commonly perswaded to bowe downe and reverence such false suggestions whereof the infidelity augmenteth by the degrees of our Devotion in that beliefe since the more we confide in their stability the more falshood doe we admit for our happinesse and thus are we abused in the possession of Truth while we affect all our delights under that notion by the subtilty of the great enemy of Truth we are as Saint Augustine saith elegantly brought to hate Truth by loving those things which we love only as we imagine them to be true for the impermanency of this worlds goods is odious to us which is the truth of their nature and we affect in them their assurance as a truth without which we would not love them and yet that opinion is a meere delusion This may satisfie many who account themselves unhappy by the mutations of fortune and the dispossessions of their secular commodities for they shall finde themselves unfortunate but in the same measure they misapprehended the true nature of such fruitions by as much as they over-loved them so much are they distressed by their losses so the
defect will still result out of the distance of our joy from this principle of rightly possessing and rejoycing in Truth for all our reall unhappinesse riseth by the same degrees that Verities are diminished from among the Children of men There is one familiar scruple raised against our perswading the active life to this constant intendment of Truth which is that this fixure of the minde upon verity rather then leaving it a little loose to opinion taketh off the point and edge of our spirit in the activenesse and commerces of this life Whereunto I answer that spirits wher and sharpned upon the errours of imagination are subject to turne their edge upon the least encounter of disappointment when mindes temper'd by the consideration of truth and thereby set and whetted for action keep their edge cutting against the haire as I may say not blunted or rebated in any adverse occurrencies nor doth this breast of Verity as some suppose nourish only the minde and pine the senses but feedeth them also with healthfull and convenie 〈…〉 pleasure and teacheth the soule how to keepe the senses in their true degree of servants managing their trusts only upon account which the minde taketh so exactly of them in all the commerce of their delights as they can never runne out much in prejudice of her estate and in this order the rationall part doth the office of the good steward in the Gospell Feeding the family with their portions in due season And surely this orderly oeconomy in the managing of all worldly goods Reason presiding and the senses entertained with competent satisfaction is the best state of happinesse this active life can admit So is it the knowledge and love of Truth seated in our understanding and our affections which can only consort this harmony of a constant rejoycing And doubtlesse while our fancies doe but counterfeit that truth they expose to our affections we can no more justly complaine of the insufficiency of that object in point of affordingus felicity then of a painted fires not warming us be it neverso wel drawn For commonly they are but designs of our imaginations coloured over with vaine apparencies of Truth which they exhibite to our affections for the true substances of our happinesse wherefore I may me thinkes fittly illustrate this familiar errour of the world by this story of Zeuxis the famous Painter who having made the figure of a boy with a cluster of grapes in his hand being told the birds sate upon the boyes hand to peck at the grapes answered this was no true praise of his art because it was a signe he had painted the grapes better then the man otherwise the birds would have been afraid of that figure In like maner may I say that these imaginations which figure such a truth of happinesse in sensible delectations as their affections take them for the reall and sincere felicity of this life are not to be commended for this vivacity for it is a signe they represent more lively to our reason the fruits of this world which the man hath in his hand then they doe the nature of our humanity the constitution whereof if it were truely imaged and figured to our understanding would fright our affections from setting themselves upon the fruit of temporalities by considering the state of man which inadvertency is now familiar by this partiality of our fancy in figuring the grapes more to the life then the hand that holds them if the images which Truth it selfe hath drawn of the condition of man in this life were well impressed in our imagination of being but a blast a vapour or a shaddow this would undoubtedly divert our mindes from taking never so well coloured images of riches honour beauty or dominion for the true substances of humant felicity If there be any then that wonder they are not happy pretending they have alwayes held Zerubbabels party preferring truth before all competitors of empire beauty and pleasure if they are in any great deâ—ection of spirit let them take this course to undeceive themselves in this their supposed rectitude of intention which if it had beene sincere could not have let their mindes sinke into any deepe depression let them I say examine first whether they have rightly apprehended the state of our humane Nature and the condition of all temporall fruitions and then whether they have squared their loves to such delights by the measure of a rectified apprehension of both their nature and their own for the same disproportions there are betweene our affections and the true property of those things we love the same deficiencies must be consequent in our happinesse and upon this reflection Truth may tell most of the world This people honoureth me with their lips but their hearts are farre from me and as the increated Truth told the Pharisees who pretended to have great interest in God the Father that if what they alledged had beene true They would have acknowledged him also because he proceeded from the Father So in the name of the created Truth which is to be found in all Gods Workes I may say to many such pretenders if they had truly loved the Originall Verity they would have beene possessed of the true nature and use of the creature which notion issueth and proceeds out of an application to the first Verity Having shewed how the beames of Truth enlighten both hemispheres of the contemplative and active life and infuse into each of them their respective happinesse I may conclude with the Wisemans confession upon his loving of Truth above health or beauty that hers is the only light because it is inextinguishable and that all other goods come together with her and Devotion may lawfully use the words of her great master and assure her followers If you continue in my word then are you truly my disciples and you shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free The eighth Treatise Touching the meanes of possessing that Truth wherein the happinesse of this life is stated In two sections §. I. Diffidence in point of obtaining Spirituall lights reprehended and prayer proposed in order to this designe NOW me thinks I am called upon as one that hath advised a traveller not to lose his way to give some nearer directions for the finding it as a further contribution towards the securing his journeyes end then a simple caution against the danger of deviation For as Solomon telleth us The lame man in the way maketh more hast then a Courser out of it And by reason there may be many different humours that may ask this question of Saint Thomas How can we know the way to this so excellent possession of truth I may well premise this consideration before my answer that there was a wide difference between Pilat's Interrogatory concerning truth when he asked our Saviour What is truth and Saint Thomas his question about finding the way to it saying How can
of humane nature in her own current and in the other a draught of that constancy may be superinduced upon it by this intervention of grace which is attracted naturally by the aspirations of prayer according to what the Psalmist tells us I opened my mouth and I drew in thy Spirit I may therefore hope to have acquitted my self of such direction as was requisite for attaining the possession of that truth wherin I had constituted happinesse and my way is so accessible it lies as neer every one as their own wil which is affirmed by the holy Spirit saying Open thy mouth and I will fill it This considered I may expect the perswading some at Court to be suitors to God for Devotion concurrently with all their other suites since in all the fortunes they can make they cannot unmake fortune For the variable temper of humane felicities is not to corrected and fixed Since they cannot then stay what is transitory let them attend to arrest that which is fixable which is a good degree of peaceable acquiescence of spirit in all transitory events and as no temporalities can conferre this spirit so no contingencies can sequester it for it is the spirit of Truth that stayes our minde which partly is composed of the knowledge and expectance of alternative variations in temporalities and hence it is that in all adverse changes this spirit is rather in action and practice of his owne constant nature then in suffering or passion with the fraile nature of temporall mutations Let me then intreat all those who neede not be pressed to muster themselves at Saint Pauls summons of Rejoyce alwayes to remember that this treasure is the pay and stipend of his discipline of pray without ceasing and give thankes in every thing for this is the will of God Whereby we may make all the severall conveyances of Gods providences new deeds of joy to us when our rejoycing is seated upon his will and thus our happinesse that cannot stand still upon the fixure of our fortunes may be firme upon the confixure of our wills to that immoveable one that changes all things Without any vicissitude or shadow of change in it selfe The ninth Treatise Of the Condition of Courts Princes and Courtiers Divided into three Sect. §. I. The best Notion of Courts proposed IN the Law of Moses all the Rites and Ceremonies were not only declaratory formes of the present Religion but significative figures of a future state and howsoever most of the vulgar looked no farther then the glosse and lustre of the exterior vaile which was the beauty and decency of the forme and order that affected them yet the nobler sort passed their sight through that vaile and fixed it upon the signification and mysterie it selfe and thereby had not only their eye of sense delighted but that of their understanding enlightned by these objects In reference whereunto I may hope not improperly to apply these considerations to the Courts of Princes since all the exteriour state of Ceremony and Reverence being truly conceived is significative as referr'd to the images of God and thus all the distinguished ranks of honour which compose the formall order of Courts are figures of those different degrees of Ministers which attend their Originall the King of Kings and in this order the Glory and Majesty which exteriorly in all sorts resideth about the persons of Princes may be fitly understood to represent in such shaddowes as these materialities can make the celestiall magnificence of the King of Heaven so that one who will interpret religiously the Ceremonies of Princes Courts may say all things befall them in figures But certaine it is there are many in Courts who determine and center their thoughts upon the fronts and out-sides of these mansions which are honour riches pleasure and raise all their Devotions to the place upon those objects and such are truly the meaner sort of Courtiers though they be greatest in the measure of the world and there are some of the other party who penetrate into the religious sense of these exteriour figures and derive from them spirituall conceptions and appetities concluding by these glories which are but the shaddowes of those they signifie that the substance it self must needs be above what eye hath seene or eare heard or hath entred into the heart of Man and so by this view are quickned in their ambition towards those originall honours and these are the nobility of Courts though they be never so inferiour in office Of these two kindes of Courtiers is verified The first shall be last and the last first And likewise of the first sort we may say as the Apostle saith of the Law the Letter kils If the litterall sense of the faire text of this worlds glories take up and fix their mindes and of the latter sort the spirit quickens when out of these specious objects they extract a spirituall sense which excites in them a celestiall aspiring and emulation Such a figurative conception Saint Fulgentius framed out of these images when he was asked whether the beauty and Majesty of Rome did not worke upon his affections he answered If terrestriall Rome be so beautifull how glorious must be celestiall Jerusalem His minde was so little taken or retarded on her way as she stayd not at all in the outward Court of the Gentiles but passed on as in her way through it to the Holy of Holies and by this method who attend the offices of their mindes upon earth and waite not upon the places of their bodies concluding that they are but strangers and passengers through these courts and Fellow-citizens of the Saints and Domestikes of God make excellent use of all the lustrous and polished glories of the place for instead of looking on them as flattering glasses and mirrours which reflect only the materiall beauty of the earth they make opticke glasses of them through which they do the easilier take the height of the celestiall glories and surely the sight of our minde is much helped by such materiall instruments in the speculation of spiritualities by reason that in this her prison all the intelligence of our minde with immaterialities passeth as I may say through her keepers hands which are her senses that can carry nothing but corporeall images to her and therefore we see the Apostle Saint John drawes the image of the court of heaven in such colours as are most visible and most affecting in the Courts of the earth whereby to raise our imaginations upon these steps which they can tread upon to some proportionate conception of such fruitions as are truly all spirituall and Intellectuall And under this notion all the lusters and splendors of Courts being understood as figures of the sublimer and purer state of the Kingdome of heaven are convenient ascents for our weak apprehensions to rise up to the love and estimation of these spirituall objects for the same affections which move us so
of others §. III. The vitiousnesse of Flattery displayed with an allowance of decent civilities in exchanges of Courtship HAving proposed to Courtiers for their chiefe security solid Humility discerned from superficiall civility I must desire them to be very sincere in the examination of this vertue for humanity and courtesie externall do often so well counterfeit the stamp of it as it had need be touched at some occasion of suffering to find the falsity of the metall and for the greater safety of this vertue it were to be desired we could banish and eliminate out of the verge one of the best Waiters at Court though of the worst servants in it namely Flattery which is alwayes an enemy to Humility though it seeme often neare allyed unto it by submissive appearances For we know the first progenitor of Pride was also the primary father of Lyes from which all Flattery descends in a collaterall Line Hence it is that there is alwayes some of the bloud of Pride in all adulation though it go cloathed in never so servile an habit of submission And that we may see how naturally Flattery issueth out of Pride wee may consider into what a base and inferiour posture Lucifer contrived himselfe when he cast the first seeds of Flattery into our earth did he not lye prostrate at those feet he was undermining while he was flattering them with their capacity of treading on him and becomming like Gods And this seeming subjection was it not designed by the sublimest part of his Pride which meant to captivate and subject the minds he wrought upon in this posture In like manner all the servile formes of complacency and deference to others which Flattery casts it selfe into in the magnifying their worth and excellency hath this serpentine insinuation in it to wit the hoping to infuse the easilyer the Flatterers sense into them which project in the complyers must needs rise from a beliefe of their own minds being so superior to those they are applyed to worke upon as they can impose upon them the beliefe of all their suggestions and so subdue their spirits which thought is the very soule of Pride to conclude our minds to have such a transcendency over others for no body flatters another but in beliefe of being credited So that all Flattery being anatomized will be found to live by the heart of Pride which is indeed the first living part of Sicophantry in what body soever of humble verisimilitudes it seemes to move And upon this ground we may say that a meane Parasite is a prouder thing then the most magnifyed Prince he humoureth in as much as the presumption on the excellence of mind as it is more spirituall is nearer the originall of Pride And as it was excellently said of a wise King That witchcraft is the height of Idolatry because though it exhibits no exterior offices of Worship but rather disclaimes them yet is it the highest mentall veneration of the seducing spirit and so the truest idolatry In like manner it may be said that Flattery is the supremacy of Pride because though there be no externall profession of selfe-love in it but rather of an alienation from it yet it is a continuall exercise of the supreamest arrogancy which is the Flatterers valuation of his own abilities Whereupon it seemes that a Philosopher being asked what was the most noxious beast to humane nature answered of wild beasts a Tyrant and of tame ones a Parasite and we may adde that the tame ones seeme the worst of the two for the wild ones take the greatest part of their ferocity by coupling with them since this commixion is the generation of all tyrannie wild power enjoying servile praise Humane nature could not fall in love with the exorbitancy of wickednesse if she saw it naked and beheld the bare deformity of that object therefore to make this conjunction there must intercede the art of flattery to colour the basenes and inhumanity of outrageous mischiefe with some faire varnish of decency as either with the right of greatnesse or the liberties of nature or many other such shadowes by which Sycophants keepe Tyrants minds the fiercer by holding them in this darkenes chained up by the magnifying and applause of their appetencies so that this may be truly said in the tearmes of the Psalmist to be the pestilence that walketh in the darke which the light of truth would easily asswage somewhat even in the greatest rage of corrupted nature We may therefore fitly say that Flattery is the oyle of the sinner wherewith Tyrants are annointed by these Ministers of their passions and we know King David saith this should not be the unction falling on the head of Princes For this reason we cannot too strongly brand the forehead of these Court Charlatans since there is so much known art to take out the markes of the character of a Parasite and to continue still in the practise of this mystery of iniquity I confesse therefore it is hardly to be hoped that this sentence of expulsion of Flattery out of Courts can be strictly executed for when it is pressed and straitned by these reproaches then like the Poets Proteus it varyes shapes and appeares presently covered with another forme either in that of duty to superiors or civility to equals or due commendation of merit and will never answer to this indictment of Flattery And indeed these formes which she shifts herselfe easily into are the legitimate issues of morality by which all the fit alliances are made in civill society the two first bearing order and distinction beween Persons and the last producing fertility in vertue Wherefore we cannot impeach this commerce of customary civility and complements for there is a discipline belonging to the practicall part of morality which is referred to the discretion of the Ministers of it which Courtiers may be most properly termed and the rites and ceremonies of mutuall civilities are ornaments requisite to raise respect and sorme order in all the exercises of morality therefore as it is not possible to set and regulate in such sort those voluntary descants of complement as to put them into such measured notes as they must precisely runne in to keepe them from straying into Flattery I will only set Courtiers this lesson of the Apostle which may keepe some time and measure in the consort of their vocall civilities You are called unto liberty only use not this liberty for an occasion to the flesh but by love to serve one another and by this order those finer threads of Court civilities may make as strong a band of charity as rough and grosser materials §. IIII. The use of sober prayses treated and reciprocall civilities regulated I Do not in this sharpe insectation of sordid Flattery mean to asperse the good name of praises and commendations for I must allow them to be convenient brests to nurse young and tender dispositions to vertue and the good inclinations
and as we may be said to lodge God in our hearts so we do carry him abroad no way more visibly then in our mouths and surely the custome of any unclean speech tainteth and spoileth the breath that is to carry him Let us not therefore be deceived with this vulgar diversion to wit that these freedoms of discourse are harmelesse and allowable there is no action of a Christian inconsiderable to God our recreations must be of the same species as our prayers though not of the same degrees of intensive finenesse they must be both of the same nature of innocence though not adequate in the measures of purity we may say methinks not improperly of our recreations and devotions that the first must be holy as the last are holy in the same sense that we must be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect which is in point of similitude not in a degree of equality such as analogy must the pleasures of a Christian hold with his prayers of being resembling though not commensurate in Sanctity We may well infer what an obligation of purity Saint Paul layeth upon Christians when he saith Those that are baptized have put on Christ if we are to consider our selves as clothed with Christ how can we be too curious and circumspect in point of keeping such a vestiment unspotted methinks this should be a good glasse for those who are so curious and neat in their materiall clothes and dressings wherein the least unbecomingnes or disorder is so much examined for by a reflexion from these words of the Apostle they may see with what degree of purity they are incharged methinks this respect may well move them to an exact candour and cleanlinesse in their conversation which is recommended by the holy Spirit under the notion of keeping in all times their vestments white and candid But I pray God much of the worlds proprety and decencies be not affected expresly in order to the staining this our inward garment of Christian purity this is light enough to all intelligent persons for an exploring the rectitude or wrynesse of their behaviours in this particular since even in this vain superficies of neatnesse they may discern a figure of their Spirituall obligation to purity whereof Christ doth prescribe to us the preservation by this exact Discipline of Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation For alas we have the roots of the forbidden fruit planted in our nature which shooâ— up continually so fast as we have work enough to nip and crop off their buds and blossomes and all unclean liberties may well be said to be so much dung and filth we cast about these roots to cherish and set them forwarder but the ranknes and luxuriancy of our tempers in this kind ought rather to be the subject of our extirpation then a ground for owâ— manuring and culture we might better methinks derive much bashfulnesse and confusion from this notion of the pregnancy of our natures towards all these foul productions then work thus with our fancies to stir up the earth about these roots They who extract shaâ—e and humiliation out of the foulnesse of their naturall propensions may be said to do some such cure open themselves as Christ did upon one of the blind men to wit upon their own eyes by thus laying their own dirt upon them and those who catch at all occurrencies in discourse to advance their light impulses may be said to continually raising a dust out of their loose earth to put out not onely their own eyes but likewise those of the company they frequent Referring to this depravation there is one familiar iniquity which deserveth a particular animadversion which is this custome of letting our tongues runne full counter to this Christian precept of Watch lest you enter into temptation For alas how frequent is this practise of watching to lead all words into temptation by binding and straining even the modest words of others into a crooked and lascivious sense this vitiousnesse argueth a great sullnesse of the evill spirit when it runs over with such a waste even upon the words of our neighbour and well considered me thinks this is one of the most censurable parts of this licentiousnesse in regard it laboureth to taint the whole body of conversation as it corrupteth the nature of words which are the Publique Faith whereupon all innocent discourse must needs trust it selfe so that this perversion seemeth a publick impediment to the commerce of all vertuous communication wherefore this distorting of equivocall words which passeth commonly for a triviall peccancy if it be well examined will be found a very dangerous admission for me thinks this may be termed a verball adultery as it vitiateth and corrupts the property of another which would have remained innocent without that sollicitation and therefore seemeth much a fouler fault then a single incontinency of our own words This discourse puts me in mind of a most ingenuous piece of S. Augustines Confessions upon the reflection on the uncleannesse of his youth whereof my repetition will be sufficient application Thou O Lord Phisitian of my soule afford some benefit to others by my infirmities grant that the confession of my evils past which thou hast remitted and covered blessing me with a change of my soule by thy grace when they are read and heard may awake and stirre up the hearts of Auditors that they may not sleep in despaire and say alas we cannot rise but rouse themselves up by the love of thy mercy and sweetnesse of thy grace whereby every weake one is sufficiently enabled who by that influence commeth to be conscious of his own infirmity Let those I impart this confession to lament my ills and long for my good all my good is thy provision and gift as my evils and faults are thy judgements Let them sigh for these and sing thy praise for the other Let both pitie and praise ascend up to thy sight from the hearts of my brothers the which are thy incensors and thou O Lord delighted with the odour of thy holy Temples have mercy upon me according to thy great compassion and for thy holy names sake give not over what thou hast begunne but consume totally my imperfections These words will be too easily applyed since all those who have known me cannot be ignorant of my culpablenesse in those particulars against which I have informed in these two Treatises and truly if I could represent the just shame and confusion I feele in the reflection upon my guiltinesse in this kind I believe it would undeceive many in their opinion of the lightnesse of such faults for we may learn by what meanes humane nature is the likeliest to be moved unto Reformation by the Proposition of the unhappy rich man in the Gospell who concluded that his brothers would certainly be converted if they had one sent back to them from the dead to preach and represent their sufferings and surely
Christian and the last leaveth us this precise advice in order to the same regulation He that looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth therein being not a forgetfull hearer but a doer of the worke this man shall be blessed in his deed and if any man thinke himselfe religious not bridling his tongue but seducing his heart this mans religion is vaine The thirteenth Treatise Handling whether to be in love and to be devout are in consistent In eight Sect. §. I. The nature of Love and of Devotion compared LOve in humane nature is both the sourge and center of all passions for not only Hope Feare and Joy but even Anger and Hatred rise first out of the spring of Love and the courses of these passions which seem to runne away from it do by a winding revolution returne backe to rest again in Love for there could be no aversion if the last end of it were not some affection which our Love pursueth through opposition with which our Anger and Hate combate but in order to the conquest of our first Love so that all the powers of a rationall Nature seeme to be ministeriall to this soveraigne power of Love since even in Grace also Love is both the way and the end of Beatitude For God himselfe is Love and none end in God that do not go by Love Therefore S. Augustine saith excellently that a short definition of all Vertue is the order of Love for since Love is the first impulse and motion of our intellectuall appetite which is the Will towards an union with what it apprehends under the notion of good if God be rightly apprehended as the supreame good and our Loves primarily directed to that union then all our affections descend from that due elevation upon the lower stations of the creatures as upon stepps set in order by God for our affections to passe down upon his workes and repasse again upon the same gradations up to the Creator Therefore we must examine whether that state of mind which the world termeth being in Love admit of this order wherein consisteth the vertue of all Devotion I have before treated and defined what it is to be Devout so I conceive it expedient now to determine what it is to be in Love for as there are many antipathy's which while they are out of the presence of one another discover not their repugnancies but being set together do quickly declare their aversions so if we state prophane and sacred love by one another we shall the easilier discerne whether there be any incompatibility between them for he who transfigureth himselfe into an Angell of light doth more artificially disguise this passion then any other and presenteth it to our minds under the fairest notion he can utter it knowing that Love is the best colour he can use in his own transfiguration I have already described Devotion to you in these familiar termes of a being in love with Heaven whereby I conclude that being in Love is the most intensive appropriation of all the powers of our mind to one designe now how such an assignment of our Soule to the love and service of the creature which is to be in love with one can consist with the precept of loving the Creator with all our heart and all our mind is a question too hard for even the Devill to resolve therefore to reconcile Passion with Devotion he doth commonly detract somewhat from them both in his definitions of them to us representing it as a lesse alienation and transaction of the mind to be in love and a lesse exaction on the soule to be devout Thus mans first supplanting Counsellor offereth himselfe for a reconciler of this inconsistency and pretendeth to accord these two loves as we use to compose civill differences where likely each party doth remit some of his interest to facilitate the agreement and thus many taking off somewhat from the nature of humane passion and abating some of the rights of divine Love think they may both concurre in the soule by this arbitration as who should say when God is allowed the supreamest part in formall adoration the creature may share in the inferiour portion of the mind which is the seate of Passion and be allowed a love to a degree of Passion Many are deceived by this as with an equall composition which truly examined is to conclude that if the Arke be set in the quire Dagon may stand in the body of the Church but he whose Temple our heart is alloweth no independent love to the creature to stand by his at any distance all our affections must rest involved in his Love and must issue from thence upon the creature but as by commission and delegation from that master Love So I may say of such compounders that pretend there may be some of the heart allotted to support humane Passion as was said of the inhabitants of Samaria after the captivity wherein were mixed the Jewes and Babilonians These feare the Lord but serve their Idols for indeed they who give not God all their Love give what they do chiefly to his feare and so may be said to feare God not to love him but to serve and love their passions Yet it may be there are some who being frighted with the precisenesse and amplitude of the precept of loving God disavow me in my definition of being in Love saying I have done an ill office to humane Passion in this exaltation of it putting it upon a claime of so great rights as must needs make a quarrell between it and Devotion when they pretend they do covenant between their eyes and their affections in the admiration of beauty for the preserving the prerogative of divine Love alleadging that all the vehemency of their affections is in order to the estimation of the excellency and perfection of Gods workes and disclaime any infringing the rights of Religion This is commonly answered by some when they are before grave and pious examiners when they find themselves fallen as I may say among Gods party then they have his word ready to passe with but when they come off to their own side when they are giving account of their passions to those persons they serve under then commonly they take all occasions to do all ill offices to divine Love and study to affront Devotion as if it were a Rivall that pretended to that affection for which they are in suite and then the entirenes of the oblation of their minds is what they most insist upon and God knoweth Religion is not so much as thought upon unlesse it be to take from it some divine tearmes to set out the offering of their passion §. II. Some subtile temptations detected and liberties reproved PRophane Passion is a flame in our sensitive Appetite which doth commonly refine and subtilize the faculty of our imagination enabling the fancy very much to circumvent the reason suggesting this beliefe to
the creature in a regular re 〈…〉 ux back to the Ocean of all beauty find them intercepted in this dangerous passage and when they are once staid by degrees they come to intend nothing but the making their passion the deeper by an effusion of another upon it and thus they fall into the state which God reprocheth by the Prophet they commit these two evils They forsake God the fountaine of living waters and hew themselves out cisterns broken cisterns that hold no water For alas how unsound are all those conserves of humane beauty which containe mans passion we cannot say which is the lesse solid or durable either the matter of them which is but fading colour or the maker of them which is yet more fickle fancy neverthelesse in these broken vessels do men trust their love when they are even in the securest or strongest passion since inordinate love is so unsafe a conserve for our happynesse as even our own wishes cannot fixe it long upon one object and our reason can much lesse weigh it by graines as our owne wills take it from our senses and so keep our love to the creature in such a proportion as it may be tryed by the ballance of the sanctuary whether it have just that quantity which is allowed our affection to the creature Therefore let none perswade themselves they can keep their affections running on currently through particular inclinations back to the Universall center of love and upon that confidence license many insinuating familiarities with women for it is very hard even for the most purified humane affections to fall from beauty where nature maketh so many fences to stay them to passe on without making some eddyes in a reluctant motion looking backward with a profession of some unwillingnesse to passe so quickly forward in that course of purity they should continue and if as Saint Peter saith the severest watchers of their nature have task hard enough what shall be hoped of the indulgers of it certainly they who will cherish nature in her first appetites shall quickly finde her second past their checking and then as the Wise-man saith in this case Who wil pitty a sorcerer that is stung with a Serpent for they who are familiar with temptations will quickly be acquainted with infection let them remember then our Masters counsell that will have their body kept lighted to keep their eye pure since the Prince of darknesse observeth a rule quite contrary to the first law of the Father of light for when he hath put out an eye of his servants he doth not release him but makes him the more slave §. V. The faultinesse and flatteries to women discovered and disswaded NOthing hath more perplexed the animosity of man then the search into the nature and transmission of Originall sinne which the curiosity of woman produced it seemeth God is pleased to punish that first presumption in point of knowledge with a perpetuall perplexity of doubt in the very thing which was then introduced into nature and the onely one of mans own making which he did by yeelding to woman who furnished him the matter whereunto he gave the forme of Originall sinne and ever since they have both conspired to pervert the greatest blessings of their corporall nature into occasions of propagating sin for the same seeds of vain glory spring up upon all invitations The first temptation that prevailed upon woman was her becomming like God and the same tempter seemeth to imploy mans passion to performe his promise so that it is upon his commission men offer all those prophane flatteries by which they worship their passions and yet even all these presumptuous expressions of passion testify that all our love appertaineth to God for these mis-intended excesses unawares set the right superscription upon the addresses of their affections when they set divinity and adoreablenesse as the titles whereunto their loves are directed and so their tongues as it were by instinct declare the property of love to be Gods while they cannot call them lesse then Gods to whom they misgive their love and love which by nature and instinct is so conversant with God may easily slip into this mistake for as when we are bred and habituated to one company we are very apt to call those we speak to by accident by those names which are most familiar to us so love which by nature is most intimate with God when it is by accident diverted to other company seemeth to mistake their names and gives them that which is so imprinted in it and yeeldeth them the same reverence proper to that title thus even the farthest removes of their affections from God are remembrances of their loves being intirely due to him when even the possessed tongues like the evill spirits in the Gospel do testifie Gods right There is nothing sure the devil hateth more then beauty it is so much his contrariety who is all foulenesse and deformity yet there is nothing he flatters so much he serveth it with the supplenes of a Parasite till he gain his ends by it and being the best Artist with a gentle hand he layeth fresh colours of praises on the externall figure of beauty every day whereby Gods Image is quickly so covered as they who admire it most take no notice unlesse it be profanely of any such character upon it and the Glasse this servant holdeth to Women makes them no reflex but of those vain colours of flatteries which he hath laid upon the Figure and thus as at first he deceived woman by credulity in expectance now he seemes to delude her by confidence that shee is possessed of all his ascriptions to her and beauty set under this burning glasse of praises and admirations easily lighteth selfe Love in the heart which is a flame catches at all materials that are offered to entertain it nor is there any thing so apt to soment selfe-love as that Straw and Stubble of light prayses which the passions of others cast upon it Whence it is that prophane lovers do as the Prophet saith Walke in the light of their own fire and in the sparkles which they have kindled while abusing the liablenesse of woman to selfe-love and vanity they are continually striking fire out of their fancies upon this tinder that is straining their wits to cast excessive praises upon this so taking Subject of Womans beauty wherein men should be very temperate knowing how little a sparke fireth the whole Wood and turneth all the goods of Nature into jewels for Pride and Vain-glory the flame whereof is so deceitfull as when we believe it polnteth upward to the honour of our Maker it tendeth downward to the centre of fire without light for the fire of self-love as it is kindled by the breath of the Father of Lies so it partaketh of the quality of his flames to be without light since it keepeth us in darknes to our selves and imper-ception of our own true dimensions
Wherefore it must needs lye as a heavier charge upon men then they usually account it the breaking this bruised Reed by pressing so much flattery upon it for the aptnes which beauty hath to raise selfe-love may be reputed an allay of the naturall blessing thereof it may be this propensity to selfe-deceiving is set as another Fine upon womans head for her first fault and the facility of her minds conceiving and the pleasure of bearing this spirituall issue of selfelove is another kind of judgement upon her first credulity and to be thus endangered in her soule by the pleasure of her best materiall property which is beauty seemeth a greater penalty then the sorrow of her other labour Upon which ground Lovers do likely treate at first by Parly to introduce selfe-love into the heart by the Presents of flatteries and certainly more are betrayed by Natures intelligence with the subtilty of adulation then taken by the breach of interest For indeed selfe-love in woman hath a strange quality the more it perswades her to over-value her selfe the more it tempteth her to cast her selfe away and so men cheapen their bargain most by commending what they would have Therefore let not even those who without any designe do suffer their tongues to ruâ—ne loose by fashion in the praises of Womens graces and beauties thinke this aymelesse roving of their fancies altogether innocent though they pretend only to spring and put up their good humours and not to set and take their affections for convertly they undermine vertue though they lay not a Traine to blow it up The Tempter never wanteth ministers that watch hearts as they grow hollow and void of humility to fill them up with vanity and then the Mine is too easily sprung so many may be guilty of filling of hearts with Pride and selfe-love while they meant only to empty their own fancy and thus their wits serve the Tempter as Jonathans Page did his master for they carry Arrowes which the Devill shootes upon Design though they are not privie to the intention It is no wonder that fraile woman should be so much deceived in the colours and features of all their good qualities since the Devill and Man joyne and study nothing so much as to make them flattering reflexes of their persons and powers of their mind and so woman is entertained commonly in her first manner of delusion for that is still taken from her which shee believeth is given her the being like God for her innocence is a much better resemblance of God then mans vain adoration But let not men thinke they have an easie account to make for all those levities which they expose so handsomely as womens eyes are deceived by those false lights for that which will prove an aggravation of mens faults will serve as an extenuating circumstance for womens defence their wit and dexterousnes may deduct somewhat from the guilt of womans trespasses for she may plead now some commiserablenes by saying the man who was given me as my sentence to obey deceived me and as one of the reasons given why God did compassionate the fall of Man and not of Angels is that they sinned without any exteriour sollicitation so certainly abused woman shall find this circumstance as some intercession for her the being assaulted by a forreigne power of temptation which may move God the easilyer to call such to him as Christ did the Woman who had a spirit of infirmity so long upon her that tyed her from looking upward and Christ giveth this reason for his calling her when she did not it seemeth thinke on him that she was bound by Sathan and she is a good figure of the infirmity of her Sex which is easily overcome and bound by the violence of exterior temptations wherefore God doth more easily commiserate their fallen frailties and calleth them with more pitie then he doth the stronger Sex which have the crime of abusing their strength towards the others defection Wee can but hope that the Samaritane Lover was comprised in the conuersions of her towne we are sure of her sanctification and we have little reason to hope of the adulterers remission when the Woman found such commiseration in Christ so as we may conclude God is more indulgent to the infirmity of woman extenuated and modified by the exterior pressure of temptation then he is to the infidelity of man who is as it were trusted with a charge of superiority rather to succour then supplant the weaknes of that Sex Admitting this they who are so licentious in all their entertainments of Women should remember sometimes the penalty Christ hath set upon the scandalizing of little ones for there are few women that are not alwayes children in this point of being able to beare fond praises and adulations without enfeebling and lightening their minds so as all those levities which the fancies of men vapour out in their conversation with these little ones are Mill-stones which they are insensibly hanging upon their own necks while they are thus scandalizing them that is while they are leaning and pressing upon the infirmity of nature that way it standeth already bowed And since humane nature is of so fraile a constitution as the purest blood of it is the easilyest tainted we ought to be the more sober and temperate in treating and entertaining the most infirme part of it which is Beauty with the delicacies of praises since by nature it is so apt to make excesses upon such diet If we consider how profuse and inordinate even the most reserved Lovers are in this entertainment we may easily sentence even this light riot to be poyson to piety and devotion which saith with the Psalmist I will take heed to my wayes that I sinne not with my tongue what can then be answered for them who take care of their tongues only to make way for their sinne and since we are to account for idle words methinks that order should easily determine never so slight a passion to be inconsistent with Religion for we know they are the aliment and life of all such excesses and certainly no idle words are so hard to answer for as upon this subject of vain love Upon other occasions many vapouring extravagancies are like squibs thrown up and breake in the aire above the heads of the company and so offend no body but upon this purpose they are likely Traines laid to take fire and worke some ill effect so that idle words upon the ground of passion grow not as Weeds wild out of the pregnancy of the earth but are set as poysonous plants with design of making venemous compositions How heavy these light words will lye upon them let every one judge by this rule that they are to be accounted for at the same price each one setteth upon them for just as much as they would have them passe whether they be taken or no at that rare by those they would put them off
to viz. whether they make that cozening advantage by them or no with the creature they must answer for as much to the Creator as they projected to make of them and thus as the Prophet saith As much Wind as they have sowed so much Tempest they shall reape §. VI. Presumption upon our vertue discussed and the danger thereof remonstrated THere are many Lovers who when they find no direct design of impurity at first in their passions conclude them competent with their salvation and care not how neare the wind they steere nor how many boards they make as long as they believe they can reach the Port with this wind which is so faire for their senses therefore they pretend they need not stand so strait a course as making Jobs covenant with their eyes nor setting Davids watch over their lips provided they set a guard over their heart that no foule possession enter upon that seate thus do they expose many faire models of their love which in speculation may seem designed according to the square of Religion but how hard it is to build adequately to the speculative measures in this structure none can tell that presume to know it our senses are not inanimate materials that obey the order of the spirits designe but rather labourers which are easily debauched to worke contrary to the measures and rule of the Spirit hence it is that they who will undertake in this case all they can argue possibly for humane nature render it impossible by their undertaking it for they reckon not their presumption as any impediment which in the practise as being an irritation of God out-weighs all the other difficulties and the more alwayes the lesse it is weighed in the designe therefore as Solomon saith The wise man declineth evil and the foole heapes on and is confident The beliefe of impossibility is the most prudent supposition in such experiments as cannot be essayed without some desperate exposure of our selves it may be demonstrate by reason that we may have halfe of our body over a precipice so the centre of the weight be kept in an exact aequilibrium that part which is pensile can never weigh down the other which is supported but we should thinke one mad that would try this conclusion when the least motion changeth the Position and consequently destroyeth the practicer of this speculation so those that pretend to keept their soules equally poised in the just measures between piety and prophane love their eyes hanging over the precipice of temptations which do so easily turne their heads and then alter all the positions of their mind adventure upon just such a spirituall experiment He that seeketh danger shall perish in it is attested by the unhappy president of the wisest of men and it is superfluous to instance other testimonies of this truth When David and Solomon the two brazen pillars of the Temple being the direction and fortitude of the Princes of Israel were melted and poured out like water as David himselfe confesseth by the ardors of his flesh and so they seem to stand in holy record as two high eminent markes set upon these sands to advertise the strongest vessels not to venture to passe over them and if Saint Paul that vessel of election after his having seen the beauty of Heaven to possesse his heart thought himselfe hard matched with the Angell of Sathan and cryed out to heaven for helpe against him shall any presume to entertain and cherish this ill Angell and hope to overcome him with flattery and civility for they make this tryall who lodge in their thoughts and serve with their fancies strong impressions of humane beauty and propose to keepe their body in order even by the vertue of such a guest pretending that the very object infuseth a remembrance and reverence of purity With this and the like glittering conceipts do many vain Lovers fondly satisfy and abuse themselves which is to answer the question of the Holy Spirit that the fire they carry in their bosomes preserveth them from being enflamed by it we may fitly say to such in answer from the Prophet God laughs at you when all Gods advices are that there is no security against this bosome enemy but violence and diffidence there is no meane between the flesh's being slave or master this treaty of Friendship between it and the spirit proves but Dalilahs kind holding of Sampsons head in her lap while she is shaving him How often do we see the Spirit thus betraid and lye bound by this confidence And truly all those chaines which vain Lovers forge for the figuring out the powerfulnesse of beauty may be said to be those irons the flesh hath cast off and set upon the Spirit which is truly captivated alwayes by the others liberty This considered let none presume that while they deny the 〈…〉 eyes nothing which they covet they can deny their hearts any undue cupidity for this seemeth such an experiment as if one of the children of Israel should have carryed a fiery Serpent in his bosome presuming that while he looked upon the Brazen Serpent he could not be stung sure such a perverted confidence would not have proved safe to the projector So those who believe while they have the love of God before their eyes they may expose them to all the fiery darts of lustfull eyes seem to tempt God by such a vain presumption these are such of whom we may fitly say with the Apostle that Erring themselves they lead others into errour and have a forme of Godlinesse but deny the Power of it being lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God Let no body then trust to any confederacy between the flesh the spirit which is of humane loves making for of all reconciled enemies the flesh is least to be trusted after the accord and love the least for the arbitration therefore let none believe their souls out of danger because in the first paces of their passion they meet no insolent temptations that face them and declare the danger of their advance for the Devill keepes likely his first Method still with those he findeth in the state of innocence he taketh the shape of the serpent and creeps up by insinuation and then changeth his shape into the figure of his power and this transmigration of the evil spirits from one body into another is truer then the fancy of Pythagoras for we find often this Metamorphosis of the devill from the form of a dove unto a serpent from a lamb into a lion since it is the same spirit that moves in the poetical doves of Venus as was acting in Eves serpent thus what hath at first in our love an innocent form passeth quickly into a venemous nature Wherefore severe caution and repulse of the first motions of our sensitive appetite is the onely guard our soules can trust against our bodyes in this case for certainly many lovers sink into temptations in
back againe in all the circumference to that first point is a question will be answered affirmatively by none but by him who promised man he should become like God for this is an understanding above the straine of humane nature yet I believe there are many lovers seduced by this counsellor who at first designe this innocent re-conveyance of their affections passing through the creature back to their proper place and of many of such projectors we may say as Saint Gregory doth of the Camell in the law that they are cleane in the head but not in the hoof they ruminate well and speculate cleannesse and purity in the rationall part but the feet of their soules which are the sensitive appetites want alwayes their right division because they remaine too intirely carnall and so the whole becomes illegall in the law of grace therefore I may say it will be hard for such Camels to passe in at the narrow gate wherefore I shall advise those well-meaning minds in Christs name He that is thus washed wanteth yet the washing his feet they must indeavor to change and purge their terrestriall affections which are here typified by the feet with as much neatnesse as they can for the impressions of corporeall beauties which at first are but as dust upon their feet if they be let stick upon them do easily turne to such dirt as is not to be got off but by water drawn from the head teares are required to wash off that at last which our breath might have blown off at first Therefore let them remember Solomons admonition in the first straynings and impulses of their frailties thy eyes shall see strange women thy heart shal speak pervers things we must answer then our hearts first question before it multiply arguments with King Davids resolution My heart and my flesh rejoyce in the living God who indeed is the Essence of all beauty and goodnesse and hath such an immensity of them as even they who love not him directly can love nothing under the notion of faire or good that is not a part of him though they be so injurious to God as to cover him with his own light taking the lesse notice of him the more they find of his similitude in the creature they love and honour with his rights in this case we do but like fishes who play and leap at the image of the sun as it is impressed upon the fluencie of their element and take it for the reall substance for when we adore the image and copy of beauty shadowed out to us upon the fluent and transitory superficies of well coloured flesh and blood are we not deluded like fishes with a shining image of beauty superficially delineated upon our own fleeting element and thus as the Apostle saith we are erring and leading into errour §. VII Some scruples resolved about the esteeme of beauty and the friendship of Women UPon what we have discoursed I believe we may conclude that none should flatter themselves with the hope of an agreement or co-habitation of these two divine love and humane passion whereupon we may say that they who treate this accommodation are of Micahs disciples who hope to lodge concordantly together an Idol and an Ephod â—aking only as it were a Cell apart for God and expect as he did to prosper in this concordancy But we know our Law-giver Christ Jesus would not suffer so much as Doves to be traffiqued in the Temple which figureth to us that we must endeavour to dislodge even all our levities and most harmlesse amusements out of our thoughts which are apt to trade and bargain for a part of our hearts that must be kept single and entire to his love Therefore we may much more forceably conclude with the Apostle against the co-habitation of any vain passion What agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols you are the Temples of the Living God But now as I was laying downe my Pen there come some objections from my memory of the worlds humour which hold my hand till I have answered them though it may be I have already strained the patience even of a recovering Reader by the quantity of this prescript Methinks there are many now who like the Pharisees that were in the possession of the pleasure of changing wives reply as they did to Christ upon the decision of that question saying if this strictnes be required in our life with women we are debarred of all friendship and civill conversation with them and it were better there were no beauty if this be the case that we are interdicted a particular preference and estimation of it unto whom I may properly return Christs question for an answer have you not read that the souleof man is the spouse of God And that which God hath joyned so nothing must separate no creature must share any parcell of the heart in such a manner as may question her fidelity which is all the restraint I put upon the spouse but as wives are allowed friendships and familiarities with others which do not impeach the sincerity of their vertue so the soule of man is permitted acquaintances amities and valuations of the creature and proportionate to the excellencies wherewith they are advantaged from the Creator giving the graces of nature a prizall commensurate to their distinct dignities so it be bounded in such termes as do not come within that inclosure of the heart which is Gods property for the Beloved challengeth the heart as a Garden inclosed a Spring shut up a Fountain sealed And yet this integrity of the Spouses love to her Beloved doth not forbid her affections comming abroad and conversing with amiable objects as with her Lord his dependents and retainers which shee may esteem and delight in more or lesse as the stamp of his goodnes is the fairelyer impressed on them Wherefore I do not meane to attaint friendship with beautifull persons meerely upon the suspition of our frailty for such intelligences are requisite to some vocations in the world which may say in the Apostles name we must go out of the world if we do not contract friendship with Women and I hope such may find in this discourse some direction how they may be able to quench all the fâ—ery darts of the enemy who can easily make up his Wild-fire in friendship And in answer of what concerneth the honouring of beauty I professe to esteem the blessing of beauty so much as I designe only by these advises to secure it from the treachery of such a confident as beauty likely trusteth most yet is truly such a one as doth oftenest betray the goodnesse of it this is passion that I detect which is so naturally false to beauty as it subsisteth but by betraying beauty by perverting it into temptation and impurity whereupon I would preferre reason to beauty to have that trusted only which may furnish true joyes enough wherewith to entertain
delight the owners of it shewing what a reall blessing beauty hath by being made by God one of the best opticke glasses for the helpe of mans spirituall eye by report from his corporeall in the speculation of divinity for by this inference of the Wise-man he may argue If we are delighted with these materiall beauties we may judge how much more beautifull and lovely is the Lord and Creator of them adding that by the greatnesse of the beauty of the creatures the heathens were inexcusable that they did not find the truth of one Creator We may remarke a speciall providence of God in the order of nature providing against the pervertiblenesse of this great blessing of beauty for the most vehement cupidity of our nature ariseth not before the use of reason the abuse of beauty and the use of reason are both of an age whereby we have a defence coupled with the time of temptation and our reason when it is seriously consulted for our safety hath the voyce of the holy cryer in the desart and directeth us to a stronger then her selfe which was before her though it appeared after her this is Grace which we may call in to our succour in all the violencies of our nature so as with these pre-cautions I propose beauty to be truly honoured in that highest degree of nobility which God hath been pleased to rank it among his materiall creatures preserving religiously the Prerogative Rights of the Soveraign of our hearts who demandeth not the putting out of the right eye as the Ammonites did for a mark of slavery but proposed it onely as a medicine in case of scandall when the liberty of the whole body is indangered by it whereby we see devotion doth not infringe any of the rights of humanity in the valuation of materiall blessings for in not admitting vain passion it doth rather defend then diminish the liberties of humane nature which are truly inslaved by the tyrannies of passion Now in answer to that question concerning friendship with women I professe to intend so little the discrediting of reall friendship with them as I approve it for an excellent preservative against the contagiousnesse of passion for as passion hath been well said to be friendship runne mad so friendship may be properly styled sober passion since it hath all the spirit and cordiality of the wine of love without the offensive fumes and vapors of it and so doth the office of exhilarating the heart without intoxicating the braine Insomuch as we finde that our friendship with the proprietor of what we are tempted to covet doth often even by the single virtue of morality suppresse those unruly appetites Therefore when the power of Christianity is joyned to re-inforce it we may expect it should much the easilier correct frailty of nature It hath been well said of friendship that it is the soule of humane society and if our friendship hold this Analogy with the soul to be equally intire in every part of the body it is very safe with women if the love be no more in the face then in the feet as long as it is like a soule thus spiritually distributed equally in the whole compound of body and mind it is not in danger of the partiality of passion which never maketh this equall communication of it selfe but lodgeth solely in the externall figure of the body and friendship thus regularly spirituall may find a sensible as well as a lawfull delight in the beauty and lovelynesse of the person for beauty hath somewhat that affecteth and taketh our nature which methinks is somewhat like to that we call the fire or the water in diamonds which are certain rayes of luster and brightnesse that seem the Spirit of the whole matter being equally issued from all parts of it and so there may be a kind of spirit and quicknesse of joy and delight that may shine upon us from the object of a beautifull person whom we may love so spiritually as to consider nothing in the person severed from the whole consistence and virtuous integrity of soul and body no more then we do the fire of a diamond apart from the whole substance Thus beauty may innocently raise the joy of friendship whiles sincere friendship doth suppresse the danger of beauty which is onely the kindling of passion wherefore if it be rightly examined passion which pretendeth to honour beauty more then friendship will be found but to vilifie and debase it for passion useth this diamond but as a flint to strike materiall sparkles of lust out of it whereas friendship lookes upon the fire of this diamond as delighted only with the luster of nature in the substance of it which reflects alwaies the splendor of the Creator unto a Pious ' and religious love But this high Spirituall point of friendship with women where we have no defence by consanguinity against the frailty of flesh and blood is not so accessable as we should presume easily to reach it many loves have stray'd that pretended to set out towards it therefore we cannot be too cautious in this promise to our selves of security in such difficulties for our spirit can make no such friendship with our flesh as to rely upon the fidelity thereof without his own continuall vigilancy wherefore S. Peters advise is very pertinent in these intelligences Converse in feare in this time of your sojourning for otherwise I may presage to you in the termes of the Prophet Evil shall come upon you and you shal not know from whence it riseth for friendship doth often when it is too much presumed upon rob upon the place it did first pretend to guard being easily tempted by the conveniency our senses finde in that trust And as those theeves are the hardliest discovered that can so handsomely change their apparencies upon the place as they need not flie upon it so friendship when it is debaushed into passion is very hardly detected For when it is questioned by Gods authorized examinants it resumeth the lookes and similitude of innocent friendship and so remaineth undiscovered not onely by the exterior inquest but very often it eludeth a slight interior search of our own conscience thereby proving the most dangerous theef in the familiarities with women For this reason I must charge this admission of friendship towards women with this clause of Saint Paul While you stand by saith presume not but feare for in this case we may warrantably invert the rule of Saint John and say that perfect love bringeth in feare wherefore I will conclude this case with Solomons sentence Blessed is the man who feareth alwayes he that hardneth his heart shall fall into mischiefe § VIII The Conclusion framed upon all the premised Discourse and our Love safely addressed NOw then upon these evidences we may fairely cast passion in this charge of Treason against the Soveraign of all our love and consequently all libertine discourse and familiarities with women
us in the childhood of our love to lead it by degrees to filiall love which is the full age of our affections For indeed while our love is in this first infancy our minds may be well said to be in bondage under the elements of the world rather serving upon a servile contract then acting as heires of the Promise which dignity a Christian evidenceth only by filiall Love indeed the other sort is rather legall then evangelicall and alone bringeth nothing to perfection §. III. Filiall love described and some strong incentives presented to kindle it in us NOw then as the Apostle saith Let us leave these beginnings and rudiments of the doctrine of Christ and covet earnestly the best gifts and I will shew unto you a more excellent way by as much as the matter of the altar of perfumes was more precious then that of Holocausts let us then leave fouling our hands with this brasse of mercenary love and fall a telling out this gold of Filiall dilection Filiall love is an adherence of our hearts to God under this mixt notion principally of his own being and secondarily of our relation to him So as this may be said to be a repercussion of his own light upon him as simply as our compounded nature can reflect it the light of Gods countenance impressed upon us being by this love reverberated upon the divine nature From the eyes of the hand-maid fixed upon the eye of her mistresse more in order to the duty of her nature then in private affection to her selfe So that this kind of love seemeth to be in the regeneration of man in the age of reason what the soul is in his first generation to wit the first principle of life For our devotion is but as it were an Embrion before it receive this animation which is induced by an infusion even of that love wherewith God loveth himselfe since it is the holy Spirit diffused in our hearts that quickneth and informeth them by this kind of love This is then the onely sort of affection worthy of God whereby we returne him that part of the divine nature we partake by his communication while we seem thus to remit the holy-Ghost back to him out of our hearts loving God with the same affection we derive from this residence in our soules Methinks the dignity and present delight of this noble love though it were an unthrift anticipation in this our minority and were to be discounted to us out of our future estate of loving might tempt a soule to take up for her present joy and satisfaction the suavity and blessednesse of this excellent love how much the rather ought we then aspire to this degrees of loving when the estate of our reversion is reproved proportionately to the degrees of this our anticipation This may well be the Method of such a father whose portions to his heires are the injoying himselfe no wonder then that the desire to preoccupate this state should augment the childrens inheritance For the Father who is infinite love must needs be largest to them who have advanced to themselves the most of Filiall love and the reason is that this Celestiall Father can reward nothing but his own gifts assigning alwayes second benefits by the measures of his first liberality and thus the more he hath inriched us with this love the more he remunerateth the possession of it so that mercenary love when it is understood will be found to damnifie it selfe by this projected aeconomy of selfe-provision for in this commerce all private reference imbaseth so much the species wherewith we negotiate as it falles in value just as much as it riseth in quantity When we reflect upon the state of humane nature we may collect easily how much God desireth this correspondence of Filiall love since even from the forfeiture of all our filiall dignity he tooke the rise of a nearer and firmer alliance of our nature unto his and fastned it so to this filial constitution as he took it out of mans own power ever to divide or sever it againe from this relation for even the sinne of man can never divorce our humanity now from this filiall state since the naturall Sonne of God will now no more cease to be man then to be God so inseparably is our nature now fixed in this filiall reference for though individuals may by want of Filial love to the divine nature separate themselves from a blessed participation thereof in eternity yet our nature can never fall from this divine conjunction but shall remaine elevated above that of Cherubims and Seraphins to all eternity O who can contemplate this and consent to love God lesse nobly then our present nature will admit considering we have even the noblenesse of our nature now set out to us as an object of our love for as it is in Jesus Christ we cannot over-love our own humanity and since God hath done as much as was possible for him in honour of our nature shall man be content to love this God lesse then is possible for his constitution nay there are grave Divines who indeare this obligation upon our humanity by this supposition that God lost the love of much nobler creatures by his preference of mans nature before theirs and if the supreamest of all creatures thought this as a partiality to an unworthy subject a provocation to leave loving of God shall not this prefer'd creature derive from hence a powerfull motive to raise and purifie his love in respect of this so obliged proposure whereof the Apostle glorieth and insisteth much upon the prelation of the seed of Abraham before the nature of Angels as one of the strongest inducements to â—nterest our hearts in this filial affection And since God hath prefer'd the nature of man before that of Angels not onely in point of honour but likewise in the part of succour why may we not suppose he valueth more the love of men then that of Angels this conception may safely be made use of to incite us to the studying the abstraction and spiritualizing our loves to the purest degree of our compound nature in which the very disadvantage we have more then pure spirits in the devesture of self-respects may be converted into a conducement to the value of our purity by reason the opposition of our bodyes in this disinterested love is counted to us an indearement of our hearts when in this reluctancy of one halfe we reduce our love to that decree of implicity which is compatible with this our complexure and as Saint Jerome saith of the chastity of virgins composed with that of Angels There is more felicity in the one but more fortitude in the other So we may say respectively of their two loves that there is more happynesse in the one but more Heroicknesse in the other What Angelicall love exceedeth in the finenesse of abstraction humane may answer in the fidelity of extraction since his is laboured
And sure it is a speciall mercy the. laying for us these sensible steps of sociable dilection whereon we may feel our hearts rising up to that imperceptible object of the Deity that by loving what we do sie we may direct the course of our love to what we do not see if we wanted this land-mark whereof the Pharisees took down the upper halfe when they shortened the precept of loving our neighbour to the length onely of reciprocall friendship our love would be much more exposed to deviation in the course to heaven For we know it is much easier to keep our way at land where we have diverse sensible marks for our guidance and information of our advance then at sea where we keep our course by accounts of art and little visible directions and our love to our brothers seemeth to be a passage of our minds by land since in that motion in our own element we have many marks and signes of the rectitude of our love whereas the elevation of our loves to the invisible being of God seemeth to be a course at sea wherein we are conducted onely by spirituall and abstracted notions We may therefore account our selves much favoured by having fraternal love as a sign secure token of our loves being in a straight and rectified addresse to God and the bosome disciple of Christ fixeth this as the pole by which our love may safely set his course to our Celestiall Father affirming that He who loveth his brother abideth in light and in him there is no scandale this is grounded on his Masters assertion that the second precept of loving our brother was like the first of loving God and these two loves may me thinks be said to be different but as the Divines say Gods attributes are distinct from his Essence not really in their own nature though they are severed by distinct conceptions in our understandings to wit of Gods wisdome goodnes justice c we form conceptions distinct from his essence which are all really the same thing with it In like manner we frame diverse notions of this charity as it is divided into these distinct exercises which is really the same is distinguished onely by our understanding according to these several respects towards God and our brother for it is the same inspired love that streameth it selfe into these diverse acts or operations Let us then blesse God for this precept of Fraternall love given us as a visible pillar of fire which while we have in our eye we may be confident of being in our way to the term of Filiall love consummate in the sight of our Father who is as yet visible but in his images wherefore let us attend unto this duty as to a light shining in this our dark place untill the day-star of Filiall love rise in our hearts Thus have I set before you Christian Charity in the forme of Jacobs ladder on which our love must ascend to him who rests upon the top of it and in this similitude mercenary love seemeth to answer well to the lower rounds neerest the earth on which our infirme nature is allowed to set her first steps and so to rise by degrees to the uppermost marches which touch heaven to the which none reacheth but filiall love and our fraternall charities seeme to be the side-pieces which combine and compaginate the whole frame so that these three concurrencies do compleat the meanes of our soules re-ascent to her Creator And since Christian grace is derived from the filiall relation in the Deity Filiall love in this state of our adoption must needs be the pillar strength of Christianity which like the pillars of the holiest part of the Tabernacle hath the head cast of gold and the fact of silver that is it containeth not onely the purity and preciousnes of speculative love but the pliantnes and commerce of practicall charity whereby the feet in action hold a proportionate value to the head in speculation thus by the intelligence of speculative and the industry of acting charity our souls are safely re-conveyed into our Fathers bosome where the portion of every child is no lesse then the becomming like the Lord of all our elder brother Christ Jesus whose Filial love hath purchased this co-inheritance for us upon this condition onely on our part of loving our father and his with an affection copied after his and the liker we draw this image the more we shall resemble him when we shall become like him by once looking on him let every one then that hopeth this sanctifie his love as his is sanctified The fifeenth Treatise The Duties of a Christian towards Enemies Divided into five Sections §. I. The precept of loving Enemies sweetned by miny Reasons drawn from Christs injoyning it and his acting it NEver â—an spake like this said our Saviors enemies of him when they came armed with Malice and Authority to offer him violence This singular attribution was due to all he said but cannot me thinks be more apposite to any thing he uttered then to this injunction of Love your enemies as good to them that hate you The strangeness of this precept seemeth to imply That the Author of Nature onely could be the proposer of it because the complyment with it seemeth to require a reversal of the instincts of Nature and looks like a greater undertaking then the re-edifying the Temple in three days this seeming as many miracles proposed as there are Humane tempers in the world to be wrought upon For the answering of Hatred and Injury with Love and Charity seemeth more incompetent with our Nature then the proposition which posed Nicodemus since iâ— may be said to be less strange for Nature to revert to what she hath once been then to transcend so much her own dispositions as to be raised from a Humane to an Angelical temper For in this state of Charity the spirit seems no ways acting by the impulses of the senseâ— Me thinks those Coelestial Doctrines should have attested to his enemies that it could be no less then the Creator of Men and Angels that could undertake these Conversions of old men into children and all men as it were into Angels and he it was indeed who proposed this renovation and exaltation of our Nature and well might he do it who had in his person brought God into Infancy and Man into Divinity We may â—iâ—y then proclaim of him with them that heard him referring specially to this article of Loving enemies that he taught not as the Scribes but as having power For the Doctors of the Law durst so little press this duty upon the people though it were contained in their Commandments as in complyance with the hardness of their hearts they ventured rather to allow a Bill of Divorce to their loves in this case of consorting with enemies and in this perverted liberty Christ found the people strongly habituated Insomuch as we may say not improperly
That oâ—â— High Priest found the fire of this Charity which came out of the flames of Mount Sinia as much altered in apparence as Nehe 〈…〉 did the fire of the Altar that had been hid during the Captivity which seemed turned into a thick water And Christ Jesus like Neheâ—â—as took the same matter of the former precept and spread it again upon the Altar and extracted the first fire out of it for our High Priest explicated and unfolded this precept of Loving our neighâ—â—â—â— the vertue whereof had long layen concealed and seemed rather turned into a thick water of bitterness against enemies then to retain any spark of love for them But Christ by his explication and dilating of this precept hath revived the fire that lay covered in it and replaced it on his Altars which kindleth now one of the best smelling Sacrifices we offer up in the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is the loving of enemies and doing good to those that hate us This may at first sight seem such a burthen laid upon Christians as their fathers could not â—ear but when we look upon the donative given at the same time that the imposition was laid we may acknowledge these retributions not to be tythes or first-fruits of that treasure which is dispensed to us for our inablements to this discharge since the grace of Christ Jesus passeth all understanding much more then this precept transcendeth natural reason For single morality hath by the hands of the Philosophers affected to draw an exterior colouring of this image of Charity in arrogating impassiveness unto humane wisdom We then unto whom the Divine wisdom hath imparted it self in so admirable a maner teaching and acting this office may well avow the gift to be much greater then the charge And truly when they are ballanced together this order seemeth more an infranchising then a fettering of our Nature which without it seemeth rather bound then free to revenge such is the dominion of our irritated passions so that Christ by this injunction may be said to have set us at liberty not to seek our own vindications wherein the violence of our Nature seemed before to ravish us of Free-will wherefore even in this point wherein the Gospel seemeth the most coâ—rcive and constraining it may rightly be said to be The Law of Liberty he that in our Nature led captivity captive by this sort of Charity hath given the same gift unto men as his members whereby they are inabled to triumph by the same love over all foraign and inâ—rinsique enmities We then who may own a participation of the Divine Nature cannot justly except against this obligation of acting more by the inspirations of that Nature then by the instincts of our own and our Savior seemeth to have affected so much the inviscerating this disposition in our hearts as he claimeth the first introduction of this precept to recommend it to us as a special property of his mission that the kindeness to his person might sweeter the asperity of the command he saith he giveth us this as a new commandment To love one another and thus owneth the having instituted what he did but redintegrate it seemeth he meant by setting the most he could of himself to this order to work the better upon our Nature by that sympathy which is more sensible between him and us then between us and the other persons of the Trinity and surely all the prints of this duty were so efaced as these conjunctions co-existing in Christs person seemed requisite to induce this renovation viz. Man for a capacity of suffering from enemies for our example and God for a power of imparting an ability of imitating such returns of love to injuries and violations But supposing these two capacities united in the person of the precepter of this conformity the newness of such a person taketh off all wonder from any innovation can be induced by such a Ministery And me thinks we may say of this Doctrine of Loving enemies as S. Paul did of that of the Resurrection of the dead though in this point Christs infirmity and passiveness promoteth the Commandment aâ— in the other his prerogative and exemption evinceth the article That if Christ had not risen from the dead the preaching of the Gospel would have been vain So if Christ had not forgiven his enemies his death and returned them love and benefits for all their provocations the preaching of this article would have been of little efficacy for we know Christ found it wholly antiquated in the Law and how little is it actuated in the time of the Gospel with the help even of Christs precedent though he dyed for his enemies and requires of us but the living with ours as if they were our friends this is but a favorable exaction were the retribution claimed but by an equal when God himself is then the sufferer as well as the imposer how can we be affected more with Humans enmity then with this Divine friendship and leave following of Gods patern of charity to copy out Mans draught of malignity in his offending both God and his Brother Must not this preference of the example even of them we hate before that of God appear a strange ingratitude when we calmly reflect upon it since God hath been so solicitous both for the cure and comfort of our infirm Nature as he himself in the person of Christ Jesus chose to want all those things the cupidities whereof do use to deprave and vitiate our affections that by his contemning them they might be deprised and vilified to our appetites nor hath he staid at this privation but passed on even to an assumption and toleration of all those things whereof the terror and apprehension useth to divert us from the preference of his verities that by his society we might be reconciled to these aversions and animated in the pursuance of his preferences Would we but consider then the remission of Offences to one another as a debt we owe our Savior Christ we might repute it a blessing to have some of that species of Charity to repay unto him wherein he hath given us no less a treasure then our own Salvation and without the help of enemies we could have none of this precious species of love which Christ so highly valueth insomuch as our friends and favorers may be said not to be so useful to us as our afflicters and maligners when we make the best of them for they indebt us more and more to God and these help towards our discharge and acquittance by a means of paying in some part of the most difficult conformity we owe in Christian Religion And we may observe That Christ hath intailed most of his Beatitudes upon such estates as come to us by enemies not by friends as all sorts of sufferances and that friends commonly do less for us then we require whereas enemies in this respect do more for us then we can
seemeth to treat with us for the sale of our Revenges as if they were Proprieties he would purchase from us and offereth us no less then his eternal Love for our temporary dilection of enemies Nevertheless how few are there that will part with this illegitimate title to Revenge even upon these terms Our passions truly considered are stated only upon Reversions by reason they lay out always our present peace upon some succeeding expectation yet they had rather trust their own powers which can give them no security of their wishes then resign their interests to God for such an exchange as his promise of an eternal Triumph over all enemies and so likely in stead of accepting this proffer of God which he is so gracious as to make even his own propriety which is all Revenge our chief study seeketh how to evade the obligation of this precept and how we may draw our particular aversions and animosities our of the compass of this order whereby we often make the party declared against it viz. Our private vicious Reason judge of the sence of this Commandment of Love your enemies and do good to them that hate you The most part of the world take the same course to solve the difficulty they apprehend as Alexander did with the Gordian knot they will not take the pains to bow this precept but break it out-right by a neglect and inconsideration of it Others that would seem more reverent are ingenious to elude it by way of explication by this means many bow it so as to make it seem standing bent to their peculiar disposition and such humors use these words Love your enemies as some do This is my body they strip them of all their literal sence because they seem so cross and opposite to their Reason in a literal admission they will not receive them in other then a figurative meaning rejecting the reality signified by those words Thus do those that would elude this precept of Love your enemies because they finde this Command so averse to Humane sense in the literal acception they would have it understood but as a kinde of figurative expression to evade the reality of this duty and so pretend to be obliged onely to some exterior shew and superficies of civility and fair behavior to enemies which is indeed but the figure or representation of Love while they decline the real presence of Fraternal Charity the reality whereof hath no less substantial a patern then that of Christ Jesus's love unto us given in this form A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you It is not therefore so much the obscure as the hard saying that averteth the conformity of our Capharnaites in this Article and alas how many are there who are not scandalized at this hard saying which seemeth so to their Reason in the point of Faith concerning Christs Natural body who do notwithstanding go back upon this Article of love to 〈◊〉 Mystical It is therefore requisite to plain and smoothe somewhat the rough surface of this Command for which effect there needeth onely an unfolding and deplication of the inside of this order to shew it is not so asperous and thorny as our Nature apprehendeth it by the first glances that light upon it §. III. The relation wherein all Enemies are to be loved and what offices are indispensably due to them the omissions whereof can be redeemed by no other sort of Pieties IF ever there were a just occasion of hatred given it was that man had when he first perceived the injury he had received from woman seeing his own and her nakedness become as it were a minoir that reflected to him the figure of Death in his own face How came it then to pass that this passion of Revenge which is likely the strongest at the first straining all passions being now so newly broken loose in the minde of Adam did not declare some violent resentment of this provocation and fall into an aversion against his Temptress Sure it was that he who had still so clear a light of his own Nature left shining in him discerned the Image of God remaining still upon her which object he saw deserved love and affection This character as it was not efaced by this occasion which was the seed of all injuries that have sprung up ever since so it remaineth still indelible in all Humane enemies And as no iniquity can expunge that Image so is there always left that object for our love in Humane Nature even when it is the worst disfigured to us by any demerit of individuals to our particular Unto this character is that love referred which is by command assigned to our private enemies whom we are not ordained to love under the notion of haters of us nor to bless in relation to their cursing us for this were to propose that for the object of our love to which God cannot be reconciled as Evil and Viciousness not could out Master and Law-giver love any because they hated him we may rather say That because he did not love to be hated he came even from Heaven to make friends of his enemies that were capable of this Conversion and shewed no love even unto Angels in respect of the inflexibleness of their Nature after their declared enmity but we can have no irreconcileable enemies since Humane Nature is not invariable after judgement like Angelical Therefore all our Charity commanded for enemies is in order to the working on them by differing impressions being designed to rectifie their enormity not to confirm their crookedness for we are not obliged to any offices towards enemies that are likely to continue and foment their pravity or malevolence After our sincere and cordial forgiveness all the assistance we are bound constantly to render them is Spiritual in fervent and devout intercessions to God for their recipiscence and restitution to his Grace Temporal benefits are precisely due to them onely in cases of their extreme necessities and in such proportions as rise not to the enabling them for those ill effects we may justly apprehend from their ability what falls within our ordained duty is The not excluding them in any publike distribution of our benificences in relation to our private discords and the keeping our mindes disposed to succour and accommodate their particular distresses in case of their occurring and presenting themselves to our charity This is the term our Charity is positively commanded to reach unto what it exceedeth this point is a free-will-offering which passeth forward from the precept towards the perfection of Piety so that the positive exaction in this duty can seem severe onely to such as are pinched with any of the straight orders of Christian Religion for all the exterior offices of obligation respect onely the necessities of enemies which our Nature hath no aversion to look upon and it must be a very perverse temper that must not be moved to
which they forge themselves so as commonly when the possession thereof cometh to be questioned before God it indureth not the tryal In this case we cannot recuse our Enemies for our Jury since they are more proper then indifferent persons for this tryal which is to be judged upon the testimonies of our humble and patient sufferings few will protest against flexibleness under the depression of Gods hands but most would fain hold the screw themselves whereby they are let down for fear of falling too violently or too low but true Humility abandoneth it self to the supreme hand under which all other move but instrumentally not excepting against any violent motions of secondary hands whereinto it is delivered to be exerâ—ised And if upon the pain we feel from our Enemies hand we would with the eye of Humility look strictly inward upon our selves we should for the most part discern that it is dressing some defect we apprehended not before as either the cancer of Self-love which we have all in our breasts or some tumor rising in Prosperity or the Ulcer of Sensuality or the vertigo and giddiness of youth or the drowsiness and tepidity of Ease and Accommodation All which may be said to be like worms to Ships that breed in us eating and consuming us under water most when we lie still in the harbors of temporal rest and security so that perfect Humility understanding the unsoundness of Humane Nature apprehendeth Enemies as Gods Surgeons making all their operations rather Cures of some Infirmity then woundings of any vertuous quality I may then safely propose to you the study of Humility as the best qualification for the discharge of this precept since he who commandeth us to take this yoke upon us biddeth us learn of him to carry it because he is meek and humble of heart therefore by the same disposition we must needs be the best enabled in his method to fulfil all righteousness Nor doth this precept of Loving enemies and Forgiving offences any way slack or retard the exercise of Justice whose sword though it draw blood yet it sheddeth none for it striketh onely in application to Gods order not mans passion Princes therefore who are but Gods sword-bearers by the right of their offices when they are provoked by any personal injury as Ingratitude or any other infidelity not legally criminal should remember That though they have many other arms about them yet they are warranted to strike with none but the sword of Justice Revenge is justice that Nature would do her self whereby that power which hath the command of regular Justice may easily be deceived by our Nature which when it is checked by the Law of God in this point of self-righting seeketh to slip in this appetite under the cover of the Law of Man Thus the animosity which powerful persons have in their hearts easily runs through their veins into their hands which hold and deliver out the publike Justice into which private interests do so commodiously insinuate themselves as it requireth a great attention of grace to discern this surreption and reject this intrusion of Revenge into the train and comitancy of Justice Me thinks Princes not being exposed so much as others to personal irritations have it discounted to them in the equal imposition of this duty on them of Forgiving private offences and repressing the sence of particular displeasures since this Bridle must needs set the most uneasily upon their heads the Crown seeming to take up so much room as there is little left for the reins of this Command In others the violence of their Nature is often easily staid and repulsed by the steepness of the rise up to Revenge but they are put to hold it pressing downhil so that unless Grace bear the reins very hard Nature will easily run away in this precipitate passion but as this difficulty maketh the restraint of this impetus the more painful so the mastery thereof becometh more meritorious to them then it is to less tempted Conformists Certainly Princes who faithfully observe this command make more of their provocations then they do of most of their bounties for by this subjection they lay up their power in Heaven in stead of laying it out on Earth and at that day when all the Treasures of their Civil Liberalities shall be melted and dissolved these their Sufferings and Self denials shall remain impassible in that fire which the Apostle saith shall try all our works Blessed then are onely those who while they live here in greatness and authority build their Monuments of such materials as may endure the fire of that day when even the light affections of this life shall prove hay and stubble about their owners passing through a flame and the heavy passions of Anger and Malice shall sink their bearers into such flames as are never to be passed Wherefore the best Monuments Princes can erect for their eternity are arches of these solid Vertues of Humility Patience and Charity which are the more strengthned the more they are charged with the remission of injuries and the dilection of enemies These will out last all their Pyramides of secular Ostentation and Magnificence the King of Heaven Earth hath left them the model of this arch in his life who was then in the strongest point of his Oharity when he was bowed into this triumphant arch of Humility bearing his Cross under which as his body sunk so his love to his enemies grew the more erected none then can be so great as to be exempted from this conformity nor any so miserable as not be solaced by this association I may well then cast up all my divisions respecting several conditions and different provocations into this total That whosoever confess they have any sins whereof they expect a forgiveness from God must resolve to forgive their Brother what offences soever shall require their remission since this condition is expresly set upon their own pardons If you forgive not men neither will your Father remit unto you your offences And our Savior Christ at his remove from his Disciples left them this specifical distinction from the worlds dependants The loving one another so as we may say That our suffering King and Master hath set his Arms upon this Precept for all his followers to wear and to be discerned by O let us then cast off our old Badges of Envy and animosity which are indeed but the Cognizances of Cain and let us put on his Livery to whom we rightfully belong remembring we are not our own having been bought by a great price to glorifie and bear God in our body And when we carry Christ crucified in our thoughts along with our own Crucifiers the pretensions of our Nature to her resentments will be out of countenance in that company and drawing all the grievances and aversions of our Nature as coupled in the yoke with Christ we shall easily confess That even the burthen of this
by the lines and editions of Natural Accidents which are so false to the nature of Moral causes Man is not set so hard a task as to work to fit all Events with sutable Reasons to them It was a strange exaction of Nebuchadnezzar upon his Magi to declare to him not onely the meaning but the very dream as if they had been the infusers of it They who search for Humane Reasons proportionate to the events of all actions do me thinks as wilde a thing for they adventure to interpret Gods Actions and Mysteries by their own Dreams since our ratiocination upon the secrets of Divine Order is but an excursion of Fancy which is of the same nature as a Dream in Religion It seems therefore rather an indulgence to our weakness then an injunction against our liberties to be forbid to press into that light where we shall be oppressed by the majesty of it For What is man saith the wisest of men that he should follow his Maker and when he had applyed his heart to finde out the reason of all things he confesseth He had counted one by one to finde out the account and yet his soul sought and found it not So that his return upon his adventure may well be our disswasion from the attempt and a strong motive for us to rest upon this anchor of the Prophet In the path of thy judgement O Lord we have patiently expected thee §. IV. An information of what kinde of conformity we owe Gods declared Will in adverse Events AFter these bounds set to curiosity me thinks many are desirous to know Whether their Wills are bound up to their Adversities I shall endeavor to satisfie such enquiries by a clear Solution of this Question resolving them That although we are restrained in the curiosity of Causes we are not confined to a conformity of our Wills to the material object of Gods Will in publike calamities and afflictions Our Wills must be fastned to Gods in the formal object of our willing which is to desire every thing in order to the accomplishment of his Will in his universal Ordination of all things But we are not obliged to be pleased in every material declaration of Gods pleasure as in the defeature of a good Cause the death of our friends and the successfulness of our enemies In these and such cases of conforming our wills to the matter of our sufferings we may as it were dispute the cause with God and wish his Providence might work by other means Because in this shadowed light of our Reason wherein we live we do not see how the ways lead to Gods universal ends to which our wils are only bound to be conformed formality as making that Divine Order the rule of our final desires We know Abraham opposed Gods declared Will in the material part of it in the destruction of Sodom and when God ordained him the Sacrificing of his Son he might justly have wished God had been pleased to appoint him some other testimony of his Obedience This kinde of dissenting is properly rather a velleity or wishing an alteration of Gods purpose then an opposition to it and this imperfect adhering to Gods Will is proper to this half-light we have of it in our distance from the object of his universal Order Those who in the light of his countenance look upon his Will have theirs both materially and formally united to it because as the Psalmist says In thy light we shall see all light Thus they discern how all they desire is in order to the universal end and understand how all the discords which are now jars in our ears are set to compose the harmony of the Divine Providence wherein they have their parts singing continually the praises thereof But while we are looking through our glass and the darkness of our riddle we are not obliged to a clearer conformity of our Wills then the nature of our light can afford us which discovers not to us how all present advers accidents are pertinent to the efficacity of Gods universal Order therefore we are not imposed that precise adherence of our Wills to the material part of adversity Upon this ground the Prophets presumed as it were to implead Gods sentences by an expostulation with him about their execution Moses makes a Remonstrance to God of the inconveniences of his declared Will to destroy Israel representing the scandal of impotency whereunto his name would be lyable among the Heathens and the Prophet Samuel after the pronouncing of Gods sentence against Saul seems to plead for him with his tears so long as God asketh him How long he would lament Saul not as displeased with this unconformity but rather in commiseration of his piety and tenderness of charity The Prophet Jeremy pleaded so long against the rigor of his own commission as God imployed his modesty to silence him knowing he would not expect a grant in what Moses and Samuel should have bin rejected yet when he could intercede no longer when his mouth was stopt his eyes were let loose into streams that seemed to run still against the tide of Gods judgements And God allowed the Prophet Jonah a much stronger liberty to seem angry at Gods mercy and to dispute the justness of his perplexity In all these instances the wills of the Prophets were formally concurrent with the Will of God for they made still the reason of their willing the accomplishment of the common universal disposition of Gods order but we see they dissented in the matter of their willing they did not vote these special and precise means concurrently with Gods voice because they saw not clearly how they stood in Gods design of the common good and so might differ from God in wishing the order though not the end It is otherwise with the Angels who are in a fuller light they discern how all Humane events are in their special order to the common benefit of the Universe and so execute their Commissions of Benevolence or Indignation upon us without any alteration of joy in our temporal blessings or commiseration in their offices of destruction This state of equanimity we shall attain when we come to see face to face that Face which shall make us like it by looking on it when we shall see him as he is in whō we shall together see all other things as they are until then while we see him but in the shadow of his works he requires of us only our conformity to his wil as far as he hath endued our Nature with a power of apprehending how his declared pleasure hath a consonancy with the universal good of the world So that we have an injunction and a capacity of wishing always in preference of the universal good before our private interest And in those cases in which we are not convinced how the ills we suffer conduce to that order we may piously deprecate such Events lament the exigencies they occasion and sue to
have happened to me have faln out to the furtherance of my liberty in Christ Philippians Chapter the first Verse the twelfth I shall not then endeavor to write the Laudative but rather the Life of Solitude in which the intermixtures of Good and Ill are co-incident to one another And though I do not pretend the measures of my minde should exactly fit many others yet the matter of my propositions which is Vertue and Piety will endure the taking to pieces and translating into many good Forms according to the sizes of several Dispositions In God there is this inexplicable Mystery there is Unity and Singleness without Solitude for out of the Singularity of the Divine Essence there is a Natural Fecundity and Emanation of a Plurality of Persons in which consists Gods incapacity of solitariness for without this connatural Society Divines affirm God might be said to be solitary even in the middest of all his Creations as Man was said to be alone among all the Creatures of Paradice before he had a Consort of his own Nature We need not stay any longer in this Mountain of the Divine Essence clouded and overshadowed with this Mystery of a TRINITY in UNITY it is sufficient that it afford us but so much Light as to shew That Solitude is not consonant to the Nature of Man as he is GODS Image and so provision was quickly made for that supply after the singleness of his Creation We must resort then to some Supernatural intervention that may mediate between Mans Nature and the Nature of Solitude when he is reduced to it and thereby acquaint him with another kinde of society when he is sequestred from that which is so familiar to him Thus as it were rather translating his communication into another language then razing out the impression in him of the love of company And this is to change the nature of his society and not the sociableness of his Nature §. II. Solitude divided into three sorts and the first discoursed of ME thinks all the states of Solitude may be pertinently divided into these three sorts of Voluntary Violent and Neutral The first is the operation of a Super natural agent upon Mans Will which works upon it as the Wise man says Forcibly and sweetly drawing our mindes out of the world in such a gentle soft separation as vapors are extracted out of the earth while the vertue of the heavenly Spirit attracts our Will out of grosser immersions in the earth unto the pure speculation of Divine objects the grace of such evocations falling as the Psalmist saith like dew upon a fleece So as this egress out of the society of the world may be nominated supernatural in the means though voluntary in the act The next is when any exterior natural agent forcibly deprives us of the liberty of all society and this may often be just in order to the general society of the world which is maintained sometimes by violences exercised on particulars but is always offensive to the nature of Man And so I term this sort of Solitude Violent The third which I state as Neutral is a mixture and compound between the aptness and constitution of particular natures and some exterior intervention of violence and offence to that humor by which we are most affected to the world as a defeature of some hope whereunto our mindes were most applyed or some loss of what our affections had made an intire transaction of themselves unto or some injury above our reach of any reparation and many the like violations of our mindes in the world upon which we break off correspondence with it And this condition of Solitariness I call Neutral as having somewhat of both the other states of Voluntary and Violent for both these qualities concur to the composure of this kinde of separation from Society For the first sort of these Solitudes which I call Voluntary that part of it which is disagreeable to the instinct of Nature is reconciled by the mediation of the Author of Nature who nourisheth the mindes he calls ouâ— into this Desert with lighter and more Spiritual society which he showers down from Heaven upon them as the Psalmist says Man feeds upon the bread of Angels Prayer and Meditation which associates his Spirit to such company as he thinks he hath rather one body too much with him then want of any There are many of the children of Abraham whom God calls as he did their Father summoning them by his voyce to come out of their Countrey from their Kindred and from their Fathers house unto a Land that he will shew them and to this citation many do faithfully answer quitting the Native Region of all their Inclinations the habitudes of Flesh and Blood which are so near of kin to them and all the sweetnesses of communication and solaces of company which are the domesticks of their Fathers house and the familiars of our Humane Nature and separating themselves from all these in 〈…〉 e appâ—tencies take their journey into the strange Region of Solitude privacy and recluseness and when the Soul like the Psalmists Spouse shall thus forget her own people and her fathers house then the King shall be in love with her beauty and then this delectation of the Soul in our Lord confers all the petitions of the heart upon it When God makes these extraordinary selections and vocations to this passage through the Desert unto the Land of Promise he spreads a Cloud over them by day which shadows them from all the ardors of their sensitive appetite and sets up a pillar of Fire before them in the night of that fire which Christ came to bring into the earth that illuminateth all the obscurities whereunto our Nature is subject in the ecclipâ—e of Society and warmeth and cherisheth that shivering chilness wherewith our Nature is so apt to be benumb'd in the privation of the elementary light and heat of our Nature which is Communication and Society This holy fire that accompanies them doth not onely as the Psal mist says Make their night as day to them but even the devesture of themselves their solace and delectation and by the same degrees that they are severed and discharged of themselves they are replenished with that Society which entertaineth them with that joy wherein the fingleness is the universality of it for it is never all things to any heart but when it is there alone This is the peace of Christ exulting in our hearts And in Colloss 3. 15. this Society is the whole Trinity which as the Prophet says Leads first into solitude and then speaks to the heart as though it would have nothing but the heart it self present at this entertainment Such passengers as are truly led by this conduct have for their Viatick that hidden Manna given them which is promised in the Revelation in which they finde the several tastes of all their inclinations the relish of the
ill an odour as their former Sacriledge If these Animadversions meet likewise with any such as are not urged by the pressure of their Consciences but rather solicited so much by their natural temper and disposition to privacy and retiredness as upon the least provocation of the world they are apt to break with it these humors are desired to stay and pause â—â—riouâ—ly and long on this suggestion for this may often be the operation of Melancholy which works this hasty promptitude And as Melancholy is the highest degree of choler in the Humors so in these hasty sallies out of the society of the world there may well be more Natural Humor then Spiritual Disposition and so this be rather a Disease then a devout Constitution Wherefore like sick men that forbear food long while the Humor is consuming these retreaters may for some time live quietly as long as this Humor of the worlds disrelish is wasting and spending it self but after that is digested the appetite of the world returns and likely gnaws upon their peace they having no natural food for it Hence is it that such complexions ought to be very advised in this their assigning of themselves according to the propensity of their Humors which perswades them often that what is indeed but the Ecâ—ho of their own voyce of Nature which speaks in them is a Spiritual vocation For their Natural Constitution raifeth that desire in their imaginative part which causeth a little repetition and answer of it in the Judiciary and Rational power of their minde but it is rather from the hollowness of their reason then the solidity of it that this Eccho is returned The result therefore of all these Examinations of several Cases must be Not to conduct our selves by the precedents of special extraordinary vocations of some whom Christ hath sent for out of the streets and by-ways of the world that is immediately from the foulness and immundicity of their lives and by his Messengers of Crosses and Afflictions compelled them to come into his house For these Cases are prerogatives of Gods Grace which do not alter the known Laws that are enacted by him by which Laws we ought to try our vocations to wit by the mature advice of those Judges he hath seated in his Tribunal upon Earth his Church and by their Sentences to make the tryal of all our own private impulses or motions of our Spirit to this dispossession and abnegation of the world Christ himself hath ruled this case in an excellent Parable of one that builds a Tower which is properly adopted to the design of a contemplative life as it is the erection of a frame of life raised high above the other parts of the Earth and intended for prospect and discovery so that none must undertake this edifice but after computation of the pertinencies requisite for the finishment lest they expose themselves to the reproach of having begun what they were not able to finish and this reckoning and account of our provision must be made by the consulting of a prudent Spiritual Surveyor not trusting to the Architecture of our own Spirit in which we must zealously often and humbly consult the eternal Architect of all Spiritual frames for a sincere discernment of his order in the regulating our own designs with this address of the cautious Spirit of Holy David Lord grant me to know the way wherein I should walk for I have lifted up my soul to thee This parting and separation from our own Will is the first leave we must take in our valediction to the world and this is not to be done by a hasty dismission of it for so it is but a weight thrown upward which is fastened to us and falls quickly back again therefore it must be loosened and severed by degrees and steeped as it were in the fresh springing water of Prayer and Mortification whereby it will peel and fall away the easilier Some perseverence in this disposition is requisite to blanch and whiten the intention perfectly St. Pauls advice for our preparation for the Holy communion is me thinks very properly applicable to this our preparation for participating of this Spiritual food for Religious Solitude is the Table of the Holy Ghost Therefore let a man examine himself and then eat of this bread of life for he that presumes to taste of it unworthily may be truly impeached as guilty of much irreverence to the Holy Spirit in venturing to come to the Communion of his Gifts and Graces rashly without a due consulting of his invitation I need not urge our precaution and advisedness in this case farther since our temerity in it is brought to be a kinde of Sin against the Holy Ghost Whereupon I will close up this Advertisement in St. Johns words Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God for many false promises of this Spirit of an happy Solitude are current in the world it being truer in no case then in this It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God who sheweth mercy The nineteenth Treatise Of Violent Solitude or Close Imprisonment Divided into eight Sections §. I. How unwillingly our Nature submits to the loss of Liberty and Society IN the case we treated last the Will needed a premonition against the deception of sight for our Will in fits of Melancholy looketh commonly through the glass of our Imagination upon such objects as flatter that humor most This Perspective of our Fancy is often cut into such angles as represent various and false colours of perswasions wherewith the Will is inveigled such species proving not real when our Reason cometh strictly to oversee them Therefore in the election of Solitude the elective faculty was to be instructed against the falacies of discourse upon which the Resolution is to be grounded but this case requireth a different direction For here the best course the Will can take to rectitude is to be totally blinded and cieled that she may make the straighter mount upward to the eternal Will and not amuse or perplex her self by looking about with a solicitous inspection into second causes but may pitch at the first flight upon the primary cause of all Contingencies Our Nature requireth much precaution in this aptitude to intangle us under the pretext of infranchisement by the liberty of reasoning out the Causes of all advers Accidents for in this case of loss of Liberty and Company our Nature likely seizeth on curious disquisitions of all Humane Reasons as the next thing she takes hold on to make company out of them and the contrivement of issues out of these straights is a sort of freedom our Nature takes as some imaginary reparation in her necessity by reason wherof these are coÌ„monly the first occupations wherein our Fancy seeketh some divertisement and this entertainment may lighten the weight a little by removing it to and fro in our Fancy not
letting a sad apprehension setle upon our mindes but all this agitation of discourse as long as it is but in circumference about this world and in the element of secondary Causes is still but a circular motion which maketh no progression to our end for till our mindes are risen and fixed upon the supreme Cause all the various projects and motions of our Fancy are but cooling a Feaver with â—anning upon the distemper'd patient where the ayr may afford some exterior refreshment which may be an inflaming of the disease but if our Will be 〈…〉 eled at first with the Dove of the Psalmist she flyeth up immediately to her rest The sooner then we spread our thoughts upon the wings of Faith the more haste we make to be lodged in rest and tranquility of Spirit Liberty and Society are two so dear Proprieties of Humane Nature as natural Reason can give no equivalent exchange in satisfaction for them The Author of Nature can onely recompence this privation of two of the best Functions of our being and this by a communication of no less then his own Nature which is by filling up these breaches with his own Spirit otherwise our Spirits will certainly remain empty and destitute of peace and consolation For God who made Mans Society out of Man himself hath left the love of Company so inviscerated in him as that deprivement seemeth now to take more then a rib out of him even the better half of his Minde seems intrenched from him insomuch as his Reason seemeth to be left but one-handed to minister to him in this Exigence which would require a reduplication rather for his support But Nature is so unable to make this supply as for the redintegrating of his minde he must resort to a Supernatural suppeditation §. II. The deficiency of single Natural Reason argued for Consolation in this case and the validity of Grace asserted WHen I consider the strange undertakings of the Philosophers me thinks they have charactered to us the power of Natural Reason in a fabulous figure or Romance setting it out as vanquishing all corporeal sensibleness armed with never so many strong afflictions dissolving and disinchanting all the Charms and Spells of Passions although their characters be set never so powerfully against the efficacy of Reason which they exhibite in this predominancy dispersing all Errors rectifying all oblique Opinions thus have they fancied the superior part of the minde inthroned in such power as may easily blow away all ayr even of any Sedition that riseth in the inferior Regions of the imaginative or sensitive faculties Reason remaining in the posture of the Queen of the Revelation proclaiming I sit Queen and am no Widow and shall see us sorrow But they who account upon this Self-sufficiency shall quickly finde how impracticable these strong speculations will prove when they are bound and the Philistines are upon them that is inclosed in Solitude and assailed by Natural distresses and vexations if they shall then expect such a Hercules of their Reason as they have seen painted by the Stoicks that should break through all these Monsters and remain fortified by all these labors they will soon perceive their projected securities had more of Poetry then of Prophesie And sure I believe one that trusteth to the power of Natural Reason upon the word of Philosophy to deliver him from all faintness or deficiency of Spirit in this state of Violent Solitude doth as if one should perswade himself inspired with the vertue of some fabulous Heroe with whose character he had been strongly affected by reading his Romance for when he comes to combat his vitiated Nature in this Spiritual atchievement he will finde such a vanity in his speculation The Fable of Ixion is a good figure of this kinde of presumption for projecting to enjoy Juno that is some celestial Prerogative they do but embrace a cloud and by this mixture they beget nothing but Chymera's Certain it is that Christianity doth afford such Spiritual Samsons as carry the gates of their Prisons away upon their shoulders up to the Mountains and break all their chains as flax raising their mindes with the Psalmist up to the mountains contemplating Gods Providence and his design upon them in so high a degree of resignation as even their Prison and their Solitude are rather Marks to them of their liberties then Manacles of their Spirits but the strength of such Samsons is derived from the vow not from the veins or sinews of Nature Is it by their offering up and consecrating their Reason to that Spirit whose breath overthrows all the strong holds and destroyeth all the councels of Self-sufficiency and replenisheth the evacuation which is made of our own Reason to make room for that infusion therefore such victorious Spirits profess That the weapons of their warfare are not carnal but such as are mighty to the destroying of all the counsels of humanity and bring into captivity all understanding unto the obedience of Christ for as he himself assureth us If the Son of man make you free you shall be free indeed So that all such infranchised mindes are convinced of the incapacity of their single Nature to preserve this immunity and acknowledge this condition to that Spirit which ima 〈…〉 this freedom by the degrees of restriction â—o putteth upon them of his own bands for where the Spirit of our Lord is there is liberty This Spirit made St. Peter sâ—eep soundly in his chains between his two guards that is hold him reposing in a perfect stilneâ—s of minde in all his ex 〈…〉 disquiets and preserved him in as much freedom of Spirit before his irons were struck off as after the iron gates of 〈◊〉 City flew open before him even while he lay in his Dungeon he was surely in the same freedom of minde bound in his chains as sitting on his chairs of Rome and A 〈…〉 and the Centurion that fell down before him at Cesâ—â—ea constrained his Spirit more then the Soldiers between whom he was laid down at Jerusalem The Soul of man then is capable of a state of much peace and equanimity in all exterior bands and ag 〈…〉 ions but this capacity is rather an effect of the expropriation of our Reason then a vertue resulting from her single capacity for it is the evacuation of all self sufficiency that a 〈…〉 h a replenishment from that Divine plenitude from whose fulness we receive grace for grace so that it is a super ve 〈…〉 gift not a native graft in our Reason And this tranq 〈…〉 of Spirit he that led captivity captive hath given as a gift unto men whereby we become partakers of his Divine Nature in this calm and serenity of minde which he pa 〈…〉 out to us in all his several postures Wherefore in our copying of this equality and imperturbation we must protest with the Apostle We have not received the Spirit of the World but the Spirit
precepts of Philosophy come in the stronger when they enter in their due places unfolding to us the nature of the Universe and spreading fairly before us the contempt of all Temporalities by divers detections of the infidelity of all things sublunary Thus after the right marshalling of this Auxiliary succor the more stock we have of Moral Philosophy the more inlargement we may make of the Recreations of our Spirit in these straights of our condition For as a very learned Humanist converted to Christianity is the more able by the means of this learning to explicate and illustrate the Doctrine whereof he is perswaded In like maner after this first conviction of our mindes touching the necessity of our primary recourse to Grace for the rectitude and conformity of our hearts they who are the most conversant with the Precepts of Reason and Philosophy shall be the best qualified by these helps for the amplification of their entertainments and sweetning the Natural asperity of Solitude We must be sure then to fix this Principle in our thoughts that all Humane Philosophy doth but the part of the wateâ— of Silâ—â— it doth but wash off the dirt of Ignorance from our eyes it is the vertue of the superior direction which sendeth us to that sort of Application which commandeth this admirable effect Reason is used by that supreme agent to take off the foulness and impurity of terrestial objects from the eye of our Minde and to open it into the speculation of vertue but it is Grace which worketh the Miracle of this Serenity of Spirit by these instrumental illuminations of Reason As long then as Philosophy is kept onely as a hand-maid with her eyes looking always upon the eye of her Mistress which is Grace the gift of God so long she proveth very useful to her service but where she is seated as single commander of the family all her specious precepts and directions will prove as the Apostle termeth them but learned fables when this practical office is required of them to instate the minde in that regularity and apathy whereof they are so confident projectors Having setled this Maxime as Disciples of the Psalmist for the fundamental article of Spiritual composure My soul wait thou upon God for from him is my patience then the discoursings and arguments of Morality are proper stuff to adorn our mindes that they remain not bare and naked but furnished with convenient matter of meditation and entertainment Humane literature may be used in this order as Ceremonies are in Religion which are requisite to excite and detain Devotion and Reverence in our Nature that is affected much with sensible coverings of Spiritualities which affording as I may say no hold for our Senses our Mindes are not so easily staid and fixed in an attention upon such Duties therefore such occupations of our Senses are very pertinent towards the raising and arresting our Devotion In like maner the flowers and adornments of Moral Philosophy are apt and serviceable for the affecting and entertaining our Imagination by the gracefulness and elegancy of their perswasions which are very congruent with the nature of our Affections that incline most to notions a little aspersed with sensible matter and so are easiliest staid and quieted in such attentions which hold our Spirits in a more cheerful application to the Arguments of rectified Reason In this order Philosophy may be acknowledged to be a convenient discipline belonging to the doctrine of Peace and Tranquility of Spirit which is grounded in that pax vobiâ— that cometh in like the Master of it resuscitated not through the doors of Humane Reason and then this peace useth discourse and argument as Christ did his body who in condescendence to the weakness of the Faith of his Disciples made them feel and handle it So doth the Holy Spirit clothe his Grace with sensible Reasons so correspondent to our Fancies as they do the easilier acquiesce unto them and thus contribute to the mindes repose and regulation Surely this is the proper function of literate elegancy to figure vertue in so lively and fresh colours that our imagination may be so taken with the beauty of vertue as it may invite our mindes to make love to her in solitude and in this suit our Reason may make good company even out of all our wants and desolations as imploying them to do us good offices to this Mistress by their testimony of our patient acceptance of all sufferings that may advance us in this pursuit which nothing doth more then a temperate constancy in Distresses wherein vertue loveth to try the fidelity of her servants And thus we may make even Solitude prove our access and mediation to our love whileg we are in research and suit to vertue for unto her we know it is confessed that difficulties give the best introduction and entrance So that the uses of Philosophy are much improved by this their proper application to illustrate the amiableness of vertue and by the gaining of our Fancy to facilitate the subjection of our Affections to our Reason whereunto Humane learning conduceth in many respects and it may not unaptly be said to be a kinde of Spiritual Heraldry that doth blazon the Arms of Natural Reason shewing the genealogy and descent thereof from the Father of Lights and marketh the affinities and alliances between Grace and Nature keeping a Register of the Antiquity and Nobility of Moral Vertue in the examples and precedents of all Times and in these respects is very proâ—itable in all states especially in Solitude both to recreate and rectifie the minde of man And indeed nothing inableth us more for the best improvement of the stock of Philosophy then having our wills first fastned unto Gods design upon us before our understandings range abroad into the documents of Morality for exercise and recreation Me thinks we may well be allowed to apply these orders of the Temple of Solomon to our present Argument and say as they who by their consecration were admitted into the holy place of the Temple had liberty to come out and entertain themselves in the outward Courts of the Layeâ—y and the station of Gentiles but they who were not qualified by some holy Character were not admitted into the inward part of the Temple or the Sanctuary So they who have devoted first their Reason to the inscrutable Order of God and have this Character of Christianity imprinted on them may freely and usefully recreate their mindes in the outward Galleries of Philosophy where Humane Reason hath an inlargement and spaciousness for the exercise and solace of the understanding but if our Spirits are but of that rank which are without in the arches of Philosophy and conversant onely in the porches of Moral Vertue this constitution doth not sufficiently qualifie our mindes for admission into the interior Sanctuary of Peace and Tranquility of Spirit So that all I have so much pressed tendeth to perswade every one in this
â—eremy in Prison and in all the bitter tastes of these cups of Gods mingling as the Psalmist found before him My 〈◊〉 is gâ—ie 〈…〉 but I have said Truly this is my grief and I â—ust bear it The belief of Gods special design in all things 〈◊〉 befal us must answer all the perplexities of a Christian and we have not onely this order but this ability imparted to us from our suffering Head whose members working by 〈◊〉 vertue of his animation cannot sayâ—less to God the Father then Not my will but thine O Lord be done This little intermixture of a Garden-plat or patern 〈◊〉 both with the flowers of Nature and the fruits of Grace may be no unpleasant walk or 〈◊〉 for the unconâ—â—ned 〈◊〉 tion of some solitary Prisoner to whom I dedicate 〈◊〉 piece of Entertainment which I hope may in some 〈◊〉 water and refresh his minde and help to keep it in this temper of the Prophet Her leaf green in this time of droug 〈…〉 and not ceasing to yield fruit §. VII Some speculations suggested to recreate our Spirits in sufferance and to invigorate our Faith IF I have made any extraordinary discovery of Springs passing so long through this Desert in my journey ouâ— of Egypt unto the Land of Promise I hold my self bound to set the best marks I can upon all such Refreshments that they may the easilier be resorted to by such as by any accident shall be engaged in this desolate Peregrination and I need not fear to be tedious in this office no more then Physicians in their attendances upon Patients I will impart therefore another Receit I have found very efficacious which is mixed with the wine of Philosophy and the oyl of Divinity it hath both the quickness and vigor of Reason to work upon our Fancy and the unction of Faith also to supple and molifie the unpleasantness of our Nature in these constraints of Solitude This is then the prescript to make even the multiplicity of the evils and diseases of this life medicinal unto us by considering how many we are free from of those we might easily have altogether as for Example If we are in Prison and in health to remember we have a greater blessing then that we want and how much â—reer we are then diseased Princes close Prisoners within their Curtains If we chance to be sick and in Prison both at once we may consider That we have as much of this violent restraint taken off from us as is imposed upon us by this Natural one in which we are coÌ„mitted by our own body since in this case all states are reduced to the same confinement being under the Arrest of Sickness and therefore our liberty may seem as it were recover 〈◊〉 by our infirmity since no body is in pain to want what they could make no use of if they possessed it The more then we have of this evil of sickness the lest we have of this other of imprisonment for the sicker we are the less capable we become of the use of liberty so that we may say Nature seemâ—th to have provided that the 〈…〉 of our bodily evils should cure the next worst of our corp 〈…〉 su 〈…〉 s since the waâ—â— of health 〈◊〉 prop 〈…〉 nately to remedy the privation of liberty And again if this violent separation from the world â—e but the policy of an adverse party to intercept all ouâ— contributions to the promoting of the cause which they impu 〈…〉 then we may reflect how much better our condition is then if we were under the indignation of some inh 〈…〉 tyrannies which use torâ—â—res as instruments which 〈…〉 curiosities play upon to draw those tunes out of th 〈…〉 their fancies or their fears have set and â—o such mis 〈…〉 we may remember our selves to be exposed thus we 〈◊〉 discourse over all the mischiefs of this life wh 〈…〉 we might have ben condemned and it is likely we shall finde upon this accompt the number of our exemptions in our present stare a just mitigation of our senten 〈…〉 this ingenious diligence of our reason we may finde 〈…〉 beâ—s enough of miseries that stand as I may say Neu 〈…〉 and levying them thus by our meditation we may bring thâ—â— in to our succor to defeat those which are actually declared against us whereby we may be said to overthrow 〈…〉 the multitude of her own forces while by ou◠〈◊〉 ptions from so many of the worlds greater â—alamitiâ—s 〈…〉 facilitate the cariage of our owne portion and by the 〈…〉 of the Gospel we may properly make in this occa 〈…〉 those which are not against us to be with us This little hint will serve to lead our thoughts into 〈…〉 fields of meditation upon the numerous in 〈…〉 of 〈…〉 Age which surrounding by enemies the more it 〈…〉 the likelier it is to draw our eyes up to the mo 〈…〉 with the Psalmist from whence we may expect our 〈…〉 and looking faithfully up to those hills with the 〈…〉 we shall deâ—ery supernatural Auxiliaries whereof we may truly say â—o our fearfull seâ—ses as to our amazed servants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for there are more with us then against us I have set most of my spiritual notions with the foilies of humane perswasions considering how much such conjunctions conduce to a beâ—tering the water of the jewels of Divinity into the eyes of our nature S. Paul used this art when he was content to speak after the maner of men for the infirmity of our flesh But now I will present you with an advise sincerely Divine without any plauâ—ible adjunction to illustrate it which is in this order of distributing the day I have proposed to assign some special part of every day the measure whereof I do not define to a serious meditation upon the immensity of eternity and the momentariness of this life we may consider the time of all ages like a little globe of smoke vanishing into the vast region of air for all time holds less proportion to eternity then the least vapor doth to the whole air into which 〈…〉 s vanished if then the duration of all time be so disproportioned to eternity when we sever our single part in this point of time how neer a Nothing must it appear to us and it may be the time of our suffering is but a small parcel even of our own life This computation must needs shew us the shortness of that time which our weak Nature thinks often long measuring it not as it is in fluâ— but as it seemeth staying in our â—aney and distant from some earthly deâ—ire whereunto we would be carried and so this our miscounting of the length of time ariseth always from this error that we do not reckon upon it as it is in motion towards eternity but rather regard it under the notion of a remora or retardment in that haste we have to satisfie some passion in pursuit whereof Time it self seemeth too slow
God in Christ Let as many therefore 〈◊〉 be perfect be thus minded and those who are otherwise I beseech God to reveal this unto them The twentieth Treatise Of the Contempt of the VVorld Divided into two Sections §. I. Arguments to discredit all the Attractives of this Earth and Gods contribution thereunto produced I Have in effect shot all my Quiver at this one Head viz. The love of this World and have set such points to my Arrows as I conceived most proper to enter those Helmets of Perdition wherewith the Prince of this World commonly armeth his Militia in this quarter I aim at namely Presumption or Inconsideration Wherefore now me thinks I may say to this Age with the Psalmist Childrens Arrows are made thy wounds relating either to my former Alliance to the world or to the present weakness of the hand that hath made these Ejacuâ—ations But surely the Head that hath been my Mark may be fitly compared to that of the Beast in the Revelation which having been wounded as it were to death was afterwards healed and Worshipped the more upon this Cure For the love of this world seemeth very often mortified and lying as it were dead in our mindes being wounded by the Sword of the Spirit and yet 〈◊〉 viveth and grows stronger then ever in our Affections And as these two Heads do not differ much in their Allegories since all the Heads of the Beast may be said to signifie several mundanities so are they consorted in this point of having both the same Surgeon the old Serpent who venteth all his Art upon the recovery of this Head namely The love of mundanity wherein do indeed reside the vital Spirits of the body of Sin the onely Subject of the Prince of this Ages Empire So that considering the dangerous convalescence of this wounded Head I have conceived it requisite to do my best not onely to kill it outright by playing Jael's part driving this Nail that is this express Tract directly through the temples of it but also to endeavor the burying it as I may say in this holy ground of Spiritual Joy and Acquiescence which is the safest course to prevent the revival of it for the alacrity of the Spirit keepeth the inferior appetites as it were under ground and in this figurative interment the Balms and Spices of contemplative Solaces contrary to material ones have this vertue quickly to consume and dissolve this matter when they are applied unto it I shall therefore endeavor to draw out of the inclosed Garden of the Spouse such precious Spices as may work these two different effects to dissipate and consume the love of this world as well as preserve and persume the love of Heaven One Sin infected our whole Humane Nature by reason that all succeeding individuals had then their voyces comprised in one person Representative of the whole Species And when we see the whole Mass of the Earth accursed at once me thinks we may speculate this to have been some part of the reason that in the little portion of Earth composing the body of Man the whole Globe thereof seemed represented and consequently all tainted by the inquination of that one parcel for the sensitive part of Man consisting of Earth that may well be charged as a Complice in the Crime since that portion of Man although it were not Principal was yet an accessory in the Crime the body having acted the transgression This may give an ingenious reason for the Condemnation of the whole Earth to bear onely Thorns and Bryers naturally and fruits not without induring wounds and violences to wit the contamination of the whole in the vitiousness of this first ungrateful portion of Earth which in the person of Woman may be said to have put forth some Bryers to catch the Soul of Man even before it was accursed This I presume to be a better Reason for the sentencing of the whole Earth then can be given for the Soul of Man's adhering to this Earth by his affections forasmuch as this convinceth us of the terrestrial parts of conspiration of our ruine and so may well averse the Soul from such an adherency How evident is it that God never intended that the Soul of Man after this first injury should set her affections upon the Earth since Man was presently removed from the most lovely part thereof and that was fenced against his access to it not onely to shorten his time upon Earth but also as we may suppose to abridge his Delights and Solaces in that short time since no other part of the World could afford such a complete deliciousness as the earthly Paradice out of which Man was excluded whereby God seemeth to have provided against Mans having the strongest Motives the Earth might offer him to draw down his affections upon it and hath left him a continual quarrel as it were with the Earth to wit the Contention of his labors against her sterility to entertain this disagreement between it and the love of Man since the Earth alloweth him nothing but at the price of his sweat and â—atigation This might seem sufficient considering our lazy Nature to admit no kinde or friendly correspondence between us nay there are many who suppose the world long since not to have had so much invitation left for Man to love it as the containing the terrestrial Paradice This at least is very probable That even since the Flood the beauty fecundity and pleasantness of that portion of the Earth is utterly deflowered and â—faced But this is positively true That God did not expulse Man out of Paradice to allow him the making another Paradice for himself out of the Earth These speculations do as Saint Paul saith speak after the maner of men to implead all title this Earth can claim to the affections of a reasonable Soul and through all the body of this Miscellany there run veins enough of disparagement to this world so that they may well terminate in this Centre of Contempt and despection The Apostle of love whose fiery tongue casts forth as many Scintillations of love as he doth lines in that Work which may be fitly called An Epistle commendatâ—ry of Love to Christians doth not allow the world so much as one spark of it he rather straineth his breath to blow out and extinguish every flash of affection to it enjoyning us expresly Not to love the world nor the things that are in it And it is remarkable That he alleageth not the miseries and disgusts of the world to discredit it but bringeth even the most amiable alluremonts thereof for Reasons against our affecting it arguing upon the worlds having nothing in it but the concupiscence of the eye and of the flesh and the pride of life in which consist the most powerful Attractives the world hath for our love And if all these which are acknowledged the worlds Proprieties are turned against the valuation thereof what hath it left whereby to
above the Earth whereunto Christians are attracted by their Head and truly they who will not Sacrifice their Nets with the Apostles in this sence do Sacrifice to their own Nets in the sence of the Prophet they Worship the World wherein they are taken and insnared Let such Worldings remember what CHRIST saith to them from his elevation above this world even while he was in it Whither I go you cannot come And the Reason followeth You are from beneath I am from above you are of this world I am not of this world And let them reflect on what was said to the relinquishers of their Nets That they shall sit with the Son of Man in Majesty upon Thrones judging the world which in some imperfect measure is fulfilled even in this Life by the most Sublimated Contemners of this World of which God saith by the PROPHET He will raise them above the altitudes of the Earth and by the APOSTLE That they have not received the Spirit of this World but the Spirit that is of God that they may know the things that are given them of God I have sufficiently delivered my self in this Point throughout all this Work not to be misunderstood now at last in this Sacrificing of our Nets which I have proposed since I have often concluded That all several Vocations have their respective capacities of Contemning this World even while they seem the most affected by it So that this Discourse doth not aim at the frighting any one out of their station in the world since those who have the most of this world using it as if they used it not may do as well in their order as those who choose to use the least they can of it for fear of abusing it For we know the Earth is familiarly and may be properly compared to a Sea in this respect as it is no place of abode but of passage through it and in their course there are no Vessels that have not somewhat more or less of them under water that is some thoughts and attentions upon this world and as they are lighter or heavier laden with the Commodities of this Life they carry the more or less of themselves above water the less their cogitations are immersed in Temporalities the higher their mindes pass through this World But as there are Vessels of several lasts so it is the property of some to draw more water then others therefore such cannot be said to be nearer sinking because they have more of them under water then lighter Barques Every condition hath his respective Fraight of Application to this World which may draw some deeper then others into the solicitudes of this Age but unless we voluntarily overcharge our Vocation every one may pass safely with his proper Weight But we must remember specially this particular in the Comparison That as in Ships the part which saileth them and carrieth them on their course is all above water so that portion of our Minde those Thoughts and Intendments that advance and carry us to Heaven are those which are Spiritual and elevated above this World the ballast of our Mortal part will keep some portions of our Thoughts in all conditions somewhat immersed in the Earth but the sails of our Immortal portion must carry on the whole Man to his Celestial Harbor I may therefore justly exhort and animate all conditions in the Contempt of this World in this voyce of the Apostle You are of God little children and have overcome it because greater is he that is in you then 〈◊〉 that is in the world The one and twentieth Treatise Of the Preheminences of a true contemplative life Divided into five Sections §. I. Contemplation defined and some excellencies thereof discoursed COming now off from this troubled Sea for the finishing touches of this perswasion I will carry your eyes a little upon the pourtraicture of such a Sea as was shewed to Saint John by the Angel for a marvelous Sign For indeed this state of Minde I purpose in this last place to expose unto you is me thinks fitly emblem'd by that Sea of glass mingled with fire on which they stand having harps in their hands that have overcome the image of the Beast And in this order may follow the application The spaciousness of their Souls that are extended in perfect contemplation is aptly figured by that property of the Sea their equanimity and clearness by the smoothness and lucidness of Glass the fervor of their Spirits is fitly symbolized by a mixture of Fire in this Sea of Glass this Spiritual ardor being as requisite to compose this temper as fire is to make Glass And farther we may say That as Glass is formed of many unconsisting parts that are consolidated and clarified by fire so is this even and clear habit of minde composed of divers intellectual Verities compacted and elucidated by the flame of Contemplation and the Harps in their hands represent the harmony and concordancy between the sensitive organs and rational powers in the mindes of devout Contemplators which keeps in tune a Spiritual joy and acquiescence It was an ingenious project of Archimedes the undertaking to remove the whole material World in case there were assigned him a Centre out of it upon which to place his Instrument This work we may say to have been effected in a Spiritual sence by the Man Christ Jesus and by such a maner as the other was contrived namely by having an Engine fixt upon a Centre out of this world which was his Humanity upon his Divinity upon which basis rested all his power wherewith he removed the whole Spiritual frame of the world and upon this Centre he stood when he said I am not of this world and even by a weak Reed fixed upon that Centre he removed and cast forth the Prince of the World for his Humane Nature was as it were the Engine or Instrument standing upon his Divine as on a Centre extrinsecal to this World and so that wrought instrumentally upon the World and was sufficient when it was exalted from the earth to draw all things to it self And why may I not say that some such capacity seemeth communicated to the Members of Christ Jesus that is of fixing their mindes though but Humane upon a Centre extrinsecal to this world viz. The contemplation of Divine Verities and by that means to remove all this World out of that place where it useth to stand in our corrupted Nature And certain it is That many have and do act this power upon the Earth by fixing their Spirits upon Contemplation which is a Centre without this world It were easie for me to point at many of these elevated Spirits which like the Constellations in the Firmament are known by Names more then the other Star 〈…〉 But to decline all shew of any particular preference I shall single none but do my obeysance in general to all ranks of such blessed Contemplators
s 2. Inconstancy of vain affections p. 41. s 2. Incredulity in prayer a mental stammering p. 83. s 1. Imitation of Princes is very familiar for the reasons of gain p. 91. s 2. Iustice for our first fault requireth the love of enemies p. 272. s 2. Injustice prospering not to be wondred at p. 307. s 2. Imperfection of Mans Will in many election consisting with his liberty p. 325 326. Iealousies nature treated and the good use of it in Gods love p. 155. sect 1 2. Instincts of expressing our passion sheweth our loves to be due to God p. 161. s 2. L LOve justifieth the Incarnation of God p. 13. s 3. Love from man enjoyned by the Incarnation of God p. 13. s 2. Love rendring it self to Devotion is not ill treated p. 38. s 4. Love to enemies forgot in the Law and revived in the Gospel like the fire of the Altar after the Captivity p. 266. s 2. Liberty rather given to our Souls then restraint made by the Precept of loving enemies p. 267. s 1. Love of enemies proveth a counterpoison to the forbidden fruit p. 269. s 3. Love to enemies misinterpreted in a figurative sense by many p. 273. s 2. Love to enemies not ordains as they are simply enemies p. 275. s 2. Love irregular causeth our aversion to the love of enemies p. 282. s 1. Liberty dear to Humane Nature p. 339. s 2. Learning how it becometh most useful towards consolation p. 348. s 1 2. Liberty of minde gained overpays the captivity of the body p. 354. s 1 2. Love of the world recovereth often after our having wounded it by Grace or Reason p. 376. s 1. Lecture proved necessary for the passage to Contemplation p. 394. Liberties of jesting how they are allowable p. 131. s 1. Liberties indecent though little disfigure the reputation of women p. 147. s 3 Liberties of scurrility excused by the presumers in them p. 137. s 2. Love though mercinary how to be accepted p. 182. M MAns nobility by creation p. 2. s 3. p. 3. Mans excuse of his fall p. 3. s 2. Mans self-deceit p. 6. s 1. Meditation conducent to peace of Spirit p. 58. s 2. Meditation on the changeableness of all the pleasures we enjoy serveth towards the securing our happiness p. 61. s 3. Moral Philosophy answereth not to the promises of Speculation in our necessities p. 62. s 1. Mans reason for his forgiving the first injury of women p. 275. s 1. Morality more studied at Court then Religion p. 117. s 1 2. Moral civility useful to improve the zeal of religious duties p. 118. s 1. Mirth a great disguise of Medisance p. 128. s 2. Morality single is insufficient for our support in great pressures p. 342. s 3. Moral Philosophy set in a due order for consolation in distresses p. 345. Meditations on the vain figure of this world p. 361. s 1. Meditation on eternity a relief against all temporary pressures p. 367. s 1. Mortification of the flesh requisite for all acts of pure Speculation p. 392. s 2. Medisance most entertained by the encouragement of great persons p. 129. s 1. Mercy of God misconâ—â—ived p. 156. s 2. more 158. s 1. Mercy rightly understood p. 158. s 〈◊〉 Mercinary love how far allowed p. 185. Mercinary love of the nature of dwarfs p. 185. s 1. N NVns eminent purity p. 18. s 〈◊〉 Nature gives some light towards the sight of God p. 1â— s 2. Nature discredited single for happiness p. 57. s 2. Naturalists shall rise up in judgement against ill Christians p. 277. s 3. O OPinion of Temporalities confuted p. 7. s 2. Order given by God for direction in Religion p. 28. s 1. Opinion why it prevaileth often above Truth p. 68. s 2. Obligation in point of love to enemies p. 283. s 2. Orders of Providence not discerned occasioneth all our wonder p. 305. s 1 2. Order described p. 327. Order for disposing our time pleasantly and usefully in Imprisonment p. 351. s 1. Order of the three Persons of the Trinity residing in a Contemplative Soul p. 389. Order of rising up to Contemplation p. 391. s 1. P PRide first introduced and how continued p. 3. s 3. Philosophers deceived in the Divinity p. 21. s 2. Piety advised in all religions p. 24. s 2. Passion it self maketh use of Religion to express it self p. 32. s 2. Passion transferred may honor God in a double respect p. 33. s 1 2. Piety doth the office of a Law-giver not of an Insulter p. 35. s 3. Piety not incompatible with pleasure p. 37. s 2. Pleasures allowed by Devotion p. 41. s 1 2. Propriety in temporal goods abateth the value and Piety repairs it p. 42. s 2. Philosophers variances concerning happiness p. 51. s 2. Prayer assigned for the way to finde truth and consequently happiness p. 79. s 2. Prayer must be sincere and fervent to become officious p. 82. s 2. Prayer is often accepted when the suit is not accorded p. 84. s 1. Princes vertues may make Courts schools oâ— Piety p. 91. s 1. Princes especially obliged to piety p. 91. s 2. Prudence for Courtiers p. 97. s 1. Praises allowable in many cases and how they are to be applied p. 110. s 2 3. Princes obliged to forgive personal injuries p. 280. s 1 2. Providence not to be judged of by pieces p. 295. s 2. Prayer against Gods menaces allowed the Prophets p. 301. s 1. Providence seemeth as it were disguised upon earth p. 359. s 2. Presumption on our power to resist the temptations of Beauty is dangerous p. 166. s 2. Q THe quality of peace expectable in this life p. 84. sect 2. The quality of private conditions towards the discernment of the worlds instability p. 105. s 1. Quarrels with the world do sometime occasion good vocations to sanctity p. 328. s 3. The qualities of prophane passion p. 152. s 2. The quality of temptations slighted at first as easily masterable p. 171. s 2. R REason much degenerated in our faln Nature p. 〈◊〉 sect 2. Reason injured by opinion p. 7. sect 2. Repaired Nature by Christ exalted above the original innocence p. 15. s 1. p. 16. s 2. Revenge contrived unto piety p. 17. s 2. Reasons course up to Divinity p. 21. s 1. Repentance may convert even our sins into good fruit p. 30. s 2 3. Remedies extractable out of the meditation of our frailty p. 60. s 1. Riches possessed and improved towards piety p. 70. s 2. Religion lightly considered may perplex us in the judgement of events but more profoundly looked into setleth on us p. 292. s 3. Religion the onely refuge in the perplexity of advers events to a good cause p. 302. s 2 3. Reason of distracting events not to be hoped for in this world p. 304. s 2. Retreats out of the world turned into delusions by the Devil p. 332. s 2. Reason single vainly overvalued by the Philosophers p. 340. s 2 3. Remedies drawn