Churches service being set by the hand of that great Master who in this last lesson of his owne voyce did concert this symphony in the musick of the Church and even ingaged his father to preserve this unity and consort by these words Holy Father keepe through thy owne name those whom thou hast given me that they may be one as we are one This cleereth to us the marke of concordancy in faith to be one of the most respondent unto Christs signature on his Church And as one may without arrogating to himselfe much of the science of a Physitian venture to pronounce what is the best temper to be composed of so may I safely affirme that Religion to be of the best constitution which consisteth the most perfectly of these two divine elements well intermixed Zeale and Charity the which may be said to make a good complexion in the face of Religion the first relating to the colour of the blood and the last to the fairnesse of the skin through which the good tincture of zeale is transparent in the works of charity wherefore the well tempering of these two qualities make that beauty in the Spouse of which the Bridegroome saith Behold how faire is my Love there is no spot in her And as the face although it be not an infallible yet is one of the best indications of the bodies health for although there be not any so secure symptomes in it as conclude against all infirmities yet there are some so resolving marks of unhealthfulnesse in the face as cannot mislead a prognostike of some infirmity So may we make a probable judgement of the foundnesse of a Religion by the faire and healthful aspect thereof and by the ill looks and disfigurements of some Religions we may warrantably sentence the unsoundnesse of them for there are some that have such marks of uncleannesse on their skin as not onely the Priest but even the People may discern the Leprosie This considered the most advised judgement touching Religion for the generality of men is the preferrence of that which hath the most promising countenance of this perfect constitution of unity in faith of orderly zeale and of active charity for out of these materials onely that flame is raised which our glorious high Priest came to kindle upon the earth The Fourth Treatise Of Devotion In two Sect. §. I. Devotion regularly defined and some accidents that raise it explicated THere is nothing seems more requisite towards the sincere practice of it then the sound definition of Devotion for it is much easier to copie well then to designe perfectly this worke Neverthelesse it is the familiar presumption of the world to passe themselves Masters by drawing the expressions of their piety by their own imagination rather them to work then by the Churches draughts and patterns and thus many are mistaken in the manner more then in the meaning of their religious duties for devotion consists more of conformity to order in pious applications then in contrivement of them wherefore this prescription of some spirituall director is given by God Obey them that rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your soules And herein is provided a rest as I may say for our zeale to discharge it selfe upon for when it is shot without that stay it often falls very wide of the right mark which the holy Spirit hath set up to us by the Psalmist in Not unto us O Lord but unto thy Name give glory So that this is the safest principle for all good inclinations to build upon viz. the right notion and understanding of devotion taken from some prudent director for even the steadiest hands draw straighter lines stayed and guided by a rule then left to their own loose motion And I may without presumption undertake to shape a generall good rule by the Model of the Churches doctrine whereby to take the right dimensions of rectified Devotion for this may be done by an unskilfull hand in the practicall part as good instruments may be made by Mechanicks who want the science of using them Devotion is a fervour infused into our soule by Grace which breatheth out continually an alacrity promptitude in regular and ordinate performances of all such religious duties as are ordained by God for the exteriour testimony of the interiour love and reverence we owe him This good habit of the mind is the fierie spiration of the holy Ghost taking in such sort upon our wills as it raiseth a flaming evidence of our love to God in all our actions and this is properly to be baptized with the Spirit and with fire to have all our affections turned Christian by the accension of that holy fire in our hearts which Christ said he came to cast into the earth and required the kindling and ardencie of it in us so that the activity of this spirituall fire in our soules is that we tearme our devotion which implyes a conformity of our affections in morality and our opinions in religion to the revealed will of God our appetites we conforme in acquiring such habits of virtue as are expresly enjoyned us by God in his commandments and our own conceptions we submit in our conformity to such acts of religious worship as are directed to us by the Church which God hath invested with power of direction by these words of his commission They that heare you heare me and they that despise you despise me promising also the spirit of truth to rectifie all the executions of this power and the residence of that spirit to the end of the World In order to the preservation of that capacity imparted hence is it that there is no zeale or fervour of spirit which may properly passe for Devotion that is not touched at the test of the sanctuary which is obedience to the Churches regulations for many may thinke themselves in Saint Pauls discipline in the ferrour of the spirit when they are neerer Saint Judes commination of perishing in the contradiction of Core for as Saint John sayes The Spirit of Truth and of Errour is discerned by hearing the voyce of the Church not by singing loud in it therefore it is not the straining our notes but the singing in tune that makes the musick of Devotion wherewith God is delighted But supposing the flame of our Devotion to be lighted by a coal from the Altar the higher it riseth the neerer it cometh to Heaven for there must not be only interiour heat but exteriour light in it Saint John Baptist is a perfect image of Devotion in that Character Christ gives of him he was a burning a shining light which signifieth internall sincerity and active exemplarity and our Saviour intimates these two requisitions in our Devotion when he gives us this order Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good workes and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven wherefore
darknesse of the world Such honour have many of Christs members even in this life being inabled to walk in it and yet not war after the flesh having such spirituall weapons as cast downe all imaginations that rise up in defence of their own impotency and suggest their incapacity of subduing their enemy §. II. How even Mans infirmities may afford him gloryes and consequently Motives to joy and correspondence with the grace of Christ incarnate REflecting duly on what hath been premised we may justly sing an Hosanna to our humane nature as she is now participant of the virtue of God himselfe in the person of Christ since she is so fortified for triumph and victory over all the devills forces and her own frailties as I may say it is a greater shame for man not to overcome now thus joyned with Christ then it was at first to yeeld to the devil and the woman joyned He who is clothed with light as with a garment when he bowed the heavens and descended taking our nature as a cloud for his vestment might have purged it of all frailty and infirmity by his merits in it and have re-estated it in the originall integrity but he seemes to have chose the leaving of this infirmity to exalt the fidelity this thought may be supported by his deniall of Saint Paul the removing from him his reluctancies because virtue is perfected in weaknesse so having left our nature with this life-guard about her of my grace is sufficient for thee he hath inabled her to rise to a higher degree of honour by victory then she could have done by security for then our nature would have wanted the similitude and configuration with the image of Christ tempted suffering and triumphing which is a diviner figure then the safe unexercised condition of Adam And why may not we conceive that the miseries left in our nature by so mercifull a God were intended as seeds of a more fruitfull glory since not only our own sufferings are now allowed as good evidences for the claime of our feliciâ—y but even the distresses of others are assigned for our qualifications for Christ in his last account with man produceth nothing but miseries of nature for mans merit to him sickness â—unger poverty and captivity are brought in as the only contributions to mans glorification and by Christs words we finde that even he inhabiteth still in the infirmities of our nature insomuch as to reconcile us to the most aversing part of our nature we may look upon Christs personation in it for he seemes at that day when he shall in our nature judge both natures of men and angels to own his residence most especially in all the distresses and indignities of humane nature and to admit the communication and familiarity we have had with such miseries as the only claime to our eternall association with him and thus having a capacity imparted by all our infirmities to merit at Christs hands by his owne sentence our lyablenesse to them may be thought a nobler state then would have been our exemption from danger And to support this supposition we may conclude that our arrogant enemy who affected to be like Christ in his glory but never emulated his humility is more tormented now by mans triumphs over his angelicall powers and his owne humane weaknesse then he would be by mans state of impeâ—cancy for even that spoil this enemy now makes upon us doth not at all ease or relieve him whereas the defeats shames he received by our victories over him strain the rack of his pride upon him torturing him by this vilifying his power by which means even our infirmities may be said to serve Christ against the great maligner of both his Natures which admitted they who complain of the infelicity perversion of our nature may be advertized that they have a means to rectifie this crookedness even by the impulse of one of the most vebement corruptions thereof namely the passion of revenge since this redress may be wrought by their attempting continuall vindications against the procurer of all our misery by a victorious fidelity to our maker whereby even our infirmities being overcome are converted into the torments of our pretending tormentor and may the thussting of the serpent be retorted into his own bosome when his assaults return him more the sight of his own impotency then of our frailty And how feisable this way of revenge is made S. Paul assureth us both by his life and Doctrine when he defieth Angels Principalities and Powers to joyn with his infirmities and yet glorieth that in all these oppositions man may be more then conquerer by him who hath loved him How many virtuous Trophees are there now erected in Christianity of the victories of humane nature over our most powerfull infirmity What numbers wear the vestures of their humanity shining in the candour of innocence and chastity in so pure a manner as they seeme rather living transfigured with Elias and Moses upon Tabor then comming disfigured with Adam out of Eden So much doth even the frailest portion of our humanity triumph now over the greatest frailty of our nature and from the infirmity of the flesh derive rather consequent merit then actuall infection so that the proud spirit findes oftentimes by this repulse rather the misery of his destitution of grace then the infirmity of our nature being succour'd and supported by an accession of the fortifying grace of our Head Christ Jesus In which respect Saint Augustin sayeth elegantly the nativity of Christ was the renascency of man as flesh had wounded thee so it now healeth thee the Physitian ministred a receipt composed of our own infirme nature and by the infirmity of his flesh cured the infection of ours And for an intire re-inforcement of our humane nature which consisteth of spirit and flesh our spirit seemes to have yet a more intimate union with God for our flesh was but a supervesture or upper Garment to the Son of God The two natures of God and Man remaining distinct and not intermixed but our spirit is sealed and impressed by the holy Ghost and so seemes identified with the Spirit of God in some such sort as the impression left is the same image with the stampe which impresseth it and in this respect the Apostle tells us that he that is joyned unto God is one spirit with him we need not speculate so curiously the radiant beames of the Word of God as to dazle or dissipate the sight of our minde in this mysterious expression of the holy Spirit as much as is competent with our eyes is the perception by this dazling light of what great dignity and excellence our humane nature may now own in which the intire Trinity doth reside the Son of God in Person the holy Ghost or Spirit of God by Character and impression and consequently God the Father by the indivisibleness of his essence from their presences therefore we
ill an odour as their former Sacriledge If these Animadversions meet likewise with any such as are not urged by the pressure of their Consciences but rather solicited so much by their natural temper and disposition to privacy and retiredness as upon the least provocation of the world they are apt to break with it these humors are desired to stay and pause â—â—riouâ—ly and long on this suggestion for this may often be the operation of Melancholy which works this hasty promptitude And as Melancholy is the highest degree of choler in the Humors so in these hasty sallies out of the society of the world there may well be more Natural Humor then Spiritual Disposition and so this be rather a Disease then a devout Constitution Wherefore like sick men that forbear food long while the Humor is consuming these retreaters may for some time live quietly as long as this Humor of the worlds disrelish is wasting and spending it self but after that is digested the appetite of the world returns and likely gnaws upon their peace they having no natural food for it Hence is it that such complexions ought to be very advised in this their assigning of themselves according to the propensity of their Humors which perswades them often that what is indeed but the Ecâ—ho of their own voyce of Nature which speaks in them is a Spiritual vocation For their Natural Constitution raifeth that desire in their imaginative part which causeth a little repetition and answer of it in the Judiciary and Rational power of their minde but it is rather from the hollowness of their reason then the solidity of it that this Eccho is returned The result therefore of all these Examinations of several Cases must be Not to conduct our selves by the precedents of special extraordinary vocations of some whom Christ hath sent for out of the streets and by-ways of the world that is immediately from the foulness and immundicity of their lives and by his Messengers of Crosses and Afflictions compelled them to come into his house For these Cases are prerogatives of Gods Grace which do not alter the known Laws that are enacted by him by which Laws we ought to try our vocations to wit by the mature advice of those Judges he hath seated in his Tribunal upon Earth his Church and by their Sentences to make the tryal of all our own private impulses or motions of our Spirit to this dispossession and abnegation of the world Christ himself hath ruled this case in an excellent Parable of one that builds a Tower which is properly adopted to the design of a contemplative life as it is the erection of a frame of life raised high above the other parts of the Earth and intended for prospect and discovery so that none must undertake this edifice but after computation of the pertinencies requisite for the finishment lest they expose themselves to the reproach of having begun what they were not able to finish and this reckoning and account of our provision must be made by the consulting of a prudent Spiritual Surveyor not trusting to the Architecture of our own Spirit in which we must zealously often and humbly consult the eternal Architect of all Spiritual frames for a sincere discernment of his order in the regulating our own designs with this address of the cautious Spirit of Holy David Lord grant me to know the way wherein I should walk for I have lifted up my soul to thee This parting and separation from our own Will is the first leave we must take in our valediction to the world and this is not to be done by a hasty dismission of it for so it is but a weight thrown upward which is fastened to us and falls quickly back again therefore it must be loosened and severed by degrees and steeped as it were in the fresh springing water of Prayer and Mortification whereby it will peel and fall away the easilier Some perseverence in this disposition is requisite to blanch and whiten the intention perfectly St. Pauls advice for our preparation for the Holy communion is me thinks very properly applicable to this our preparation for participating of this Spiritual food for Religious Solitude is the Table of the Holy Ghost Therefore let a man examine himself and then eat of this bread of life for he that presumes to taste of it unworthily may be truly impeached as guilty of much irreverence to the Holy Spirit in venturing to come to the Communion of his Gifts and Graces rashly without a due consulting of his invitation I need not urge our precaution and advisedness in this case farther since our temerity in it is brought to be a kinde of Sin against the Holy Ghost Whereupon I will close up this Advertisement in St. Johns words Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God for many false promises of this Spirit of an happy Solitude are current in the world it being truer in no case then in this It is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth but of God who sheweth mercy The nineteenth Treatise Of Violent Solitude or Close Imprisonment Divided into eight Sections §. I. How unwillingly our Nature submits to the loss of Liberty and Society IN the case we treated last the Will needed a premonition against the deception of sight for our Will in fits of Melancholy looketh commonly through the glass of our Imagination upon such objects as flatter that humor most This Perspective of our Fancy is often cut into such angles as represent various and false colours of perswasions wherewith the Will is inveigled such species proving not real when our Reason cometh strictly to oversee them Therefore in the election of Solitude the elective faculty was to be instructed against the falacies of discourse upon which the Resolution is to be grounded but this case requireth a different direction For here the best course the Will can take to rectitude is to be totally blinded and cieled that she may make the straighter mount upward to the eternal Will and not amuse or perplex her self by looking about with a solicitous inspection into second causes but may pitch at the first flight upon the primary cause of all Contingencies Our Nature requireth much precaution in this aptitude to intangle us under the pretext of infranchisement by the liberty of reasoning out the Causes of all advers Accidents for in this case of loss of Liberty and Company our Nature likely seizeth on curious disquisitions of all Humane Reasons as the next thing she takes hold on to make company out of them and the contrivement of issues out of these straights is a sort of freedom our Nature takes as some imaginary reparation in her necessity by reason wherof these are coÌ„monly the first occupations wherein our Fancy seeketh some divertisement and this entertainment may lighten the weight a little by removing it to and fro in our Fancy not
patience and resignation by these intervening trials of our temper and likely the thoughts we have in temptations to frowardness are the copies of our minde upon which God judgeth their proficiency in the school of patience which he hath put them to There are diverse forms in prisons to which God preferreth our mindes by degrees and the highest seemeth to be the remaining humbly patient in a destitution of all sensible consolation from the Spirit of God to which we rise not but after some experiments of such desolations so that the best advice to this case is in our propensions to frowardness and petulancy to conclude That we are then set to bring in those exercises of vertue that must prefer us to a higher form all the Saints have passed by this examâ—n insomuch as David saith in this case My soul refused to be conforted I was mindfull of God and was delighted here you see the storm and the passing of it over by remembring the qualities of such blasts and stresses of temptations He is then the best scholler that studieth the least by his own arguings to clear to himself these obscure interjections of displicence and ill humor and cieling up his thoughts flieth directly to the top of the Cross resting there with the Man of sorrow where his minde finding My God why hast thou forsaken me may easily be answered in all her own perplexities and desolations and in stead of fearing her self to be forsaken may suppose she is following of Christ in this anxiety to which he was voluntarily subjected to solace by his Society our Nature in this infirmity whereunto that is necessarily exposed so as in these disquiets when the book of our Spirits seemeth closed up to us and we are ready to weep for our not being worthy to open it we may suppose our good Angel doing the office of the Elder to St. John bidding us not to be dismaid for the man of sorrow hath opened all these sealed anguishes by his taking the same impression upon his Spirit and indeed when our mindes are well died in the blood of the Lamb these aspersions of disquiets do not at all stain our Soul though there may seem some refractariness in our Spirits in these overcast intervals But to secure us from incurring any irregularity by this Spiritual Contention in the Temple of the Holy Ghost the safest way is not to seek a defence by the power of our Reason but to yield up our Spirits to suffer under this indisposition as long as it shall please the Holy Spirit to remain withdrawn even within our own Spirit beyond our discernment and many times in this ariâ—ity of our Devotion when our hearts are as I may say parched and cracked in this drought of Divine Refreshment if our wills are faithfully resigned to this exercitation of our Faith every such crack or overture in our hearts caused by the shutting up of Heaven proveth a mouth opened and calling for that holy dew which never fails to be showered down in due season upon such necessitous fidelities insomuch as this aridity and desolation interposed for some time doth often prove more fruitful then a common kindely season of repose and acquiescence I desire therefore to recommend specially this Advice to this state of Solitude which is very liable to these obscure interjections not to expect peace of minde onely from what we do sensibly receive from God but also from what we do sensibly give unto him for in this our commerce with Heaven there is this Supernatural way of Traffique we do not onelâ— pay God with his own gifts but we may give him even what we want and do not receive from him that is we may present him with our privation of his sensible Graces by our acceptance of this poverty and destitution And this offering of our emptiness is no less propitiatory then the first fruits of our Spiritual abundances This Advertisement I conceive very pertinent to my design of furnishing my fellow Soldiers with the armor of God that they may resist in the evil day and in all things stand perfect for it may be properly said of their condition that they are to wrastle not onely against flesh and blood but against the Rulers of the darkness of this world the Flesh shooting all her sharpest darts in the privation of Liberty and the Spirit his in the destitution of the most humane sympathy of Conversation This resignation then which I have proposed includeth a disswasion of any anxious solicitude concerning the cause of our sufferance for the ranging of our thoughts to spring second causes may keep us too much upon the scent of the earth the Apostle's advice is properer in this case Seek upward and not upon the earth which was the first point from whence this circle of my discourse did set forth and to allay this feaverish disquiet in our Patient I may fitly apply this Opiaâ—e of the Apostle If you are dead to the elements of this world why do you yet decree as living in the world This perplexing your selves with the thoughts of the world is to lose the benefit of this your civil death whereby you may rest from the labors of the living This you may rest upon in general That in this life there is no sort of Suffering but may be converted into Sanctification If you lie under a just sentence you may by an humble conformity to Gods Justice make it a release of a greater penalty then you feel in all your deprivements If you suffer injuriously for your engagement in a righteous Cause your Consolation is so much supposed as you have a command to rejoyce in 〈…〉 tion in view of the glory of your reward And if every imprisoned Christian may be said to be a rough draught of Christ since he avoweth his personation in them they who suffer for the Defence of Justice and Vertue may be said to be Christs Images coloured and more exactly finished wherefore such may expect to be readily received with I know you easily your scars and wounds which you bring with you coming out of my service have finished the figure of my similitude And we may resolve That such Champions shall be set near Christ where the number of their wounds shall be so many marks of their Consanguinity with the bleeding Lamb and the weight of their Chains shall be the estimate of their Crowns All sorts of Christians then may fill their several measures of Confort out of this Fountain of Christian Doctrine that all they who do not directly suffer for Christ may yet suffer as Christians and so attain the reward of a Prophet I will then close up my Present to them with this Seal of the Bands of our fellow Prisoner and Master Doctor Let us forget thâ—se things which are behinde and reaching forth 〈◊〉 thâ—se things which are before press forward to the mark for the priâ—â— of the high calling of
fall away down under the Altar it self represented by their mindes from whence the fume of those fragrant Odours of Vocal and Mental Prayer is directed towards the wings of the Cherubims and so what is sweet in the Spirit ascendeth to Heaven and what is unclean in the Flesh falleth to the Earth and doth not remain as a foulness upon the Altar which is kept always bright and odoriferous And in these Temples of the Holy Ghost there is not onely a continual emission of fire from Heaven falling upon the Altar but even a fresh provision of materials to incense upon it that is to say new supplies of Meditations descending from the Father of light from whom the same beam imparteth at once the ardor of love and the light of Science so that this matter can never want that flame nor that flame ever want this fomentation O how incomprehensible is the clarity of the Divine Elsence whereof if the little light shed on us do shine so strangely even in us being as yet but dark lanthorns to carry it how much must those splendors of purity and sanctity radiate which never issue out of it self whereof we have but few or no glances in this imperfect state of Contemplation to wit little or no intelligible perception of the Mysterious light of the glorious Trinity consistent with that most simple Vnity in which the Trinity of persons is comprised and yet the simplicity of the Unity is not at all diminished In which speculative Verity the best plumed Sâ—raphins of our mortal Nature when they soar never so high on these two wings of Grace and Contemplation must cover their faces with these two other of Faith and Wonder singing with the Psalmist I shall be satisfied when thy glory appeareth and in thy light we shall see light §. II. The gradations whereby we ascend ordinarily up to this station I May well suppose that there will be many who being dazled by the radiancy of the faces of these Moses's we have exposed will with the people turn their heads away from this object And I may imagine that some as being taken with the beauty of this light will conclude with the Apostles That it is good to live upon this Mount and may perchance think of making Tabernacles for their abode in this place that is design all the powers of their mindes to the forming in themselves such a state of Contemplation wherefore it may be pertinent to look a little downward upon such subjacent stations as are the direct way up to the top of the Mountain whereunto the nearest conterminate part is that of Speculation and the next to that Lecture and after that Mortification which lieth indeed as the basis of all the elevation and as it hath this property of the ground-work to consist of the most gross matter so hath it this likewise of being the support of the whole erection and in that order I will re-ascend to the summity from whence I have dismounted While the Soul of Man receives no intelligible species but such as are raised from sensible matter and acteth onely by corporeal organs by Natural Reason it is evident why Mortification is requisite for the best extent of her intellectual powers as rendring these passages the clearer through which all images enter into our discursive faculty and also keeping that power the more free and active in all her exercises The purer the glass is the better we see all things in the room and the farther we may see out of the room when we look outward through the glass so both the species that enter into our mindes through clean and unobstructed organs are the clearer and the acts also of our discourse and speculation looking outward towards immaterialities are the more sharp and penetrating I shall not need to argue how much corporeal pleasures and sensualities do obscure the light received by the apprehensive faculty and clog the operations of the reasoning power of the Minde Wherefore even in this Natural respect a convenient suppression of the appetites of the Flesh seemeth the platform of all Spiritual exaltation but we have a firmer supernatural ground whereupon to raise this Conclusion of the requisiteness of Mortification towards speculative gifts the word of the Holy Ghost saying They that are in the flesh cannot please God and if they be removed even from Gods favor they must needs be very distantial from that grace and familiarity which is imparted to Contemplation Saint Paul was allowed so little to think of his body when he was raised to his highest point of illumination as he knew not whether he had any body about him or no at that time And we finde that he took the best course he could all his life to feel the least he might possibly of his body in order whereunto he saith He did not onely chastise his body and keep it in subjection but affirmeth likewise That he did dye daily It seemeth he found no means of clearing the operations of the Soul but by making as it were a quotidian separation between her and the Flesh And me thinks we may say of all Saint Pauls converted life notwithstanding his humility in owning infirmities that which he himself said of some part of it namely Whether this man in Christ lived in his body or out of his body we know not God knoweth so little sense we finde him to have had of his body in point of Mortification and so little impediment by it in Contemplative operations And doth he not say himself That it is not he that liveth but Christ in him and referring to us he declares the requisiteness of Mortification telling us That they that be Christs have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences and if this kinde of crucisixion be requisite even for the practical part of Christianity whereunto all are called much more must it be pertinent to the perfect speculative state thereof to which so few are chosen I am therefore well warranted to lay Mortification as the ground or foot of this Mount of Moria which signifieth the Land of Visions whereunto all such as shall despise ascensions in their heart must take their rise from this foot and remember what was figured by Abrahams leaving his Servants and his Ass afar off when he saw the Mountain and the prohibition of any Beast to come near to Mount Sinai to wit that no carnal or sensual dispositions might presume to approach towards the mysterious lights of God So that whosoever aspired to go up to this mount Moria of Contemplation must be advised to follow Abrahams order to leave afar off all voluptuous and sensual appetites figured by the Servants and the Ass and carry in his hand the Fire and the Sword that is Zeal and Activity for the sacrificing of his Flesh and Blood to the honor of God This is the Fire that he who was typified by Isaac brought into the earth and
see Christ promiseth us in expresse termes the company of the Father and his residence in us Wherefore Now O happy man that thou art look not down upon the stage of the Serpent where he lyeth still hissing at thee to call thy thoughts to the earth since thou didst first hearken to him But raise thy lookes upward to the throne of Heaven where the splendor of thy humanity at the right Hand of God reflecteth to thee thy owne dignity for even in the mirrour of the word wherein God the Father seeth himselfe man may now see his own image there man may see not only his nature made after Gods image but God himselfe in the image of his nature Correspond with thy own worthynesse then O exalted creature and live as if thou had'st never seene thy selfe in any other glasse for here is that eminence truly conferred on thee which thou did'st at first so vainly affect of being like God and the holy Spirit is thy councellour in this claime of thy divinity and thy comforter against the disswasions of thy first projector who would now divert thee from the aspiring to the consort and participation of the divine nature which is offered to thy aspiring This premised and ponder'd man may say I rejoyce even in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me and triumph in me for my strength is made perfect in weaknesse and may consort the harp of David to the same tune of praysing mans condition professing thy friends O Lord are become exceeding honourable their principality is exceeding strengthened for when mans infirmities appear in temptations and suggestions to deface the image and Character of the holy Ghost in him then hath he the holy Spirit to second him in the defence of his own image So that by the adjunction of these helpes even all mans infirmities may be converted into his glories and man hath nothing left to undeifie him now but his owne preferrence of degeneration and flavery to the enemy of his nature before his adherence to her Author Finally upon all these representations I may justly re-extoll and magnifie the dignity of humane nature which we may consider sent down at first from Heaven as Gods image and next as a state to which God himselfe did vouchsafe to come down in person and taking it upon him will inhabit therein eternally and then that the holy Spirit of the Father and the Son abideth in it as in his Temple which he sanctifies incessantly nay more that it is designed to partake the same glory which the whole Trinity injoyeth by being promised to be made like him who hath it all the God and man Christ Jesus O then he that may hope this let him never plead his frailty or infirmity in discredit of his nature let him not in a dejection of spirit seek to cover his pusilanimity with O wretched man I finde a Law reluctant in me against all these motives and incentives of my aspiring to divinity but rather let him boldly pronounce in such a holy confidence as is prescribed him I can doe all things in him that strengthens me for since God is in so many sorts with us who shall prevaile against us Therefore in all these reluctances let us aspire to be more then conquerors by him who so much loveth us The Third Treatise Of Religion §. I. Considering it under the generall Notion of some reference to a Divine Power REligion riseth in the first dawning of the light of nature for the soul as soon as she doth but see her selfe by the reflex of any discourse discernes her own relation to some superiour cause to which she assigneth some present reverence and reason as it riseth and ascendeth breaketh the day a little further but leaveth the mind still in such a twy-light as the understanding doth hardly distinguish singularity in the supremacy discryed above it selfe for reason doth but as it were feele out her way to Divinity by a kinde of palpation and sensible touches upon materiall creatures and cannot by an immediate elevation of her faculties to immateriall notions raise her selfe up to the speculation of any spirituall substance much lesse to the supreme spirituall Essence So that by the meere light of nature the mind oftner scatters and breakes the object of Divinity then singleth it into unity This deficiency appeareth in the speculations of most of the Philosophers who all looked naturally upward for some supream reference and asscription of their being but unto most of them Heaven like a crack'd mirrour broken by their various imaginations reflected multiplyed images of the Divinity whereby we may discerne that the perception of unity in the divine Essence is not derived so much from the emission of the rayes of naturall Reason as from a reception of a supernaturall light whereby reason is rather illuminated from above it selfe then singly producing this selfe-illustration and this forrein clarity diffused upon our reason is the Grace of the Divine essence which elucidates to our minde the simplicity and indivisiblenesse of the object from whence this gracious splendour issueth upon our understanding Grace thus inspired worketh by the soule as light doth by the sense not inducing the faculty but only the exercise of sight for grace doth not conferre any new faculty to the soul but only perfecteth the capacity of naturall reason in this act of singling the notion of the Diety and settling the unity of a Creator in our beleef And this first position alwayes suggesteth some Religion taken largely as a recognition by some exteriour homage of one Supreamacy above our Nature but this estate admits of much diversity in Religious beliefs in which even the wise men of the World as Saint Paul termeth them did stray and lose themselves growing vain in their own imaginations for by a seeming pretext of piety namely of making religious addresses enough to God they made many Gods under the colour of one Supream addresse By this Errour we may perceive that naturall reason needeth still a further conduct from grace to lead it to a rectified Religion Certaine it is that the materiall and visible species of this world afford some notion of the invisible producer as in mines whereof the specificall matter is of a much meaner substance there are found some veines of Gold and Silver so out of the grosse masse of nature those that work upon it by single reason may easily extract some Spirituall ore of Religion for through the elemented body of the universe there run some veines of intimation of a spirituall nature independent on all matter which reason may discerne and so resolve some Religious acknowledgment of a Divine principle as the producer of subordinate causes and effects but how apt humane reason is to sever and disunite this principle we may easily judge when we remember how soone reason forgot her owne origine and as if having lost the unity of the
of humane nature in her own current and in the other a draught of that constancy may be superinduced upon it by this intervention of grace which is attracted naturally by the aspirations of prayer according to what the Psalmist tells us I opened my mouth and I drew in thy Spirit I may therefore hope to have acquitted my self of such direction as was requisite for attaining the possession of that truth wherin I had constituted happinesse and my way is so accessible it lies as neer every one as their own wil which is affirmed by the holy Spirit saying Open thy mouth and I will fill it This considered I may expect the perswading some at Court to be suitors to God for Devotion concurrently with all their other suites since in all the fortunes they can make they cannot unmake fortune For the variable temper of humane felicities is not to corrected and fixed Since they cannot then stay what is transitory let them attend to arrest that which is fixable which is a good degree of peaceable acquiescence of spirit in all transitory events and as no temporalities can conferre this spirit so no contingencies can sequester it for it is the spirit of Truth that stayes our minde which partly is composed of the knowledge and expectance of alternative variations in temporalities and hence it is that in all adverse changes this spirit is rather in action and practice of his owne constant nature then in suffering or passion with the fraile nature of temporall mutations Let me then intreat all those who neede not be pressed to muster themselves at Saint Pauls summons of Rejoyce alwayes to remember that this treasure is the pay and stipend of his discipline of pray without ceasing and give thankes in every thing for this is the will of God Whereby we may make all the severall conveyances of Gods providences new deeds of joy to us when our rejoycing is seated upon his will and thus our happinesse that cannot stand still upon the fixure of our fortunes may be firme upon the confixure of our wills to that immoveable one that changes all things Without any vicissitude or shadow of change in it selfe The ninth Treatise Of the Condition of Courts Princes and Courtiers Divided into three Sect. §. I. The best Notion of Courts proposed IN the Law of Moses all the Rites and Ceremonies were not only declaratory formes of the present Religion but significative figures of a future state and howsoever most of the vulgar looked no farther then the glosse and lustre of the exterior vaile which was the beauty and decency of the forme and order that affected them yet the nobler sort passed their sight through that vaile and fixed it upon the signification and mysterie it selfe and thereby had not only their eye of sense delighted but that of their understanding enlightned by these objects In reference whereunto I may hope not improperly to apply these considerations to the Courts of Princes since all the exteriour state of Ceremony and Reverence being truly conceived is significative as referr'd to the images of God and thus all the distinguished ranks of honour which compose the formall order of Courts are figures of those different degrees of Ministers which attend their Originall the King of Kings and in this order the Glory and Majesty which exteriorly in all sorts resideth about the persons of Princes may be fitly understood to represent in such shaddowes as these materialities can make the celestiall magnificence of the King of Heaven so that one who will interpret religiously the Ceremonies of Princes Courts may say all things befall them in figures But certaine it is there are many in Courts who determine and center their thoughts upon the fronts and out-sides of these mansions which are honour riches pleasure and raise all their Devotions to the place upon those objects and such are truly the meaner sort of Courtiers though they be greatest in the measure of the world and there are some of the other party who penetrate into the religious sense of these exteriour figures and derive from them spirituall conceptions and appetities concluding by these glories which are but the shaddowes of those they signifie that the substance it self must needs be above what eye hath seene or eare heard or hath entred into the heart of Man and so by this view are quickned in their ambition towards those originall honours and these are the nobility of Courts though they be never so inferiour in office Of these two kindes of Courtiers is verified The first shall be last and the last first And likewise of the first sort we may say as the Apostle saith of the Law the Letter kils If the litterall sense of the faire text of this worlds glories take up and fix their mindes and of the latter sort the spirit quickens when out of these specious objects they extract a spirituall sense which excites in them a celestiall aspiring and emulation Such a figurative conception Saint Fulgentius framed out of these images when he was asked whether the beauty and Majesty of Rome did not worke upon his affections he answered If terrestriall Rome be so beautifull how glorious must be celestiall Jerusalem His minde was so little taken or retarded on her way as she stayd not at all in the outward Court of the Gentiles but passed on as in her way through it to the Holy of Holies and by this method who attend the offices of their mindes upon earth and waite not upon the places of their bodies concluding that they are but strangers and passengers through these courts and Fellow-citizens of the Saints and Domestikes of God make excellent use of all the lustrous and polished glories of the place for instead of looking on them as flattering glasses and mirrours which reflect only the materiall beauty of the earth they make opticke glasses of them through which they do the easilier take the height of the celestiall glories and surely the sight of our minde is much helped by such materiall instruments in the speculation of spiritualities by reason that in this her prison all the intelligence of our minde with immaterialities passeth as I may say through her keepers hands which are her senses that can carry nothing but corporeall images to her and therefore we see the Apostle Saint John drawes the image of the court of heaven in such colours as are most visible and most affecting in the Courts of the earth whereby to raise our imaginations upon these steps which they can tread upon to some proportionate conception of such fruitions as are truly all spirituall and Intellectuall And under this notion all the lusters and splendors of Courts being understood as figures of the sublimer and purer state of the Kingdome of heaven are convenient ascents for our weak apprehensions to rise up to the love and estimation of these spirituall objects for the same affections which move us so
of riches and ambition which give more warning of their dangers Nor do the many wrecks that are made in Courts justly discredit the profession of this traffique for temporall commodities I have already in this expresse argument voted the pursuance of all worldly honours respectively to severall conditions very competent with piety and devotion though indeed it must be remembred that such estates in the world require much more vigilancy and attendance then others of a more simple constitution as engines of various motions may be kept in order with proportionate appliance of labours as well as a single wheele for regularity is as sociable with magnitude as with mediocrity if there be proportionate art and labour to concert them and greatnes is as consortable with goodnes as simplicity of life where there is a commensurate applyance of the mind to the obtaining of an answerable measure of grace He who suspends the world upon the weight thereof and measureth the waters in his span keeps the Sea in bounds as easily as the smallest Brooks in their own beds Every condition hath a size of grace suited to it as the Apostle saith Every one hath his proper gift and proportionate duties are annexed to every severall condition God is so just that he chargeth the greatest possessions of temporalities with the greatest taxes of difficulties in spirituall payments but no condition is scanted in a capacity of such performances as Gods precepts charge upon it And so we see how all conditions have presented to us Saints which humane reason weighing all circumstances cannot ranke in order of precedency in the Church How many Kings and Courtiers doth the Church reverence as now placed in those heavenly mansions where she cannot discerne in what degree as severall Starres they differ in brightnesse So equall hath the lustre of their lives been with that of any other vocation as they dazle us in any such distinguishment of their merits we know how the good seed of the Gospell tooke roote as early in the house of Cesar as in any part of Rome and Saint Paul sets an emphaticall note on those Saints in preference before the rest Did not S. Sebastian in the head of the Emperour Dioclisians Guard which was one of the greatest elevations on earth appeare in the same eminence of zeale among the Primitive Christians And did not Saint Maurice in the head of the Emperours Army erect such a trophie for Christianity as all Times triumph in for in desiance of those Spirits which called themselves a Legiou he flourished the Colours of Christ Jesus dyed in the bloud of a whole Legion of Martyrs which blessed legion of Spirits did so possesse the Christians of those times by their examples that many gave supernaturall testimonies of this holy possession And may it not be remarked for the honour of Courts that while Christianity was but shed and sprinkled here and there in the lower parts of the Roman Empire it was carryed but in the hands of Christs Commissioners but when Christ was pleased to appeare at Court he marked his lodging with his own signet the glorious Crosse first in the ayre visible to the Emperour Constantine and to the whole Court and after the same night appeared himselfe to the Emperour advising him how to manifest his glory which untill then he was content should not break out of the clouds of contempt persecution that overcast it And thus Christ made his remove presently from the Grots and Cavernes of the fields up to the imperial palace of Rome where he set up his Crosse triumphant over that Crown which til then went as near burying of it as the keeping it long under ground for the Caverns of the fields were before that time both the Tombes and Pallaces of the Christians And it may be noted that when Christianity descended from this heigth of the Court upon the lower parts of the Empire it spread it selfe faster in a few yeares then it had done in the three hundred before it camp up to the Court for till then the waters of Life were cast upward and forced against the risings of sense humane power and naturall reason by the supreame force of Miracles and so were spread no further then they carried them by continuall renewed supplies of miraculous operations but now after there broke out this Spring of Living water on the tops of the mountaines of the Empire it ranne down more naturally and plentifully upon the subjacent parts and fructifyed the earth faster and more universally In our corrupted nature what is the common effect of materiall holds also in spirituall weight falling on our mindes for the higher reason falls from the elevation of authority and example the more impression and penetration it makes upon them wherefore Christian Religion when it fell from the supreamest point of humane power the Imperiall Court made much more sensible markes upon the world then it had done before And as this operative efficacy may endeare to Courtiers their vocations so must it needs presse so much the more upon them the evidence of their vertues Thus I have showed how the Court may say in honour of her conversion that Christ in diverse manners spoke to the other parts of the world by his Messengers but unto us he spake himselfe when he came first to Court in publicke for before Constantines time was there but as we say in incognito but then he appeared in his own place over the head of Kings and presently dislodged the Prince of darkenes out of these roomes of State whereas before he had but displayed him in his under Offices while he did but deliver and free private possessions but then in one act he seemed to dispossesse the whole Roman Empire when he expelled him from the Court. §. VI. Some notorious errors remarked what facility the breeding of Courtiers may bring towards an excellence in religious duties proved by examples COurtiers who may by these reflexions be apt to value their vocation must be put in mind that as they are more eminently then any made spectacles to the world to Angels and to men they have in that preheminence a proportionate charge upon them of being more to the life the image of the celestiall man in which figure there is commonly at Court one remarkeable incongruity which is that the feet are more laboured and better finished then the head for morall vertues hold but an analogy with these parts in the body of christianity since they are but as it were carriages for theologicall or divine vertue to rest and move upon The errour then which I reproach is that there are many who are very precise in acquiring and preserving their reputation in courage prudence and fidelity and are as remisse and indifferent in their applications to charity piety and humility which is methinks such an incongruity in christianity as that of the Pharisees was in the Law when they said Whosoever
shall sweare by the Temple it is nothing but he that sweares by the Gold of the Temple is a debtor making no account of that which was truly a sacred obligation and making a great scruple in what was nothing so obligatory And do not those who are so punctuall in their reputation concerning all morall accomplishments and so unconcerred in the opinion of their christian performances seem to practise the same impertinency For all morality is in relation to christianity but what the gold was to the Temple since it is only sanctifyed by being serviceable and ministeriall to Religion wherefore they who pretend exactnes in all civill and sociable honesties unlesse it be in order to divine duties and obligations may be doubted to be more Disciples of the Pharisees then of JESUS more affecters of the praises of men then advocates for the part of vertue But this information against this Solecisme in the stile of many Courtiers virtues doth not discredit the vocation though I need not fear much the taking away the good name of it in the world for this discipline in morality and fashion of punctuality in civill dutyes if the principle thereof be sincere in the love of Moral virtue may work and accomodate the mind to a generall habit of sincerity which when it is referred to religious uses proves a facilitation towards fidelity and perseverance in them as Saint Paul his Pharisaicall strictnesse and severity was a great promotion of the true religious fervor of his Apostleship So this naturall preparation in Courtiers in these points of courage loyalty and civility raiseth the flame of their devotion the higher when those so well disposed materials are kindled by the Prophets Seraphim or by the Apostles fiery tongues The pregnancy of many Courtiers in sanctity ingrafted upon the stock of naturall good parts and acquired virtues alloweth us to say as Saint Augustine said of Saint Cyprian who grew by nature in the highest part of the world and was singularly endued with all humane literature before his conversion how well over-laid with the gold of Egypt did Cyprian come out of it with which he enriched Jerusalem And so the Church may truly acknowledge that many Courtiers have brought out with them much of this precious mettall of humane prudence and sagacity by which virtuous qualities and honestations they have been more happy then others in their applications to move the mindes of men in whose tempers they had been so well versed this ingenious and versatill habit of mind which they had acquired in the commerce of the world hath made their spirituall practice upon the world much more successefull then that of others whose sepulative piety is lesse accommodable with the humours of the patient and certainly they owe much of these furtherances and inablements to the civill Discipline and Politique literature of Courts I still conclude therefore in defence of the vocation of courtiers while I reproach to them the perversion of their advantagees in education for since nature is the ground on which grace is planted the temper of the ground conduceth much to the increase may be expected for without doubt the civill breeding of Moses did much contribute to all his naturall excellencies and the being the most reverend and respected person of the Court did not at all elate his heart the softnesse of his education was rather a good previous disposition for the effect of the Supernaturall Agent in point of the admirable meâ—knesse of his Spirit of whose Court life the records of the Jewes deliver unto us much more then the holy Writ Josephus reports to us how the comlinesse of his person and gratiousnesse of his meene and behaviour was such as all the Kingdome of Egypt was taken with admiration of them and the opinion of his virtue was such as they repaired to him in a great extremity of an invasion of the Aethiopians for his conduct in a pressing distresse of their Armies and how that by his prudence and Magnanimity they overcame their enemies Insomuch as Moses was honoured sometime as a successor of Joseph and no lesse cryed up for a redeemer of Egypt 〈…〉 and there is no doubt but he was as sincerely virtuous while he was the adopted heire of Pharaoh as when he fell to be the sonne in law to Jethro so that the softnesse of his breeding did not at all enervate the sanctity of his mind Therefore we may say that the pallaces of Egypt will bear a Moses as well as the plaines of Madâ—â—n The Prophet Esay was nephew to a King and bred as is supposed in the Court with all the tendernesses which are affected and allotted to the royall bloud of Princes and his conversation was altogether in the Courts of diverse Kings where he shined in no lesse flame then Elias in the Desert Those words were as powerfull which cal'd back the sunne upon the diall of the Court as those which cal'd down fire from heaven in mount Carmel And as diverse Princes have changed their condition of representing Christ in his Kingly office for the Character of his Priestly function relinquishing their houses of power to rest in His house of prayer So many both Kings and courtiers of the most eminent have in their own stations in the world shined out as the Apostle saith Like bright lights to the world in the middest of a perverse generation and have deserved Saint Peters testimony of Lot of being Righteous both in hearing and seeing notwithstanding all the seducements proposed to those senses And certainly such objects of virtue are more impressive upon our affections then those which may be greater in themselves but more distantiall from our eye in such a manner as we see that great branches of lights hanging very high cast not so much light for the use of the room as much lesser proportions placed among the company so those elevated sanctityes which are in the upper part of the Church in holy sequestrations do not communicate to the lower part of the world so much exemplary virtue as those lesse purified but more familiar and more proportioned pieties in the lives of secular persons remarkable for sincere holinesse and devotion such lives conversant in the world are like a perfumers shop which gives some good scent to all the passengers through the street though it may be there are not so choice and pretious odors in it as in some places in the same street which impart none of their sweets abroad because they are intercepted by the inclosures of walls which keep them from any accesse to the passengers so privacie and reclusenesse may containe a more sublime kind of sanctity yet not be in so communicative a position as those fragrant plants which grow abroad in the trafficable parts of the world §. VII Comparisons between vocations disavowed and advices offered in order to a due correspondence with the grace of a Courtiers profession BY what I have pleaded in this last argument
which they perish as some do that wade themselves unawares beyond their depth who go into the water at first with caution and security as they believe and are carefull to find ground at every advance of one of their legs but when the water gets to a certaine height though they feel ground still they cannot use their legs which are carried up by the streame before they are out of their depth and thus they perish by this ill measured confidence Even so the most cautious lovers do often cast themselves away for as long as they feel but the feare of God as a ground they go still upon and finde no temptations which the Scripture familiarly figureth to us by waters force away absolutely their consents which are the souls feet they think themselves safe while they feel the ground of a good resolution but comming on by degrees into such a depth of temptation as the sensitive appetite doth surreptiously lead them into their feet are easily carryed away and so they are lost by this unexperienced presumption and thus as Solomon saith we find There is a way which seemeth right unto man but the ends of it are the wayes of death Me thinks Solomons experience should disabuse all men in the relying upon the virtue of their Spirit when we see that his so singular induement with the holy Spirit was not security against the danger of this presumption we are warned by the Apostle not to extinguish the Spirit and nothing puts it out so soon as the bodyes being set on fire the pure immixt fire of the cloven tongues will not hold in long in cloven hearts they must be perfect Holocausts which are to entertain that flame and when the eyes are but warming themselves at strange fire that is intending onely an innocent delight in the sight of beauty they are often in too much danger of being taken by this incentive Holy Saint Bernard bringeth in Eve looking upon the fruit while it was so yet in her eye when she saw it pleasant faire to the eye and asketh her why do you look so longingly upon your own death why are you so taken in looking upon that which if you tast you are lost you answer that you do but cast your eye and not your hand upon it and that you are not forbid to see but to eat O though this be not your actuall crime yet is it an aptitude thereunto for while you are thus amused the serpent covertly windeth into your heart first by blandishments he intangleth your reason and then by fallacies he diverteth your fear affirming you shall not surely die and thus sharpens the curiosity while he suggesteth the cupidity and by these degres presenteth the fruit and putteth you out of the garden and this is commonly the event of the children of Eve who entertaine this party with the serpent weighing no temptation when it lights first upon their eyes till it fall too heavy on their hearts to be removed Therefore Saint Austin giveth us an excellent advise since the Devill doth watch thy heel do thou watch his head which is the beginning of an ill suggestion when he proffereth first an ill motion reject it then before delectation arise and consent follow thus while thou breakest his head he shall not be able to bruise thy heel And sure Saint Austin is one of the best Counsellors we can consult in this case for he reads it decided in that book which he was commanded to take up and read while he was studying the case which advise as it came from the same voice so it wrought the same effect take up thy bed and walk for it raised him from being bed-rid in this passion and set him a walking with him who is the way the truth and the life We cannot recuse Saint Austine as a party against this passion when he professeth he had studied long the agreement of it with Piety therefore let us heare the result of his studies All the while he was in this disceptation he confesseth he found two wils in himself the one carnal the other Spirituall which by a daily contention did sever and dissipate his mind and thus by experience he found the combate between the flesh and the Spirit which while his mind sought to part and reconcile she was hurt by both parties conscience wounded her on the one side and custome struck her on the other on which she was the most sensible so as his senses swayed him commonly to a partiality thus he sheweth us the links of that chaine which lovers by degrees find their wills fastened by an easie seduced appetite raiseth passion and that cherished induceth custome and that uncontrolled imprints necessity which becometh a punishment of perverted liberty for the law of sinne is the violence of custome by which the mind is drawne and held at last even against her owne reluctancie but deservedly for having willingly fallen into this necessity in this manner he confesseth that often upon the motions of the Spirit which invited him to break off all treaty of accord and to declare for the redemption of his captived appetite he found himselfe kept as it were in a slumber in these meditations of rising out of that soft bed of sensuality and while he lay stretching himselfe to wake overcome still by his drowsinesse he lay still tossing in this resolution And alas how familiarly do we rowle our selves asleep againe in this doubtfull drowsinesse while we are halfe awake purposing to rise and break off our fancyes dreames and illusions O then let Saint Austin's alarum keep us awake while we are in this halfe-wishing or vellity towards our casting off the workes of darknesse let us not lie still stretching and consulting our senses whether the night be farre spent and the day be at hand that is whether there be not enough of our youth left to promise us time to make our selves ready for the last day let us not slumber in this rumination but rise and put on the Lord Jesus Christ and not lie turning our selves to and fro which is to make provision for the lusts of the flesh Saint Austin after he had rowsed himselfe upon this alarum rose up directly and set himselfe to such exercises as kept him alwayes in that vigilancy which is required not to enter into temptation he presently broke off all treaty with this passion and hath left this excellent test for lovers to touch their affections to try if they be of that purity which is onely currant with God They love God lesse then they ought who love any thing besides God which they love not for God This is to state God in our affections as he hath proclaimed himselfe to our faith to be the beginning and end of all things Now whether a passion to the creature can by any compasse of humane frailty be drawne into this perfect circle moving first from the love of God and reflecting still
chosen of many as it hath relation particularly to this Nation King Harold of Denmark who was the first planter of the Faith of Christ is his Countrey and a Prince whose eminent sanctity deserved the publike testimony of the Church by his admission into the Catalogue of the Saints This devout King in his old age was assayled by the Rebellion of his own Son called Swayn a desperate Enemy of Christianity yet it pleased God to give him Victory against his Father and to Crown the old King with Martyrdome in the Defence of Christs Cause and his own Right for he dyed of his wounds received in the Battel where his impious Son remained Conquerer and King But soon after Gods Vengeance rose up against this Patricide and expulsed him out of his Kingdom and in many changes of Fortune reduced him to take Refuge in England and Scotland for many years At last in many variations of his Unhappinesses it pleased God to change his heart and convert him to Christianity of which afterwards he became a great Champion and a Zealous and God imployed him here in ENGLAND to punish King Ethelred who though his person was not stained with his Mothers bloody hands yet he did rise to the Crown not by a Legitimate Descent in Blood but by an Execrable effusion of his elder Brothers through the wickedness of his Mother so as Swayn of Denmark dispossessed this King and soon after dyed invested of the Crown of England I thought this Example in the various Occurrences of it very apposite to this subject of declaring GODS mysterious Judgements His Justice Mercy and Longanimity which is the Attribute whereby we are so much relieved in all our provocations of his Vengeance These Examples may temper an hasty impatience to censure Causes by the Events and repress in us that Natural forwardness of judging with the JEWS those to be the greatest sinners on whom the Tower of S 〈…〉 doth chance to fall for we know our Saviors decision of such conclusions §. VI. The Conclusion Regulating all humors in this probation THere are many men of such a mould of earth as the stony ground in the Gospel who are quick in their conception of vertue and active in the first impressions of the right and justice of their party and so their actions are forward and eminent in fair seasonable weather but if the heat of disaster beat upon them for want of a wâ—ll-rooted constancy on the ground of true fortitude they shrink and wither as fast as they did shoot out at first when they first begin to be followers of vertue they should remember what our Savior said to his Disciples Blessed is he who shall not be scandalized at me for in the attendance on goodness in this world we shall often see it suffering and affronted They who will serve under the Militia of the King of kings must take the Covenant of Longanimity in which consists the best part of the honor of a Christian for as our great Master saith If you love but where you are beloved do not the Gentiles do as much so if you are zealous while you are prosperous every unworthy person hath this kinde of honor to shew for his nobility but when you are to endure the test of loving of Enemies that is humbly to embrace all advers accidents and to close with them to wrastle still rather then flye from the Lists where they are triumphing when as the Prophet says Strange lords have dominion over us this is the sincere tryal of honor even in morality in which this perilous perseverance it may be iâ— but a counsel of perfection but in cases of Divinity I am sure it is a precept as the Apostle saith in the name of our Master If any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him Hence it is that as any defection from a good Cause is odious in Gods sight so too much solicitude and vehemency in relation to a quick issue out of our engagements look unhandsomly in Gods eyes for there is always a great shadowing of Self-love woven with this colour of our zeal to Justice in this impatient appetite of Success Our Savior Christ at his remove from his dearest familiars upon earth in a gentle reprehension to them in this point of earnestness hath left us an order for our dependance quietly upon the common course of his Providence without any inquisitive scruting into the times of such Events as the cause may promise For when they desired to know the time of his restoring their kingdom who were of his own house his answer was a kinde of soft increpation to them and a strong instruction to all times It is not your part to know the times nor the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power This is a prerogative our Soveraign communicates unto none but as he proceeded to comfort again those friends he had check'd we have our share in their compensation for he doth impart to us also his Holy Spirit which may assist and consolate us in the perplexities of all Times and Seasons Let us therefore by the residence of this Comforter with us endeavor to correct our Nature in her promptitude and hastiness in our distresses to make Gideons question to the Holy Spirit If the Lord be with us why are all these ills be fâ—ln us and to conclude Sure the Lord hath left us and delivered us up to our enemies Let us procure rather to make the answer of Eli to Sa 〈…〉 in acceptance of Gods Judgements It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good to him If we remain in this temper we may boldly say with King David The Lord will not be angry for ever he will judge the world in equity and the people in his truth therefore I will hope always and will yet praise him more and more Thus with the Psalmist keeping God at our right hand we shall not be moved or dejected by any sinister Events in a sincere Cause There is a far different superstition in the pertinacy of the Pharisees and the facility of some people for they in a shower of Miracles falling down upon them to anounce to them the time of the change of their Law still called for a Sign from Heaven to authorize that Doctrine and some people are so prone to change their Law as they call Natural Accidents that favor their dispositions Signs from Heaven to warrant their innovations As the first were said to have eyes and not to see so these last may be said to see without eyes for their imaginations seem to them so illuminate as the eye of their Reason is dazled when it looks against them Such fancies commonly love to cast in troubled waters and upon all successful draughts they do as the Prophet saith of them Sacrifice to their own net and offer incense to their drag worshipping in a maner their own Spirit which they have
Nature viz. all kinde of crosses and vexations seem to chase us out of the field they convey us into that retreat whereunto God hath designed us This is a frequent contrivement by Gods Providence to secure his friends by the chase and pursuit of his enemies and theirs as he preserved David from acting against him by the malevolence of the Princes of the Philistines who thought they had shamed him by rejecting and casting him out of their Troops when indeed they preserved him innocent from staining himself in the blood of his Brethren So God excites very familiarly the adversities of this world to remove and seemingly to expel his servants out of it to deliver them from the guilt of loving the world providing thus against their longer engagement with his Adversary who is the Prince of this World And as God vouchsafes to serve himself sometimes of the storms which the Prince of the Ayr raiseth in this world by making them carry such wracks upon his coast of Solitude as he designs to save with the loss onely of their temporal fraights So the Prince of the World doth sometime make use of this Shore for the casting away of many to whom he shews it as a secure harbor or shelter which they have under their Lee and can reach when they please upon any distress of weather And thus as an Angel of Light he promiseth this Sanctuary of retiring to God as a security which cannot fail even after all the provocations of him whereby he perswades many to sport themselves with him in his large alleys in the days of their youth and fortune Leave no flower ungathered as the Wise man says of thâ—s season And when either the winter of Nature or of Fortune hath withered and blasted all those sweets then it is time enough to retire to Gods cover for shelter who refuseth no sort of Refugiats These insinuations do work with many so as to embolden them to live profusely upon the present stock of their Time and Fortune with this purpose of taking Sanctuary either at some assigned time of their Age or upon any pressing Contingency Hence is it that taking their Councel of Gods Enemy he presents such Clients to him as have robb'd him all their life in a purpose to repair to him for protection against the Law and exemption from his hand of Justice and thus in effect the house of Prayer is turned and designed by such Projectors to be but an harbor of Theeves How often doth the Prince of Darkness amuse many with this falacy who walk with him in his large alleys even by this light he shews them by which they conceive to see a safe issue out of this broad way into the narrow paths of the Kingdom of Light But alas how many lose themselves in this labyrinth and are founder'd in this calm Sea of the world even while they have this coast of retreat and Solitude in their eye And how many others who are entred into the Port sink there by those leaks they bring in with them never being able to stop those overtures in their mindes through which worldly affections and passions soak continually into their thoughts some ill habit or other still keeping intelligence with the world And for this cause many either revolt back openly to it or else hold some private treacherous correspondence with it in a nauseousness and distaste of all Spiritual aliment and a tepid irresolution between breaking off and holding on that course and remaining in this nauseousness we know how disagreeable this temper is to Gods stomack so that many presuming to take this Water of Tryal being polluted by a long co-habitation with temporal loves it proves to them rather putrifaction then purgation and their mindes in stead of a Spiritual conception and improvement break out into an unsound and fruitless dissipation Likewise as this deceitful project of relinquishing the world is often preferred by the Father of Lyes to many sensual and brutish lives so me thinks it hath this property common to many Animals who believe when they have hid their head that their whole body is covered because such whom St. Jude calls bruâ—e beasts seem to conclude that when their bodies shall be retired and sequestred from the world their mindes are removed and estranged from it But they quickly finde the brutality of that opinion by the blows and wounds wherewith the Images of the world assault and charge their mindes by this disabuse they perceive her nakedness and exposure to all those vexations from which they thought themselves guarded and covered and God who regards only the posture and nearness of the heart to him doth adjudge a punishment sâ—ted to this presumption in revenge of their promising themselves the being able to carry their mindes out of the world into his Sanctuary at their own assignments he often receives the body onely and leaves the minde still in this habitual loosness making the bodies division in this separation from the world the revenger of this presumption of adventuring to dispose of one of the most dear properties of Grace namely the retreat of our mindes by the right of Nature For nothing is more peculiar to Grace then to impart the joy and peace of the Spirit in a state of contradiction to all the cases of the Flesh It is in some sort a design of Simony to expect the gifts of the Holy Spirit upon the exchange of a local transaction of our persons Holy King David had not onely stept into the way but was running in the way of God when he had his heart dilated and enlarged unto him so as his Flesh and his Spirit both joyned in an exultation in the living God Therefore it is very useful Animadversion not to relie upon the Covenants of our own private Spirit for the conveyance of this so happy condition to us of a godly retreat and â—eposure of our selves since the more Nature promiseth the less interest she hath in it this self-arrogation being an evidence against our title to this possession of Grace Upon these considerations I may advise such as are come to labor under the burthen of their mundanities which they have been less cautious in loading themselves with in respect of this final discharge they have proposed to remember when they come to Christ to be disburthened that precedent in the Gospel which relates aptly to their cases which is that of the ten Lepers who when they came to Christ stood after off and lifted up their voyces with JESUS have mercy upon us the consciousness of their pollution kept them at that reverend distance And Christs answer in this case is a very pertinent direction to such Spiritual Lepâ—â—s Go and show your selves to the Priests take advise of Gods Ministers and their opinions of the clâ—anness and purity of their intentions before they venture into the communion of this Sanctuary of holy Solitude otherwise their present offering may prove of as
which is of God not in the lâ—aâ—ned words of mans wisdom but in the Doctrine of the Holy Ghost Nevertheless it is our familiar presumption to 〈◊〉 much upon the vertue of Humane Reason whereof the Philosophers have made so lovely Images as many full 〈◊〉 Pygmalâ—ons Fancy of falling in love as it were with the Statuâ— of Morality which wanting the soul and a 〈…〉 of Grace will be found cold and speechless when they expect the spirit and life of Consolation in such pri 〈…〉 as these of Liberty and Company which seem to shake even the Centre of our natural app 〈…〉 es Those who â—â—st then upon the power of natural Reason for the dispossessing themselves of all anxieties and vexaâ—ions of Spirit will be served like the Sons of S 〈…〉 for the malignity of the world will answer them The grace of God I submit unto as having a power to displace and exâ—el my Mischiefs but who are you that undertake by Nature to cast our all those Evils where with you are possessed and to â—â—ee your Spirit by a lesser power then that which doth possess it your Senses in your viâ—iated Nature being stronger in their appetites then your single Reason is in her discourses So as when their Senses are much offended by the worlds Malices such undertakers will be prevailed upon by the present passion and â—e put to flye naked and wounded in this Enterprise as the Sons of Sâ—â—va were in their Exoâ—cisms The Philosophers who projected Reason to be such a powerful Actor thought she was onely to contend against the infirmity of Flesh and Blood knowing not that the Minde was to wrastle with Superior powers Spiritual rulers in high places against which there is no fence but the putting on the whole armor of God for bare Reason cannot be of proof against those fiery darts of Murmure Repinings and Desolations of Spirit which great extremities of sufferance cast at our hearts Reason being so far from making a constant resistance as very often she joyneth with the provocations and concurreth with the perswasion of revolting against Patience as a more reasonable thing to complain and repine then to resist our Senses in this onely appetite which is left to satisfie our Nature the ease of bemoaning and lamentation We are so much more enlightened then they who boasted of this Self-sufficiency as we are in defiance like Enemies with those they worshipped as gods so that we had need have better Arms then those they have left us to combat with And we may observe the insufficiency of 〈◊〉 presumptions by this instance that what they erected 〈◊〉 Trophy of their Victory is to us the greatest brand of infamy and poverty of Spirit which was the running away out of this life upon any extremity of pressure This even in rectified Reason is the ignoblest way of yielding rather then an act of conquering insomuch as this which seemed to them a demonstration of their position of the mindes impassiveness is an evident confutation of their opinion for this is a total surrender to the power of that passion which hath made this life intolerable Cat himself whom Seneca adoreth as the Deity of Philosophy dissolved all the frame of his Maximes when he was fain to open a violent passage for the flight of his Spirit out of the pressures it either felt or feared Was it not 〈◊〉 fillanimity to choose in favor of his Senses a softer blow from his own hand then he feared from Fortune He should have suppressed the apprehension of tyranny and not have drenched his thirst of liberty in his own blood why did he not quench that and or by casting away his dag 〈…〉 as he did the glass of water in the Desert where he refreshed his whole Army by extinguishing his own Natural appetite This had been the best proof of the apathy of his minde the resolving to suffer even servitude in an Imp 〈…〉 ble temper but by this Self distrusting he did sign with his blood the retractation of his Maxime confessing Seâ—vitude to be insufferable to his minde This precipitation cannot be vindicated from the charge of impatience and discomposure in his minde which is the disproof of all the Stoical assertions Christianity glorieth not in 〈…〉 y innate but in an infused vertue saying He that is in you 〈◊〉 greater then he that is in the world And so the power that holdeth the Spirit of a good Christian is Forein and Divine and consequently 〈◊〉 stronger then any that can shake it although the worlds Earthquakes may make a local mutation of his person 〈◊〉 mains still calmly in any posture wherein God shall set him upon whose providence he knoweth all rowlings and fluctuations to be current and seeth his own security with the Psalmist at his right hand which stayeth him from being moved the same hand that removeth him in all his local changes holdeth him in a tender love to that power which together with the pains of his senses introduceth the spirit of resignation These reflections may be well applyed to dispossess that presuming spirit of the children of this age who pretend to expel all sense of misfortunes by the Exorcism of Moral Philosophy and Natural Reason §. III. Great benefit acknowledged to Moral Philosophy and the right use thereof directed in order to our solacing BY this redargution of the arragancies of meer Rationalists I do not purpose to reject the use of Moral Philosophy in this great work of consolation in distresses but to rank it in a due order ministring and subservient unto Grace For when the peace of God which passeth all understanding is seated as the Principal then Moral Reasons are sitly received as serviceable Accessaries to the Solace and Recreation of the minde If we should first examine and try the Principles of Christian Religion by the best extent of Humane Reason we shall never accept the Mysteries of the Trinity from the single hand of Rational perswasion But when we have pitched our belief of this Verity upon the Word of God when our Faith hath carried our assent as high as Heaven upon her wing from thence we may then descend to the Orb of Reason where Discourse affordeth us many Similitudes and Congruities to open and illustrate to our apprehension this Mystery in such sort as to bring it as it were within sight of Humane Reason in some obscure and imperfect notion So when we have first erected our expectance of confort and support upon the Divine station of Grace then we may step downwards upon the paces and gradations of Reason and finde there solidity of Recreation for our mindes whereupon to rest walk and exercise themselves For then we use Moral Discourse but as an Organ whereby God conveyeth to us the clarity and elucidation of the nobleness of the soul indued by his grace with this capacity of remaining impassive in all exterior violence In order to the illustrating this Position the
allure us May not that be justly then contemned which either afflicteth us for the present or betrayeth us for the future O how admirable is God in this piece of distributive Justice to Mankinde who having by his Providence comparted the conditions in this world into such a diversity of states as cannot admit all to the fruition of secular Delights hath commanded that none should love them by which order the lowest ranks are much compensated in this respect That it is a harder task to forbear loving such things when we enjoy them then it is to contemn them when we know we can neither expect them nor ought to love them If they who use this world must be as though they used it not those who use least of it may be said to be seated the nearest to this performance and certain it is That their state is the most conterminate to that of the true Propriator of the whole world while he was upon the earth who did himself use those things most which we use to love the least and yet alloweth us to enjoy even the most pleasing proporties of the earth provided we do not love the world in that relation All secular goods were so unworthy of the love of the God and Man Christ Jesus as they are not allowed the love even of single Mary for all the most precious and glorious things of this world are ordained to serve Man as his slave unto whose offices there can be assigned no love for this wages doth presently invert the two conditions rendring the lover the slave How reasonable then must it be to address unto him all our love who hath by his love to us subjected all these things unto us and hath so disposed it as to maintain our Prerogative there is required no Art but the contemning of what stands thus subjected Whereupon I may well press you in this point as the Apostle doth Let this minde be in you which was also in Christ Jesus his comportment towards the world was intended to give you the same minde Look then upon your Nature in the author and finisher of our Faith and you shall see Mans dominion over the World maintained by contemning it the world was so perfectly crucified to him all his life as he contemned the being crucified by the world despising as the Apostle saith even the greatest shame and confusion of this world And what could this Divine Man do more to imprint in us this aversion to the world then these two acts in not vouchsafeing to enjoy any of those things the cupidities whereof use to vitiate us to leave all them abased and vilified and in not declining the sufferance of such things whereof the terror doth likely subject us to the world to render them easie and acceptable What hath the world then left in it for Motives either of our love or fear of it that even God himself may not be said both to have undervalued and undergone And what we are enjoyned neither to love nor fear cannot seem uneasie for us to despise especially when this advantage is annexed That we gain more by contemning the whole world then we can by enjoying our own divident therein For whereas Fortune keeps many worldlings poor the Contempt of the world keeps Fortune her self wanting and indigent leaving her nothing to give to such a disposition So that in stead of incurring the reproach of the Prophet in setting up a Table to Fortune and offering libaments upon it this habit of minde sacrificeth and destroyeth Fortune upon the Altar of the Holy Spirit and thus even the feathers of Fortune to wit The vanities and levities of this Age when they are incensed and consumed by a holy Contempt of this world may make a sweet Savor in the Temple of God whereupon I may say That these sorts of feathers which while they are burning in the flame of our sensitive passions yield an odour of death unto death when they are consuming in this Sacrifical fire of a zealous Contempt and Renunciation of them afford a savor of life unto life in this act of their destruction in our mindes In the time of the Law when the Commodities of the Earth seemed to be proposed as the Salary of Mans vertue there might be some colour to love this world and so in that state God accepted the Beasts of the Earth for Holocausts But in the Gospel when no less then the enjoying of God himself and all his goods is exhibited for the term of our desires it cannot seem unequal that even the whole World should be required for a Holocaust immolated and consumed by a Religious Annihilation of it in our Mindes to the honor of such a Remunerator §. II. Motives by the property of a Christian to contemn the World VVHen we consider our selves under the notion of Members to such a Head as hath offered up as a Holocaust even the Creator of the whole Universe it seemeth not strange but rather suitable for such Members to Sacrifice the whole World to hold some proportion unto their Head especially since his offering of himself was in order to the enabling us to Sacrifice and destroy this world Doth not this our Head God and Man Christ Jesus say That even in his life the judgement of this world was given it was sentenced to Contempt by his despising it he that did not disdain to own the Infirmities of Man did notwithstanding protest against his being of this world so much hath he left it vilified to us And doth not he say If he were exalted above the earth be would draw all men unto him So that in this exaltation is proclaimed our Duty and capacity of transcending this world and treading on it with Contempt by the attractive Vertue of this our Head raised above all the Heavens And we may remember That the first Members he was pleased to unite unto him upon Earth were instantly elevated to that height of being above the world seated in this abnegation and despection May I not then fitly say with Saint Paul These things were done in a figure of us since what they left to lighten them for this transcendency is an apposite figure of what we are to do in order to this elevation namely To relinquish our Nets in this world which we may understand in two sences that comprise all our directions in this case to wit either as we are actively catching and chasing the Commodities of this Age or as we are passively taken and intangled in the love of what we enjoy In the first of these states we may be said to have our Nets in our hand and in the second to have them in our hearts so that to leave our Nets signifieth to relinquish both our solicitous Cupidities and Passions in point of pursuing the goods of this World and our Inordinate love in case of their possession And this disposition of Minde raiseth us to that exaltation
this the Sword which he saith he came to send and not Peace Wherefore this hostility declared against our Flesh must be remembred to be the first Article of that peace of the Spirit which is concluded in Contemplation §. III. The requisiteness of Lecture in order to this Spiritual elevation THe next Stage whereby we are to rise is pious Lecture which subject calls back my thoughts upon the first state of mans knowledge wherein we may consider That the first Humane Soul came into this world perfect in the intellectual part by Science infused and needed not stay for the help of her corporeal organs to acquire any for those instruments whereby she was to act were ready in their perfection before she was seated in them since Gods forming perfectly the body of man preceded his breathing into it the breath of Life And so we finde that he was able to reade presently in the book of Gods works wherein he read the character of Gods hand in every creature that was set before him and as I may say superscribed their names upon them by the secret impression he read of their Nature But not being satisfied with this excellent degree of intelligence he began to affect the reading even in Gods own increated book The knowing like God himself Upon this presumption the rational soul of Man was cast down from this high form and set so much backward as ever since both the Vegetative and Sensitive souls precede her long in the perfection of their acts and she is obliged to stay their leisure before she can act her best according to her faculty which must cost her also pains and care to reduce it unto the best extent thereof Thus is now the rational Soul sentenced to feed her self by her kinde of sweat and labor so that she is not onely to acquire most of her natural knowledges by a laborious industry but she is also set to work by study and attention even upon those supernatural Principles that are infused into her as those of Faith Hope and Charity even these infused habits will not so much as remain in her without her own study and solicitude to preserve them much less can they be improved to their best degree without much intendment and application And to facilitate the perfection of the Soul in this life God hath been pleased to make his own Character and to leave it legible under his own Hand his holy Scriptures wherein all his attributes are penn'd in the fairest maner to affect our understandings and to take our affections insomuch as of the holy Writ it may be well said to God The light of thy countenance is impressed upon it This living spring of Verities the Holy Ghost hath left upon the earth from whence all the rivelets of pious Books derive their waters which are so proper to refresh and see undate the minde of Man as the Holy Ghost doth but rarely use his own power of impregnating and replenishing Souls with immediate inspirations but vouchsafeth for the most part to be conveyed into our mindes by the mediate spirations into them of vertuous notions from his subalternate instruments the pens of his holy Ministers which he doth certainly inspire with qualities â—o well proportioned to our capacities as they deliver Divine Truths unto our mindes under such familiar and agreeable forms as are most apt to work upon our affections This is the design of the Holy Ghost in all pious Books wherein his Spirit remaineth covered in the elements of mans conceptions for words may be said to be a kinde of body to thoughts as the Divinity of Christ did under the vails of Flesh and Blood In like maner it is the Divine vertue of the Holy Spirit that worketh all those devout effects which are produced by the instrumental conceptions of pious Writers Wherefore as the Scriptures are to be read with perswasion that God is presentially speaking to us so all Books of Devotion are to be used with this opinion of their speaking to us as delegated and deputed from God The minde of Man abhorreth vacuity and though her Nature tend upward to be replenished with Spiritual notions yet if she be void of them she sinketh presently to earth to take in any grosser furniture so that if she be not provided with such pure species as may keep her pointing at her own Centre in stead of being elevated as it were above her self in Contemplation she will fall below her self into some terrene amuzement Wherefore a habit of pious Lecture is most necessary in order to the replenishing her with Spiritual Images that may keep her eye always erected up upon them and may we not well infer the requisiteness of reading for the support of the Spiritual Man since Saint Paul doth not onely advise his so elevated Disciple Timothy to attend unto reading but chargeth him with great solicitude to bring him some Books even after he had told him he had consummated his course and the time of his revolution was near If he who had been in Paradice already in a transcient state and was so near his going thither to a permanent did still make use of Books how necessary must they be for all such as aspire to any Spiritual exaltation §. IV. Speculation placed as the last step in this ascent of the Soul THis last station carrieth us up to the top of this Mount Moria from whence we have descended and so is the steepest part and the uneasiest mounting of all the rest as it is nearest the vertical point of our fixure This last step then is Speculation or Meditating which act of our discursive faculty is commonly taken as univocal with this other of our minde fixed in Contemplation but when they are rightly distinguished there appeareth such a diversity as is between the last strains of motion and the term of acquiescence For Speculation is properly the busie attention of the minde in the inquest of truth ranging and casting out all ways to bring in conclusions for the Spirit to fix and rest upon in Contemplation which as I have said is a fruitive possession of Verities which flowers the minde doth no longer gather or collect but rather hold in her hand ready made up in nosegays that she is smelling to Me thinks these two different states of the Minde may be rendred very intelligible by a conception my Fancy hath sprung while it is ranging for some fit expression of this very act which my Minde is now exercising and I may say That Speculation and Contemplation differ â—ust so as my present writing of their differences doth from my reading them anon when I have finished them For now my imagination is beating and casting all ways for some well suited similitude whereby to illustrate the diversity of these two acts and my memory is sifting and sorting apposite words to express my conceptions and thus by degrees I shall by means of this studious Application of
those powers of my Minde form some digested Character of what I design which finished Draught of my own thoughts when I shall reade over I shall no longer work upon it but behold the Image I have framed out of the past divisions and compoundings of my thoughts and then my Minde will rest and enjoy my determined notions So that as I do now speculate and shall upon the finishing of these two Characters contemplate them without any farther agitation of my Minde In like maner the state of Speculation is a disquisition of sundry Divine Verities whereby to form some determined notions which are the objects that Contemplation is to be fixed upon in an acquiescent state when the discursive motion is arrived at the term of rest it pointed at and then contemplating the result of our former discoursings we do as it were reade over and enjoy this digest of our Imaginations wherefore as the act of our Comprehending doth excel that of our Reasoning in respect the intellect sees at one look or intuition what the Reason collecteth but by divers circuits of Discourse and so seemeth but a purveyor of what the intelligence possesseth in one instant In like maner the Contemplative state by the same reason transcends the Speculative and 〈◊〉 thinks in such a proportion as the intellect of Angels excelleth that of rational Souls for the first comprehendeth in one act without the tardity of discourse all intelligible species connatural to it and the last is fain to stay upon the abstracting of intelligible species from materialities and the conferring and co 〈…〉 of them with one another by ratiocination before it can settle conclusions wherefore Speculation seemeth to be a Humane act and Contemplation as it were an Angelical These lines have I hope drawn a fair parâ—ition between these two acts of a devout Soul whereby they appear not to be coincident as they are commonly misunderstood although they are co ordinate to one another not that I do presume that God hath obliged himself to this order of transfusing this grace of Contemplation always through the medium of studious Speculation For I am not ignorant of his immediate communicating this hand of intuitive fruition of his Verities to some choyce Souls unqualified for this preparatory course of Reading and Meditation God is admirable in his Saints in manifesting his Grace and Omnipotence by divers maners but as Saint Paul saith Though none 〈…〉 eth the minde of the Lord yet we have the minde of Christ wherefore I have given this direction as I said when I first entred upon it to conduct Travellers in this path which is Christs high way marked for us of Asking Seeking and Knocking and this is the beaten track of his Church which doth not circumscribe God within this method Sometimes the Spirit of the Lord catcheth up some humble illiterate Souls and setteth them immediately upon the top of this Mountain as he did Philip the Deacon at Azâ—â—us but for the most part he conveyeth those he calleth to this land of Visions as he did Abraham by these three days journeys I have gested to you before they come to this high station For God doth commonly carry these Spiritual discoverers which he calleth to take a little sey of the fruits of the Land of Promise all over this course of Spiritual exercises before they come to gather this fruit of Contemplation which seemeth to be a bunch of Grapes of that immense Vintage of Wine whereof the Psalmist speaking saith They shall be inebriated by the fulness of thy house For an inchoative state of Contemplation in this life is as it were a cluster of Grapes of the same Vine to wit the Grace of Christ which afterward is reduced into what was the last intent of the planter that is into the Wine of the Saints perfected Contemplation of the Divine Essence So that having given you clear and practicable instructions in order to the taking a right way towards this state of acquiescence the singular excellencies whereof I have with my best skill pourtraicted unto your judgements and affections I shall adde onely this laudative of the Holy Spirit as very appliable to this happy state of Contemplation Many daughters have gathered together riches but thou hast passed them all Upon these premised Considerations I may conclude the same order observable in the offering up this Spiritual Incense which was held in the preparing and burning the material Incense of the Tabernacle which act was a figure of this our Religious Duty we must then first by Mortification keep clean and fair the grate of the Altar by Lecture and studiousness we are to gather and mix the Gums and Spices of pious Conceptions by Speculation and meditating we must bear and pounce the Odours into a fine powder to wit collect pure and refined images of Verities and then by Contemplation we come to fire and exhale the perfume of the whole Composition By this method we erect our hearts according to those gradations designed by the Psalmist and the Law-giver shall give a blessing when they go thus from vertue to vertue the God of gods shall be seen in Sion §. V. Of the sensible delight springing from this Head of Contemplation as also the close of the whole Work HAving treated the blessedness of the intellectual part of this Contemplative state which may be said to stand for the Soul thereof there remaineth the adjoyning that portion which answereth to the Body in this compound of happiness which is the sensible joy wherewith the affections are replenished which delectable good affecting the sensitive powers is a redundancy or waste falling from the vertue of that Truth which overfloweth in the supremest portion of our Minde in some such maner as the beatitude of the Body is derived from the superfluent riches of the Soul in the state of glory and as the Soul shall then over-pay all the ministerial offices of her Body in this life by the mediatâ—on whereof her powers are now exercised imparting to the Body far more noble capacities So doth the intellect in this life when the minde is in the state of Contemplation superabundantly recompence the ministery of the Senses for the conveyance of those species whereupon the understanding acreth in Lecture and Speculation by far exceeding joys and â—uavities diffused upon the affections such indeed as are not to be conceived unless it be by those that have tasted them whereof the Psalmist saith Blessed is the people that knoweth jubilation upon which words St. Gregory noteth that the Holy Spirit saith Not speaks but knoweth this jubilation because it may be conceived but not fully expressed by the enjoyer of it The Soveraign Contemplator King David by the assistance of the Holy Spirit giveth us the fairest light we have of it when he saith My heart and my flesh have rejoyced in the living God the first whereof imports the satisfaction of the intellectual and the last
letting a sad apprehension setle upon our mindes but all this agitation of discourse as long as it is but in circumference about this world and in the element of secondary Causes is still but a circular motion which maketh no progression to our end for till our mindes are risen and fixed upon the supreme Cause all the various projects and motions of our Fancy are but cooling a Feaver with â—anning upon the distemper'd patient where the ayr may afford some exterior refreshment which may be an inflaming of the disease but if our Will be 〈…〉 eled at first with the Dove of the Psalmist she flyeth up immediately to her rest The sooner then we spread our thoughts upon the wings of Faith the more haste we make to be lodged in rest and tranquility of Spirit Liberty and Society are two so dear Proprieties of Humane Nature as natural Reason can give no equivalent exchange in satisfaction for them The Author of Nature can onely recompence this privation of two of the best Functions of our being and this by a communication of no less then his own Nature which is by filling up these breaches with his own Spirit otherwise our Spirits will certainly remain empty and destitute of peace and consolation For God who made Mans Society out of Man himself hath left the love of Company so inviscerated in him as that deprivement seemeth now to take more then a rib out of him even the better half of his Minde seems intrenched from him insomuch as his Reason seemeth to be left but one-handed to minister to him in this Exigence which would require a reduplication rather for his support But Nature is so unable to make this supply as for the redintegrating of his minde he must resort to a Supernatural suppeditation §. II. The deficiency of single Natural Reason argued for Consolation in this case and the validity of Grace asserted WHen I consider the strange undertakings of the Philosophers me thinks they have charactered to us the power of Natural Reason in a fabulous figure or Romance setting it out as vanquishing all corporeal sensibleness armed with never so many strong afflictions dissolving and disinchanting all the Charms and Spells of Passions although their characters be set never so powerfully against the efficacy of Reason which they exhibite in this predominancy dispersing all Errors rectifying all oblique Opinions thus have they fancied the superior part of the minde inthroned in such power as may easily blow away all ayr even of any Sedition that riseth in the inferior Regions of the imaginative or sensitive faculties Reason remaining in the posture of the Queen of the Revelation proclaiming I sit Queen and am no Widow and shall see us sorrow But they who account upon this Self-sufficiency shall quickly finde how impracticable these strong speculations will prove when they are bound and the Philistines are upon them that is inclosed in Solitude and assailed by Natural distresses and vexations if they shall then expect such a Hercules of their Reason as they have seen painted by the Stoicks that should break through all these Monsters and remain fortified by all these labors they will soon perceive their projected securities had more of Poetry then of Prophesie And sure I believe one that trusteth to the power of Natural Reason upon the word of Philosophy to deliver him from all faintness or deficiency of Spirit in this state of Violent Solitude doth as if one should perswade himself inspired with the vertue of some fabulous Heroe with whose character he had been strongly affected by reading his Romance for when he comes to combat his vitiated Nature in this Spiritual atchievement he will finde such a vanity in his speculation The Fable of Ixion is a good figure of this kinde of presumption for projecting to enjoy Juno that is some celestial Prerogative they do but embrace a cloud and by this mixture they beget nothing but Chymera's Certain it is that Christianity doth afford such Spiritual Samsons as carry the gates of their Prisons away upon their shoulders up to the Mountains and break all their chains as flax raising their mindes with the Psalmist up to the mountains contemplating Gods Providence and his design upon them in so high a degree of resignation as even their Prison and their Solitude are rather Marks to them of their liberties then Manacles of their Spirits but the strength of such Samsons is derived from the vow not from the veins or sinews of Nature Is it by their offering up and consecrating their Reason to that Spirit whose breath overthrows all the strong holds and destroyeth all the councels of Self-sufficiency and replenisheth the evacuation which is made of our own Reason to make room for that infusion therefore such victorious Spirits profess That the weapons of their warfare are not carnal but such as are mighty to the destroying of all the counsels of humanity and bring into captivity all understanding unto the obedience of Christ for as he himself assureth us If the Son of man make you free you shall be free indeed So that all such infranchised mindes are convinced of the incapacity of their single Nature to preserve this immunity and acknowledge this condition to that Spirit which ima 〈…〉 this freedom by the degrees of restriction â—o putteth upon them of his own bands for where the Spirit of our Lord is there is liberty This Spirit made St. Peter sâ—eep soundly in his chains between his two guards that is hold him reposing in a perfect stilneâ—s of minde in all his ex 〈…〉 disquiets and preserved him in as much freedom of Spirit before his irons were struck off as after the iron gates of 〈◊〉 City flew open before him even while he lay in his Dungeon he was surely in the same freedom of minde bound in his chains as sitting on his chairs of Rome and A 〈…〉 and the Centurion that fell down before him at Cesâ—â—ea constrained his Spirit more then the Soldiers between whom he was laid down at Jerusalem The Soul of man then is capable of a state of much peace and equanimity in all exterior bands and ag 〈…〉 ions but this capacity is rather an effect of the expropriation of our Reason then a vertue resulting from her single capacity for it is the evacuation of all self sufficiency that a 〈…〉 h a replenishment from that Divine plenitude from whose fulness we receive grace for grace so that it is a super ve 〈…〉 gift not a native graft in our Reason And this tranq 〈…〉 of Spirit he that led captivity captive hath given as a gift unto men whereby we become partakers of his Divine Nature in this calm and serenity of minde which he pa 〈…〉 out to us in all his several postures Wherefore in our copying of this equality and imperturbation we must protest with the Apostle We have not received the Spirit of the World but the Spirit