Enmity and Hatred she hath towards it causes an anxious Contraction of the Heart and Compression of the Animal Spirits which produces a Chilness in the Breast a retarding of the Blood and an unequal motion of the Pulse and then the Soul sympathizing with the Body cannot but be sensible of this ungrateful Passion it is put into which must needs add to her Hatred of those odious Objects which were the Cause of it and cause her more vehemently to shun and avoid them So again when the Soul is moved to Sorrow and Repentance for any past Sins and Miscarriages the sad Regrets she suffers within her self produce a very doleful Passion in the Body such as pinches the Heart congeals the Blood and causes an ungrateful Languor of the Spirits and then by compassionating her grieved Consort she is thereby excited to a higher degree of Displeasure against those Sins that caused its Grief and Disturbance Lastly when the Soul is joyed and delighted with any religious Object or Exercise by that sweet Complacency she enjoys within her self there is produced a most pleasant Emotion in the Body the Animal Spirits flowing to the Heart in an equal and placid Stream where being arrived through its dilated Orifices they sooth and tickle it into a most sensible Pleasure and then the Soul being affected with the Body's Pleasure doth from thence derive an additional Joy which doth more vigorously encourage her to pursue those Objects and continue those Exercises from whence her Original Joy proceeded So that you see that by reason of that perpetual Intercourse there is between our Souls and our Bodies there is an excellent Use even of our sensitive Passions in Religion And it cannot be denied but that a gentle Temper of Body whose Passions are soft and easie and ductile and apt to be commoved with the Soul may be of great advantage in our Religious Exercises because whensoever it is religiously affected its Passions will be apt to intend and quicken the Affections of the Soul and to render them more vigorous and active but farther than this they are of no account at all in Religion For as there are many Men who are sincerely good that yet cannot raise their sensitive Passions in their religious Exercises that are heartily sorry for their Sins and yet cannot weep for them that do entirely love God and delight in his Service and yet cannot put their Blood and Spirits into the enravishing Emotions of sensitive Love and Joy so on the other hand there are many gross Hypocrites that have not one dram of true Piety in them who yet in their Religious Exercises can put themselves into wondrous Transports of bodily Passion that can pour out their Confessions in Floods of Tears and cause their Hearts to dilate into Raptures of sensitive Love and their Spirits to tickle them into Ecstasies of Joy which is purely to be resolved into the different Tempers of Mens Bodies some Tempers being naturally so calm and sedate as that they are scarce capable of being disturbed into a Passion others again so soft and tender and impressible that the most frivolous Fancy is able to raise a Commotion in them And hence we see that some People can weep most heartily at the Misfortunes of Lovers in Plays and Romances and as much rejoyce at their good Successes though they know that both are Fictions and mere Idea's of Fancy whereas others can scarce shed a Tear or raise a sensitive Joy at the real Calamities or Prosperities of a Friend whom yet they love a great deal more than these Men can possibly do their feigned and Romantick Heroes And yet alas how very often do Men place the whole of their Religion in these mechanical Motions of their Blood and Spirits that think they are exceeding good if they can but chafe themselves into a devout Passion and that it is an infallible Sign of Godliness that their Blood and Spirits are easily moved by religious Idea's and apt to be elevated or dejected according as sad or joyous Arguments are pathetically represented to their Fancies and though they do not understand the Argument or which is all one to them though that which is delivered for Argument is mere Gibberish and insignificant Canting that hath nothing of Argument or Reality in it only some empty Fiction is conveyed to their Fancies by a musical Voice in fanciful Expressions yet because they are affected by it and it raises a sensible Perturbation in their Blood and Spirits they presently conclude it to be an Income of God and an infallible Token of his special Love and Favour to them as if it were a Sign of Godliness and a Mark of God's Favourites to be affected with Nonsense feathered with soft and delicate Phrases and pointed with pathetick Accents Thus there are some Men who believe themselves to be converted meerly because they have run through all the Stages of Passion in that new Road of Artificial Conversion which some modern Authors have found out for according as the Work of Conversion hath been described by some modern Authors it is wholly placed in so many different Scenes of Passion For first a Man must pass under the Discipline of the Law and the Spirit of Bondage that is he must be frightned into a Sense of his lost and undone Condition and in this Sense he must grieve bitterly for his Sins as the Causes of his Ruin and Perdition and this is that which they call Conviction and Compunction From hence he must proceed into the Evangelical State and pass into the Spirit of Adoption the Entrance of which is Contrition or Humiliation which consists in an ingenuous Sorrow for Sin proceeding from a passionate Sense of God's Love and Goodness and then having acted over all these mournful Passions he embraces and lays hold upon Christ which is the concluding Scene and is altogether made up of Ioy and Exultation and so the Work of Conversion is finish'd Now though I do not at all deny but to the Conversion of an habitual Sinner it is indispensably necessary that he should be convinc'd of his Danger and deeply affected with Sorrow and Remorse for his Folly and Wickedness and therefore would not be so understood as if I intended to discountenance these holy Passions which are such necessary Introductions to a sincere Conversion yet neither do I doubt but by the help of a melancholy Fancy attended with soft and easie Passions a Man may perform all these Parts of Conversion and yet be never the better for it for many times these Passions are only the necessary effects of a diseased Fancy and are altogether as mechanical as the beating of our Pulse or the Circulation of our Blood And hence we see that this kind of Conversion which wholly consists of bodily Passions doth commonly both begin and end with some languishing Distemper of the Body in which the Fancy is over-clouded and the Motion of the Blood and Spirits retarded by the Prevalence
the Charms of pathetical Oratory To be able therefore to word our Prayers in proper and ready Expressions is of considerable Advantage to our Devotions our Words being so apt to affect our Minds and our Passions to keep time with the Musick of our own Language and whilst we wear these Bodies about us and our Souls are so clogged and depressed with fleshly Desires we have need enough to use all Arts and Advantages of spiriting and enlivening our Devotions But yet I confess of all these bodily Exercises this is the least considerable in Religion because we may easily supply the Defect of natural Fluency by excellent Forms of Prayer the Use of which is doubtless far more expedient than the best of our extempore Effusions For he that uses a Form hath nothing else to do in Prayer but only to recollect his own Thoughts and fix them upon God and to keep his Mind affected with a due Sense of the Divine Majesty and his own Need of and Dependance upon him whereas he that prays extempore besides all this is concerned to invent proper and apt Expressions lest he should be impertinent or indecent in his Addresses unto God unless he expects that the Spirit should immediately dictate to him the Words of his Prayer which is to suppose himself a Person immediately inspired and his Prayer of Divine Revelation and consequently of equal Authority with the Scriptures themselves But the best Religious Use that can be made of Fluency and Volubility of Speech is in speaking to others of God and Things Divine here it is useful indeed to make a Man an Orator for Religion and to enable him to recommend it more effectually to others Thus far therefore this sort of bodily Exercise may be profitable both as it may be made instrumental to raise our own Devotions and to propagate true Piety unto others but beyond this I know no place at all that it hath in Religion for there is no doubt but we may be very good Men without this Gift of Fluency and very bad Men with it there being no Necessity of Consequence from an honest Heart to a voluble Tongue And certainly that which proceeds from no higher Principle than meer natural Enthusiasm and consequently may be easily attained by Persons grosly hypocritical and debauched ought not to be looked upon as a Mark of Godliness And yet alas how many Men are there that place all their Religion in their Tongues and esteem it as a certain Sign of Grace that they are able to pray in fluent Expressions and to talk of God in rapturous Flights of Fancy For they being most commonly straitned in their Religious Exercises and not able to vent themselves with any Freedom or Readiness when they fall into an extraordinary Fit of Fluency and Enlargement of which they can give no natural Account they presently conclude it to be an immediate Gift of God's Spirit and a special Token of his peculiar Favour to them And accordingly if you peruse the late Histories of the spiritual Experiences of our modern Converts you will find that they contain little else but strange Relations of their rapturous Discourses and wondrous Enlargements in Frayer which because they have something extraordinary in them are generally thought to be the immediate Effects of the Divine Spirit whereas commonly they proceed meerly from the present Temper of the Body and are as mechanical as any other Operations of Nature For let a Man's Body be but put into a fervent Temper his Spirits into quick but manageable Motions this will naturally produce in him a more fine and exquisite Power of Perception by causing the Images of Things to come faster into his Fancy and to appear more distinct there and then his Fancy being more pregnant with new Idea's and Images than it uses to be his Expressions must necessarily be more fluent and easie But then if when this natural Fervour of his Temper be intended with Vapours of heated Melancholy his Fancy be but often impressed and rubbed upon with the most vehement and moving Objects of Religion such as God and Christ and Heaven and Hell it must necessarily raise in him great and vehement Passions and dictate to him pathetick and rapturous Expressions And this hath been commonly experimented by the Devoto's of all Religions for even among the devouter Turks and Heathens we may find as notorious Instances of those Incomes and Enlargements as in any of our modern Histories of Christian Experiences Thus the Heathen Poets in all high Flushes of their Fancy conceited themselves divinely inspired Est Deus in nobis agitante calescimus illo And that great Orator Aristides positively affirms himself to be inspired in his Orations because sometimes he felt in himself an extraordinary Vein of Fluency which was only excited by a brisker Agitation of his Spirits Wherefore it is not at all to be wondered at if when Men are employed in Religious Exercises the same natural Enthusiasm especially when it is exalted by Religious Melancholy should so wing and inspire their Fancies For there is no Man whatsoever that is but religiously inclined and of a soft and impressive Temper but by familiarizing his Fancy to the great Objects of Religion and setting them before his Mind in distinct and affecting Idea's may easily chafe himself into such a Pathos as to be able to talk to or of God and Religion in lofty and rapturous Strains of Divine Rhetorick nor is it any Argument of such a Man 's being inspired that his Discourse doth so move and affect those that hear him because all Language that is soft fluent and pathetical is naturally apt to make deep Impressions on the Auditors For even the Grecian Sophists as Plutarch tells us by their singing Tones and honied Words and effeminate Phrases and Accents did very often transport their Auditors into a kind of Bacchical Enthusiasm And no doubt but the Hearers of whom he speaks who were wont to applaud their Orators at the End of their Declamations with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 divinely heavenly preciously unimitably spoken found themselves as much moved as many a Man doth at a Sermon who yet thinks it is not the Art of the Preacher but the Spirit of God speaking in and by him that warms and excites them Wherefore as we would not deceive and undo our own Souls let us have a great care that we do not place our Religion in any such Enthusiastick Fervors of Spirit and Overflowings of Fancy for though this may be a helpful Instrument to us in our Religious Exercises yet it is not by this that we are to estimate the Goodness of them but by those Laws and Circumstances which do moralize humane Actions and render them reasonable and holy and good For 't is not in loud Noises or melting Expressions that the divine Spirit is discovered but in a divine Nature and God-like Disposition and the Effects of true Religion are not to be look'd for in
Iohannes Scott S. T. P. PRACTICAL DISCOURSES Upon several Subjects Vol. I. By IOHN SCOTT D. D. late Rector of St. Giles's in the Fields LONDON Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in S. Paul's Church-yard and Samuel Manship at the Ship near the Royal Exchange in Cornhil 1697. To the Honorable WILLIAM MOUNTAGUE Esq THE following Discourses do breath the Spirit of the Author who being dead yet speaketh For they Carry in them a very sensible Concern for the honor of God and for that in which that honor has chiefly displayed it self to us the good of Mankind For it will be no hard Matter for a considering Reader to be Convinced that Misery whether here or hereafter is the fatal Consequence of wickedness and that to make our selves happy we must make our selves Good And therefore it is hoped that the seasonable publication of them may by God's blessing and by the sweet and forcible insinuations of that Candor Zeal and Reason with which they are inculcated at least assist a vitious Age to Recollect it self and may so far do so as to be a means to reclaim some of those who have blotted it with that Character And this hope is so much the greater because as we may rationally expect God's blessing upon our good Endeavors so we may the more firmly do so when such our Endeavors are warm and hearty The Good and Merciful God accompany the design of the Author with his Grace and extend that Grace to the utmost extent of the publication and by making both effectual turn our hopes into prophesie Sir The Relations of the deceased Author having observed your great respect and kindness to him and your diligent attendance upon his Ministry hope the Dedication of these excellent Reliques of his will be acceptable to you as they are like to be of singular use profit and advantage to all pious and good Christians The CONTENTS A Discourse concerning Bodily Exercise in Religion upon 1 Tim. 4 6. Page 1. A Discourse of the Necessity of a Publick National Repentance upon Ezek. 18. 30. P. 77. A Discourse concerning the meet Fruits of Repentance and the necessity of bringing forth such Fruits upon Matth. 3. 8. P. 140. A Discourse concerning a Death-bed Repentance upon Matth. 25. 10. P. 189. A Discourse concerning the great Evil of deferring Repentance upon Rev. 2. 21. P. 230. A Discourse of Submission to the Will of God upon Luke 22. 42. P. 268. A Discourse concerning Self-denyal upon Matth. 16 24. P. 305. A Resolution of that grand Case How a Man may know whether he be in a state of Grace and Favour with God upon 1 John 3. 7. P. 357. A Discourse concerning the Nature of Wilful Sins shewing how incessant they are with a good State or our being born of God upon 1 Joh. 3. 9. P. 384. A Discourse of the Excellency of the Christian Religion to procure Peace and Satisfaction of Mind upon John 14. 27. P. 415. A Discourse shewing that when Mens Minds are divided between God and their Lusts they must lead very anxious and unstable Lives upon James 1. 8. P. 454. 1 TIMOTHY IV. 6. Bodily exercise profiteth little but godliness is profitable unto all things having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come THE great Design of Christianity being to promote our future Happiness and qualify us for it Things are more or less valuable in its esteem as they more or less conduce to this great and excellent End And hence the Apostle tells us that of all the Virtues Christianity obliges us to Charity is the greatest 1 Cor. xiii 13. that is a sincere Love of God and an universal good Will to Men and the greatest it is upon this account because of all Virtues it is most congenial to the Heavenly State that being a State of endless Love and pure Friendship and all other Virtues are valued more or less proportionably as they partake of this Virtue of Charity To give Worth to our Faith it is necessary it should work by Love Galat. v. 6. To make our Knowledge acceptable it is necessary it should run into Love 1 Cor. viii 2 3. yea without Charity the Gift of Miracles Alms-giving and Martyrdom it self are Things of no value in the accounts of Christianity 1 Cor. xiii 1 2 3. Nay so much is this great Virtue designed by the Christian Religion that the Apostle tells us that the end of the Commandment is Charity 1 Tim. l. 5. that is all the Duties which the Commandment enjoyns are designed only as Means to advance and perfect our Love to God and Men And all Means you know are more or less excellent proportionably as they conduce to the Ends they are designed for Wherefore since our future Happiness is the ultimate End of Christianity and universal Love our most necessary Qualification for it it necessarily follows that the Goodness of all Religious Means consists in their Aptitude to abstract and purify our Affections to exalt and sublimate our Love and to propagate in us that godlike and heavenly Temper which is so necessary to qualify us for the Enjoyment of God and Heaven But alas how ordinary is it for Men to mistake their Means for their Ends and to value themselves upon doing those Things which if they be not directed to a farther End are altogether insignificant accounting those Things to be absolutely good which are but relatively so and which unless they conduce to that which is good are perfectly indifferent Of which we have too many sad Instances among our selves for how many are there who though they have nothing else to prize themselves for but only of their keeping of Fasts and looking sourly on a Sunday their hearing so many Sermons and numbering so many Prayers are yet bloated with as high Conceits of their own Sanctity and Godliness as if they had commenced Saints and were arrived to the highest degrees of Perfection And tho Pride and Malice Covetousness and Ambition are the only Graces they are eminent in yet shall you see these empty wretched Things pearched upon the Pinacle of Self-Conceit and from thence looking down upon poor moral Mortals as if they were Things of an inferior Species not worthy to be reckoned in the same Class of Beings with themselves Such flaunting Hypocrites it seems there have always been and in these later Times it is foretold they should abound for so the Apostle tells us 1 Tim. iv 1. that the Spirit speaketh expresly that in the later Ages there should arise a sort of People who departing from the Faith should give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils who should forbid marriage and command Abstinence from Meats vers 3. that is as I suppose should place all their Religion in outward and bodily Severities which at best are only Means and Instruments of Religion and that in these they should pride themselves as if they were the only Saints of
Bodies and take leave of all the Pleasures of them it is very requisite that we should now before-hand wean and abstract our selves from the Enjoyments of corporeal Sense that so when we come to part with them we may know how to be happy without them and be fit to live the Lives of naked Spirits And therefore we find that there has scarce been any Religion whatsoever pretending to qualify Men for another Life but hath imposed Fasting and Abstinence and other bodily Severities as proper Means to lustrate and purify the Mind and to prepare it for immediate Converses with God and separated Spirits but then the Consequence was that the over-strict Imposition of these Instrumentals of Religion occasioned a world of Superstition for being so strictly imposed they obtained so far in the Opinion of the World as to be reckoned among the Essentials of Religion and counted absolutely good and in their own Nature pleasing and grateful unto God which possibly by degrees introduced those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 horrid and bloody Mysteries into the Heathen Religion For Mankind being once possessed with such an Opinion of God as to think he was pleased and delighted to see his poor Creatures afflict and punish themselves it was easie from thence to infer that he would be much more pleased to see them butcher themselves and sprinkle his Altars with their own Blood And as this over-weening Opinion did probably introduce humane Sacrifices into the Heathen Religion so it is certain that it hath introduced sundry false Doctrines into the Romish as particularly that Fasting and Whipping our selves and going on Pilgrimages are meritorious Things that by them we expiate our Sins and make Satisfaction to the Justice of God as if the Guilt that binds us over to eternal Perdition were to be expiated by a sound Whipping or a short Pilgrimage were a proportionable Commutation for the eternal Penance of Hell Fire But these are the vain Imaginations of Men who would faign impose Laws upon God and prescribe to him the Measures of Punishment who would do as wickedly as they please and suffer what they please for so doing But let us not deceive our selves if we will choose to sin it is reasonable that that God whom we offend by our Sin should choose and appoint our Punishment It is by no means fit that Criminals should be their own Iudges for if they were they would have very little Reason to be afraid of sinning because they would be obliged to suffer no more for it than what they pleased themselves but the Right of punishing is in the offended Party and therefore if we will offend God by violating his Laws we have no right to choose our own Penance but must whether we will or no submit to what He thinks fit to inflict upon us and what that is he hath told us before-hand even everlasting Expulsion from his Presence into the Society and Portion of Devils and damned Spirits So that for us to expect to attone and satisfy God by little voluntary Penances of our own is just as unreasonable as if a Murderer should cut off his little Finger and thereupon expect to be excused from the Penalty of the Law And as these bodily Severities are no Expiations of our Sins so neither are they in their own Nature pleasing and grateful unto God for he is a good God and an universal Lover of all his Creation and consequently can be no farther pleased with the Sufferings and Afflictions of any of his Creatures than as they are necessary either to do them good or to make them exemplary to others or to vindicate the Honour of his own violated Laws neither of which Ends are served by voluntary Penances and Severities as such if they be not subordinated to the Ends of Virtue and Religion For what can Fasting signify if it be not designed to famish our Lusts Can our hungry Bowels be a delightful Spectacle to that God who feeds the young Ravens and takes so much care to provide for all his Creation What Virtue is there in the Chastning of our Bodies if it be not intended to humble and mortify our Souls Do we think that that God who is so zealous of our Welfare can be recreated with our Miseries or take pleasure in our tragical Looks and bloody Shoulders 'T is true so far as these things are Instruments of Good to us they are pleasing unto God even as all other Instruments of Religion but it is not the suffering of our Bodies he is pleased with but the good which it doth our Souls but if they do our Souls no good if they do not purify our Affections and wean us from fleshly Desires and make us more fit for the heavenly State they are as insignificant in the Account of God as the paring of our Nails or the clipping of our Hair 3. Another sort of these bodily Exercises that are of some though but little account in Religion is bodily Passions in Religion There is I confess an excellent Use to be made of our bodily Passions in the Exercise of our Religion provided we do not place our Religion in them for if we do they will betray us into the grossest Cheats and Impostures For in the general we find that our Passions do wing our intellectual Faculties and render them more intense and expedite in their Operations For whilst the Soul and Body are united to one another there is a mutual Reflowing and Communication of Passions between them insomuch that whensoever the Soul is any ways affected with any Object there immediately follows a suitable Perturbation or Passion in the Body and then this Passion of the Body as it is grateful or ingrateful to it doth more vigorously affect the Soul with Love or Aversation and then the Soul being thus reaffected and incited by the bodily Passion will more vehemently pursue or shun the Object which caused its first Motion or Affection When therefore our Souls and Bodies do thus sympathize with each other in the Exercises of Religion we must necessarily perform them with greater Vigour and Intension But to make this more plain to you I will briefly instance in those four great Passions of Religion viz. Love and Hatred and Sorrow and Ioy. As for that of Love when the Soul is affected with God or Virtue or any other amiable Objects of Religion immediately there follows a sweet and grateful Passion in the Body For the Heart being dilated towards the beloved Object puts the Blood and Spirits into a free and placid Motion which diffuses a certain agreeable Heat into the Breast and invigorates the Brain with a flood of active Spirits and then the Soul being sensible of this grateful Emotion in the Body is thereby more vigorously incited to pursue those amiable Objects wherewith she was first affected And so for Hatred when the Soul is practically convinced by the Arguments of Religion of the Odiousness of any Evil it forbids the
of black and melancholy Humours which being once evacuated the Man's Body returns again to its former Temper and upon this he becomes the same Man again that he was before his pretended Conversion And accordingly it is observed by those very Persons who place the whole Work of Conversion in these Mechanical Passions that generally after the Pangs of Regeneration are over their Converts grow cold and careless and remiss in Religion and so like to what they were in the State of Nature that you would hardly believe they had ever been converted which is a plain Evidence that this sort of Conversion doth not reach the Soul that it doth not alter our practical Judgment of things nor rationally determine our Wills to new Choices and Resolutions and consequently that it is nothing but a mere Train of sensitive Passions mechanically excited by the Fancy And hence you may observe in the Modern Stories of our Religious Melancholians that they commonly pass out of one Passion into another without any manner of Reasoning and Discourse now they are in the Depths of Grief and Despair by and by upon the Pinacle of Ioy and Assurance and yet they are the same Men neither better nor worse when they do despair as when they are assured and consequently have no more Reason to be assured now than they had when they were encompassed with all the Horrors of Desperation For the only Reason any Man hath to be assured of God's Love is his Likeness and Conformity to Him which is that alone that endears us unto God and entitles us to the Promise of his Favour And yet though these Men do not pretend to be better or more Godlike now they are assured than they were when they despaired yet their Hearts are overwhelmed with Floods of sensitive Joy and they are strangely comforted they know not how nor wherefore And though while they were in Despair they thought of those Promises and Motives of Comfort that now ravish and transport them and had every whit as much Reason to lay claim to them too yet then they lay like Cakes of Ice at their Hearts without affording them the least Gleam of Warmth and Comfort which is a plain evidence that both their Ioys and Sorrows are the products of bodily Temper and not of Reason and Iudgment because they pass out of one into the other without any intervenient Discourse and are agitated into contrary Passions whilst they are under the same Rational Motives are dejected this moment and comforted the next which argues that their Reason hath no hand in their Passions for if it had they could never be so contrarily affected Nor can it be supposed that such irrational Passions are raised in them by the Divine Spirit because He ordinarily works upon Men in an humane and rational way beginning with their Understandings and so perswading their Wills and exciting their Passions by rational Motives and Arguments Those Passions therefore that are not so excited can be resolved into no other Principle but that of bodily Temper And accordingly you may observe that all this Train of Passions wherein too many Men do place the whole of their Conversion are necessarily connected and chained to one another so that if you move but the first Link all the rest will naturally follow which is a plain Argument that they may be excited not only in a free and rational but also in a necessary or mechanical way As for instance Suppose these Men before their pretended Conversion to have a good Dose of Melancholy in their Tempers this will naturally dispose them to terrible and mournful Conceits and being thus disposed their tender Fancies are easily impressed with dreadful Images of the Wrath of God and their own undone Condition And according as the Temper of their Bodies is more or less disposed to fear so this frightful Passion continues longer or shorter upon 'em if it continues longer it will by the reiterated Impressions of those dreadful Objects that first raised it by degrees be heightned into Horror and Desperation and when it is so then the Man is under Conviction of his undone Condition and under the Terrors of the Law and the Spirit of Bondage which according to the new Method is always the first step to Conversion And when the first Fury of Despair is over it naturally issues into a deep Melancholy and there spends it self in woful Regrets and self-condemning Reflections and this is that which they call Attrition or Compunction which is the next Step to be taken in this methodical way of Conversion And hence many People do continue many Years together in this languishing state in all which time they believe themselves to be under the Lash of the Law and the Discipline of the Spirit of Bondage when God knows many times there is nothing in it but a mere melancholy Humour tinctured and heightned with dismal Notions of Religion But then when the Melancholy begins to disperse and to make way for the Spirits to flow into the Brain in a more brisk and active Torrent and so to warm and refresh the drooping Fancy they will by degrees scatter those horrid Images and dismal Fancies of Religion that rid the Imagination and raised those tragical Passions and so the Man will gradually emerge out of the Spirit of Bondage into a more comfortable and Evangelical Condition For now his Fancy being something more lightsome but still retaining some Reliques of its former Darkness will be disposed for grateful as well as dismal Phantasms and to be impressed by lovely and joyous as well as terrible and mournful Objects So that if now God or Christ or any other Object of Religion be but represented to the Man in such a Dress of Metaphors and glistering Allusions as is apt to affect his carnalized Fancy he will presently form such charming Conceits and pleasant Imaginations of them as will necessarily put his Blood and Spirits into a most amorous Emotion towards them so that now he shall seem inflamed with the Love of Christ and fancy him twined in his Arms and Embraces whereas in Reality the Thing he is so infinitely fond of is nothing but an Idol of his own Fancy a mere Baby-Christ drest up by his own Imagination in all the Charms of sensual Beauty and furnished with Smiles and Kisses and Caresses and all the pretty Indearments of a doating Lover And now the Man's Fancy being thus partly hung with fine Pictures of Christ those Reliques of Melancholy Vapours that are yet remaining in it will very much dispose it to sad and mournful Conceits especially when this Idol of Christ which he so much doats upon shall be represented as weeping over his Sins and grieved at the Unkindnesse he shews him And now his Fancy being thus furnished with such a Mixture of amorous and mournful Imaginations must necessarily beget in him a Mixture of Love and Grief and cause him to mourn for his Sins because they make his
Saviour grieve whom he seems to love so dearly And this is Humiliation which is the third Stage in this imaginary Road of Conversion And now the Man having set up so gay an Image of Christ in his Fancy and felt within himself such sensible Pangs of Love towards him and Grief for the Affronts and Unkindnesses he hath offered him his amorous Imagination will presently suggest to him that doubtless so sweet a Saviour cannot but be conquered with all these passionate Indearments and smitten with a reciprocal Love upon so many feeling Expressions of his Kindness towards him and being possest with this Imagination he will presently fancy his dear Image of Christ into all the Postures of a transported Lover smiling upon him weeping over him and spreading out his Arms to embrace him upon which there will follow such a sweet Effusion of his Spirits towards his enamoured Saviour that he will fansy himself to be leaping into his Arms and rolling in his Bosom and resting and leaning and relying upon him And now his Fancy having carried him to his Iourney 's End and lodged him in the Embraces of his Saviour O the Joy and Ravishment he feels his Heart pant through Excess of Delight and is ready to break with its own Raptures And thus you see how this whole Method of Conversion may be easily transacted by an active and melancholy Fancy And as it may be so I doubt not but many times it is for how many Men are there who strongly imagine themselves to have been converted that yet are never the better for it being still as averse unto God and true Goodness as ever they were before nay and many times are so far from being better'd by their Conversion that they are a great deal the worse for it for instead of forsaking all Sin which is that wherein true Conversion doth consist they only shift their Vices and many times in laying one Devil they conjure up seven worse in the room of it Perhaps before they fansied themselves to have been converted they were openly lewd and profane they would swear and be drunk and wallow in Sensuality and Voluptuousness but notwithstanding these beastly and damnable Crimes they had some very amiable Qualities in them they were courteous and affable and kind and obliging faithful in their Professions and just and honest in their Dealings but now alas by passing through these dismal Stages of pretended Conversion they have contracted such a mass of melancholy Humours as hath quite soured their sweet and lovely Tempers into Pride and Envy Peevishness and Faction Insolence and Censoriousness and all the other Ingredients of a sullen and unsociable Nature So that though now indeed they will not be openly lewd and profane as they were before yet which is a great deal worse they will be false and ill-natur'd and griping and ungovernable and which is worst of all they will be all this while under the Disguise of Religion and the Patronage of a deceived Conscience so that whereas their former Vices had only the Possession of their Wills but not of their Consciences these are seized of both which renders their Condition the more dangerous For heretofore Virtue and Religion had a strong Party within them there being a Law in their Minds that warred against the Law in their Members but now all is subdued to the Dominion of their Sins and their Wills and Consciences like Simeon and Levi become Brethren in Iniquity Whilst therefore Men place their Religion in such artificial Trains of Passion they will be liable to all manner of Cheats and Impostures For the Generality of Men being ignorant of the Power of Melancholy and of the Frame and Structure of their own Bodies if their Fancies are but tinctured with Religion they will be apt to attribute every extraordinary Emotion they feel to the immediate Influence of the Spirit of God and to account that to be Grace and Inspiration which is a mere necessary Effect of Matter and Motion and being once possessed with this Conceit they lye open to all the Follies of Enthusiasm for now nothing will satisfy them but Heats of Fancy and Transports of Passion and whilst they should be attending to the sober Dictates of Scripture and right Reason they will be looking for Incomes and Impulses and secret Manifestations and consequently will be apt to interpret every odd Whimsey for an inward Whisper from Heaven and every brisk Emotion of their Spirits for an immediate Smile of God's Countenance than which I dare boldly say there is nothing more mischievous to Religion or contrary to the Life and Power of it For Religion is a wise a still and silent thing that consists not in Frisks of Fancy and Whirlwinds of Passion but in a divine Temper of Mind and an universal Resignation of our Wills to God and this not only in intermittent Fits of Passion but in the midst of cool Thoughts and calm Deliberations For true Religion is a State of a fixt and constant Nature that doth not come and go like the Colours of a blushing Face but is the natural and true Complexion of the Soul How religious soever therefore we may be in our passionate Heats and Transports it it altogether insignificant unless the standing Temper of our Minds be good and our Religion be settled in our Natures For though it cannot be denied but these our bodily Passions do profit something as they are useful Instruments of Religion yet I think it is very apparent from what hath been said that he who places his Religion in them doth but deceive his own Soul 4. Another sort of bodily Exercise that is of some though but little Account in Religion is Fluency and Volubility in Religious Exercises or a Readiness of wording our Thoughts in proper and affecting Expressions either in Prayer to God or in speaking of God and Things divine the proper Use of which is this that in Prayer it is apt to exoite and kindle our devout and religious Affections For besides that Scantiness of Words in Prayer doth divert the Mind by putting it to the Trouble of inventing new Expressions to clothe its Thoughts and Desires which because of its Inability to attend many things at once must needs interrupt its Zeal and Intention and so make Breaks and Chasms in its Devotions whereas when a Man expresses himself easily and fluently so that his Words keep pace with his Desires and Affections he will be able to keep his Thoughts more intent and to fix himself upon God with all the united Vigour of his Mind which not being disturbed with the Difficulty of expressing its Desires will be the more at leisure to intend them that so its Devotions may flow secundo flumine in a more easie and undisturbed Current besides which I say we all find by Experience that proper and fluent Expressions are in their own Nature apt to warm and heighten our Affections which nothing hath a greater Influence in than
miserable Bondage into that happy Land but God knew their standing Temper better than they did their own he saw they were a stupid stubborn and untractable People and as yet wholly uncapable of such a propitious Change and that if he had conducted them into Canaan directly and in a Moment they would have presently forgot their Benefactor and let loose themselves to all Licentiousness and Wickedness which must have naturally shortned their Prosperity and hastned it into an untimely Ruin And therefore God saw it necessary to continue them some time longer in Egypt that so by his mighty Works there he might awaken their stupid Minds into an awful Sense of his Majesty and Power And when by his outstretched Arm he had brought them out of Egypt he made them wander about Forty Years in the Wilderness whereas had he led them directly on a very few Days Marches would have brought them into Canaan But he considered their stubborn Temper which was not yet capable to bear a prosperous Condition till it was throughly disciplined for it in the School of Affliction till it was broken and tamed and civilized and rendered more tractable and obsequious And tho' in thus Dealing with them he acted quite contrary to their present Humour and Desires yet did he act most advantageously for them considering their standing Genius and Temper for had he transmitted them into Canaan with all those barbarous Conditions that they brought out of Egypt their Prosperity would have only heightned their Insolence and hastned their Ruin And accordingly Deuter. 8. Moses tells them at large that all Gods Severities to them in the Wilderness were to dispose them for the happy condition of Canaan to prove and polish them to break and humble their untractable Spirits and do them good in the latter End as you may see verse 2 3 5 16. And if God choose to do what is best for us with respect to our standing Temper and Disposition we have no reason to complain that he sometimes crosses our more fickle and variable Humours and Fancies 5. And lastly We many times know only what is Good for us with respect to this present State of Things but God knows what is Good for us in reference to our eternal Condition For we being a Sort of Creatures that are born to live for ever in eternal Weal or Woe it is really a Matter of very small Moment to us whether we are happy or miserable here 't is no more than a short Nights Dream of Pain or Pleasure to a Man that hath fourscore or a hundred years to consume in Delights or Torments and when we awake in Eternity all that is past will seem a Dream to us in the Presence of those never ending Ages of Ioy or Misery before us But yet so fond are we generally of the present that we most commonly choose without any Regard to the future In our Choice of Objects we seldom project beyond our present Pleasure if the Thing will but please us now we rarely trouble our Heads to inquire what Influence it may have on our eternal Pleasure or Pain yea and many times if we should it would be to no purpose because in most of those Goods we choose and covet there are a thousand Snares we cannot discern as well as a thousand Advantages which we are not aware of In those Evils and Calamities which we run away from we are not able to foresee how many Ways our souls may be indangered by those outward Goods we covet nor yet how many spiritual Blessings those outward Evils may be pregnant with at which we are so startled and affrighted so that in most of our Choices we can look no farther than our present Convenience but what Effect they may have upon our everlasting Fate we can never certainly know till the Event hath determined it Thus in this great Lottery of Goods and Evils we short-sighted Creatures are fain to choose at a Venture and till the Event hath determined what our Choices are we know not whether they are Blanks or Prizes So that if we always had what we choose God only knows the Mischief that would follow upon it for to be sure every Man would choose to be prosperous and if every Man were so how many Thousands would perish for ever for want of the saving Remedy of Affliction which is as indespensibly necessary to the reclaiming of some Persons and putting them into a Capacity of Happiness as Food is to satisfy our Hunger or Nourishment to sustain our Lives Lord what miserable Creatures then should we be shouldst thou be so regardless of us as to allow us our Wills who having so small a Prospect beyond this State of Things should many times for the sake of a present Convenience choose what might occasion our eternal Woe But God being our best Friend must needs be supposed to intend our main Interest which being lodged in our eternal State he must needs be much more concerned about than about our Happiness and Conveniencies in this present Condition nor indeed would he be our Friend should he advance our present Interests to the Prejudice of our Souls and immortal Concerns So that if he love us as we are most sure he doth the main Drift and Design of his Providence over us must be to secure our Happiness in the World to come and when this cannot be secured but by the Damage of our earthly Enjoyments it is Mercy and Kindness to us to fling that Lumber over-board to save our precious and immortal Fraight But he having a most perfect Intuition of the inmost Nature and utmost Consequents of Things cannot but discern all those Stops and Turnings where our temporal and eternal Interests do clash and interfere with one another and having a perfect Insight of all their Competitions where the one cannot be advanced without the Depression of the other he must needs know infinitely better than we how to prefer our main Interest and to choose what is best for us For he knowing best what our Temper is and what the Consequents of things are cannot be ignorant of what is best for us and most conducive to our eternal Interest whether Prosperity or Adversity be safest for our Souls and most for the Security of our Vertue and Innocence and knowing this he can so accomodate all Events to our spiritual Necessities as that they shall all work together for our eternal Good And if at any time he sees it necessary for our spiritual Good to instruct us by Rods or to discipline us by Affliction it is infinite Mercy in him to cross our blind Wills by interrupting our beloved Ease and Prosperity And if we saw but what he sees when he corrects and chastises us and knew the Reasons of his Actions we should doubtless beseech him to do as he doth and whilst we were smarting under his Lashes we should be adoring his Goodness for making such wise Provision for our Welfare Thus
that which is its Grace and Perfection begins at the wrong End of himself forgets his Iewels and estimates his Estate by his Lumber in so much that one would think it impossible did not too many woful Expeperiments daily evince the contrary that any Creature owning and believing a rational and immortal Spirit to be a Part of its Being should be so ridiculous as to value it self by such little trifling Advantages as a well-coloured Skin a Suit of fine Cloaths a Puff of Popular Applause a Bag of red or white Earth and yet God help us these are the only Things almost by which we difference our selves from one another You are a much better Man than your Neighbour who is a very poor contemptible Wretch a little creeping despicable Animal not worthy to be taken notice of by such a one as you Why in the name of God Sir what 's the matter Where is this mighty Difference between you and him Hath he not a Soul as well as you a Soul that is capable to live as long and be as happy as yours Yes that is true indeed but notwithstanding that you thank God for it you are another guize Man than he for you have a much bandsomer Body your Apparel is finer and more fashionable you live in a more splendid Equipage and have a larger Purse to maintain it and to your great Comfort your Name is more in Vogue and makes a far greater Rattle in the World And is this all the Difference then between your mighty Self and your poor Neighbour Alas a few Days more will put an End to all this and when your rich Attires are reduced to a Winding-sheet and all your vast Possessions to six Foot of Earth what will become of all these little Trifles by which you value your selves so highly Where now will be the Beauty the Wealth the Port and Garb of which you are so conceited Alas now that lovely Body will look as pale and gastly that lofty Soul will be left as bare as poor and naked as your despised Neighbours and should you now meet his wandring Ghost in the vast World of Spirits what will you have left to boast of more than he now that your Beauty is withered your Wealth vanished and all your outward Pomp and Splendor buried in a silent Grave Now you will have nothing left to distinguish you from the most Contemptible unless you have wiser and better Souls which are the only Preheminencies above other Men that will survive our Funerals and distinguish us from base and abject Souls for ever If we are now more pious and humble and just and charitable than other Men this will stick by us when our Heads are laid and to all Eternity render us glorious and happy And indeed when once we have thrown off our Body and all our bodily Passions and Necessities the only Goods we shall be capable of enjoying are God our selves and the Society of blessed Spirits and these are no otherwise enjoyable but only by Acts of Piety and Vertue It is only by our Contemplation and Worship our Love and Imitation of God that we can enjoy him it is only by our Prudence and Moderation our Temperance and Humility that we can enjoy our selves it is only by our Charity and Iustice our Modesty peaceable and mutual Submission and Condescention to one another that we can enjoy the glorious Society of blessed Spirits but if our unbodied Spirits carry with them these divine Graces into the other World we shall by them be possessed of every Thing our utmost Wishes can propose of a good God a god-like joyous and contented Mind a peaceful kind and righteous Neighbourhood and so all above within and without us will be a pure and perfect Heaven So that if when I go from hence to seek my fortune in the World of Spirits God should thus bespeak me O man seeing thou art now leaving all the Enjoyments of sense consult what will do thee good and thou shalt have whatever thou wilt ask to carry with thee into the spiritual State I say should God thus offer me I am sure the utmost Good I could wisely crave would be this Lord give me a Heart inflamed with Love and winged with Duty to thee that thereby I may but enjoy thee give me a sober and a temperate Mind that thereby I may enjoy my self give me a kind and peaceable and righteous Temper that thereby I may enjoy the sweet Society of blessed Spirits O give me but these blessed Things and thou hast crowned all my Wishes and to Eternity I will never ask any other Favour for my self but only this that I may continue a holy and a righteous Soul for ever for so long as I continue so I am sure I shall enjoy all spiritual Goods and be as happy as Heaven can make me What a prodigious Piece of Folly therefore is it for Men to value themselves more upon these outward Advantages of which ere long they must be stript than upon the Graces and Vertues of their own Minds on which they must subsist for ever Suppose now that you were a Merchant in a far Country where you were allowed for a short uncertain Time the Benefit of free Trade and Commerce in order to your gaining a good Estate to maintain you in your own Native Country when ever you are forced to return would you be so indiscreet as to lay out all the Product of your Merchandize in building fine Houses and purchasing great Farms when you know not how soon you may be commanded to depart and leave all these immoveable Goods behind you Or rather would you not think your selves obliged by all the Rules of Interest and Discretion to convert all your Gain into portable Wealth into Mony or Jewels or other such moveable Commodities as when ever you are forced to depart you might carry Home along with you and there maintain your selves with them in many years Ease and Plenty Do but think then and think it often that while you live here you are but Strangers and Foreign Merchants that you came hither from another World to which you know not how soon you may be forced to return that all the Wealth the Lands and Houses you gain by your present Commerce are immoveable Goods which you must leave behind you when you go from hence and that there is nothing portable of all that you can gain in this World but only the Graces and Vertues of your Minds and that therefore while you have Opportunity it concerns you above all Things to store and treasure up a plentiful Portion of these that so whenever you are shipt off into the eternal World you may carry such an Estate of them thither with you as may suffice to maintain you there in Glory and Happiness for ever which God of his infinite Mercy grant 1 JOHN III. 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him and he
Will in it but is whiffled up and down like a Feather in the Air by every little Counterblast of Wind. 2. Consider the prodigious Hazard to which we expose our selves by it For by every wilful Sin after such a Resolution we throw our selves headlong from the best into the worst Estate in the world from a State of Love into a State of Wrath from being born of God to being a Son of perdition and if we thence be snatched away before we have recovered our Relapse as who knows but we may we shall dye for ever and by one desperate Act of Folly fall from Heaven into Hell But suppose we should survive our Sin and be allowed a space of Repentance yet is it a mighty Hazard whether ever we make a good Use of it For when by one wilful Sin we have made a Breach into our good Resolution in all probability that will open a Gap for another to follow and that for another till hereby our evil Habits at last recover their full Power and then our Will and Practice will be laid open again into a common Thorough-fare of Iniquity For when we consented to the first Sin it was with a Promise of repenting immediately and upon the same Promise in all probability upon the next Temptation we shall consent to a second and so to a third and by this Train the Devil will tole us on through a long Course of Sin till at length our Will is depraved again and our Conscience seared and then we shall lay aside all Thoughts of Repentance 3. Consider the great Sorrow and Remorse that must follow upon our Sin in Case we should repent of it For to be sure before we can heartily repent of it our Mind must be stung with many severe Reflections upon our own wretched Weakness and Impotence and our Falseness and Perfidiousness to our own Ingagements and Resolutions upon the Affront we have given to our good God and the vile Contempt we have offer'd to his most righteous Authority and our ungrateful grieving his holy Spirit whereby before we committed this Wickedness we were sealed unto the day of Redemption all which if we have any thing of good Nature and Ingenuity and much more if we have any the least Foot-step or Remains of that divine Seed by which we were born of God must necessarily create in us a most pungent Sorrow and Remorse whenever we reflect upon it a Sorrow that will be much more than equivalent to the highest Pleasure we can hope for from any wilful Sin and for a Man to commit such a Sin upon a Presumption that he shall repent of it when he cannot but foresee if he be in his Wits that his Repentance will cost him far more sorrow than his sin will yield him Pleasure is all Folly and Madness 4. Consider how much of that Ground we lose back by every wilful Sin which by hitherto keeping true to our good Resolution we had gotten against our evil Inclinations Our Religion can never be easy to us till in some good Measure we have mortified and extinguished our depraved Inclinations for till then in the whole Course of our Religious Practice we shall row against the Stream and be continually warring against and doing Violence to our selves But if when a Man hath once entered into a good Resolution he takes care to pursue it he will find by degrees his bad Inclinations decay and wear off and proportionably as they decay Piety and Vertue will grow more and more natural and easy to him But when a Man hath for some time faithfully pursued his good Resolution and hath thereby got a great deal of Ground of his bad Inclinations if then he unravels it by any one wilful Act of Sin his bad Inclinations will thereby recover all those Degrees of Strength and Vigour which they lost in the past Course of his Piety and Vertue so that now he must be forced to begin the whole Work of his Religion again and to struggle through all those Difficulties which he had before surmounted Now he must fight over again all the Victories he had gotten before he can regain that Command and Empire of himself to which he was arrived before he revolted from his good Resolution and thus for a Moments Satisfaction he foolishly creates himself a long and tedious Labour 5. And lastly consider how by every wilful Sin you will weaken and impair those comfortable Hopes you had arrived to by persevering in your good Resolution While you persevere in Well-doing your Minds will be all a long entertained and refreshed with the growing Hopes of your Reconciliation with God at present and of a glorious Immortality to succeed and those blessed Hopes will every Day improve upon your Hands till at length they are ripened into a full Assurance the Comfort of which will mightily spirit and inliven all your Religious Endeavours and carry you on with indefatigable Vigour through all the weary Stages of your Duty But now by committing of any wilful Sin thereby you throw your selves out of the Arms of God's Favour and give up all your Pretensions to eternal Happiness and tho' by your serious Repentance you should afterwards recover to the blessed Condition from whence you are fallen yet in all Probability it will be a great while before you will be able to recover those blessed Hopes from whence you are fallen For the Sense of your past Lapse if you have any Modesty in you will make you very anxious and doubtful of your selves and render you extremely fearful and suspicious lest you should fall again and so only sin and repent and repent and sin on 'till at length you have sinned your selves beyond all Repentance and these very just Fears and Jealousies will very much hinder the Growth of your Hopes and cause them to spring by slow and insensible Degrees JOHN XIV 27. Peace I leave with you my Peace I give unto you not as the World giveth give I unto you Let not your Heart be troubled neither let it be afraid THese Words are a Part of our Saviour's farewell Discourse to his Disciples in which after he had given them some necessary Instructions for the Information of their Faith and Conduct of their Manners in which after he had comforted them with the Assurance that e'er long he would return again to them by his holy Spirit and assist them in their Work and support them under their Troubles he takes a solemn leave of them Peace I leave with you Which among the Hebrews was the usual Form of Salutation when they met or parted Shalom Lacha Peace be unto you where by Peace they meant all manner of Blessings so that it was equivalent to all those Three Salutations among the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in which they wished to each other Satisfaction of Mind Health of Body and Success of Affairs So that in this Salutation Peace I leave with you our Soviour wishes all Good