God in his breast that he should invite and then entertaine him there by a pure service a sincere love an entire cōfidence Many by much good Kindred many Friends and relations become lesse vertuous and industrious getting the ill habit of the Italian Signora's who walking in the streets beare more upon the armes of their supporters on both sides then upon their owne legs They have need to be sent from home to learne to stand alone without a Nurse to hold them None can be owner of any measure of stedfastnesse and content that makes all his support and satisfaction to depend of his neighbours That man hath more content in the world who having confined his desire to few things troubleth also but few persons and is desirous of Friends to do them not to receive of them good offices regarding their vertue more then their support When we have got good Friends we must be prepared to lose them Death separateth Friends and disolveth Mariages When that happens wee must remember without trouble or amazement that those persons so deare to us were mortal but indeed that should have bin remembred before A Philosopher visiting his neighbour who was weeping bitterly for the death of his Wife left him presently saying aloud with great contempt O great fool did he not know before that he had married a woman not a goddesse After we have condemned that cruel incivility yet must we acknowledge that it is a folly to lament for that which we knew before to be unavoydable Yet after all reasons when love hath bin very deare the separation cannot but be very sad Teares may be permitted not commanded to fall And after the duty payd of a mournful Adieu to the beloved person we must remember upon what terms and condition we hold of God that which wee love best even to leave it at any time when God redemands it And if besides we have good ground to hope that the person departed is received into peace and glory we must praise God for it which we can hardly do as long as our obstinate mourning repines against his will Lamenting for those that are well is ignorance or envy or selfe love If we would not rejoyce when they were in affliction why should we afflict our selves when they are in joy It is some recompence for the death of our deare Friends that our enemyes are mortal as well as they A wise man will consider his enemyes as rods in Gods hand and minde the hand rather then the rod. To destroy our enemies when they are in our power is a childish folly for so will Children burne their Mothers rod as though there were no more rods in the world Our enemies oftentimes do us more good then our friends for the support of our friends makes us carelesse but the opposition of our enemies makes us wary and industrious They make us strong and safe for they make us flye to God In nothing wisedome is more seene then in judging of an adversary A great serenity is requisite that feare make us not think him more dangerous then he is and that pride make us not despise him blinding our eyes not to see the good and evil that is in him and what harme he may do us It is a common and useful maxime for the conduct and tranquillity of mans life that there are few great freinds and no little enemyes When enemies are reconcileable all things past must bee taken to the best by charitable interpretation When there is no possibility of reconciliation al things to come must be taken to the worst both to strengthen us with resolution within and to encounter the evill without by prudence and vigorous wayes In the reconcilement we must pardon freely receive ill excuses and if there be an offence which cannot be excused never mention it The remedy of injuries is oblivion If an enemy can neither be mitigated by charity nor overcome by strength nor avoyded by prudence there remaineth still unto the wise Christian an intrenchment out of which he cannot be forced which is a good conscience and the peace of God in it These he must cherish and keep fast not onely as his last intrenchment but his onely possession and the strong hold only worth keeping It is impregnable as long as faith and love are the Garrison CHAP. XVI Of Death IT is the subject of which Seneca speakes most and of which there was least for him to speak for being doubtfull whether Death destroyed the soul or released it Mors nos aut consumit aut emittit and being more inclined to the first Opinion it was better for him neither to speake nor to think of it But what others of his rank that had reasoned before him about the immortality of the soul had quitted themselves so meanely of that task that out of their labours in that field he could not reape any satisfaction of his doubt This is the grand priviledge of the Christian that he seeth life through Death and that the last limit of Nature is the date of his franchising and the gate of his felicity and glory Death that moweth downe all the hopes of this world perfecteth Christian hope Death is the separation of body and soul It is the returne of these two parts of man so different to their several principles Eccles 12.4 Then the dust returneth to the earth as it was and the spirit returneth unto God that gave it Who disposeth of it either in mercy or justice Death is the last Act of the Comedy of this world To every one Death is the end of the world in his own respect In one sense it is against nature because it destroyes the particular being In another it is according to nature for it is no lesse natural to dye then to live Yea Death is a consequence of life we must dye because we live and we dye not because we are fick and wounded but because we are animals borne under that Law Wherefore considering Death in the natural way as Charron doth I approove what he saith that we must expect Death in a steady posture for it is the terme of nature which continually drawes neerer and neerer But I cannot approove that which he adds that wee must fight against Death Why should we fight against it seeing we cannot ward its blowes It is more unreasonable then if he had said that we must fight against the raine the winde for wee may get a shelter from these none from that Wherefore as when it raines wee must let it raine so when Death is coming and it comes alwayes wee need but let it come not thinking it more strange to live then to dye In stead of fighting against Death wee must acquaint our selves with it Indeed they that feare Death must fight against that feare Of them that feare Death there are two sorts Some feare it for its owne sake Some for that which comes after The former which are more in
delightfull when they are possest without care and without that which makes prosperity bitter the feare to lose them Whether I have little or much let me allwayes say Praised bee God for his temporal gifts Here is more then I need to live and dye well But these are not the goods that he promist me and to which he calls me by by his Gospel O when shall that day come when I shall be satisfied with the goodnesse of his house even of his holy Temple Psal 65.4 My desire is to depart and to be with Christ Phil. 1.23 The imprisonment of our immortal Soul of heavenly nature in a body cosingerman to the beast where it lyeth heavy drowzy and mired in the flesh ought to make us think that a happy day when we shall be awake quickned and set at liberty Children in the womb sleep continually Men if you take their whole age together sleep well nigh halfe their time But after death the spirit which is the true man hath shaken off all his sleepinesse The faithfull soul is no more in darknesse She receives light no more at two little loope-holes She is all eye in the presence of God who is all Light She is free holy joyfull all vertue and all love and all glory for seeing God and being seene by him she is changed into the same image And to that blessed state death is the way Who so knoweth so much of the nature of death yet feares it as a terrible evill sheweth that he is very farre within another death which is the death of sinne and that he hath more flesh then spirit that is more of the beast then man CHAP. XVII Of the Interiour of Man FRom that which is altogether without us and out of our power and may be taken from us by others or by death Let us turne our eyes within us upon that which is more ours our soule and her endowments naturall and acquisite either by study or infusion Not to examine very exactly their nature but enough to judge of their price and what satisfaction may be expected of them Because I have restrained solid content to those things that are within us and which cannot be taken from us I acknowledge my selfe very much perplexed about some things within us and doubtful whether they be ours or no seeing that many things within us may be taken from us without our consent and therefore are not ours absolutly Is there any thing that seemes more ours then the illumination and dexterity of our wit and our learning and prudence got by study and experience for those were the goods which that Philosopher owned with so much oftentation who carrying nothing but himself out of a Town taken by storme and pillaged answered the victor that gave him leave to carry our all his goods I carry out all my goods along with mee But how could he make good that possession there being no Wit so clear no Philosophy so sublime but a blow upon the head or a hot feaver may overturne it Epictetus accounteth nothing ours but our opinions our desires and our actions because these alone are in our power But in an understanding maimed by Phrensy that power is lost It is true it is not the soule but the Organe that is vitiated But howsoever you cannot dispose of your soul when that organ is out of tune Here to say that death will set the soul at liberty and then the spirit shall enjoy himselfe and all his ornaments is to bring a higher question to resolve a lesser For there is no doubt but that the spirit loosed from the matter will recover that liberty of his faculties which was obstructed by materiall causes but it is a point of singular difficulty to judge whether he shall retaine all the skill hee had got in this life As for mechanicall Arts altogether tyed to the matter it is not likely that the spirit will retaine that low skill when he liveth separat from the matter But as for higher intellectuall sciences it seemes very unreasonable that a Spirit polisht sublimated by long study and stored with a great treasure of knowledge should lose all in an instant by the death of the body and that the soul of a great Naturalist as my Lord of St. Albans be left as bare of learning and acquisite capacity as the soul of a skavenger And when the soul not only is made learned but good also by learning were it not lamentable that death should have the power to make it worse Neither would holy writ presse this command upon us with so much earnestnes Get wisdome get understanding forget it not if wisedom were an acquisition that the soul must lose with the body The difficulty lyeth in picking among the sciences those that will be sure to stick unto the separat soul It is much to be feared that those sciences which cost most labour will bee sooner lost and will goe out together with the lampe of life For since the dead have no share in al that is done under the sun it is like that great students who have fraught their memory with histories both antient moderne shall lose when they dye the remembrance of so many things that are done under the Sunne By the same reason Lawyers Linguists Professors of Sciences and arts depending upon humane commerce should leave all that learning behind them But I doubt whether the contemplators of Gods works as the Naturalists shall lose their learning when they dye seeing that it is the duty the perfectioning of the rationall creature to know the wisedome and the power of the Creator in his wonderfull workes And I am inclined to beleeve that those things that are done under the Sunne in which the dead have no share are the actions businesses of men not the workes of God but that Naturalists shall learne the science of Gods workes in a higher and transcendent way Also that Astrologers shall need other principles to know heaven to which their forbidden curiosity to foretell humane events out of the Starres wil rather be a barre then a furtherance Nec quicquam tibi prodest aerias tentâsse domos morituro Among all the spirituall ornaments there is one which we may be confident to keep for ever when we have it once really therefore it is properly our owne That rich and permanent Ornament is heavenly wisedome of which Solomon saith Prov. 3.16 Length of dayes is in her right hand and in her left hand riches and honour Her wayes are wayes of pleasantnesse and all her pathes are peace She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her and happy is every one that retaines her That wisedome consisteth in knowing loving and obeying God and trusting upon him It is good studying that wisedome that giveth eternal felicity and glory We finde but two things in the interiour of man which we may be sure not to lose by death The one is the
who makes Religion a generality of all good in this pregnant text Phil. 4.8 Finally brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest vvhatsoever things are just vvhatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise think on these things I hope with Gods helpe to justifie that unto true piety it properly belongs to set a man at peace with God with himselfe and with his neighbours to set a right order in his soul by rectifying his opinions and governing his passions to make him moderate in prosperity and patient in adversity wise tranquill generous and cheerefull as long as he liveth and glorious after his death In these few words I have set downe the argument and order of this Booke If all these are within the precincts of piety very little will remaine for humane wisedome separate from religious to make a man vertuous and happy Charron very wittily alledgeth that many Philosophers have been good and vertuous and yet irreligious To which the answer is that it is an indulgence when they are called good and vertuous without the knowledge and love of the divine and saving truth and that such of them as have been neerest to that title had reverend opinions of the God-head and despised the silly superstitions of that age Also that their want of religion hath made their pretended vertue maimed and monstrous as in the case of killing ones selfe which Charron after Montagne esteeme two much and dares not condemne it without a preface of reverence and admiration This he hath got by separating Vertue from Religion proving by his example that Nature without grace cannot but stumble in the darke and that to guide ones selfe it is not enough to have good eyes but there is neede of the light from above Whereas we should make a faithfull restitution to Religion of all that is vertuous in Pagan Phylosophy as descended from the Father of lights and belonging to the patrimony of the Church this man does the clean contrary robbing Religion of those things which are most essentiall to her to bestow them upon humane wisedome solliciting vertue to shake off her subjection to Religion her mother and Soveraine and to make her selfe absolute and independent Himselfe forgets to whom he oweth that wisedome of which he writes In the Schoole of Religion he had got his best learning to Religion also hee should have done his homage for it Can all the Bookes of humane wisedome afford such a sublime Philosophy aâ— that of the Lord Jesus when hee teacheth us to be prudent as serpents and harmelesse as doves Not to feare them that kill the body and cannot kill the Soul Not to care for the morrow because God cares for it and because to every day is sufficient the affliction thereof Not to lay up treasures in earth where the moth and the rust spoyle all but in Heaven where they spoyle nothing And when he brings us to the schoole of Nature sometimes to weane us from covetous cares by the examples of Lillies of the field which God cloatheth and of the birds of the aire which he feedeth sometimes to perswade us to doe good to our enemies because God makes his Sun to rise upon good and evill and his raine to fall upon the just and unjust How many lessons and examples doe wee finde in Scripture of heroicall magnanimity Such is the Philosophy of St. Paul who professed that when hee was weake then he was strong and that he fainted not because that while the outward man decayed the inward was renewed day by day Such is the Philosophy of the Hebrewes who bore with joy the spoyling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had a better and an induring substance Such also is the Phylosophy of David who was confident never to be removed because God was at his right hand and taking him for the portion of his inheritance he looked through death and the grave to the glorious presence of Gods face and the pleasures as his right hand for evermore This is Theologicall wisedome Is it all frowning chagreene austere servile sad timorous and vulgar Is it not all free chearefull lofty noble generous and rare Let us acknowledge that it is the onely wisedome that makes man free and content If the Sonne of God set us free we shall be free indeed Out of him there is nothing but slavery and anguish Satan the great enemy of God and men could not have devised a more effectuall course to disgrace godlinesse and cast men headlong into perdition then to separate wisedome from religion and portray religious wisedome weeping trembling with a frighted looke and hooded with superflition They that take so much paines to prove that religion and wisedome are things altogether different have a great mind to say if they durst that they are altogether contrary And if any be perswaded by Charron that to be wise and vertuous one needs not be religious he will come of himselfe to beleeve that he that would be religious cannot bee wise and vertuous Certainely who so conceiveth once religious wisedome in that sad servile and timorous Idea which Charron assignes to her must needs think that wisedome and vertue lose their name and goe from their nature when they will be religious There is then nothing more necessary in this age in which Atheisme is dogmatizing and speaking bigge then to demonstrate that the beginning and accomplishment of wisedome is the feare of God And in stead of that prodigious method to withdraw men from religion that is from God to make them wise and content that truth must be prest unto the heart that a man cannot be wise and content but by joyning himselfe with God by a religious beliefe love and obedience That we fall not into a contrary extreme wee must take heede of robbing humane wisedome of her office and praise And we must acknowledge that she needs to be imployed about many things in which piety is not an actour but an overseer But piety must never bee severed from her for where shee gives no rules yet shee sets limits Piety must bee mistresse every where humane wisedome the servant Now it is the servants duty to do many things which the mistresse wil not put her hand to standing more upon her dignity then to descend to inferiour offices In which although piety hath no hand yet she hath an eye to them and lets nothing scape her knowledge On the other side humane wisedome confines not herselfe to inferiour offices but assisteth Piety in the highest She doth her good service when she keepes in her owne ranck But she goeth out of it when she presumes to governe her Mistresse subjecting faith to reason and conscience to worldly interesses In this Treatise I consider piety and wisedome as the meanes to obtaine the peace of the soule and contentment of minde Not to vote for the
that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened When this direfull remembrance sinkes into a conscience how man was put out of Paradice and Cherubims were placed at the gate with aflaming sword to keepe him out that he may not finde the way to the tree of life it is enough to sinke one downe with feare and anguish and make him cry out standing upon the brink of despaire Must I be driven away from God for ever and what way is left for me to returne to the tree of life without which I cannot shunne eternal perdition Upon that perplexity Prayer comes and offers her helpe saying I will bring thee thither and will goe with thee without any let of the flaming sword for I know a way to the tree of life where the terrour of the law doth not keep the passage the sonne of God who is the way the truth and the life hath made me way unto the throne of grace to which I goe with full assurance to obtaine mercy and finde grace to helpe in time of need This freedome of prayer to approach unto God was in some sort represented by the sacrifices That they were figures of prayers wee learne it out of the Psalme 141 where David beseecheth God that his prayer may be set forth as incense and the lifting up of his hands as the evening sacrifice Ps 141.2 As then the smoake of the sacrifices did mount up toward heaven which is a way which cannot be stopt likewise faithfull prayers have at all times a free passage to heaven and although Satan be called the Prince of the aire he cannot disturbe them in the way But that they may reach to heaven the incense of the merit of Christ must be layd over the sacrifice of prayer To that holy duty wee are encouraged by Gods commandement and promise Both are in this text Ps 50.12 Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shall glorifie me And so in this Come unto me saith Gods eternal Sonne all you that labour and are heavy laden and I will ease you Math. 11.28 None that prayeth to the father through the merit of the Sonne returnes empty For either he giveth us what we do aske or what wee ought to aske and that which is fit for us He that keepeth that holy correspondence with God is never dejected with sorrow or perplexed with feare for he finds in that divine communication a plaister to all his sores and an inexhaustible well of life and joy David had found it so when he sayd Ps 16 I have set the Lord allwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shal rest in hope By prayer wee ground our soules in faith raise them with hope inflame them with charity possesse them with patience during our life and yeeld them to God with joy in our last breath To reape these benefits by prayer wee must understand well the right use of prayer which is double It serveth to aske of God our necessities both of body and soule for since in him wee live and moove and have our being wee must continually seeke to him by prayer of whom wee continually depend But the noblest and most proper use of prayer is to glorifie God and converse with him because wee love him and because he is most perfect and most worthy to be beloved coming to that holy duty not as a taske but an honour the greatest honour and delight that a creature can be capable of in this world stealing away from affaires and companies to enjoy that pleasant and honorable conversation as lovers will steale away from all employments to entertaine their best beloved For what is sweet in the world in comparison of this sweetnes what is honorable compared to this honour to have familiarity with God and be admitted to his presence at any time to be received of him as his children and when wee lift up our affections to heaven the habitation of his glory to finde that himselfe is come to meete us in our heart and hath made it another heaven by his gracious presence In that meditation a faithfull man will call Gods benefits to minde and to conceive their excellency to his power he will from the consideration of Gods grace reflect upon that of his owne naturall condition sometimes criminal miserable and Gods enemy but now through Gods preventing love and unspeakable mercy changed into the quality of child of God and heire of his kingdome He hath bin provoked to pity us by the depth of our misery wherefore in all reason wee must be provoked to thankfulness by the height of his mercy And this is the chiefe employment of prayer an employment which paying our duty brings our felicity and though wee have payd but what wee owe and scarce that giveth us a present payment for the duty which wee have payd O what a heavenly delight it is to lose ones selfe in the thought of Gods mercyes which are beyond all reckoning and above all imagining and to say to him after David Ps 40.5 Many O Lord my God are thy wonderfull workes and thy thoughts which are to us ward they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee v. 8 If I would declare and speak of them they are more then can be numbred I delight to doe thy will O my God yea thy law is with in my heart Ps 86.11 Teach me thy way O Lord I will walke in thy truth unite my heart to feare thy name I will praise thee O Lord my God withall my heart and will glorifie thy name for evermore for great is thy mercy towards me and thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell Such a conversation with God to rejoyce in his love praise him for his graces and crave the leading of his spirit to walke before him unto all pleasing is an imitation of the perpetual imployment of Angels and glorified Saints It is a beginning of the Kingdome of heaven in this life In it consisteth the true peace of the soule and the solid contentment of minde CHAP. V. Of the love of God BEing entred into the meditation of the love of God let us stay upon it It is good for us to be here let us make here three tabernacles And more reason have wee so to speak in this occasion then St. Peter when he saw Christ transfigured in the Mount For by planting his abode there he could not have made Christ to doe the like nor given a settled continuance to that short bright lightning of glory But by our meditation upon the love of God wee make him to stay with us and our soul is transfigured with him being filled with his grace and his peace and already enlivened with a beame of his glory Now because the ground the spring and the cause of the love that
peace and confidence is to make God our Confident It is also a great point of mutual friendship to yeeld to the interesses and desires one of another Herein God hath shewed the way to men having so farre condescended to the condition and necessity of men as to have put on their nature and taken their debt upon himselfe yea and to have discharged it He is dead like men and for men And being the soveraigne incomprehensible wisdome he descends to our capacity to declare himself to us and draw us to him He calls us indeed to denye ourselves that wee may give ourselves unto him but yet how much doeth he yeeld to our desires and feares And with what wisedome and sweetnes doeth he sort his tryals with our strength And where is the godly man that hath not found in his forest afflictions that kinde usage that St Paul speaks of 1. Cor. 10.13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man But God is faithfull who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that ye may be able to beare it Since then God who is so great doeth accommodate himselfe with us who are so little the law of reciprocall love requires that wee accommodate our selves with him who is so great that wee diligently informe our selves of his will to make it our will that wee observe the things which he loveth that wee may love them and the things which he hateth that wee may hate and avoyd them that all our interesses bow under his that the end of all our ends be his glory seeking not our owne things but the things of the kingdome of God Wee shall never be our owne till wee have wholly resigned our selves unto God Wee shall never have a true peace and content within till our affections be altogether subjected to his love and conformed to his will But then shall wee be peaceable contented and masters at home when God shall reigne within us and when wee shall know no more difference betweene his interest and ours Finally the highest point of love being an entire union and to have all things common it is also the purpose and in the end the efficiency of Gods love to us yea so farre that by his great and precious promises wee are made partakers of the divine nature 2. Pet. 14. and that Christ is in us and we in him Ioh. 17. What hath God reserved to himselfe that wee may not call ours Heaven and Earth are for us His providence is our purveyour His Angels are our keepers His kingdome our inheritance He gives us his good plenty his word his Sonne his Spirit his owne selfe Can any be persuaded of this beneficence of God and refuse to give him his body his soul his intentions and his affections Shall wee use reservations with God who keeps no good from us Would any poore man refuse to have community of goods with a rich man Now God who is the plenty and felicity it selfe will have community of goods with us Let us embrace the condition readily Let us give our selves to God and God shall be ours Or rather say wee God is ours let us render our selves to him for he prevents us in that Covenant since God is ours good reason wee should be his Blessed we that wee may say with the Spouse I am my beloveds and my beloved is mine for by that union of persons and community of goods with God the soul finds her selfe arrived to the soveraigne degree of riches peace glory and delectation CHAP. VI. Of Faith Faith is a Christian vertue whose most proper and natural office is to embrace that peace made for us with God by Iesus Christ And by it wee signe and seale for our part the Agreement made betweene God and man This expression is borrowed of John the Baptist speaking of the Lord Iesus He that hath received his testimony hath set to his Seale that God is true Joh. 3.33 All that we said before of our reconciliation with God by Christ how that reconciliation is applyed to our consciences is an explication of the duty and benefit of faith Yet we must speake of it againe as a consequence of Love For the principal most natural fruit of the love of God is to put our whole trust in Thus St Iohn having sayd much of the love of God to us and of the love that wee owe him for it addeth 1. Ioh. 4.18 There is no feare in love but perfect love asteth out feare because seare hath torment he that feareth is not made perfect in love Faith as the mother of all vertues brings forth the love of God but Love is soone eeven with faith and brings forth her owne mother For as wee love God because wee trust in him as certainly persuaded of his wisedome power and fidelity in his promises so wee trust in him because wee love him for in all our friendships our trust in the beloved person followes the measure of the love that wee beare to him He then that loveth God sincerely trusts in him And when calamity tempts him to unbeleeving fears he will observe Saint Peters exhortation 1. Pet. 4.14 Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in welldoing as unto a faithfull creatour It is impossible to love well without a good opinion of the person wee love especially of his fidelity and righteousnes Seeing then that God hath promised to pardon sins to those that confesse them with a serious repentance if wee love him wee shall trust in his promise that if wee confesse our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnes 1 Joh. 1.9 grounding our trust in his mercy upon his fidelity and righteousnes for since he promist it certainly he will doe it he is too faithful to breake his word and too just to punish us for those sins of which Christ hath borne the punishment in our name This gracious declaration he hath made Luk. 12.32 Feare not little flock for it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdome Shal wee have such an ill opinion of him as to think that he hath promist more then he was willing or able to performe or that since the promise made his will is altered or his power diminisht Let us be sure that he that loved us from all eternity will love us to all eternity Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect It is God that justifyeth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen agnine who is even sitting at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us And if upon this safe ground we trust in God for the things of the life to come wee must upon the same ground trust his love for the things
and warre in the world and of the subsistence and revolution of Empires Who would beleeve that at the same time he tels the number of our hairs and that not so much as one sparrow falls to the ground without his speciall appointment but that we are told it by his own mouth and that our experience assureth us of his care of the least of our actions and accidents of our life Here wee must rest amazed but not silent for our very ignorance must help us to admire and extoll that depth of the riches both of the wisdome and knowledge of God whose eye and hand is in all places whose strength sustaineth whose providence guideth all things and taketh as much care of each of his creatures as if he had nothing else to looke to If our minds be swallowed up in the depths of Gods wisdome this one depth calls in another deep which brings no lesse amazement but gives more comfort that is the fatherly love of God to us his children Eph. 3.18 O the bredth the length the depth the heighth of the love of Christ which passeth knowledge the bredth that embraceth Jewes and Gentiles having broken the partition wall to make a large room to his wide love that his way might be known upon earth his saving health among all Nations Psalm 67.2 The length which hath elected us before the foundation of the world and will make us live and reigne with himselfe for ever The depth which hath drawne us out of the lowest pit of sorrow death to effect that hath drawn him down to that low condition The height which hath raised us up to heaven with him and makes us sit together with him in heavenly places With what miracles of mercy hath he preserved his Church from the beginning of the world How many graces doth he poure upon the several members thereof nourishing our bodies comforting our souls reclaiming us from iniquity by the gift of repentance and faith keeping off the malice of men and evill Angels from us by the assistance of his good Angels delivering our life from death our eyes from teares and our feet from falling But before and after all other benefits we must remember that principal benefit never sufficiently remembred Col. 1.12 Giving thankes unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light who hath delivered us from the power of darknesse and hath translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Sonne in whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgivenesse of sins This is the highest top of our felicity the main ground of the peace of the soul and the incomparable subject of the contentment of our minds Yea if we have such a deep sence of that heavenly grace as to praise God continually for it with heart and mouth For as we praise God because he blesseth us he blesseth us because we praise him and by his praise which is the eternal excercise of his blessed Saints we become already partners of their imployment their peace and their joy CHAP. IX Of good Conscience ALl that we have said hitherto regardeth the Principal causes both the efficient and the instrumental of the peace with God There are other causes which of themselves have not that vertue to produce that great peace yet without which it cannot be preserved nor produced neither these are a good conscience and the excercise of good workes Not that the reconciliation made for us with God by the merit of his Son needs the help of our works but becaus the principal point of our reconciliation and redemption is that we are redeemed from iniquity which is done by the same vertue that redeemes us from Hell and by the same operation For it is a damnable self-flattery and self-deceipt for one to beleeve that he is reconciled with God if he feele in himselfe no conversion from that naturall enmity of the flesh against God neither can he enjoy a true peace in his soul In that reconciliation God makes use of our wil for in all agreements both parties must concur and act freely And to make us capable of that freedome God by his spirit looseth the bonds of our unregenerate will naturally enthralled to evill But it will be better to medle but little with the worke of God within us and looke to our owne learning the duties which wee are called unto as necessary if wee will enjoy that great reconciliation The first duty is to walke before God with a good conscience for in vaine should one hope to keepe it tranquil and not good Conscience is the natural sence of the duties of piety and righteousnes warning every man unlesse he be degenerated into a beast to depart from evil and doe good And a good conscience is that which obeyeth that sense and warning But the ordinary use which I will follow by a good conscience understands onely the first part which is to beware of evil This good conscience is so necessary for the enjoying of that peace of God applyed to us by faith that the A postle to the Hebrewes requires it that wee may stand before God with a full assurance of faith Heb. 10.22 Let us draw neere saith he with a true heart in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washt with pure water And St Paul chargeth Timothy 1. Tim. 1.19 to hold faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwrack shewing that faith and a good conscience must goe hand in hand and that the losse of a good conscience ushereth the losse of faith which is consequently followed with the losse of inward peace Whereas a good conscience brings forth confidence as St John teacheth us 1. Joh. 3.21 Beloved if our heart condemne us not then have wee confidence before God By a conscience that condemnes us not wee must not understand a conscience without sinne for there is none such to be found Much lesse a conscience that condemneth not the sinner after he hath sinned for the best consciences are those that forgive nothing to themselves and passe a voluntary condemnation upon themselves before God by a free and penitent confession But the good conscience that condemnes us not according to St Johns sense is that which beares witnes to a man to have walked in sincerity and cannot accuse him to have shut up his eyes since his conversion against the evident lights of truth and righteousnes or to have hardned his heart against repentance after he hath offended God The godly man will remember that the peace betweene God and us was made by way of contract whereby God gives himselfe to us in his Sonne and we give our selves to him If then any refuse to give himselfe to God there is no contract God will not give himselfe to him and so no peace for every contract must be mutual When the one party
servants Now because the life of man is laborious and allwayes in action we learne out of Gods example to examine all our works severally and joyntly to see whether they be good and rejoyce when we find them so Thus God said Let the light be and the light was And God saw that the light was good The like after the workes of every day of the first week And in the end of the creation God made a review of all that he had done And behold all was very good to signifie that God seeing all his works good and compleate took great delight in them and did remunerate his own actions with the satisfaction which he he took in his owne wisdom and goodnesse That we may then imitate God let us do nothing but good and againe when we have done it let us see how good it is Though it cannot be but very defective yet if we find in it sincerity and an ingenuous desire to do good we may in our measure rejoyce as God did for doing good and shall enjoy a sweet peace within representing both in the good that we do and in the delight that we take in well doing the image of him that hath created and adopted us to expresse his likenesse Our confidence in God by the merit of his beloved Sonne is the ground of true peace and content But that confidence is fed by works By faith we beare testimony to our hearts that we are reconciled with God and by workes we beare testimony to our faith As by the respiration we know that a man is alive and by the same respiration the man is kept alive So the exercise of good workes is together the marke of faith and the way to maintaine that spiritual life As God hath wisely ordered that the actions necessary for the preservation of naturall life should be done with delight likewise the exercise of good workes whereby the life of faith is maintained gives a singular pleasure unto the faithfull soul Psalm 40.8 I delight to do thy will O my God said David And the Lord Jesus could say that his meat was to do the will of him that sent him John 4 32. Wherefore as healthful bodies eat their meat with appetite so godly soules apply themselves with a holy appetite to good workes In both it is an inward sence of necessity that provokes the appetite it being as impossible to live with the life of faith without good works as to keep the body alive without meat or drink And as these satisfy the stomack good actions give a sweet satisfaction to the soul But as one cannot live alwayes in the strength of one meale but must take new food every day else the body will pine away and die in a short time likewise the use of good workes must be daily too much intermission will abate the pulse of faith trouble will get into the conscience or a heavy numness which will end in the extinction of spiritual life unlesse the appetite of doing good worke 〈◊〉 awakened by repentance and faith get new strength by good exercises For this exercise the Lord Jesus gave us an example that wee should follow his steps Who did good in the whole course of his life and more in his death Who spent the night in prayer and the day in healing the sick and converting sinners Who for ill words returned saving instruâ—◠〈◊〉 Who overcame contempt with humility and adversities with patience Who did good to them that persecuted him to death healing the eare of Malchus that was come to take him and praying for them that crucifyed him Who to obey God his ather despised his owne life denyed the love of himselfe and made this free and miraculous submission to God in the terrours of death Father not my will but thy will be done The joy and glory which he got by that submission must encourage his Disciples to preferre the obedience to God and the duty of a good conscience before all interesses being sure that to forsake them for God is the way to preserve them and that by suffering for his glory wee get glory The content that accreweth to the soule by tending carefully Gods service and loving nothing like it cannot be exprest but by those that feel it How great was St Pauls satisfaction when he sayd 2 Cor. 1.12 Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not in fleshly wisedome but by the grace of God wee have had our conversation in the world And how sweet was his rapture of joy when he sayd being neere the end of his race 2 Tim. 4.7 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is layd up for me a crowne of righteousnes which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me O what pleasure is comparable to the testimony of a good conscience The joy of a great conquerour who hath newly got an imperial crown is not comparable to St Pauls happines when he rejoyced to have fought the good fight of faith and stretched himselfe towards the crowne of righteousnes layd up for him Increase of worldly goods increaseth sorrow When they are above sufficiency instead of easing the minde they oppresse it Worldly pleasures are shortlived leaving behinde them an unpleasant fare-well and often a sting of crime Worldly honour is winde which either will blow a man downe or puff him up with an unsound tumour But godlines and good actions give a sincere joy a solid content a lasting peace a satisfaction penetrating to the inmost of the soule This is richly exprest by Isaiah in prophetical termes Isa 58.10 If thou draw out thy soule to the hungry and satisfye the afflicted soule then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darknes be as the noone day And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfye thy soule in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters faile not Although Devotion and good conscience and the practise of good workes were sad things as the world imagineth them yet ought wee to undergoe that sadnes in this life of few dayes to make provision for the other life which is eternal since this life is a moment on which eternity depends And wee should sow in teares to reape in joy But seeing that a good conscience active in piety and good workes gets thereby even in the present a serene peace and a heavenly comfort not credible to any but those that feele it is it not a great incouragement to doe well That the way to make us happy is to make us saints It is none of the least arts of Satan for turning men away from the practice of godlines and vertuous actions to represent Devotion and vertue with an austere habit and a sowre face enough to make children afrayd and growne men also many of them having with a gray
beard a childish understanding authoritatem senum vitia puerorum But certainly this is a false ugly vizard set upon a handsome and gracious face there being nothing more serene and pleasant then godlines and a good conscience A good conscience is that merry heart which is a continual feast To doe Gods will with a good will keepes a mans heart cheerefull to God and pleasant to himselfe Will you then make your hope sure of an eternal rest and of those pleasures for evermore at the right hand of God Doe but take the first course to make yourselves content and joyfull in this life which is to walke before God unto all pleasing to your power and to be rich in good workes Was there ever a more winning invitation then this Make yourselfe joyful and contented in this life that you may be eternally joyfull and contented in the next CHAP. XI To redresse ourselves often by Repentance Wee have meditated upon the peace of God and the way how to get it in our souls and keepe it That peace brings a golden serenity and a solid content to our hearts But because the godliest persons in this world are subject to sinne and by sinning to trouble that peace and serenity it is necessary to redresse ourselves often by repentance Of that duty I have spoken in the third chapter of this first booke as the necessary way to embrace by faith our reconciliation with God and a maine part of the great worke of our conversion But after wee are reconciled and converted wee are men still Neither is any conversion so great in this life as to roote out sinne altogether out of mans nature Whosoever then will preserve his integrity and peace for these two commonly goe together must have this warning continually in his mind Lét him that thinks he standeth take heed lest he fall 1. Cor. 10.12 And if he fall let him take up himselfe presently by a godly repentance The more he esteemeth himselfe advanced and confirmed in piety the more let him mistrust himselfe and beware of the temptations of Satan For after holy resolutions and elevations of zeale and devotion great sins very often are committed because then the conscience is most subject to relent as over-confident of her good estare Much like besieged souldiers who after a brave sallie will remitt of their watchfulnes despising the enemy whom they have beaten and in their security are taken by surprise Conscience will fall asicepe but Satan never sleepeth and never misseth to take advantage of our negligence Heb. 12.1 Sin that doth so easily beset us saith the Apostle to the Hebrewes By saying us he comprehends himself acknowledging that the most perfect are easily beset by sin Some sins are presently felt and leave a sting as the Scorpion doth To that sting the remedy must presently be applyed by repentance and a faithfull recourse to Gods mercy through Christ also the assistance of his Spirit must bee implored else the venome will spread and the wound become mortal Other sins are lesse felt or creep in undiscerned yet leave a heavinesse upon the heart and make it slower to godlinesse and good workes Then the businesses of the life intervening the remembrance of many sins will slip out of our memory which neverthelesse worke their effect upon the conscience blunting the sense of piety and setting the soul further from God Wherefore it is the part of a wise Christian often to revisit the state of his conscience call himselfe to account and by a pious solicitude of repentance pick and sift out even the least dust that sticks to us of the worlds uncleannesse and our own scowring out that rust which conscience like iron will contract if it be not often handled If the uncleane spirit will not dwell in a mans heart unlesse he find the house empty swept and garnisht Matth. 12. that is void of all goodnesse and furnisht for his turne We must not expect that the holy Spirit will dwell in our heart unlesse we bestow our best care to sweepe it for him emptyed of the immundicities of sinne to garnish it with holinesse He will not keep house under the same roofe with the unclean spirit And unlesse we speedily put that enemy out of doores God may in his displeasure leave him the whole house Whereas if you keep it swept for God with daily repentance he will make it his Temple and say Psal 132.14 This is my rest for ever here will I dwell for I delight in it But that our hearts may be cleane habitations for him we have need to call for the assistance of his grace Psalm 51. Create in us a cleane heart O Lord and renew a right Spirit within us Since the Son of God honours us so much as to call us his friends let us religiously observe the lawes of friendship with him Even in humane friendships if we have sometimes the missorutne to give offence to one whom we especially love and respect we cannot be at rest till we have given him satisfaction And should we be so imprudent as to neglect God our great friend after we have offended him Shall we let the Sunne go down upon his wrath and our offence Let us returne to him without delay and humbly seeke his peace The speediest reconciliations are the best In this returne to God which must be every day let us call to our remembrance all the sins of late date and others of elder date not sufficiently repented of confessing them to God with contrition and craving pardon for them with humility and faith through the merit of his Sonne which to all repenting sinners is an exhaustible spring of mercy open at all times Zechariah meant this by that Fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleannesse And becaure many trespasses of ours are out of remembrance and some we have run into without our knowledge we must beseech God with David to clense us from secret faults Psalm 19.12 and that he be pleased to forget those sins which we have forgotten To that daily returne to God some extraordinary returnes must be added where fasting and alms be joyned to prayer Thereby these clouds shall be cleared off which trouble the serenity of the conscience and the soul shall get a great help to rejoyce in the love of God and glory in his bounty When one is come to that blessed state of the soul he must wipe off the teares of repentance and drowne that sadnesse in a thankfull joy For the sorrow of repentance is good by accident only because there is some evill to be healed It is like a medicine which gives gripings and disquieteth nature therefore not to be used but to recover health Although we cannot repent too much to have offended God there may be excess in the sorrow of repentance To seek merit or ostentation in penitent sorrow which is the face that vulgar soules give to
the Devills haunting of gold mines and places where money and plate is hid gives a probable suspition that the Devill sticks by riches and breatheth upon them the aire of his malignancy Let every wiseman consider whether he will bestow for them as much as they cost that is whether he will weary his body vexe his minde offer violence to his conscience bring his heavenly soul captive under the things of the earth be diverted from seeking the goods which are onely permanent and true to them that have them once to runne after deceitfull goods which are none of ours even when we have them of which the keeping is uncertaine and the losse certaine though we might avoide the ordinary daingers whereby foolish rich men destroy their wealth and their wealth destroyes them The just measure of riches is as much as one needs for his use for that which is above use is of no use How they must be used we shall consider when we treat of Passions Here we seeke onely to know their price CHAP. IV. Of Honour Nobility Greatnesse THe proper rank of worldly honour is next after riches for it is to them chiefly that honour is deferred Without them the honour done to Vertue is but words Indeed the honour that followes is but smoake but yet smoake hath some substance words have none Of honour gotten by vertue and of its right worth something must be said when we speake of Renowne Here we have to do with that outward garish luster which dazleth the eyes of the vulgar gets salutations and opens a lane through the croud for a noble person Riches are to honour that which the bones are to the body for they keep it up When honour loseth riches it falls to the ground like hops without poles Nobility with poverty doth but aggravate it and make it past remedy A misery described in two words by Solomon Prov. 12.9 Honouring ones selfe and lacking bread In time of peace it is wealth that brings nobility and greatnesse In time of warre it is violence for by invasions high titles and royalties of Lordships had their beginning We may then value Nobility by its causes for wealth hath nothing praise worthy and it is the origine of new Nobility Invasion is meere Injustice it is the Origin of ancient Nobility so much cryed up There is a natural Nobility consisting in generosity and a nobility by grace which is our adoption to the right of Gods children These two together make a man truly noble Civil nobility is nothing in nature and consisteth meerly in the opinion of men and custome of nations We deduce it from masculine succession but in some Kingdomes of the East they derive it from the feminine because every one is more certaine of his Mother then his Father In China learning not extraction gives nobility In some places nobility consisteth in merchandize In some the military profession in some in leading an idle life Which different customes shew that worldly nobility lyeth altogether in fancy and in effect is nothing Yet such as it is it proveth a goodly ornament to Vertue it is like enamell which being of small value sets off the luster of Gold It addeth grace facility and power to vertuous actions Many vertues are obscured or altogether hid by poverty and meane condition Sobriety in a poore man is imputed to indigence continence to want of power patience to basenesse But these vertues become illustrious and exemplary when humility meets with greatnesse and temperance with power Vertue then shines when it is set in a high Orbe where a man takes for the measure of his desires not what he can but what he ought to do A right good man being high and rich hath great helpes to do good and power prompts him both with the occasion and the desire On the other side when greatness and meanes meet with a weake and perverse spirit it doth harme in the world And such are most men whose vicious affections appeare not when they are kept under by poverty obscurity but when they rise their vices will rise with them As Organs ill set and ill tuned shew not their defect while the bellowes lie down unstirred but when the winde is blowne into the pipes they gall the eares of the hearers by their discord and harshnesse Likewise many vices lie mute and quiet till the winde of honour and plenty get into them and blow up an ill composed minde with audaciousnesse rashnesse and discordance with himselfe which riseth too high with pride and together falls too low by miserablenesse and where all is out of tune by lust insolence and intemperance But even those that were evill before unless they have constant minds and throughly dyed with piety will bee corrupted by honour and plenty For all men whom wee call good are prone to evill and no greater invitation to evill then facility And if great honour which is never without great businesse doth not corrupt a man it doth interrupt him and as it gives him meanes to do good it takes off his mind from thinking of it and many times binds his hands from doing that good which he intends by reason of the diversity of businesse and several inclinations of men which he must accommodate himselfe unto it being certain the greater a man is the more he is a slave And it is in the highest condition that a man hath most reason to say after St. Paul Rom. 7.19 The good that I would I do not but the evill which I would not that I doe One is constrained to court those whom he despiseth favour those whom he feareth shut his eyes many times to see neither vice nor vertue till one use himselfe in good earnest to preferre conveniency before righteousnesse There a mans life is a continuall Pageant of dissimulation which he knowes in others and returnes it to them who also know it in him yet both parties put on the face of respect and kindnesse over an arrogant and mischievous minde and embrace those whom they would have choaked There also when a man would do good to others very often he doth harme to himselfe To advance one mans suite he must put back and discontent many and get ten enemyes for one friend who will lesse remember the good office then the others the injury which they think to have received by the repulse Truly high places are not fit for true friendship for they take away the freedome from it and by consequent the sweetnesse and the right use In the throng of businesse and companie the mind loseth its tranquillity And many times after one hath lost his rest he loseth his labour also It is a great misery for a man to be never his own and to have no time to think of God of which when one discontinueth the use he loseth in time the desire of it and too many acquaintances make one a stranger with God Paucos beavit aula plures perdidit
you have it you shall reape from it a more sincere content because you shall require of it as much as its nature affords and no more Strength also and Health are things desired not laudable as things that come by nature not by will Great strength of body is commonly accompanied with a weake minde and that disproportion is augmented with much feeding and obligeth nature to bestow the maine Magazine of spirits upon disgestion distribution of meat and hardning of the brawnes of the limbs to enable them for strong labour leaving but few spirits to attend reasoning contemplating Speak to perpetuall hunters of the delight of speculation you shall finde them little more capable of it then their hounds which are the highest point of their meditation To their minde is very convenient the definition which Aristotle gives to the Soul that it is the first act that is the principle of the motion of an organical body for their soul seemes to be made for no other end but to move their body It is certain that too great excercise of the body dulls the mind The preheminency of man above beasts consisteth in reason and the capacity of knowing and loving God Men that are proud of their strength robore corporis stolidè feroces placing their advantage and content in a thing wherein they are inferiour to many beasts descend from their dignity and take place under their natural subjects He that with his forehead would knocke a great naile into a post to the very head deserved this praise that next to a Bull he had the hardest head of all beasts Health of all goods of the body is most to be desired yea more then life A truth not contradicted by the knowne Maxime that the end is better then the meanes for I hold not health to be subordinate unto life but life unto health Being is the meanes and well being is the end Non est vivere sed valere vita So Mecenas must be left to his owne Opinion desire who though he were maimed hands and feet and had all his teeth loose in his head and a bunch on his crooked back would think himselfe well if he had but life Yea if by enduring the sharpest tortures of the cross he might keepe life he would willingly endure them His enemies could wish him no greater harme then to buy life at that rate The body being made for the soul the true natural benefit of Health is not long life but the liberty of the actions of the mind For the minde stickes so to the body that it cannot act very freely in a body tormented with acute paine or pined with a lingring disease Wherefore that we may go through that necessary captivity as easily as may be an especial care must be had of the health of our body taking all occasion from it of accusing the excesses ill government of the minde for the corruption and inflammation of the humours behaving ourselves with our body not as living for it but as unable to live in the world without it Our minde was made for a better end then to serve the flesh Yet let us give it faithfully its due as to the horse that carryes us in our journey It must be fed and tended else it will faile us in the way Curious persons commit two faults about the care of their bodies They bestow much cost and labour to adorne them but they neglect their health exposing themselves halfe naked to cold aire to shew a fine halfe shirt as if they furnisht their roomes with rich hangings and suffered the raine to fall on them for want of repairing the roofe In matter of cloathes health and commodity are the best counsellors not the eyes and Opinions of strangers Health must be acknowledged the richest jewell of all temporal things yea preferable to many ornaments of the minde He that hath got much learning in the Tongues and hath diseased his body with watching hath lost more then he hath got But the healthfullest body of the world is a tottering house which must every day be underpropt with food and for all our care will fall in the end We must looke upon it as a tenement at will which we hold under God our Landlord not fearing but rejoycing that we must leave it knowing that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were disolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 LIFE I set neither among goods nor among evils for it is neither good nor evill in itselfe but the subject of good and evill like the painters cloath where all sorts of colours are couched Such as it is it must be put in the rank of those things that depend not of our will and therefore must not be accounted ours but used as a borrowed commodity We must say more of it when we speake of Death CHAP. VII Of bodily Pleasure and Ease OF all arguments of meditation there is none where writers shew lesse sincerity then in this Every one blames pleasure and ease and yet every one seekes it They tell us that it is the cause of all evill that it poisoneth the passion that it blindeth reason that it is an enemy to good counsell aad that it is impossible for Vertue to stand with Volupty Yet the same Authors love their ease and their very discourses of ease are effects of ease and productions of wits sweetned by prosperity Then they charge pleasure with the vices of men whereas it is not pleasure but men that must be blamed For pleasure doth not corrupt men but men corrupt pleasure It must be acknowledged good in it selfe It is the seasoning that God all-wise and all-good hath given to things profitable and actions necessary that wee should seek them Look upon a brave horse with a judicious eye After you have considered his great use and praised the bounty of God for making an animal of so much service and commodity to man praise God againe for making him so handsome and of such a gallant mettle And acknowledge that the gracious Creator regarded as well mans delectation as utility The delicious taste of fruits the fragrant smell and gay colours of flowers the fair prospect of groves meadowes calme and cleare waters and all the delicate variety of Nature speake very expresly that God as an indulgent Father hath taken great care to please and recreat us and condemneth that sad and sowre wisedome which deemeth to merit much by avoiding at least in shew all that is pleasing in Nature Of that kinde is this prayer which may be read in many Bookes of devote contemplation Lord give me grace to be delighted in no earthly thing Which is as much as saying to God that he was much overseen when he made his workes good and pleasant since it is ill done to delight in them That devotion wants common sence if it be serious and more if it be hypocritical We
become good or evill to us according to the disposition of our minds And of things within us there are but two in themselves evill Sinne and Paine Stoicians will not acknowledge paine to be evill because it sticks to the body onely which say they is mans lodging not man himselfe But what-man feels all the incommodities of that lodging The soul is tyed by personal Union with the senses and really suffers what they suffer So to maintaine that paine is not evil when one feels it commanding the outward countenance to unmoovednesse in the midst of the sharpe torments of the stone and the gout laughing when one hath more minde to cry is increasing paine with the addition of constraint and heaping folly upon misery But paine becomes a blessing to the wise and godly which learne by it to weane their hearts from the love of the world and themselves and to seeke in God that comfort which they finde not in this world and this life for all things helpe together for good unto them that love God Herein the senses may do good service to reason piety to find content in many things where others find the contrary Some will declame gainst the senses as ill Judges of the goodnesse and badnesse of things To whom we must say that the senses are never Judges but informers and that the ill information that our understanding receiveth of the quality of the objects ought not to be imputed to the senses for they plainly report what they perceive but to the prepossest Imagination which upon their simple information frameth false Ideas set off with colours of her owne which she presents to the Judgement and makes him Judge amisse through misinformation If we will then get good service from the senses for the right informing of our judgment we must obtaine of ourselves these two points The one not to receive their testimony but about their proper objects which are the outward qualities wherewith the senses are affected The other not to preoccupate them with Imagination Opinion and Passion So when they are confined to their owne province and become impartial witnesses it will be easy to perswade our reason rather to beleev our owne sense then the Opinion of another Thus when we desire to know whether we be unhappy because we are deprived of riches kept back from honours without reputation or ill reputed in the world we must not referre ourselves about that to the Opinion and talk of the world but to our owne sense Let us sincerely examine our senses what harme wee receive by it Are we more hungry or cold by these misfortunes Doth the Sunne shine lesse bright upon us Is our bed harder Is our meat lesse feeding If our senses thus examined have nothing to complaine of and yet we complaine that wee are come short of some hopes that others step before us that the world regards us not or speakes ill of us Let us ingenuously acknowledge upon the testimony of our senses that we are well if we can beleeve it and that it is not out of Sense but Opinion that we are afflicted This is the difference betweene fooles and wise men Fools consult Opinion and Custome Wisemen consult reason piety and nature Fooles regard what others think Wisemen consider what themselves finde and feele Fooles gape after things absent Wisemen possesse the present and themselves O how many men complaine that have no hurt but in their imagination which is indeed a great hurt and incurable many times When you see a man rich and healthful tearing his heart for some inconsiderable losse or for the rash words of an ill tongue desire him to aske his senses where the paine is And if he feele no paine by it why doth he put himselfe to paine Why is he ill when he may be well He is well if he can but heale his imagination Is it not a disgrace to a reasonable creature that whereas reason ought to rectify the sences the senses should need to rectify reason and that men who love themselves so much must be exhorted to do no harme to themselves when they feele no harme A rational godly man will examine what he feeles and will do no harme to himselfe when God doth him good And when his senses have reason to complaine he will quietly hearken to them and rather beleeve their report about the measure of the evill then the cryes of the by-standers that commiserate him He will not be easily perswaded that he is sicker then he is indeed and will not increase his paine with his imagination And whereas others make themselves sick out of imagination when they are well he will use his imagination to make himselfe well when he is ill Not that I would advise a man to blind himselfe for feare of seeing and dull his sense for feare of feeling evills For the better we know the nature of things the better we know how to deale with them that we may avoid or beare the evill that is in them But because imagination hath a real force to increase or diminish many evils it is the part of a wiseman alwayes to imploy the strength of his imagination to his advantage never to his hurt The evills where the indulgence of Opinion must be used to make them lighter are the evills of the body and fortune But as for the evils of the mind which are the vices of the understanding and the will there the flattery of Opinion is most dangerous for the principal sicknesse of the mind is that one thinkes not himselfe to be sick I have advised reason to take counsel of the senses when the imagination aggravateth the evil or makes it and yet the senses are free of paine But when the senses are offended in earnest then they must take counsel of reason and more yet of piety to finde some ease Let us meditate upon the nature of those evils of fortune and body so much feared in the world He that gives a right Judgement of the evill hath halfe found the remedy CHAP. IX Of Poverty THere be many degrees of civill poverty according to the diversity of conditions and businesses To a Soveraigne prince it is Poverty to have lesse then a hundred thousand pounds a yeare but to a husbandman it is riches to have twenty pounds a yeare rent free In all conditions those are truly poore that have not wherewith to maintaine that course of life which they have set up and all men that cannot satiate their cupidity Thus very few rich men will be found in the world since there are but few that aspire not to greater things then they can compasse and desire no more then they have All that finde want are poore whether their want be of things necessary or superfluous and among many degrees of poore men there is but one Poverty Yet those are the poorest that finde want of superfluous things because that kinde of poverty is made worse by the increase
do him harme or hindred to do him good or deprived of the good he might do to the publique that worthy man must not altogether neglect to rectifye the misconceits taken against him which he may with lesse difficulty atchieve by a serene and constant course of integrity then by finding and proving confuting and keeping a great bustle to bring contrary witnesses face to face Innocency and the confidence that attends it must needs stand so high above the babling of the vulgar as to be no more moved with it then the Starres with the wind â—â—owing in the lower Region The dishonour that hath some ground in the truth must be wiped off not by excuses but by amendment Is one blamed for being vicious He must be so no more And that out of hatred of vice not of dishonour which being but a shadow of it will vanish at the rayes of Vertue CHAP. XII Of the evills of the body Unhandsomnesse Weaknesse Sicknesse and Paine OUr judgement being satisfyed that the good of the body beauty strength health and pleasure are none of the great goods we ought also to bee perswaded that their contraries are none of the great evills And if our very bodies must not be accounted ours because we cannot dispose of them at our pleasure and because by the undermining of age they sinke and slip away continually from themselves the commodities and incommodities of these fraile tenements at will where our soules are harboured for a few daies as ought not to disquiet us matters of any importance To beginne at Unhandsomnesse if a woman be unhandsome for that sexe is especially sensible of that disgrace let her stay but a while age will bring all the beauties to her row within few yeares and death after That last day draweth neere which will make faire and foule alike strong and weake sick and sound them that are tormented with dolour and them that torment themselves with voluptuousnesse and curiosity Whosoever is much grieved with those incommodities never apprehended aright the frailty of the opposite commodities We must not be vexed for the want of things which by their nature decay and perish very houre There are few incommodities but have a mixture of commodities which a wise lover of his owne tranquillity will pick and convert to his advantage The unhandsome woman shall not be admired but in recompence she shall not be tempted nor importuned as a prey by lust and insolence She hath with her a perpetual exhorter to humility piety and all vertue and to recompence the want of beauty with goodnesse Seldome is unhandsomnesse reproached to women but to them that aggravate with malice envy their disgraces of nature Beauty cannot be acquired but goodnesse may Yet among them that want beauty some are so wise and so good that they become handsome They are commonly more happy in marriage then great beauties for they give lesse jealousy to their husbands and study more to content them Persons of weak constitution are lesse obnoxious to acute sicknesses which many times will kil strong bodyes in three or foure dayes They are lesse tainted with that stupid pride which commonly attends great strength of body Finding themselves inferiour to others in excercises of strength they apply themselves to exercises of wit to which commonly they are more apt As weezels have more mettle and nimblenesse then Oxen there is often more industry and quicknesse of wit in little weak men then in men of of large and brawny limbs for the predominancy of blood and phlegme which makes the body large is the duller temper for wit whereas choler and melancholy which by their contractive quality limit the stretching of growth to a lesser extent serve also the one to sharpen the wit the other to give solidity to the judgement Weakenesse reads to a man a continual Lecture of prudence and compliance for being not able to carry on his designes with a high hand dexterity onely will serve his turne Also that want of strength teacheth him to make God his strength sticking fast to him by faith and a good conscience That way the weakest become too strong for all the world When I am weake then I aâ— strong saith St. Paul 2 Cor. 12.10 Of this Gods children have a blessed experience in sicknesse whereby God makes their body weake to make their faith strong and their soules by the dolours and lingring decay of their bodies susceptible of many salutary lessons for which health and ease have no eares Sicknesse and paine are evill in their nature but they are good by accident when God is pleased to turne evills into remedies to bring a man to repentance and make him looke up to the hand that striketh They are punishments to sin and wayes to death but to the faithful soul they become instruments of grace and conveighances to glory Many of them that beleeved in the Lord Jesus while he conversed among men were brought to it by bodily sicknesses And he when he healed a sick person often would say Thy sins are forgiven thee To give an impartial judgement of their quality and measure one must rather beleeve what he feeles then the cryes and compassion of them that love him and have interest in his preservation They say that a man is very sick when he feeles not his sicknesse Yet he hath so much good time till he feele it If the paine be sharp it is short If it be little it is tolerable If the evill be curable be patient good Cure will heale it If the evill be incurable be patient death will heale it No evill is superlative when one is certaine to come out of it By life or by death there must be an end of thy sicknesse All the remedies that Pagan Philosophy giveth in extremities come to this that patience is a remedy to evills that have none But here Christian Philosophy openeth the treasure of divine comforts which to make the faithfull man patient in tribulation make him joyfull in hope shew him the crown ready for him at the end of the combat In the combat he is strengthened by faith and the comforter whom Christ promist to his disciples powerfully assisteth him in his last agony Or if his triall be prolonged he tels him as Paul buffeted by a messenger of Satan 2 Cor. 12.9 my grace is sufficient for thee for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse By that grace sicknesse beates downe pride quencheth lust weaneth the heart from the love of the world makes the soule hungry and thirsty after righteousnesse Theodoricus Archbishop of Collen with great wisdome exhorted the Emperour Sigismond to have the will in health to live holily as he said when he was tormented with the gravel and gowte Sicknesses give to a godly man a sense of his frailty when wee feel these houes of mud our bodies drooping towards the ground their originall then doe we sigh for that building of God that house not made with hands
eternall in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 Therefore labour and heavy load make us seek to him that saith come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy loaden and I will give you rest Matth. 11.28 Thus evil doth good to them that are good and helps evil men to turne good In sicknesse and dolours Gods children find the peace of the soule and contentment of mind CHAP. XIII Of Exile TO speake of exile after dolour is an abrupt passage from sensible evils to imaginary The world is the natural and general countrey of al men To be exiled is but to be sent from one Province of our Countrey to another That other Province where one is exiled is the Countrey of them that are borne there and of them also that live there exiled if there they get accomodation That particular Province which a nation calls their Countrey is a place of exile to them that are borne in it if they doe not know it as to Oedipus exiled from the place where he was bred to the place where he was borne Children brought from nurse to the mothers house wil cry taking it for a place of exile It is a childish weaknesse in a man to thinke him-selfe lost when he is in a place where he never was before Every where wee have the same nature the same heaven men of the same kind Reasonable creatures should be ashamed to be surmounted by unreasonable in that easinesse to shift Countreies Swallowes hatch about our houses are banisht from our Climat by the approach of winter and they make no difficulty to goe seeke another beyond al the lands and Seas of Europe but men wil cry when they are driven from their chimney corner having the choice of al places of the world which is so large Yet that advantage we have over birds and beasts that al Countries are not alike to them but al Countries are alike unto vertue and to us if we have it for that treasure no enemy can hinder us to carry along with us We may indeed be exiled into an ill Countrey but that Countrey is never the worse for not being our Countrey All lands are in equal distance from heaven the Countrey of gods children God is as soon found in the land of our exile as in that of our birth and sooner too for God is neer those that are destitute and preserveth the stranger Psal 146.9 Are you banisht by a Tyrant Thinke how many persons are exiled from their countrey and dearest relations by their covetousnesse which is the worst tyranny ranging the unknown seas of a new world for many years some to fetch cucineel and pearles from burning climats others to get sables and hermines from the snows under the Pole Some are banisht by others some bythem-selves Nothing is strange to a man when his wil goeth along with it we need but to encline our wil where necessity calls us Impatience in exile is want of a right apprehension of the condition of gods children in the world Heaven is their countrey Life is their Pilgrimage They are strangers even in the place of their birth yea in their very bodys Whilest we are at home in the body we are strangers from the Lord saith Paul 2 Cor. 5.6 Being then strangers in al places of the world one place must not seeme to us more strange then another Wee are never out of our way as long as we are going to God CHAP. XIV Of Prison PRison is the grave of the living There men are buried before their death Liberty is the priviledge of nature without which life is a continual death And it were better to have noe life then not to enjoy it All beasts enjoy liberty some few excepted that have lost it by being too much acquainted with us But as there is need of iron cages to keepe lyons there is need in the world of prisons and captivity to keepe in men that wil not be ruled by reason equity And though many be imprisoned wrongfully if they have the grace to look up to God the disposer of their condition they will acknowledge that God is wise to use them so and that licentious humour hath need of restraint Or if they need it not they have lesse need to afflict themselves A well composed spirit is free in the closest Prison bonds and fetters cannot restraine his liberty The worst fetters are covetousnesse ambition lust appetite of revenge wherewith many that seeme free are kept in bondage Who so can shake them off is at liberty though he were in a dungeon Such was St. Pauls freedom in a chaine 2 Tim. 2.9 I suffer trouble said he as an evill doer even unto bonds but the word of God is not bound The grace of God also cannot be bound and many times God makes use of the bonds of the body to set the soule free A man is very hard tyed to the world if he cannot be untied from it by a long imprisonment Prison will bee lesse tedious to him that remembreth that it is his natural condition That he was nine moneths Prisoner in his Mothers wombe That after his death he shall be made close Prisoner under ground And that as long as he liveth he is loaden like a snaile with his owne Prison which he carrieth about slowly and with great incommodity a clog put by our wise Master to the swiftnesse and quick turnes of our spirit which is alwayes in action Think how fast our thoughts go which in a moment travell from one end of the world to the other and how high our designes will rise whose wings we are constrained to clip and abruptly to pull down our soaring minde to look to the necessities of our craving body and then acknowledge that our body is a very Prison confining the spirit which is the Man The imprisonment of that body is no great addition to its captivity It is but putting one boxe within another And if we looke about us how much captivity do me meet with in society Is not ceremony a slavery which is multiplyed and diversifyed at every meeting Are not honours golden fetters and businesses Iron fetters Do not publique factions enslave particular interesses and spread nets for the conscience Many times that captivity is avoided by that of the Counter and the Fleet. To many their prison hath been a Sanctuary and a strong hold against the dangers of a turbulent and destructive time No dungeon is so close as to keep the faithfull soul from rising to God They that are forbidden the sight of their friends may converse with God at any time which is a great liberty And the Lord Jesus who recommends that worke of mercy to visit the prisoners himselfe doth carefully practise it comforting by his Spirit his disciples to whom the assistance of men is denyed and shewing them heaven open when they are lockt and bolted In effect it is the body not man that is imprisoned The Jalour may keepe out a
substance and intellectual faculties of our soul of immortal nature which cannot be so offuscated with the mists of the flesh but she is cleared of them when she is freed of the body The other is that supernatural wisedome when it pleaseth God to endow our minde with it even his knowledge his love conformity of our will unto his will and faith in his promises Of other ornaments of the soul we cannot certainly say what we shall keep and what we shall lose It will be therefore wifely and thriftily done to labour for that which wee may be sure to keep when we have got it and of which death that takes away all other possessions shall deliver us a full possession It is a great discouragment to them that stretch their braines upon Algebra and Logarithmes and arguments in Frisesmo as it were upon tenterhookes to think that all that learning so hard to get will bee lost in a moment Who would take the paines to load himselfe with it seeing that it gives nothing but vexation in this life and leaves in the soul neither benefit nor trace after death unlesse it be the guilt sticking to the soul to have mispent the strength of wit upon negotious vanities and neglected good studies Yet am I not so austere and peremptory as to despise all the spiritual endowments which we are not sure to keep after death For many of them are such that as we are not certaine to keep them after death so we are not certaine to lose them by death Many of those perishable ornaments are neverthelesse good gifts of God But our minde must be so disposed that in these several ornaments of the soul we seek a contentment proportionate to the assurance that we have of their abiding with us We are most certaine that the knowledge and love of God are permanent possessions and impart to their possessor their permanency there then let us apply our study and place our permanent content We are not certaine whether the other spiritual ornaments will continue with us after this life Then let us not bestow our principal study about those things which we are not sure to keepe nor place our chiefe content in them Let the Soul lose none of her advantages let her glory in her eternall goods and there fixe herselfe Let her rejoyce also in those goods which she hath for a time according to their just value which must be measured by their use Before we consider the several ornaments of the soul more particularly we must consider her substance and faculties The Soul is immateriall and Spirituall bearing in her substance the image of her creator and more yet in her faculties and naturall endowments which before her fall were in an eminent degree of perfection for to be made after the likeness of God includeth all perfection in so much that this high expression to be adequate unto man hath need to be contracted to the proportion of a created nature Of that primitive perfection the traces are evident still in that reasoning quicknesse and universal capacity that goeth through all things and compasseth all things that remembreth things past that provideth for things to come that inventeth judgeth ordereth and brings forth ingenious and admirable workes The principal is that the soul is capable to know God love him commune with him A priviledge special to Angels Souls of men above all creatures as likewise they are the only creatures capable of permanency which is a participation with Gods eternity such as finite natures may admit Humility would not give us leave to conceive high enough of the price of our soul but that the onely Sonne of God God himselfe blessed for evermore hath shewed the high account that he made of her So high that he thought it worth his taking the like nature in the forme of a servant and suffering death with the extremity of paine and ignominy that he might recover and save her when she had lost herselfe The soul being of such an excellent nature and after her decayes by sinne restored to her primitive excellency by grace is a rich possession to herselfe when God gives us the wisedome to obey that evangelical and truly Philosophical precept of Christ Luk. 21.19 In your patience possesse your soules not giving leave to the impatience of cupidity and feare to steal that possession from us But the soul never hath the right possession of herselfe till she have the possession of God To possesse God and to possesse our soul is all one for the spirit cannot be free nor happy nor his owne but by his union with his original Being whereby God and the soul have a mutual possession one of another A blessed union begun in earth by grace and perfected in heaven by glory The contrary state which is to be separated from God is the perdition of a man and the extremity of bondage want and misery Here to undertake an exact anatomy of the soul would be besides my theame and more yet beyond the possibility of right performance For as the eye cannot see it selfe the spirit of man cannot looke into his owne composure and in all the Philosophical discourses upon that subject I finde nothing but conjectural It is more profitable and easy to learne the right government then the natural structure of the soul It is part of the knowledge of the soul to know that she cannot be known and that her incomprehensiblenesse is a lineament of her Creatours image The spirit of man is more quick and stirring then clearsighted and many times is like a Faulcon that flyeth up with his hood on He hath a good wing but he is hood winkt How many wits take a high flight and know not where they be And where shall you finde one that understands thoroughly the matter that he speakes of The Authors that write of all animals and plants understand not the nature of a caterpiller or a lettice how then shall they understand the nature of intellectual substances Certainly all our Philosophy of the nature of things is but seeking and guessing Job 8.9 We are but of yesterday and know nothing because our dayes upon earth are as a shadow saith Bildad Our life is a shadow because it is transitory but more because it is dark The Earth where we live is inwrapt in clouds and our soul in ignorance as long as we live upon earth and yet we are as resolute and affirmative in our Opinions as if we had pitcht our Tabernacle in the Sunne We could not speak with more authority if we were possest as God is with the original Idea's and the very being of things A wise and moderate man will not be carryed away by that presumption neither of others nor his owne but with humility will acknowledge the blind and rash nature of the spirit of man that knoweth nothing and determines of all things that undertakes all and brings nothing to an end Pure truth and full wisedome
there were no Passion there would be no vertue If then the Passion be sick it must be healed not slaine and much lesse must it be slaine when it is in health lest it fall sick It may be sayd for the Philosophers that would cut off or rather root out Passion that it is an errour that doth little harme for man being naturally too passionate we must pull to the contrary extreme to bring him to a vertuous moderation for after we have rooted it out as much as may be there will remaine still too much of it Beasts have also their Passions and by them men are allyed with beasts But the Appetite of the beast is meerly sensual the appetite of man is partly sensual partly intellectual Passions may be marshalled into three orders according to the three principall faculties of the soul The inferiour order is of them that are onely in the sensitive Appetite and have their motions for the body onely as hunger and thirst Over these reason hath lesse power for she cannot perswade him that is hungry not to be so but she may retard the satisfaction of the appetite Other Passions are lodged in a higher storie and seeme to be seated in the Imagination as the Passion that one hath for curiosities and images of perfection increased by the desire These are more capable to be ruled by reason The third and highest order is of intellectual passions as the love of learning and contemplation These are more immediately in the power of reason It is the part of reason to forme and moderate those passions which are meerely under her jurisdiction and keepe a short bridle to those passions that are moved without her leave by nature chance or fancy As in a well governed kingdome all is done by the King the faculties of the soul must be kept in such order that within us all be done by Reason When that Soveraine is wise and well obeyed peace is in the inward State of man But when the Soveraine is made subject to his natural Subjects the sensual Passions then the soule is like a body with the heeles upward and the whole policy of the mind is turned upside downe Being to speake of the Passions as the winds that stirre and tosse that inward sea of the soule I must also speake of the Vertues that serve to represse them Not to treate of each severally and prolixely but to bring them to action and to minister to every Passion its proper remedy CHAP. III. Of Love LOve is the first of all Passions and the cause of most part of them It is the motion of the soule towards objects that promise rest and contenument By Love men are good or evill happy or unhappy as that Passion is applyed to good or evill objects In every soule there is a Master-love which beares rule over all the other Passions and subjecteth them to its principal object According to the quality of that object love is perfect or unperfect for as the objects of the sight change in some sort the apple of the eye into their colour and shape so by receiving the image of the beloved object into our soule our soule is transformed into it and wedded to its qualities He that loves a sordid thing becomes sordid Doth any love his hounds with that principal love his soule becomes of the same quality as his hounds He that loveth a high object becomes high by that love He that loveth God the soveraine good receiveth the soveraine good into his soule Many causes contribute to the contentment of minde but the chiefe cause of it is a worthy love And it may be truly sayd that neither in heaven nor in earth any thing is pleasant and contenting but Love God himselfe is love saith St Iohn 1. Ioh. 4.16 And I conceive as much as a finite mind dares conceive of the infinite God that in the substantial love embracing the three persons of the Godhead consisteth both their personal union and their felicity I have spoken before of the vertue of love which unites us with God and shewed that it is mans great duty and soverain felicity And hereafter I must speake of the Christian love due to our neighbours which is called charity and of the love of society which is friendship In all these relations love is a vertue either acquisite or infused But here wee consider it as a natural Passion which yet wee must endeavour to raise to a vertue and for that wee cannot but returne againe to the love of God The most natural love is the love of the sexe A Passion meerely sensual and common to men with beasts And yet it is that Passion which keepes the greatest stirre in mans heart and in the world That love softeneth magnanimous spirits and drawes downe the soule from the heaven of holy meditation to the dregs of the matter But for that Passion a man might come to a degree of Angelical purity in this world Wherefore there is great need to learne how to represse it To roote it out if one could find in his heart to doe it would be destroying nature and resisting the ordinance of God who gave that inclination to all animals for the propagation of their kind But because God gave also reason to men above other animals and his knowledge to Christians above other men the love of the Sexe hath need to be led by a better guide then Nature else it is brutish and that which is innocent in beasts is vicious in men By it men instead of the pleasure which they hunt after so hotly find sadnes remorse infamy destruction of body soule and estate It is a feareful sentence that no whoremonger nor uncleane person hath any inheritance in the kingdome of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 It is a criminal deplorable folly to turne into a snare of damnation that volupty which the indulgence of the wise creatour hath given to all animals to invite them to the continuation of themselves in their posterity and to climb up at the window with perill to steale pleasure with crime whilest marriage opens the doore to it unto which God men honesty duty utility and facility invite us Love altogether carnal doth not affect the person but the pleasure unless by the person a mansselfe be understood Love of beauty is love of onesselfe not of the desired person since beauty is desired for pleasure When that love of the sexe is joyned with a true affection to the person and that affection grounded in vertue and encouraged with mutual love then love and friendship meete and increase one another And if marriage followeth it may prove the greatest of temporal contentments But as in unlawfull love there is need of continence to refraine it so in the lawful there is need of temperance to moderate it Temperance is the preserver of love of pleasure also Both are lost by excesse As the flame of a taper turned upside downe is quencht by
the substance that feeds it so love goeth out by too much plenty of aliment But though love and pleasure could maintaine themselves in the excesse neither body nor mind losing any thing of their vigour yet there would be more losse then gaine in it for fervent passion troubleth the serenitie of the soul and any thing that subjecteth the understanding to the appetite degradeth the soule of her excellency especially when the appetite is meerely sensual Because in conjugal life two loves meete the love of the sexe and the love of society It will be a wise course to tye the last with all the bonds of benevolence These bonds are piety sweet conversation tender care of the beloved person patience to beare with her infirmities and a little winking not to see all that might diminish love omitting nothing to make the best of a bargaine which cannot be undone That indissoluble knot which unto fooles makes marriage a heavy yoake is unto the wise a helpe to contentment for by that necessity they are taught to love what they must love to seeke their delight in their duty The greatest fervour of love is not in matrimony for there one hath alwayes at hand wherewith to coole his thirst nor in unlawfull lust where also one knowes how to allay his heat though with the detriment of his conscience but in woing in longing desires tending to mariage That heat is increased by the lawfulnes of the end and the suggestion of a bewitched reason unto the conscience that one that loveth honestly cannot love too much And if that heat meet with opposition it increaseth againe by difficulty and often there is more love where there is lesse hope Quó que minùs sperat hôc magis ille cupit Passion will frame in a mans fancy an advantageous image of the beloved object which stands continually before him appears to him in dreames breakes his sleepe interrupts his best thoughts and his most important businesses makes his spirit a sea in perpetual agitation and his most quiet intervalls are sadnes and a browne study The worst is that God is forgotten and the love of heaven is put out by the love of the world Many not onely of the vulgar sort but of the bravest mindes having split their ship upon this rock there is need of extraordinary care to avoyd it So much greater because our Christian Philosophers have taken lesse care to appropriate their remedies to this sicknesse for when they inveigh against carnal and vicious love those lovers who are persuaded that their love is all vertuous because they would not though they could unlawfully possesse the beloved person esteeme that these censures belong not to them And yet God knoweth that their love is too carnal though they were virgins in their very thoughts for even the immoderate love of a mother to her child is carnal and vicious They need then to be put in mind that their love cannot be pure in the quality as long as it exceeds in the quantity excesse of love for a worldly object being a most impure quality for that Master-love which rules in the soul and brings all other Passions under is due unto God alone who will be loved with all our heart with all our soul with all our strength and with all our understanding This the Lord Jesus calls the first and the great commandement The great because it is the chiefe duty of man which comprehends all other duties And the first because it is a comment upon the first precept of the law Thou shalt have none other Gods but me As then we must adore none but God alone we must love none but God alone with that Master-love which gives to another the soverainty over ourselves for that love is a true adoration whereby all the faculties of the soul bow and prostrate themselves before the beloved object When carnall love is the Master-love in a soul then the soul hath another God then the true God and that Passion makes a burnt-offering of the heart to a false God some weake sinfull creature Certainly those impetuous burning fits of carnal love are violent rapines of the proper rights of God for to him belongeth the heart and upon him those raptures and strong agitations of love should have beene bestowed him onely we ought to love with all our soul and with all our strength O how farre are these violences from those which must take the Kingdome of God by force And how many teares and plaints of smarting remorse must fond lovers powre to doe penance for so many teares and plaints of carnal love that opinatre imbecillity whereby a man pines and torments himselfe for the love of another Sometimes these two sorts of teares proceeding out of such different causes have met together in generous and religious soules who being transported with those violences of humane love were at the same time strongly moved with godly jealousy the conscience grieving and expostulating with the Appetite for yeelding unto any but God the seignory of the heart Then the love of God opprest in the heart under the weight of the world and the flesh powerfully bestirred himselfe and getting strength by opposition overcame that rivall love and became in the end Master of the place But alas one victory doth not end the combat For carnal love when we think that it is shut out will re-enter having the porters of the soul the senses on his side which open the gate to its objects without the leave of reason and help it to make strong impressions upon the fancy Whereas the immaterial beauty of God hath no help from the senses makes no impression upon the imagination but in recompense it doth immediately illuminate the understanding and work upon the affections and so sanctifyeth and strengtheneth them that after many combats carnall love is subdued And if it pleade nature for staying with us yet it is brought to such a subjection that it moveth no more but orderly and within the limits of piety and reason possessing but such a parcel of the affection as it pleaseth the love of God to allow nature to hold under him The limits and rules of reason about the choice of the subject of that love are possibility lawfullnesse and conveniency The measure of love must be according to the price of the subject But when it comes to wedlock another measure is requisite that of oblgiation and duty before wedlock love is prone to overvalue his subject Let lovers remember that the most perfect persons are humane creatures therefore a humane love is fit for them not a divine service for then we serve them as God alone must be served when we make them Mistrisses of our heart Take the best of them their beauty will fade their sweetnesse will sowre and their persons must dye this bates much of their price Faire Diamonds would not be so deare if they could grow pale and weare out Know once the most
and ill wives they have need to learne obedience but in these bookes they learne soverainty Women being more given to these bookes then men shew that though they have lesse fougve of love then men they have neverthelesse a more constant inclination to it Who so will keepe himselfe holy in body and affection and preserve his soule serene and free from the tempest of that turbulent Passion must avoid the reading of such bookes whose proper office is to raise those stormes in a mans blood and appetite And I know not whether it be more dangerous to reade dissolute bookes which make of carnal love a jigg and a matter of sport openly shewing the ordure and the folly of it or dolefull amorous fables which make of it a grave and serious study and under the colour of honesty and constancy of love managed with an artificial and valourous carriage hoodwinke and bewitch the readers minde with a pertinacious Passion making their braines runne wilde after chimera's and hollow imaginations whereby some have runne mad Indeed one cannot follow the fancies of romances without straying from right sense Neither is there any thing that makes the heart more worldly and carnal and brings it further from God I will be judged by all good soules that would betake themselves to exercises of piety when they were newly come from this kind of reading Let them say in conscience how farre estranged from God they found themselves and ill disposed to every good worke Sure it is not without reason that these writers set up false Gods as being conscious to themselves that their writings are deviations from the true God and ashamed to name the God of truth among their fables Also because with some of them it is a prime piece of love-complement to make discontented lovers to wreake their anger upon the Deity they will have this excuse ready that they are not blasphemies against the true God but against the gods of Homer and Hesiod's making But from these blasphemous expostulations with false gods the readers learne to doe the like with the true and to avenge themselves upon him of all things that cross their impetuous Passion The same bookes set up the murtherous discipline of duells as a gallantry of love wherby lovers seale their affection to their mistresses by the blood of their rivals or their owne There are other matches of the wilde fire of carnal love which must be carefully avoyded wanton discourses vicious companies occasions to doe evil conversation with vaine malicious women whose chiefe aime and taske is to catch all the men that come in their way not that they may keep them but triumph over them and cast them away and feed their owne vanity with the disappointment of their suitors Take heed of idlenes it is Satans pillow the counsellour of vice and especially the procurer of lust He that doeth nothing thinkes on evill Take heed of intemperance Carnal love is so inbred with the matter that whatsoever heateth the blood sets the appetite on fire Wherefore Jeremiah sets intemperance and incontinence together Jer. 5.8 They were as fed horses in the morning every one neighed after his neighbours wife There be two great remedies to take downe that heate The one corporal which is mariage instituted by God for that end a holy and honourable state When both the parties are good and love one another it is the greatest sweetenes of life But whether a man be married or desire to be he must think on the vanity and short continuance of the most pleasant things of this world the frailty of life the certainty of death the uncertainty of the hour thence to inferre the conclusion of St Paul 1. Cor. 7.29 But this I say brethren that the time is short It remaines that they that have wives be as they that have none And so they that are woing must be as though they were not woing that is they must impose moderation upon their affections out of a wise apprehension of the vanity of the world and life ver 31. using this world as not abusing it for the fashion of this world passeth away Wherefore should wee love with so much fervency that which wee cannot keepe when wee have got it which we must leave or which must leave us The other duty is Spiritual and it is that great and perpetual duty to Love God Let that holy Passion alwayes rule in our hearts Let us give to God his proper right which he demandeth in his word Pro. 25.26 My sonne give me thy heart and let us keep such a watchfull guard about it that none steale it from him and us Our love to a worthy Consort being so moderated will become both lawfull pleasant Humane condition hath nothing so delightfull as a reciprocal love Yea of all things to which mans will doth contribute it is the onely pleasant thing But as navigable rivers enrich a country with commerce and plenty when they keepe within their shores but ruine it when they overflow with a violent landflood Likewise love while it keepes within limits brings pleasure and utility when it exceeds them it brings displeasure and destruction Love that is not reciprocal will weare away in time But a wise man will shorten the worke of time with reason and will not obstinately court a person that will not love him For of what price soever she be in our regard she is of no price if she be not for us Wee must love our enemies but wee must let them alone CHAP. IV. Of Desire DEsire hath a neere kinred with love for it is the motion of the appetite towards the beloved object This is the difference that Love regardeth the present Desire aspireth to the future Some desires are natural some besides nature Natural desires are good and easily satisfied as long as they keepe within their mounds the first whereof is nature then reason to rule nature and piety to rule reason But wee must take heed of mistaking corrupted nature for pure Pure nature is contented with little but corrupted nature runs to excesse and embaseth natural desites with the allay of desires besides nature It is natural for a man to desire a woman but it is besides nature that he will have her so noble and so rich that he increaseth the desired object with imagination and kindleth his passion by difficulty It is natural to desire meate drink clothing but it is besides nature to desire great feasts gay garments and costly buildings Reason indeed was given us to embellish and inrich nature but Reason if it be well taught wil in all occasions make use of nature to rule the desire and teach it that besides Nature there can be no necessity Thus if your coach breake farre from the towne instead of grieving and fretting remember that Nature did not give you legs to sit in a coach and that it is not necessary for you to be carryed as long as you can goe If you be
nothing is frailer then mans life nothing more certaine then his death nothing more uncertaine then the hour What need we lay up much treasure since we must lose all What need to get up very high to fall to the ground and there to rot And whereas the tranquillity and contentment of man consisteth in the things that are within him not in them that are about him When he turnes his principall desire and the whole bent of his mind to things that are without he goeth out of himselfe and subjecteth himselfe to another He begs of another that which none but God and himselfe can give him He makes his content to depend on that which is out of his power A wise man will take heed of that and will call-in his desire to his owne breast where he shall finde God if he seek him well and in God his onely felicity Let us be covetous to be rich in God and ambitious to draw neare him Indeed since our body and life are maintained with things that are without us we cannot but desire them as things which our necessity calls for Besides which our condition and the course of the world makes many outward things to become necessary which in themselves are not so All these wee may desire so it bee with an infericur desire quietly subjected and subordinate to that Master-desire which must make a whole burnt-offering of the soul to God alone that we may say to God with an entire and free heart as Isaiah did Isa 26.8 The desire of our soul is to thy name O Lord and to the remembrance of thee With my soul have I desired thee in the night yea with my spirit within me will I seeke thee Blessed we that our spirit needs but to seeke within himselfe to finde the full satisfaction of his desire if he have the grace to desire what he ought CHAP. VI. Of Desire of Pleasure IT is easy to rule the Desire of Volupty when we have once well apprehended the nature of it The body hath the greatest share in the Pleasures which the world runnes after we must not then for their sakes subject our minde unto our body The pleasures of the body are short we must not then for a short enjoyment entertaine a long desire They are light and of a faint taste we must not then have a great Desire for a little Pleasure They promise much to the Desire and performe little Our desire then being forewarned of this will not lightly trust their faire promises and will looke more to their capacity then their invitation Some pleasures are altogether unlawfull Of which therefore the desire must be cut off altogether And before we give any admission to their flattery into our soules we must take time to consider the designe of him that sets them on work the Devill By them he seekes to blindfold us that he may lead us into perdition which he will be sure to do if we entertaine his false caresses for after blindfolding comes blindness in earnest errour in the understanding misrule in the affections beggery infamy hardnesse of heart a late remorse and eternall damnation Prov. 6.16 By meanes of a whoorish woman a man is brovght to a peece of bread and the adulteresse will hunt for the precious life Prov. 7.26 She hath cast downe many wounded yea many strong men have bin slaine by her Her house is the way to Hell going downe to the chambers of death He that hath the grace to consider so much before will step back when these inticements are offered unto him and say I will not buy a desperate repentance so deare Pleasures in themselves lawfull become unlawfull by accident when they are desired or enjoyed with excesse Moderation is the ballance of justice and the nurse of pleasure Without it Desire turnes into sorrow and Enjoyment into a severish fit Those pleasures in which a beast hath no share are more worthy of a man as those that are enâ—â—â—â—â— by contemplation For them we may allow 〈◊〉 â—â—ger tedder to desire For those that are 〈◊〉 â—ost betweene the body and the spirit as 〈◊〉 â—â—ghts of picture and musique the tedder must be tyed somewhat shorter not giving too great a scope to curiosity For the pleasures meerely corporall the tedder must be the shortest of all Yet in all humane delights whether of the body or the mind excesse is vicious and marreth the Pleasure Solomon found it in the noblest of humane delights Eccles 1.18 In much wisedome saith he is much griefe and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow It is one of the greatest proofes of the vanity of mans condition that in all humane things where the pleasure kindleth the desire the pleasure is afterwards choaked by the very desire for either we seeke in them the pleasure which they cannot afford or we seek it otherwise then we ought and even by seeking we lose it Which inconveniences are prevented or mitigated by moderation in the desire and pursuite For it will bring one of these two conveniences Either we shall more certainly get what we would have or if we misse it we shall not have the griefe to have lost much labour about it It were easy to draw a platforme upon paper of the most delightfull and compleat estate that humane desire can aspire unto in this world And that estate should be compounded with the three sorts of life contemplative active and fruitive A condition abounding with leasure to imploy it in the contemplation of things good noble and pleasant having businesses enowâ—â— be usefull in society and not so many as to weary a mans body and mind about things inferiour to the dignity of his soul enjoying sufficiency of worldly goods with peace and wisedome and a mediocrity of degree exempted from contempt oppression relishing the innocent contentments of life with sobriety and simplicity not fixing the heart upon them and therefore possessing the true use and and delight of them All that seasoned with health of body and serenity of minde and with a good conscience aspiring continually to a higher felicity enjoying it already by hope by a present sense of the blessed peace of God But we have not the liberty to cut our coat out of the whole cloath The skill of a good engineer does not consist in making a regular Fort upon a parchment or a ground chosen at will that hath all the natural advantages but in bowing his art to the nature of the place unto which necessity engageth him and overcomming by industry the incommodiousnesse of the seat Likewise a wisemans work is not to frame to himselfe poeticall felicities but to take things as he finds them and use them well for in mans condition on earth there is no seat so strong but is commanded or if it be not now it will be another time as being seated upon an unstable sand to day even to morrow uneven which no humane strength or forecast can keep unmooved
The life of man being compounded of so many different pieces in which vertue and prudence have but little share why should our desire be so eagerly bent upon those thungs which are besides the reach of our industry Though you had attained once to that high point of human happines that you might contemplate freely and with leasure doe usefull and illustrious actions in society enjoy well-gotten wealth an honorable degree a cheereful heart in a sound body how long can ye maintaine that state how many rubs shall you meete with in the fairest way A law-suit will make you goe up and downe and lay-by your contemplation Envy and obloquy will crosse and blast your best actions A little sicknes will take from you the taste of all the pleasures of life I leave out great calamities The torments of the stone the gowte The sudden floods of warre The total ruines by false accusations things which may happen to all because they happen to some Accidere cuivis quod cuiquam potest The most desirable things of the world being thus casuall and no delight constant The wisest and happiest are they that seeke not their constant delight in the world but stay their desire upon the right object which gives a sincere and durable content not subject to the tossing of worldly fortunes Let us have no fervent desire but for those things that are truly ours when wee have them once and which wee cannot lose against our will for in them consisteth true pleasure Those things are the true knowledge of God his love and union with him as much as human nature is capable of in this life For that union with God will breed in us a resemblance of his vertues and a participation of his serenity tranquillity constancy facility and delectation in well doing These in which true delight lyeth are also the true objects of our desire And here we must let the raines loose to Passion Since to possesse God is the infinite good and soveraine delight the measure to desire it is to have no measure CHAP. VII Of Sadnesse Sadnes is the dolour of the soule and the beating downe of the spirit This seemes to be the most natural of all Passions as hereditary to man from his first parents For to our first mother God sayd Gen. 3.16 I will greatly multiplie thy sorows and thy conception in sorrow shall thou bring forth children And to our first father v. 17. In sorrow thou shal eate thy bread all the dayes of thy life No wonder then that sorrow is the inheritance of all their posterity That first couple dejected with the sense of their sinne and punishment left a calamitous progenie Job 14.1 Man that is borne of a woman is of few dayes and full of trouble But although this be a natural Passion yet it is an enemie to Nature for it makes the flowre and vigour of body and mind to wither and obscureth that goodly light of the understanding with a thicke mist of melancholy Some sadnes is necessary in its end as that which belongs to contrition and the zeale of Gods glory Some is necessary in its cause as that which proceeds out of a sharp bodily paine There is a constrained sadnes when one is sad out of good manners and for fashion sake Such is the mourning of heires whose teares in funerals are part of the ceremony Many times wee are sad in good earnest for being obliged to be sad in shew Then there is a wanton sadnes which soft spirits love to entertaine for weeping is also a point of curiosity and delicacy No doubt but they find delight in it for none ever doeth any thing of his owne accord but for his owne content Of Sadnes necessary in its end I have spoken in the chapter of Repentance and must againe in this after I have given some counsels for repressing the other sorts of Sadnes Those are lesse capable of counsel that are necessary in their cause as when the senses are pincht for then no reason can perswade them not to feele it or hinder the mind to have a fellow feeling of the paines of the body A Physician and a Surgeon will be fitter to abate that Sadnes then a Philosopher yet not then a Divine for Divinity makes use of the very paines of the body to raise up the soule of the patient to God In deed the counsels of piety do not take away the paine but they overcome it by the sweet persuasions of Gods love to us As for constrained and ceremonious Sadnes wee must avoyd the excesse of it and the defect also chusing rather gently to yeeld to custome then to be singular and contradict all that wee approve not keeping alwayes serenity within in the midst of these ceremonies more grievous many times then the griefe that occasions them Wanton and delicate Sadnes cannot be justified by the allegation of heavy losses and great wrongs For besides that most part of the evils that men grieve for are such onely in the imagination as a disdaine a reproach a slaunder the losse of some goods that did them nothing but harme suppose that all the evills that wee grieve for be evills indeed it followes not that wee must grieve for them according to their grievousnesse unlesse it appeare that they may be mended by grieving But never any dead man was raised from the dead by the teares that his widow shed upon his herse Never was a wrong repaired by the sadnes of the wronged party Adversity will cast downe poore spirited persons but raiseth the spirits of the generous and sets their industrie on worke The deepe sorrow that seizeth upon a weake woman at her husbands death makes her incapable to overcome the difficulties where he leaves her But a vertuous and wise widow hath no leasure to weepe sixe months close prisoner in a darke chamber rather she comforteth herselfe with following her businesses Also since time drieth up the most overflowing teares and a second wedding will take down the great mourning vaile it will be providently done to moderate sorrow betimes that the disproportion may not be too eminent betweene Sadnesse and Joy To attaine that moderation we must take away that false excuse of good nature and love to the deceased person from immoderate mourning for in effect it is no other love but the love of ourselves that afflicts us and not their losse but ours The true causes of immoderate sorrow for the things of this world are these two great errours against which I am so often necessitated to give warning to my readers as the springs of all the folly and misery that is in the world The one is the ignorance of the price of things for he that will value money honour and credit according to their just price and no more will not be much afflicted if he lose them or cannot get them The other is that we seeke out of ourselves that happinesse and rest which is no where
to be gotten but within us from God and ourselves and take those things for ours which are none of ours but depend of others and thereupon runne towards those objects thus mistaken with a blind impetuositie These are the true roots of Sadnesse which roots if we could pluck out of our breasts we should never be sad for any thing of the world But it is very hard to pluck out that weed for Sadnesse is like a nettle a malignant stinging weed spreading in the soyle where it hath once taken root and sucking all the vigour and substance thereof It makes a man murmure against God and envy his neighbours alwayes discontented alwayes needy suffering neither himselfe nor others to be at rest odious to God and men and to his own selfe The life of man being subject to occasions of Sadnesse a wise man will not adde voluntary sorrow to the necessary And since by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken Prov. 15.13 and a broken spirit dryeth up the bones Prov. 17.22 so that Sadnesse is the ruine both of body and mind he will take so much care of the preservation of both of which he is accountable to God as to banish from his breast with his utmost industrie that fretting consumption The best course for that is to exercise ourselves in the love and contemplation of God and faith in his promises By these Sadnesse is cast out of the heart and the soule is set in a pleasant and serene frame Next this wisedome must be learned of Solomon Eccles 5.17 It is good and comely for a man to eate and drink and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he takes under the Sunne all the dayes of his life which God giveth him for that is his portion Obstinate Sadnesse is unthankfull to God for it drownes the benefits of God in an ungratefull oblivion and takes away the taste of them even while we enjoy them And what a double misery is that for a man to make himselfe guilty by making himselfe miserable For two things voluntary Sadnesse is lawfull and usefull for the evill that we commit and the evill that others commit Sadnesse for our owne sinnes is contrition Sadnesse for the sinnes of others is the zeale of Gods glory both commendable necessary He that hath not a sad resenting of his owne sins must not hope for pardon and is so farre from finding it that he cannot so much as seek it for he that feeles not his sicknesse shall never look for the remedy Mat. 11.28 Come to me saith Christ all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest None are invited by the Gospell but such as labour and are heavy loaden none but they can finde rest unto their sonles This comes to that I was saying lately that we must be sad for no evill but such as can be mended by our Sadnesse Such is contrition for sinne for it helps to heal it making us cast ourselves upon the great Physitian the Lord Jesus whose merit is the Soveraine remedy to that great sicknesse So that Sadnesse ends in Joy We must grieve also for the sins of others for since we must love God above all things we must be very sensible of the dishonour offered unto his holy name This made Daniel and Nehemiah to fast and pray and God shewed that their Sadnesse was acceptable unto him Sadnesse then is of good use for these ends so that we never seeke merit nor praise in it remembring alwayes that Sadnesse is evill in itself good onely by accident Sadnesse of contrition and zeale is good as Purges and letting of blood which are good onely because there is some evill in the body If all were well there would be no need of them As then we must take heed of too much purging and blood-letting so we must of too much Sadnesse either for contrition or zeale The use of Sadnesse in contrition is to make repentance serious and to humble the spirit that it may be capable and thirsty of the grace of God The use of sadnesse in zeale is to sympathize with Gods interesses and thereby beare witnesse to God and our owne conscience that we aknowledge our selves Gods children For these ends it is not required at our hands to grieve without tearme and measure For since the greatnesse of Gods mercy is as high above our sinnes as Heaven is above Earth it is Davids comparison our faith and joy in Gods mercy must also be very much above our sadnesse for our sins And as God saith that our sins are cast into the sea Mich. 7.19 meaning the deep Ocean of his infinite mercy likewise our sorrow for our sins must be drowned in the joy of his salvation Whereas also the blasphemies and oppositions of Gods enemies by his great wisedome and power turne to his glory our sadnesse for these oppositions must end in joy for that almighty power and soveraine glory of our heavenly father to which the greatest enmity of Satan and the world is subject and tributary for by pulling against it they advance it The consideration of the subjects of Sadnesse sheweth more then any other that man knoweth not himselfe there being nothing in which one is sooner deceived For many times we think ourselves to be sad for one thing when we are sad for another mistaking the pretence of our Sadnesse for the cause Many will impute their sadnesse to the sense of their sinnes but the true cause is in their hypoconders swelled and tainted with black choller oppressing the heart and sending up fuliginous vapours to the braines No wonder that so often all the reasons of Divinity and the sweetest comforts of godlinesse cannot erect a spirit beaten downe with sadnesse the plaister is not layd to the sore for spiritnall remedies purge neither the spleene nor the gall nor the braines whose peccant humours breed all those doubts and feares whereby melancholy persons so pertinaciously vexe themselves and others Indeed the resolution of a serene and religious spirit will preserve body and soul in a sound and quiet state But that resolution which is excellent for prevention of the evill will not overcome it when the humours of the body are generally dyed and infected with melancholy Wherefore let us beware betimes that Sadnesse settle not in our heart for the indulgence shewed to willfull Sadnesse will in short time sowre all the humours of the body and vitiate the whole masse of the blood and the magazine of vital and animal spirits with melancholy Then when the mind hath made the body melancholy the body doth the like to the mind and both together contribute to make a man miserable timorous mischievous savage lycanthrope and a heavy burden to himselfe When that habit of melancholy begins by the spirit it is more grievous when it begins by the body it is more incurable To draw a man out of that deep gulfe all spirituall and materiall helps are of
filial love confidence and obedience The other rule that wee may finde Joy in all things that are either of good or indifferent nature is to seeke it according to the kind and capacity of every thing To that end we must be carefull that the Joy that wee take in God be as little under him as it is possible to us and that the Joy that wee take in other things be not above them Since then God is all good all perfect all pleasant the onely worthy to be most highly praised and most entirely beloved wee must also most exceedingly rejoyce that he is ours and wee his and that we are called to be one with him As for other things let us judiciously examine what Joy they can give us and lose nothing of the content which their capacity can afford looking for no more For there is scarce any sorrow in the world but proceeds from this cause to have expected of humane things a Joy beyond their nature Now this is the great skill of a minde serene religious industrous for his own content to know how to fetch joy out of all things and whereas every thing hath two handles the one good the other evill to take every thing dexterously by the right handle A man that hath that skill will rejoyce in his riches with a joy sortable to their nature And when he loseth them in stead of grieving that he shall have them no longer he rejoyceth that he had them so long If he lose one of his hands he rejoyceth that God preserveth him the other If he lose the health of his body he praiseth God for preserving to him the health of his minde If slandering tongues take his good name from him he rejoyceth that none can robbe him of the testimony of a good conscience If he be in the power of them that can kill his body he rejoyceth that they cannot kill his soul If he be condemned being innocent his joy that he is innocent drownes his sorrow that he is condemned Love and Joy are the two passions that serve to glorifie God and praise him for his benefits A thankfull admirer of Gods wisedome and bounty hath a cheerefull heart All things give him joy the beauty variety and excellency of Gods workes makes him say with David Psal 92.4 Lord I will triumph in the workes of thy hands He rejoyceth in hope to see better works and the Maker himselfe in whose sight and presence is fullnes of joy If he look up to heaven he rejoyceth that he hath a building of God a house not made with hands eternall in the heavens 2 Cor. 5.1 If he look upon his body he rejoyceth that in his flesh he shall see God If he looke upon his soul he rejoyceth that there he beares the renewed image of God and the earnest of his eternall adoption If he be poore he rejoyceth in that conformity with the Lord Jesus If he see wealth in the house of his neighbours he rejoyceth that they have the plenty splendor of it that himselfe hath not the cares and the temptations that attend it As many miseries as he seeth so many arguments hath he to glorifie God and rejoyce in his goodnesse saying Blessed be God that I am not maimed like that begging souldier nor lunatick like that bedlam nor going in shackles like that fellon nor a slave like that Counsellour of State He will keepe account of Gods benefits and considering sometimes his owne infirmities and naturall inclinations sometimes Gods wise providence in the conduct of his life he will acknowledge with a thankfull joy that God hath provided better for him then himselfe could have wisht that his crosses were necessary for him and that if he had had a fairer way he might have run headlong to ruine by his rashnesse It were infinite to enumerate all the subjects of joy that God gives to his children for his benefits are numberless his care continuall his compassions new every morning and the glory which he keepes for us eternall Which way can we turne our eyes and not finde the bounty of God visible and sensible Here then more evidently then any where else our happiness and our duty meet in one It is a pleasant task to worke our owne joy Now it is the task of Gods children in obedience to his express command by his Apostle 1 Thes 5.16 Rejoyce evermore See how urgent he is to recommend that duty Phil. 4.4 Rejoyce in the Lord alway and againe I say Rejoyce CHAP. IX Of Pride I Contend not whether Pride must be called a Vice or a Passion It is enough for me that it is an affection too naturall unto man the cause of many passions and a great disturber of inward tranquillity Pride is a swelling of the soul whose proper causes are too good an opinion and in consequence too great a love of ones selfe and whose most proper effects are ambition of dignity and greedinesse of praise Wherefore these two effects cannot be overcome unless we first overcome the cause which is presumption and a blinde immoderate love of a mans selfe It is impossible for a man to be tranquill and safe as long as he sits upon a crazy and tottering bottome Pride then making a man to ground himselfe upon himselfe cannot but keepe him in a perpetuall unquietness and vacillation How can ye beleeve saith the Lord Jesus to the Jewes which receive honour one of another and seeke not the honour that comes from God onely John 5.44 A text which taxeth Pride of two great evills That is robbes God of his glory and that it shakes the the foundation of faith For a proud man seekes not the glory of God but his owne and his owne glory hee doth not seeke of God but will get it of men by his owne merit Also it turnes his heart away from his trust in God to trust in his owne selfe Psal 10.13 The wicked boasteth of his hearts desire saith David that is he is confident that by his owne strength he shall compass all his projects And againe The wicked through the pride of his heart will not seeke after God for the one brings the other He that trusteth in himselfe and is highly conceited of his owne wisedome is easily perswaded that he hath no need of God That disposition of the mind is the high way to ruine Prov. 16.18 Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall For God to whom only glory belongeth cannot but be very jealous of those that wil ingross it to themselves declares open warre against them Psal 18.27 He will bring downe high lookes Jam. 4.6 He resisteth the proud but sheweth grace unto the humble Prov. 8.11 I hate pride and arrogancy saith Soveraine wisedome which is God As the winde hurts not the stalkes of herbs as long as they are supple and bowing but breakes them when they are become dry and stiffe The meeke and humble spirits that
Temperance is the just proportion of the appetite and Fortitude is the constancy and magnanimity of the will requisite to keep one just Neither is fortitude a Vertue different from temperance for whereas of those two duties sustine abstine to sustaine and to abstaine the first which is resisting oppositions is ascribed to fortitude the other which is abstaining from the inticements of sinne is reserved unto temperance yet both belong equally to fortitude seeing there is as much if not more strength of mind requisite to stand out against alluring temptations as to encounter violent oppositions There are then two vertues in all the one intellectuall which is Prudence the other morall which is Justice I have spoken of the first and this whole treatise is but an exercise of it And of the second also of which the most essentiall part is the feare of God and a good conscience that is truly the prime Justice All human lawes if they be good are dependances of it if they be evill they are deviations from it Naturall equity sanctifyed by grace ruleth both publique and particular duties and both the outward and the inward man which is farre more then common and civill law can compass In all policies of the world Justice hath diverse faces The body of the Law especially in great and antient States hath statutes and cases without number which instead of clearing justice confound it All that legislative labour regards outward action and the publique peace But piety and true Philosophy rule the inward action and settle the peace of the soul with the right and primitive Justice Besides human lawes are most busy in forbidding evill and for that end make use of feare and the terrour of punishment whereas the inward law of Vertue is most busy in prescribing good and for that end makes use of the motive of love and reward But whether we need the motives of feare or love we have a Soveraine Court within our breast where the great Judge of the Universe is sitting continually There his Law is written and layd in view entering into the eyes of the understanding which seeth it even when he winkes that he may not see it And there a mans owne thoughts stand divided at the barre some accusing some excusing him out of that law compared with the records of the memory Of that Court St. Paul was speaking that the very Gentiles and heathen shew the worke of the law written in their hearts their conscience also bearing witnesse and their thoughts the meane while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 2.15 Before that Court that is before God himselfe and before us we must labour to be declared just and more to be so indeed There justice must be setled There it must be practised It will be well done to know and obey the formes of justice which publique order hath set over us but our maine taske must be to labour for an niward and habituall justice Let us obey cheerefully all good or indifferent human lawes but before all and after all let us seek and pray for that law of the spirit of life which may set a rule to all the unrulinesse within us and make righteousnesse and peace to kiss each other in our soules The ordinary definition of justice that it is a constant will to give to every one his owne as it is commonly understood regards onely the least part of justice which is the rule of duties betweene man and man But let us give it a fuller extent for to give every one his owne we must pay all that is due first to God next to ourselves and then to our neighbours Certainly the two former parts of justice are far more considerable then the third which is the onely cryed up though ill observed in the world for a man may and doth often retire from the society of men but he can at no time retire from God and himselfe and though a man were alone in the world yet should he have with him the chiefe subjects to exercise the vertue of justice We shall give God his owne by loving him with all our soul and with all our strength obeying his will carefully and cheerefully praising him for his love to us and for his owne greatness and goodness with a thankfull and a joyfull heart setting him continually before the eyes of our mind as alwayes present that we may walke unto all pleasing before his pure and all seeing eyes stick fast unto him by meditation affection and entire confidence And whereas man is the bond and the naturall mediator betweene the materiall world and the spirituall who alone must render for the whole Nature the due homage unto the great Creator Justice calls upon us to do that right to God Nature to knit Nature with God by our love faith obedience and praises Thus also we shall give to ourselves our due for to draw neere unto God is our good Psal 73.28 to separate from him is our destruction They that observe lying vanities forsake their owne mercy saith Jonas Jo. 2.8 meaning that they forsake him of whose goodness their being and wel-being depends This thought will renew the antient characters of the naturall notions of justice engraven upon the marble of our hearts upon which the corruption of the world and our owne hath bred as it were a thick moss which hides these characters But with the feare of God that moss is rubbed off and the law of God the originall justice written there with Gods finger appeares plaine and legible Who so then will do right to himself and recover his primitive dignity must study to know feare and love God perfect his union with him and associate himselfe with his Angels by obeying his will and tending his praise His saving eternall light is for us Wisedome righteousness sanctification and redemption are for us for he gives them to us liberally in his Sonne We do but right to ourselves when we study that those blessings which are for us may be ours And to lose such inestimable graces by our neglect is besides ungratefullness towards God a crying injustice against ourselves A maine point of that justice which we owe to ourselves is to labour to make ourselves possessors of ourselves and masters at home so untyed from all outward tyes that our content depend of none but God and ourselves and that rule over ourselves is attained by yeelding unto God the rule ver us To that end our first labour must be to traine well the Passion of love which is the great wheele mooving all the other passions for according to the subjects that we love and as we love them well or ill we are good or evill happy or unhappy To love what we ought and as we ought is the whole duty and happinesse of man Next our desires and hopes must be cut short which is not cutting downe Nature as greedy minds may think It is cutting off our bonds and
subjected and united to His that in the midst of afflictions he finds Gods will good pleasant and perfect and saith Gods will bed one He is all good and all wise And since he is as absolute and irresistible in his power as he is good and wise in his will it would be as foolish a part for me to hope to overcome it as impious to offer to contradict it This is the principal counsel against all Adversity yea the onely for we should need no other if we were come so far as to have no will but Gods will But to that high counsel many inferiour counsels are subservient Such is this When God sends us adversity that we may not thinke it strange to be so used let us compare ourselves with so many others that are in a worse case If we be prisoners in ourowne Country let us remember so many Christians that are captives of the Turkes and Moores Have we suffered some losse in our estates we need not goe farre from home to see whole nations driven out of their antient possessions shut out of their Country and reduced to mendicity Are you lame of a legge Looke upon your neighbour that hath lost both his legges by a cannonshot Thus the evils of others will be lenitives to yours It is a wholesome counsell to be more carefull to keepe a reckoning of the goods that remaine with us then of those we have lost He that hath lost his land must thank God that he hath kept his health He that hath lost health and temporall goods must thank God that none can take from him the eternall goods And whosoever hath lesse then he desireth must acknowledge that he hath more then he deserveth It is the way to keepe ourselves in humility before God and men and in tranquillity at home and turne murmuring into thanksgiving And whereas the remembrance of dead friends and lost goods fill us with sorrow it ought to fill us with joy If the possession of them was pleasant why should the remembrance be sad Why should wee entertaine more sadness because we lost them then joy because we had them it is the ordinary unthankfulnes of the world to reckon all the goods of the time past for nothing At the least affliction a long course of precedent prosperity is lost and forgotten like a cleare streame falling into a sink and losing its pureness in ordure Let us thank God for all the good dayes of our life so may me make present ill dayes good by the remembrance of good dayes past and obtaine of God new matter of thanksgiving We must use the world as a feast using soberly and cheerefully the fare that is before us and when it is taken away We must rise and give thankes We may justly be taxed as greedy ghests unthankfull to the master of the feast that hath so liberally feasted us if we Grudge when he calls to take away instead of Thanking him for his good cheere As he is our magnificent Inviter he is our wise Physitian Sometimes he sets his good plenty before us sometimes he keepes us to short dyet Let us receive both with an equall and thankfull mind All his dealing with us is wisedome and bounty Here let us remember this Maxime which I layd before as a maine ground of our tranquillity that the things which we lose are none of ours else we could not have lost them We were borne naked all that was put about us since is none of ours Yea all that was borne with us is not ours Our health our limbs our body our life may be taken away from us by others We must not then reckon them as ours But our soul which cannot be taken away and the best riches of our mind are truly ours All losses and paines fall onely upon the least part of ourselves which is our body and the senses and passions that are most conjoyned unto it if we may call that a part of man without which a man is whole But the true man which is the soul is out of the worlds reach and with it all the Christian vertues For which reason our Saviour bids us not to feare them that can kill the body and cannot kill the soul To be much cast downe with temporall losses shewes emptiness of spirituall riches to be very impatient of the incommodities of the body shewes that one hath more commerce with the body then with themind else a man might find matter enough of joy in the soul to conterpoyse worldly losses and bodily paines As a body that hath the noble parts sound will easily inure it selfe to beare cold and heat and all the injuries of the aire Likewise he that hath a sound soul and is strong within in faith integrity divine love and right reason wherein the true health of the soul consisteth will easily beare with all Adversities and retiring within himselfe when he is assaulted without he will take care before all things that it may be well with his inside and that nothing there be put out of order by the disorders without That serene state of the soul is the fittest for the vertue of prudence and the exercise of it in Adversity For to get out of the difficulties of life wee must maintaine our judgement free and our conscience sound And if the Adversity be of such a nature that it be past the helpe of prudence such as are sharpe incurable paines yet there is none but may be eased by reason faith and the comforts of Gods love For what Life is short no evil is very great when it hath an end No bodily paine can last longer then our bodies and no Adversity of Gods children either of body or spirit can continue longer then life But the inward assurances of our peace with God and the sweet entertainment of his love to us and ours to him are earnests and beginnings of a felicity without end By them the soule shut up in this prison of flesh looks out with her head forth ready to flye away She riseth againe with Christ in this very world by a lively hope Col. 3.1 She seekes those things that are above where Christ is sitting in the glory of his father She is in heaven already and hath onely the body upon earth To this the afflictions of our body contribute much 2. Cor. 4.17 For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While wee looke not at the things which are seene but at the things which are not seene for the things which are seene are temporal but the things which are not seene are eternal for wee know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved wee have a building of God an house not made with hands ternal in the heavens This is a high point of resolution and joy in afflictions which pagan Philosophie could never reach to beare the afflictions of this life
of curiosity to inquire after the future Whereas we ought to acknowledge that our ignorance of the future is the onely infirmity which we have reason to be well pleased with God hath done much for mankind to have hid the future from them For if besides present afflictions we had distresses to come before our eyes there is no constancy but would breake under that weight Many owe their present tranquillity to their ignorance of the calamities that waite for them But it is not the hope of future wordly content that must hold up our minds The life after this life is the onely future upon which we must depend And after we have sublimated our hopes and untyed our affections from the earth if it please God to send us some worldly prosperity it will be the more welcome because it will come unexpected as a gaine over and above the bargaine CHAP. III To retire within ones selfe HE that hath learned to know the world and himselfe will soone be capable of this counsell The world being foolish and wicked it will be a wise part to retire as much as the duties of conversation will permit from that contagion which may impaire us Persons that have some goodnesse in their soul have a closset where they may retire at any time and yet keep in Society That closset is their owne inside Whereby I understand not all that is within man for the Appetite is not the closet but the outward Court where all the tumult is there the Passions are entertaining the externall objects or quarrelling with them But that inside to which the wiseman must retire is his judgement conscience thence to impose silence to passions and hush all the noyse below that with a calme and undisturbed mind he may consider the nature of the persons and things which he converseth with what interesse he hath in them and how farre they are appliable to Gods service and to the benefit of himselfe and others We judge better of things when we are little interessed in them for then we are lesse apt to forestall our judgement with our affection Then to possesse a cleare free and uningaged judgement among the things of this world we should learne well how little interesse we have in them and that we are strangers in earth whence inferre St. Peters doctrine Dearely beloved I beseech you as strangers and pilgrimes abstaine from fleshly lusts 1 Pet. 2.11 For why should we entertaine any eager desire for things that concerne us but little Even among Pagans the wisest lookt upon the goods of this world as things which they needed not and retired within their own breasts which they called their home there to enjoy vertue their onely good The wise Christian having that high advantage that he may enjoy within his breast both vertue and God himselfe hath more reason to keep within that home and look upon things without with an indifferent eye For when as Pagan Philosophers called themselves Cittizens of the world the Christian acknowledgeth himselfe astranger in it for he doth but travell through the earth to his heavenly Country which they knew not A traveller looking out of the window of his Inne upon a country Faire doth but lightly amuse his eyes with the variety of course pedling wares and the buzy stirre of buyers and sellers but his minde is upon his journey and he will not make one in that crowd With the like indifference the wise Christian looks upon the hurry of the world and the confused diversity of humane things not crowding for them or setting his heart upon them for his journy towards heaven calls him away and to heaven he hath already sent his heart before That disinteressed disposition towards the things of this world ought not to make us carelesse and negligent neither must we do any businesse by halfe Keeping that prudent and godly temper to apply our mind not our heart to worldly things never forgetting while we tend them with diligence and industrie that they are unworthy to possesse the whole man who is made for better things There is no possession sooner lost then that of ones selfe The smallest things rob us of it A sight worthy of contempt if not rather of compassion is a man sharp-set upon play whose spirit hurried out of his true home by the greedines of gaine is swelled with hope and quaking for feare hanging upon the chance of the dice. Had one driven us from our house we would cry aloud for justice against him But we dispossesse ourselves from the possession of our reason by our violent passions and refuse to do justice to ourselves How many for a Mistresse or a preferrement lose their meat and their sleep have no other thought all the day long and no other dreame all the night their soules are no more at home but dwell with their neighbours if we may call dwelling a perpetuall running after hopes that flye from them To such men this counsell is most proper Tecum habita Dwell at home Keep possession of your soul Suffer not any thing to steale you away from your selfe There is neither profit nor pleasure worth so much that the soule should goe from home to get it Let none sooth up his eagernes about his sports with the plea of lawfull pastimes Nothing is lawful that steales the soule from God and a mans selfe When I see a man running after his bowle and following it with blessings or curses Another melting with sweat in a tennis-court more overheated yet in his passion then in his body contending with high words about a chase then say I with compassion Alas here is a soule put out of possession of herselfe a man that hath forgotten his origine and his dignity having his reason enslaved to his passion and his passion subjected to things of no value which being in their nature uncapable to be his masters he hath found a way to make them so by his wilful slavery One is allwayes a looser at that game which robbes his soule of serenity It is an unlucky game that gives to the noblest part of man those great irregular motions which should not be pardonable for the conquest or the losse of an Empire Nothing is so great that for it we should set our mind out of frame A wiseman neither in jest nor earnest ought to subject himselfe to any external object or suffer his soule to stirre out of her place and runne into disorder Utility and Pleasure sought by disorderly motions are lost even by seeking Of this counsel to retire within onesselfe this is a branch To keepe company with a few well chosen persons lending ourselves freely to them but giving ourselves to none but God nor suffering friendship to grow to slavery With all sorts of men we must deale ingenuously yet reservedly saying what we think but thinking more then we say least we give power to others to take hold of the rudder of our mind the thing
prisoners friends from him but he cannot shut out comfort and tranquillity from his soul CHAP. XV. Husband Wife Children Kindred Friends Their price their Losse IT may seeme that these should have bin put among the goods of fortune To which I might answer somewhat Stoically that it is not altogether certaine whether they must be put among the goods or among the evills for they may be either as it falls out But I rank them with neither but among exteriour things of which we must labour to get the right Opinion To that end we must alwayes consider them two wayes as they are good or bad and as they are neare to us in blood or bonds of duty Neither must the second relation hinder the first so forestalling the mind with the relations of Husband or Wife Sonne or Brother that one be incapable to make a right Judgement of their disposition and capacity and set a just price on them The onely relation of Parents must spread a vaile of reverence betweene our eyes and their imperfections that we may see nothing but good in them There it is wisedome to be somewhat deceived Though it be not my theame to speak of the duties to be rendred to our several relations yet because I seeke the contentment of mind I cannot chuse but say that of all civill and natural duties none is so contenting to him that payeth it as the duty payd to Parents Herein Epamimondas Judged his victories most fortunate unto him that he had obtained them in his Fathers life time who did much rejoyce at them To other relations we must also pay their proper duty Of which wee must remember this general rule That it is impossible to get content by them unlesse we do our duty towards them For that content must not be expected from them but from ourselves The content that one takes with a deare Wife a good Brother and a well chosen Friend is more that which he giveth then that which he receiveth It lyeth in the testimony of his conscience that he hath rendred to them the true offices of love Without prejudice to those duties we may and ought impartially to consider their inclinations and abilities and what may be expected of them In those relations which come by choyce as of a Husband Wife and friend the judgement must precede the affection to finde what is fit for us before we fixe upon it But in relations of Kindred made by nature without us the affection must go before and the judgement must follow that we may know them so well that though we love them we trust them proportionably to their honesty and capacity and no more In this point the vulgar sort making many grosse mistaks For it is an ordinary but an evill expression I would trust him as mine owne Brother Yet most knaves have Brothers who should do very unwisely to trust them The style of Merchants selling their ware is more ingemous when they promise to a Chapman to use him as if he were their Brother for they would not scruple to cozen their Brother And truly hence the word of cozening had its Origine because it is usual to make use of the bond of Kindred to be trusted enough to deceive enough For counsel and conversation we much choose the wisest and worthiest rather then the nearest in blood But when there is occasion to give or need to seeke help we must runne to the neerest in blood rather then to the worthyest if they be but honest So much we must deferre to the choyce of Nature that if there be any vertue in them though but small we be neerer to them in affection then blood Solomon saith that a Brother is borne for adversity Prov. 17.17 because other friendships by differences intervening of parties interesses and Opinions are subject to coole and untie but among Brethren those differences are overcome by the strength of nature and in adversity either good nature or feare of blame makes Brothers give real help to Brothers Wife and Children are the strongest trials of a magnanimous spirit for they make a mans heart tender and in the pinches of adversity make him descend to ungenerous shifts He that hath none shal have lesse delight lesse sorrow Yet must we acknowledge that a mariage wel sorted betweene two persons of merit is of all worldly felicities the greatest Of children expect noe good but the satisfaction to have done them good and to see them doe wel for them-selves For in this relation the nature of beneficence is to descend seldom to remount Nothing is more pretious among humane things then a vertuous loving freind kinne or no kinne And if he be one story above us in nobility and vertue he is better then lower Equality indeed is requisit in friendship but friend ship it selfe worketh that equality where it is not And there is need of it for it is impossible to find two friends in the world altogether equal in al respects The price of friendship is according to the price of the person whom therefore we must study to know wel that we may love no person above or under his right value A reasonable benevolence of a man of great merit is more obliging then the ardent affection of an Idiot From the former you may receive instruction honour and content From the second importunity and the disgrace to be paired with a man of no worth Such a friendship will end in a breach and so in repentance Whether friendships be knit by nature or by choyce that we may not expect of them a content beyond their nature we must remember that our freinds are men whose love may and whose life must faile The use of them we may have not the possession The best and most powerfull freinds are weake reeds which we must not leane upon with all our weight lest they breake in our hand and we take a sore fall Thus saith the Lord Cursed is the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arme Jer. 17.5 As this is a sentence given by God against them that put their confidence in man it is also a natural consequence of the nature of the fault For puting our confidence in man is going out of our selues It is going out of God It is making men Gods for unto God only is that homage due of an absolute and total confidence Noe wonder that God thereby is moved to jealousy To that evill Pagan Philosophers give a remedy little better then the disease which is To put confidence in ourselves This being a most erroneous Doctrine is nevertheless halfe the way to the truth for they had very well observed that a wise wan must not depend from another but retire within himselfe where all the good and evill of a man lyeth But while they enjoyne a man to retire within himselfe they leave out the maine precept proper to a higher School then theirs that a man should seek God within himselfe and to find