which like a greater fire put the other out But he poor Soul though alwayes denying his own desires breaking of his will in pieces lying upon a rack and fast nailed to the Cross where the body of sin was bleeding to death yet found his Spirit in horrid torments and deprived of those divine delights which cheared the bright souls of the blessed Martyrs and made them shine with a greater luster then did their fires But since I cannot express the soreness of this Agony in which he a long time lay I shall only add that it was so great that one day being quite tired and spent he fell into a kind of trance and remained as immoveable for some space as if he had been dead And a blessed occasion this was though all his acquaintance that were come to comfort him imagined he would then have expired For he thought he saw a man coming to him with a very smiling aspect as though he knew him who bad him get up and go as fast as he could to a certain Oratory that was not far off and in his way where he should meet with some relief When he was come to himself he thought this Vision or what else you please to call it was in stead of an Oracle and had discovered to him one of the greatest causes that he continued so long ill of these grievous distempers And that was That while he afflicted and tormented himself with the remembrance of what was passed he neglected to implore the help of God with such constant prayers as was nieet for the redress of his present evils and prevention of the like in time to come This began to make a vehement commotion in his mind for he saw there was nothing truer then that We are apt to pray least when we have greatest need of it and are wont to spend that time in looking upon our sores which should be imployed in looking up to Heaven for its Balm to drop into them And truly so lively were the colours wherein this was set before his eyes that he was ready to burst into tears and pour out his Soul there before he stir'd from the bed whereon he lay But remembring presently the voyce to which he thought himself so much beholden had bid him make what speed he could to a particular place where he might address his prayers to his Saviour he arose and dressed himself without any further delay And though he knew that our Lord hears the suits of his humble Clients every where yet he would not be disobedient to the directions he had received but made haste to go and see what good might wait for him in that Oratory or Chappel which had been built in the rode by some charitable person for the use of devout passengers to Jerusalem And no sooner had he entred within the doors but he fell upon his knees and there sent out his Soul in such strong and passionate desires as left all words behind which were not able to accompany them If the throng of his thoughts which upon this occasion were assembled had not been so great you might have received a better account of them But truly such was the violence wherewith they pressed forth and so great were their numbers that he found it very difficult either then to range them in any order or afterward to recall them distinctly to his mind Yet some of them carried this sense as I have been certainly informed by him from whom he hides none of the secrets of his Soul O thou Almighty Goodness the Father of the Fatherless the Patron of the Poor the Protector of Strangers cast thy gracious eyes upon a miserable Pilgrim who all torn and ragged implores thy mercy When I look on my self I dare scarce be so bold as to lift up mine eyes unto thee When I think in what condition I am and what I have done it so confounds me that I can hardly think of any thing else It is the greatness of my misery alone that constrains me to this presumption of prostrating my self at thy feet The weight of which oppresses me so much that it hath left me little more power then to expose my self before thee as an object of thy wondrous Charity O what a Wilderness am I faln into where I can find no water What Desarts are these in which all comfort forsakes my Soul Into what strange regions am I wandred where there is nothing but darkness and the vallies of the shaddow of death O the terrors that surround me how dreadful are they O the affliction and torment which I indure what tongue can express it my Soul is parcht and dryed up My spirits are consumed by the heat of thy displeasure May I not now beg one drop of comfort from thee O my God my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and barren land I remember thy loving kindness in former times I call to mind the dayes of old And I cannot but wish at least to see thy power and thy glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary There is none in Heaven that I desire but thee nor on earth besides thee My Soul followeth hard after thee O when wilt thou come unto me O hide not thy face from thy servant for I am in trouble hear me speedily I am poor and needy make haste unto me O God thou art my helper and deliverer O Lord make no tarrying I am come a great way from all my friends and kindred and there is none to pitty me O my God be not thou far from me draw nigh unto my soul and redeem it I am poor and sorrowful let thy Salvation set me up on high For thou who searchest the hearts knowest that I am travelling nowhither but to thee All the world have I left that I may find my happiness only in thee And at thy heavenly motion it was that I undertook this long journey I am become a Pilgrim meerly in obedience to thy Will Yea thus far I acknowledge thou hast most graciously conducted me Hitherto I have been highly favoured and wonderfully helped by thee And wilt thou now at last abandon me who have ahandon'd all things else for the sake of thee Hast thou called me from mine own Country and Fathers house that I may perish by famine here and only for want of thee O my Lord give me leave to plead for a Soul which once I thought was dear unto thee Pitty O pitty an Heart which thou hast made too great for all the World and cannot be satisfied with less than thee Canst thou see it dye for lack of one smile from thee yea canst thou let it dye of love to thee for that hath brought me thus far to seek thee And wilt thou suffer it to dye at thy feet Canst thou endure to behold it perish in thy arms into which it now throws it self with all the force it hath Shall it miscarry full of
they are to my care and that are esteemed by those that know them to be of a more excellent temper than those who have been managed by many of my litigious neighbours This hath gained me too many evil eyes and I am thought to use some Arts of Fascination whereby to allure the best dispositions into my acquaintance and society Then they will have it that I mingle subtil potions for them and that they imbibe such crafty Doctrines from me as teach them all waies of rendring themselves more fair and plausible than any others in their whole behaviour in order to the bewitching of more men to become their Disciples This is the best language they will allow to the good manners wherein I study to educate them for their envy and vexation will not suffer them to give their holy life the name of Piety though all acknowledge it carries the shew of better fruit than is brought forth by the lazy and idle pretenders to Faith and Devotion But God knows how far I am from teaching any thing but the naked and undisguised practice of real Godliness And you shall know also how little I am guilty of evil design or sinister method of winning to my self Disciples For I will lay before you the plain simple and unartificial Rules that I give unto them which will appear to be as far remote from all subtilty and craft as the Plough the Spade and the Harrow are from incantation spells and society with infernal spirits All that I beg of you to the making of you profit under my hand and to reap an abundant fruit by my labour to instruct you is that you will contribute some of your own pains to be joyned with mine and that you will use your best diligence both to receive and understand those seeds of knowledge that I shall sow in your mind and to keep them safe that they may not be lost when they are entertained A little more patience also I must not forget to require of you then Cresinius demanded for I cannot so soon produce as he did all the instruments I must use for your good and then I nothing doubt but if you pursue your design according to those directions and marks that I shall give you they will not fail at last to bring you to the Blessed place on which you have set your heart CAP. VIII He begins his advice and after the Grand Direction which contains many of the rest he gives him sundry preparatory Counsels And above all tells him that he must be provided with a strong Resolution YOu shall find me obedient replyed the Pilgrim in all things unto your Precepts for truly my heart as you are pleased to remember is very much upon Jerusalem And since it touched me with no small joy to hear you say That there was something belonging to this affection I have for Jerusalem which would comprehend a great part of the Directions you had to give me about the way thither if it will not look like the arrogance of directing you how to place your Instructions let me be so bold as to desire before you say any thing else that I may know what the general advice is which you have to bestow upon me It is well done replyed the Guide that you have put me in mind of that passage in my former discourse And I am obliged I think to praise you for it both because it argues that you diligently attend to what I speak and because it cannot be better placed than where you would have it in the very entrance of those Directions that you are to carry along with you And to make my Counsel the more portable and to be comprised in as small a room as can be that which I mean is nothing else but this As you pass along in the way that I shall tell you of it will be of great use to you to have these few words alwayes in your mind and sometimes upon your tongue I AM NOUGHT I have nought I desire nought but only to be in safety with Jesus at Jerusalem This one sentence you shall see hath so much in bowels its that if you draw forth the vertue of it and diligently observe it my life for yours you shall not fail in a competent time to arrive at the top of your desires Indeed said the Pilgrim methinks I feel that I have received very great instruction already from you and I did not think to have learned so much in so short a space and by so small a company of words Sure you have given me some Spirits and the very extract of things else I could not have so suddenly felt the power of these words diffusing it self through my whole soul I am strangely refreshed by them and they have given me such a tast of your skill that I perceive you can instantly reach my heart when you please but to open your mouth and if I were half dead I perswade my self you could revive me in a moment But yet I believe that I should be the more inlightned by them and better know their use if I might be beholden to you for an account of the secrets of which they are compounded and understand all the things that are contained in them Do me the favour therefore I beseech you to open the sense and disclose all the force of those words that I may know what meaning you have involved in so brief a sentence You shall not long be ignorant of that said the Guide if you will but have the patience to attend a while to what follows as a good preparatory to that discourse and to all the rest that concerns your safe passage to Jerusalem I must advise you before you enter upon so long a journy or make any further inquiries to see that your body be in good health lest you should fall into any such sickness by the way as might prove dangerous and fatal to you And for that end I would also wish you to take some Physick the better to prepare your self for Travel and to disburden Nature of those ill humours wherewith you may abound which will at least indispose you and make you lazy and soon weary if they be not timely discharged and carried away Now the best counsels that I can give you of this kind are these that ensue First I would have you purge your mind of all unworthy thoughts of God and perswade your self that he is very good a lover of souls and exceeding desirous to see them at Jerusalem Be sure you leave not so much as a suspition of his willingness to make you happy and to afford you sufficient means to attain your end For you will not be able to stir a foot in your way if you bear any jealousies about you that God may not favour your undertaking nor go along with you You have been bred its like in a great detestation of Superstition and may have heard so many declamations out of
at the first as in a still quiet and loving admiration of the excellent Goodness Purity and Love of Jesus When you believe him to have the fulness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily and especially when you are indued with a savoury feeling of his holiness and kindness this sight of him will beget in your soul a more pure spiritual and sweet Humility than the beholding of your self can possibly do which produces an Humility more gross boisterous and unquiet As there is a Love which is calm and quiet when not at all stirr'd with the passion we remain possessed of all the pleasure of it So is there an Humility of the same nature which silently sinks us down to the very bottom of our being without stirring and troubling of our souls as we are wont to do when we violently plunge our thoughts into them But both of these descend from above when our minds are fastned to caelestial objects which alwayes are in a serene tranquillity they will not spring from things beneath which are tossed in a perpetual and restless agitation We never seem less in our own eyes than when we look down from an high upon our selves and being then in peace we have less also of that vexation wherein our souls are apt to boil and rage when they are the nearest objects of our thoughts Our Humility will be the more when we admire Jesus and it will be of a temper more mild and gentle like him whom we admire It will not lose any thing of it self by taking its original from him but only lose that sowreness which is mingled with it when it hath its beginning from our selves You will plainly understand my meaning if you do but consider that by fixing your eyes upon your self you may indeed discern that you are a most wretched sinful creature but by fastning them upon him you will both see the same and that more clearly and moreover feel that you are a meer nothing This sense of your self which layes you lowest of all other you can never owe to any thing else but a sight of him who wants nothing His Fulness appearing so great your Emptiness will seem as vast and in compare with his Perfections you will think your self nothing but Imperfection When you consider that all is his at that thought you have lost your self by finding that you are not your own and when you think that he is the original of all you are lost again in a sense that you had been nothing without him So that in this way you will be as much cast down to the ground and rolled as much in the dust as by any other reflections All the difference is that you will not roll and tumble about in the turbulency of your own distracted thoughts and the violent commotion of your furious passions You will only lye at his feet in a lowly posture adoring of his Excellencies praising his surpassing Perfections confessing your own meanness beseeching him to pity a poor Soul that thinks it self nothing unless it may see him there and desiring him to take the opportunity of doing himself that honour and you that kindness as out of his fulness to impart a new spirit and a divine nature to you Nay this Humility will make you study to cast all other things out of your thoughts and labour only to be beloved of him without which you judge your self to be of all creatures most miserable It is not to be told what the benefits of this sort of Humility are but to let you see something of its great virtue reflect upon that which we lately discoursed concerning the force of a strong Resolution and hearty surrender of your self to God Which as it contains all things you are to do with in its comprehension so it is supported by nothing more than a profound Humility When we consider that we were made by God that we depend upon him every moment that we are infinitely ingaged to him for many millions of his favours when we think what a Soveraign Authority he hath over us how much he is superiour to us what a right he hath to all our services and how wise and good his will is it is impossible that we should avoid resolving to give him our hearts and to persist eternally in the abnegation of our own wills and desires which we can never suffer to be competitors with his This Humility will not be forward to cloathe you with shirts of hair to prescribe you no other dyet but the meanest you can procure to put a whip into your hand wherewith to let your self blood to rob you of your hose and shooes that you may go barefoot to Jerusalem It will not bid you strike your bare breast against the stones nor tell you that to be a Saint you must roll your naked body in the briers or tumble in the same manner in heaps of Winter Snow or plunge your self up to the neck in an Icy Pool But it will infallibly strip you of your self and starve all your carnal desires and break your will in pieces and lay you at the foot of the Cross of Christ and dispose you to all those rigours and a thousand more if your Lord did signifie that he would be pleased with such austerities How safe then and secure must you needs think your self under the conduct of such a Companion you cannot have a better Guard nor be put into a place of greater assurance if you seek over all the world for it than that to which Humility will lead you For making you distrustful of your own power and strength it will urge you to a continual dependance upon your Lord without whom you feel that nothing much less such an excellent thing as you design can be atchieved We accuse very much the weakness of our nature we complain heavily of the body of flesh and blood which continually betrayes us we conceit that we should do rare things were we but once quit of this load of earth and suffered to move in the free and yielding Air. But let me tell you and believe it for a truth though we had no society with a terrestrial nature nay though our minds were free and clear from all mortal concretion though we had no cloathes at all to hinder our motion yet our ruine might arise out of our spirits and by pride and self-confidence we might throw our selves down into utter destruction For what commerce I pray you had the Apostate Angels with our corporeal nature what familiarity with a body Do we not conceive them to have been pure spirits separated from all earthly contagion And yet by placing all in themselves by being puffed up in their own thoughts and not acknowledging their need of the Divine presence and assistance we conclude that they tumbled themselves into an Abysse of misery and woe irrecoverable Now they are in a worse condition then if they were spirits of a smaller size Now the torment
they suffer is proportionable to the nobleness of their nature For the sharper and quicker the mind is and the greater its indowments are which it hath received the greater mischief doth it bring upon it self and the sadder are its perplexities when it is destitute of the special help and presence of God As a great Giant being blinded must needs stumble more grievously and give himself sorer knocks then he would have done if he had not been of so huge a bulk So a mind and reason elevated to an higher pitch then others is carried headlong into an heavier ruine when it is deprived of that Divine light which is necessary for its guidance and preservation Excellency of nature therefore little profits if God be not present with it and he absents himself from all that place not their strength sufficiency and safeguard in him but in themselves And on the other side Fragility of nature is not that which will undo us if the Divine presence do not withdraw it self which it never doth from humble and lowly minds that confide in him and not in their own power which were it a thousand times greater then it is would not be sufficient to conserve it self Our pride and vanity and forgetfulness of God then is that which we must accuse not the infirmity and craziness of our flesh for as the excellency of the Angelical nature could not save them when they disjoyned themselves from their Creator So the weakness of ours shall not harm us if we keep close to him and never sever our selves from that heavenly power which worketh mightily in us Do you not see then how much you must stand indebted to this Associate in your journy For it is Humility that must fasten you to God that will keep you in a constant adherence to him and not let you stir a foot from him that will make you tremble to think of looking into your self and not behold him there This is in effect your strength and salvation this supplies the defects of your nature this is the remedy of your infirmity and after a strange way this raises you above all the power of the world by keeping you down and pressing you very low in your own thoughts I must not defraud it therefore of those just praises that are due to its vertue which may recommend it more to your affection and make its company more grateful in your travels But it is fit you should know that this humility which makes us seem so little or nothing in our own eyes is one of the most glorious things in the world and places a man among the ancient Hero's It is indeed the height and sublimity of our mind the true Gallantry of our spirits It letting us see what poor despicable things we are causes us to surmount our selves and to have no regard to such low and petty interests as those of our own It is not a sneaking quality that dispirits the soul and deprives it of all its force and vigor but a generous disposition of mind that will not suffer it to imploy its forces upon such a mean and contemptible service as that of pleasing our selves Let it not seem a Paradox to you for there is nothing truer that Pride and conceitedness are the qualities of base bred souls of feeble and ignoble minds and that lowliness is the indowment of a soul well born nobly descended and bravely educated in the knowledge of the most excellent things For whether is greater I pray you he that sets a value upon little trifles or he that despises them Is not he that despises them whose thoughts are taken up with sublimer objects that make himself and all things here besides appear as nothing in his eyes I believe you will say there was not a greater man in the world in those dayes then Moses a leader of a mighty people the Captain General of all the Pilgrims of that Age who had wrought wonders in Aegypt who had signalized himself by the drowning of Pharoahs Army in the Sea V. Chryst in 1 Cor. 1.3 and yet it is apparent there was not a meeker person living upon the earth no man had a meaner opinion of himself He was content to be taught by Jethro though he knew so much himself nay he was not offended at his reprehension but submitted his judgment to a better reason Could there be a greater instance of his Humility and Gallantry both together He that had overcome so many now overcame himself He that had triumphed over mighty hosts now leads his pride in Triumph and tramples it under his feet He cared not who had the honour of it so wise and great things were effected His own glory he valued not but his Humility inspired him by all means to seek the peoples good What think you of Abraham also a more ancient Pilgrim then this who calls himself but Dust and Ashes who condescended so far as to pray Lot a person inferiour to himself that there might be no difference between them And yet this was that great man who had overcome so many Kings in battle and brought away so many spoils and redeemed Lot himself from Captivity Hath not his Humility rendred him more famous then those victories Hath he not crowned himself with greater glory in not vaunting himself in those Trophies then if he had been served continually by those conquered Princes If one man thinks clay to be clay and therefore treads upon it another thinks it to be gold and therefore admires it which of these hath the braver mind Hath not he who doth not admire the clay and embrace the dirt So he truly that calls himself but Dust and Ashes hath certainly a very great soul while he that understandeth not but hath himself in admiration is a weak and basely minded man He hath a great spirit who makes no account of those things which others are proud of He is generous who despises things far greater than those which others esteem the marks of their glory who doth not swell with high atchievements when his envious neighbours are puffed up with every trifle Humility then you see is not sheepiness but loftiness of mind and the most elevated pitch of the soul It is not dejectedness of spirit but a raised understanding of God and of our selves And therefore let us be low as one of the ancient Guides of the Church advises that we may be high If we admire any thing here let it be the sublimity of humble minds I cannot conclude before I add for your further incitement that Humility is of an excellent good nature and hath a singular obligingness in its constitution It makes us no less acceptable unto men then unto God and renders us amiable though we have nothing else to give us any advantage Do you not see how intollerable the Proud are and what is the reason of it but because they scorn those who are not of their rank They cannot be obliged
his disposition towards them but he continued to do them good to beseech and entreat them to weep over them and sigh for their Infidelity And when it grew to such an height that they sought to kill him who had saved the lives of so many yet so great was his Charity that he passed by their offences sought not for revenge which it was easie for him to find and to speak all in one word forgave the most ungrateful enemies that ever were I believe you will easily grant that it is a matter of less difficultie to forgive the injuries we receive from one that never was obliged to us then to pardon him to whom we have expressed the greatest kindness and used with the highest civility especially if his malice arise so high as to seek our life And yet so loving was our Lord and so desirous to set us a noble example that he never expressed greater Charity than when he had the greatest reason to be incensed He freely remitted the wrongs of those who not only hated him without a cause but who had great cause to love him above all the world And though the wrongs were as great as the benefits he had bestowed and they were beyond all measure yet as his benefits did not make them become his friends so their wrongs could not make him become their enemy What greater malignity is there than that which moves men to bereave others of their life and what greater Charity than that which endeavours to preserve it We can conceive of none higher unless it be this to sacrifice our own life for the preserving of other mens especially of theirs that take it away And such was the Love of our Lord who was so great a friend to so great enemies as sought for that which he was ready to offer for them You know very well his words upon the Cross when he made intercession for the transgressors saying Father forgive them Could he more effectually at that time testifie his kindness than by such an indulgence in the midst of their cruelty toward him What do we expect more from a Parent than that he should overlook the faults of his children when they repent and submit themselves to him And yet our Lord uses these men with greater clemency and gives them his pardon whilst they were committing of the fault Nay he not only forgave them himself but desires God to grant them remission too that he might be the only sufferer and they be free from punishment You see then how your way lyes if you will travel to Jerusalem and desire to be with Jesus The roughness of your way and the asperities of mens manners must not spoil the smoothness of your soul nor exasperate your spirit but you must be loving and kind to all even to the greatest offenders Nay if your nature be crabbed and austere you must look so stedfastly upon Jesus and steep your thoughts so long there till he infuse himself into you and change the harshness of your disposition into a sweeter humour The way to Jerusalem I assure you is full of sad spectacles which will afford you no other pleasure but that of having a tender sense of their miseries and doing of them good You must be civil and affable to every one you meet upon the rode You must pitty and succour those who are ready to perish You must counsel and advise the Ignorant and those who are out of the way You must bless those that throw a curse at you as you go along You must pray for those that do you wrong And if any fellow-traveller to whom you have afforded your help should prove a robber and make an assault upon you you must still preserve your love to him and not suffer him to rifle you of your grace to forgive him And indeed when we consider how much more reason there is that we should do good to others then that God should do good to us and when we think also how much more he hath done for us then we can do for others and when we remember withall that they are our equals in the chiefest things and that in some they may be our superiours when as he is so much above us in all it will set our hearts wide open and make them free and generous though they were never so fast locked and barred before and render them soft and tender though they were as hard and stubborn as bolts of Iron We shall not then be backward to forgive injuries to do good to enemies to repay wrongs with courtesies to bear with mens folly and weakness to envy no mans prosperity but to rejoyce in the good of all as if it were our own happiness But poor Pilgrims will find themselves in such need of the charitable help and comfort of others that I think it is not necessary to press you any further to this thing which will be nothing more then to do to all as you would that all should do to you Let me therefore proceed to tell you how Jesus bore the contumelies reproaches and slanders of others with the greatest meekness though he was a person of the greatest quality and of the highest dignity and worth No man ever did things with a better grace or deserved more to be accepted with admiration and praise and yet there never was any person entertained with greater scorn or suffered more obloquies and ignominious usage from the World But did he receive them with that choler and wrath which they who call themselves High Spirits do suffer their souls to be transported with all No such matter but he was dumb as a Lamb before the shearers and did not so much as open his mouth though considering his high birth and the manner of other men he was tempted to roar like a Lyon and speak with a voice of thunder against his insolent despisers I will not recite all the vilifying language nor give you a catalogue of the contemptuous actions which he was affronted with but leave it to your own diligence to observe them and together therwith the mildness of his spirit and the admirable temper and moderation of his mind in the sharpest provocations to anger and displeasure When they called him Devil he confuted the calumny by not suffering the least spark of that hellish fire to kindle When they said he was an impostor and came to deceive the world he was only excited thereby more boldly to speak the Truth And when they charged him with treason he asserted his innocency by no other means then subjection of himself to the vilest death When they scourged him on the back and buffeted his face he did not return them so much as a lash or a blow with his tongue When they committed all the outrages that could be devised upon him they only served to prove how free he was from passion and rage Which methinks should be sufficient to cool the boiling heats of the fiercest spirits
changes upon them or other such like adulterate Ware which would fain pass for wit and elegance Next to the love of Gibberish and of canting phrases there is no greater dotage than this of courting the diseases corruptions and the rotten carkase of eloquence and sleighting the life and spirit of it One would wonder that reasonable souls should delight in toying and playing with letters and syllables There is nothing more strange unless it be this that there are a company of men to be found who are at a great deal of pains to trim themselves with these tinsel ornaments and with much curiosity study to speak absurdly It is not their negligence but they take a care to trifle They do not slip unawares into childish expressions but they fall into them by design But if you would be wise and good you must open your ears to plain words and strong sense to proper and significant language which brings along with it powerful and convincing arguments to that which strikes and penetrates into the soul and doth not meerly glide smoothly over the surface of it You must not come to be tickled but to be taught not to be pleased but to be made better not that a man may speak to your gust but to your necessities You must not think you have spent your time well when the Truth peeps into your soul but stops at the door or when your will is sleightly moved and then stands still but when the light pierces into your mind and makes a broad day there when a secret fire creeps into your veins and continues to burn in your heart when all your affections are carried away and remain in the possession of Truth And for this purpose you must read the Holy Scriptures themselves not to store your mind with high notions or to replenish it with a large furniture and matter of discourse or to find support for some of your opinions but to get a stock of efficacious reasons for well doing and to over-power your heart by the force of them to consent unto it And let this be your Rule also in reading other pious Books For there are too many who regard only the lightest things in any discourse the fringes the lace and other ornaments more than they do the body it self They note the pretty stories the apt similitudes and here and there a small sentence which smites their fancy but mind not the clear reasons the nervous arguments and much less the whole scope and design of the treatise which they read Much like some Writers we have seen who reporting the History of their times take notice of little more than of Justings and Tornaments of Bear-baitings and lanching of Ships and such like frivolous matters which are of no moment Or like those Beggars who travelling many Countries behold a great number of fair buildings but know nothing either of the persons or the furniture or the order and regular form which is to be observed in them I think it is not amiss to add that this likewise is the end you ought to propound to your self in all your conferences with wise and pious souls who may give you great assistance in your journey to Jerusalem Not to breed in your self an opinion that you are Religious because you frequent their company but to receive greater illumination of mind from their Torches and to have your heart warmed with a greater love to God at their holy Fires And here it will be seasonable at the conclusion of this discourse to admonish you of a thing which may do you very much service and save you abundance of trouble which else may arise in your mind There are many things as you see that will further you in well doing viz. Prayer Reading and Hearing the Word of God Meditation Conference with good men and such like some of these you must understand will serve your purpose at one time and some at another according as you are disposed and they shall be found efficacious for the end to which they are designed There is a great variety also in these of which you may make an advantage if you chuse that use and practice of them which you shall find to have most power in it at the present to withdraw your mind from worldly vanities to mortifie your passions and to establish your will in the Love of Jesus As for instance sometimes it will be fit for you to Meditate and sometimes to Pray and sometimes to Converse with your friends and it is not so much to be askt which of these you shall chuse as which of them will best at that instant advance you in your way and move your will with the greatest force to virtuous actions And then in Meditation there is the Life of Christ and his Death his Resurrection and his Glory his Coming again to Judgment and the Life of the World to come the long Experience you have had of his Goodness the Instances which he daily gives of his Providence the Example of all his Saints and an hundred things besides to exercise your thoughts and have a great virtue in them to make you do your duty toward God and Man In like manner there are sundry Books in the reading of which you may imploy your time though I would rather have you chuse the best than a multitude and several waies of praying and addressing your Petitions to God which may every one of them have their places and seasons according as you shall be disposed to serve your soul of them And therefore if you perceive that some of them through custom and long use do in time lose their Savour and their Power to increase the Love of God in you and it seems to you there may be more profit in another way take that new course and leave the former without any scruple For that Meditation which will not now affect you at another time will prove more efficacious than any else and that way of opening your soul to God which now you forsake will come about again to be in use Only of this you must take a great care to stir up your self to a continual attendance upon the Publick Service of God For that is a necessary acknowledgment of his Supreme Authority and Dominion in the World and though you feel your self indisposed dull and heavy at certain times in these addresses yet there is this good alwayes done that by your very presence there you have paid part of your homage to him have owned him to be your Lord and Governour and confessed that he is worthy of all Honour and Service But as for the rest though the inclination and resolution of your heart to love Jesus and to be like to him must be unchangeable nevertheless the wayes and means which are to be imployed to the nourishing and strengthning of your resolution may and ought to be changed according as you feel your self disposed and find them to be effectual But especially
to arise that day In this Controversie they suffered themselves to be so far ingaged that at last they fell together by the ears and ceased not their buffetings till they had beaten out each others eyes And so it came to pass that when a little after the Sun did show his face there was neither of these doughty Champions that could discern one jot a thing so clear as the Prince of lights which every child saw beside themselves It would be too great a disparagement to your understanding if I should spend a moment in teaching you to apply it to our present purpose It is sufficient to add That though zeal for Religion be not only commendable but required of us yet we must take great heed lest we strive so hotly and passionately for every Opinion which we have conceived that we quite lose our faculty of discovering either that or any thing else which is truly good I may well say any thing else for these controversies in Religion I have heard some wise men observe do much hinder the advancement of other Sciences and the increase of good knowledge in the World And therefore a great Restorer of Learning among our selves was wont to say that he was like the Miller near one of our famous Universities who used to pray for peace among the Willows For while the wind blew and the Windmills wrought the Watermill was less customed And just so it is with these disputes while they are high and set mens wits in agitation they draw away their thoughts from other profitable studies and hinder their minds from such noble inquiries as would do a great service to mankind Pray therefore for the peace of those that travel to Jerusalem and do you seek it and pursue it by all means possible Or if any be contentious and obey not the truth mark such persons and avoid them And truly there are so many enemies as you have heard to exercise our zeal that we had not need to create more and to seek for enemies among our selves They are so combined and confederate for our mischief and undoing that it stands us in hand to unite our forces also for our mutual defence and not to give them that advantage which they greedily gape for and will certainly have by our sad divisions So great is their subtilty and so intent they are to make the utmost use of it that if we have any wit it had need be joyned to obviate their designs and not imployed to make wide breaches at which without much difficulty they may easily enter and destroy us For besides all the wayes of deceiving us that have been already related I must not forget to remember you of a condition into which you may fall of which they will not fail to serve themselves as much as they are able It is possible I mean that some way or other a fit of sickness may surprize you in your journey or it may so happen that such a great want may be your portion that no man will offer you any help or regard your cryes when you beg for relief At this season your enemies will gather about you and as if they meant at once to swallow you up they will put strange fancies into your head and abuse your mind with such black and melancholy thoughts as may prove no small affliction to you They will insult over you and tell you that your folly and presumption in undertaking this tedious journey hath reduced you to so great extremities or that some hainous sin for which you have not yet been humbled is the cause of this sad condition or that you are one whom Jesus hates which hath made him to abandon you to these straights to chastise your confidence or that he loves you so little as not to care whether any body mind you or at least that you have so ill deserved of mankind that none of them regards you or hath any sollicitude for your welfare And all these tales they will tell over and over again in your ears to feed your melancholy and disquiet of Spirit to make you murmur and fall into discontent to breed in you an ill opinion of your Jesus or to provoke you to anger and displeasure against your Brethren and if it be possible to work you into such uncharitable thoughts of them that you should never love them any more But now it will concern you very much to stop your ears to all these lamentable stories and to make as if you heard them not at all You must say over your old lesson as oft as they repeat these suggestions and whisper to your self these words I am nought I deserve these miseries it is not strange that I am sick or poor but that I am no worse And then if you please you may defie all these enemies and let them know that you do not so much as desire the removal of these burdens nor care for any thing in the World but only for the Love of Jesus and to be with him in peace at Jerusalem Tell them you cannot believe that he hates a man who is possessed with this Desire but howsoever it be that you are resolved to try him by going on and persevering perpetually in it But then if it should happen that any of these assaults which I have named should prove so strong as not only to shake you but also to make you stumble yea to throw you down and to give you such a fall that thereby some hurt is done you Or suppose that you should chance to step aside and to divert a little out of the direct path which leads to Jerusalem you must know that they will make a foul stir about it and accuse you heavily for having done that which they laboured with all their power to make you do I cannot tell you how you will look upon your self in such a case if you should slide into it but if you will follow my advice I would not have you to esteem it so great and horrid a matter as they will make it nor suffer your self to be affrighted and astonished at it All that any wise man would bid you do in such a condition is no more but this That as soon as you observe your fall and are come to your self again you get up presently return into the old path and use such remedies and medecines as every good body prescribes in such cases Consider seriously by what means you were drawn aside humble your self at the feet of God be afflicted mourn and weep so far that the smart you suffer may keep you hereafter from the sin strengthen your resolution fortifie your self in those weak places where you are lyable to surprise be more watchful for the future and more instant in prayer for the aides of Divine grace But when this is done be sure you do not lye along upon the ground crying and bewailing your misfortune nor stand amazed in your errour complaining that you
have been so miserably mislead For I am certain this will do you more harm then good and give your enemies such advantage against you that they will double their laughter at your folly first for your fall and then for your lying along or standing still after you was cast down And truly I am of the opinion that your fall will not do them so much service as your lying still and that they will not clap their hands so much to see you down as to see that you have no heart to rise but go about to bury your self in sorrow If you would deject them and spoil their mirth lift up your self from the earth and when you are upon your legs again remember for what end they are bestowed upon you Proceed forward I mean in your journey as fast as you can and do not think it is to any purpose to stand looking into your wounds and weeping into your sores For besides that all that time you make no progress in your way the wounds themselves also are made more angry and you hinder the speediness of the Cure Provide therefore that they be instantly bound up that the parts may close and unite together that your strength may return and your journey may be continued with as much courage and alacrity as it was begun But immoderate grief I assure you will never suffer this which will rather keep the wounds open make your weakness greater and cause the stop which hath been occasioned by your fall to last longer I know your enemies will be alwayes casting this miscarriage in your teeth and be calling upon you to remember the place where they tript up your heels but whatsoever they say do not think your self obliged to be continually turning your head that way nor to be ever looking back upon your lapse and your pain For they intend nothing else but to detain you in your course and if they cannot freez your blood and make you stand stock still in a cold amazement yet they hope hereby to dis-dis-spirit your soul and render you so dull lumpish and unfit for travel that you shall move but a very slow pace in the way to Jerusalem Be not ignorant therefore I beseech you of these devices but take heed lest they make as great advantage of your sorrow as they could of your sin So you be drown'd and swallow'd up they care not whether it be by over much pleasure or by over much grief They can serve themselves of your spiritual trouble and affliction of mind as well as of your carnal delights and bodily injoyments They can make use of either to draw you from God or at least if by the one they draw you away from him they will labour by the other to keep you from returning back unto him Nay I le tell you a fetch they have beyond this When they have immersed you as deep as they can in sorrow if they perceive you are aware of their design and that you resolve not to sink any further nor to be overwhelmed with it then will they make that sorrow which you have already felt to be the instrument of plunging you into a new gulph of which you did not so much as dream They will take that very part upon them which you your self should have acted before and tell you that it was very ill done to spend so much of your pretious time in unprofitable grief They will call you Fool for your labour in afflicting your soul so long They will perswade you it was a new sin to wast those hours in bewailing your offences which should have been imployed in amending of them And therefore it is but necessary that I warm you again to be before hand with them and to secure this weapon for your own use Keep it I say in your own power lest if they wrest it from you it serve them in due season to wound you withall Let your soul know from your self that it is not fit to stand wringing your hands when you should be using them in your work and do not stay to hear this from your enemies mouth Do not let them have the contentment to see you cast down so immoderately by your own means that if you rise it may be only to fall again by theirs But put them to as great an affliction by the discovery of their practises as they would have made you indure by the success of them Let them know that your errour shall only make you take the greater heed that you mean to go the faster by your fall and to recompense your remisness with an higher zeal But as for affliction and sorrow that you will reserve your self for them till a time when they shall be more profitable then now that you have a mind to be doing better then ever Tell them that you do not intend to ingage Religion against it self nor make it guilty of being an hindrance to its own proper business Give them to understand that since you have done your self so much mischief already you will take care there be no addition to it by the means of the pious pretences of deep Humiliations Remember them effectually of the old observation which may serve to quash them in the midst of their greatest triumphs over you viz. That those things which for the time that is past are worst of all may prove for the time to come to be the best We take advice of the future of those things which are gone by us Good counsels in our after-actions owe not a little to the miscarriages of former dayes Our follies do teach us wisdome and by lapses we learn to go more steadily And if they continue still to insult and to make ado about this business give not the least regard to them but call to your soul continually and cry On on my Soul stand not to hearken to what they say look not back again get thee forward as fast as thou canst and in stead of losing more time by these dejections of spirit let us study by our courage to regain that which we have already lost Nay I would have you to proceed in your course just as if nothing at all had hapned keeping Jesus in your mind and a vehement renewed desire and indeavour to continue in his favour which he is never wont to deny those whose hearts are sincerely bent to please him And yet it may happen after all this that you may meet with a worse use that they will make of your lapses They may take occasion from thence to perswade you to be well contented with such miscarriages and not to trouble your self to amend such faults as have no remedy Their indeavours will not be wanting to possess you with an opinion which hath infected too many minds That you cannot imitate Jesus but have undertaken an impossible task which you will never be able to perform This they may represent with a great deal of artifice and many fair colours
saying Alas poor Soul in what a vain and idle labour hast thou ingaged thy self what meanest thou thus to strain thy wings in aspiring to that which no creature on earth can reach Dost thou think to be like the Son of God To wish to be so good is the highest perfection of humane weakness But to go about it is only to make a more large discovery of that natural frailty It is a pattern too illustrious for thee to look upon much more to follow It belongs not to meer men to be such great undertakers Thou mayst as well think to work miracles as design to imitate his Vertues It lyes not within the compass of flesh and blood to become so spiritual and divine And if thou hadst not already forgotten thy falls thou couldst not dream of raising thy self to so high a pitch Can any heart put up such affronts with patience as thou meetest withall Who can indure such abstinence or exercise such Charity or practise such Meekness as thou seest in Jesus Sit down vain man and comfort thy self in this that He hath done so worthily It is enough to praise and extol such perfections but it is too much to arrive at them There is no man in his wits would trouble himself about a business though he apprehend his obligations never so great that press him to it when he hath so good an excuse as this at hand that is not possible to be effected I cannot stay to tell you the long speeches that they will detain you withall in this Argument Only you may know that there is no Theme more easie and plausible than this wherein to dilate themselves and therefore you may expect a world of specious reasons to induce you to believe that no man can obey the Commands of Christ or follow his great Example Which perswasion if they can by any means instill into your soul I must assure you before-hand that it will prove the most dangerous temptation that ever made an assault upon you It will cut as I may so speak the very sinews of your spirit and cramp your soul so that you will never be able to travel to Jerusalem This infusion will not only discourage you but perfectly benum you and make you languish in a perpetual lethargy The opinion of Necessity doth not more quicken and excite us than that of Impossibility doth deaden and dis-spirit us in any undertaking And therefore now if ever you must run as fast as you can to the extract which I gave you You must take a good draught of those enlivening spirits which I commended and are inclosed in that sentence which you must carry along with you You must repeat it again and again I desire nothing but Jesus nothing but Jesus He hath filled my soul with a purpose to go to him He hath inspired me with strong resolutions to follow after him And sure He will not fail to be my help my strength and my salvation And here let me beseech you to consider diligently before-hand that they are his own words to his Disciples just before he left the world Joh. 13.15 I have given you an example that you should do as I have done to you And how that one of those persons hath also told us That he left us an example that we should follow his steps 1 Pet. 3.21 To what end I pray you did He give us that which we cannot take What are we the better for the Copy which he hath left if it be such as we cannot transcribe Did he intend to brave us rather than instruct us by his actions Were they meant to upbraid out imbecillity and not to inspire us with courage and strength Instead of provoking our spirits were they only designed to make our ambition despair And when he should have awakned our diligence did he only come to astonish us with wonders and cast our souls into a stupifying admiration These are base and leud supposals of which the ancient Pilgrims did never so much as dream They thought they saw in him what mortal men by the Grace of God might hope to attain They lookt upon him as the advancer of humane Nature not only in his own person but also in all those who would undertake to follow him They were incouraged and inflamed by beholding him to imitate his heavenly life and by his Grace have left us themselves as instances and examples of that excellent virtue which Believers on Jesus may come unto They imitated him so happily that they themselves are become Originals They cry out aloud unto us that we should be followers of them as they were of Christ 1 Cor 11.1 And must we now stand only gazing upon them and spend our time in commending the Piety of ancient dayes Must we think that those were priviledged Ages which were attended with such a Grace that doth not descend upon future successions Did the favours of Heaven dye with those great souls Must wee seek for Christians only under their ruines and in their Monuments Must we adore their reliques in Books and please our selves in Idaeas and Patterns of things which we cannot imitate Is it enough that we live in a profound sleep if it be but interrupted sometimes with pleasant visions Do they speak only to the first-born children of Christ when they say Brethren Phil. 3.13 be followers together of us and mark them which walk so as you have us for an ensample Was it the priviledge of their birth-right to be so good and must we be contented to remain bad Are we such puisnees that must expect no portion of Divine Grace Eph 5.1 or think of being followers of God as dear Children of his For the Love of God let us not think that his treasures are exhausted or that he is weary of his first munificence His arm is no shorter than it was nor are his hands less open He is still willing to dispense his largesses and to make us know that they did not end with those Ages Let us rouze up our selves therefore and not lose the benefits of Heaven by thinking we cannot have them Let us not impute to it such an unkindness of giving us so high an example that it might oblige us to an unprofitable trouble These are the old subtilties of the Serpent which the Heathen Divines have detected as well as we The Philosophers themselves were haunted with these clamours and the people rang this continually in their ears it is impossible to follow such examples as you propose But they set themselves stoutly against this sluggisness They pursued mens souls that made these excuses and ferretted them out of such pretenses wherein they sought to borrow and to make a Sanctuary for their laziness You imagine saith one of them that those things cannot be done which you do not You will needs have them far to surmount the nature of man because you will not be at the pains to acquire them How
things more evident in any man except it was in another of the same sort who came to cheat us as a neighbour of mine said in the shape of an Angel of light This Person after a great many godly expressions whereby it is like he deceived himself into an opinion of his Saintship fell into a kind of Christian compassion and seemed to have his Bowels yerning over his Teacher saying Alas poor man my soul is grieved for him He is so weak and unquallified for the work he hath undertaken He is utterly void of the Spirit and understands not the workings of it in the hearts of Gods people I can never think of him but it pitties me to see how much he is in the dark a stranger to the power of Godliness and the mysteries of the Covenant of Grace Poor Soul who puts us upon doing and they say is careful of that himself but knows not what it is to believe Is it not a great happiness Sir that we have the teachings of the Spirit and that the vail is taken from our eyes which still hangs before the men of the World Hath not Christ done much for us who hath made us wiser then our Teachers I could not for my heart but here interrupt him knowing that the person whom he thus undervalued was a true lover of our Saviour and excellently skill'd in his Religion or else I think we should have heard as much in his own praise as we had in the others discommendation But the truth is I never heard any thing so fulsome from the mouth of man and found my self far more impatient of such filthy stuff than he could be of the Sermons at which he expressed so great dislike And to say nothing at all of the man I cannot but think that this Spirit is the very First-born of the Devil the eldest of all the daughters of Pride the Prince of Darkness in the garments of Light the dregs of Christian Pharisaism which now as much despises Christs Ministers as the Jewish did Christ and his Apostles God I hope will never suffer you to suck in this poison of the Serpent nor lick up this vomit of the old Scribes and Pharisees I discern me-thinks that you are as far from it as they were from the Kingdom of Heaven or else I should bestow more time upon you to season you against this leaven which will sowre the whole lump of your Religion and render it as offensive to God as it self is to all sober Christians But I need not have said so much I must suppose you as empty of all humanity as this disposition is of Christianity as far from Reason as it is from the Spirit of God or else hope that this Spiritual Pride this devout Devil shall never possess you For what is it but madness even in the opinion of those men for one that was never bred in the mysteries of that profession to come into an Apothecaries shop and there to condemn all his Drugs and Medicines for rotten and corrupt to spit upon his compositions and offer to throw them all out of doors as fit to be mingled with the dirt And yet there is not more sense in the humour of those persons that use the Sermons they hear after that fashion which evidently proves that they deserve not the name of Sober much less of Wise and understanding Christians Though the matter of such discourses have been long considered and duly weighed and diligently composed out of the Word of God yet these men who do not ponder them so many Minutes as their Instructers do dayes and have no more skill in those matters then in their neighbours trades which they never professed reject them at first hearing bespatter them with their ignorant censures and as if they were in a frantick fit cast them out as they would fain do their Authors like unsavoury salt that is good for nothing but to be troden under feet It will seem a wonder perhaps unto you that such men as these should esteem themselves Religious How is it possible will you be ready to say that such a notorious want of Modesty and Humility of Spirit should not make them suspect their want of true Christianity I know indeed that nothing is more confident then Ignorant heat but I marvel that in their cool moods they do not accuse themselves at least of rashenss and inconsiderate zeal And truly I should stand amazed at it too did I not know that there is such a fair counterfeit of Religion in the World that not only deceives others but those also in whom it is You behold every day many Images which have all the outward parts and proportions of men to whose similitude they are exactly formed And perhaps you have heard of a Statue that walked and that spoke also wherein the Artist indeavoured to express the motions of inward life Which may serve as a resemblance to you of such an Artificial Religion that not only the outside and the garb of Piety is represented by it but there is an imitation also of the inward motions of the soul in such affections of fear and love and joy as are in truly Religious hearts Do not think it strange nor wonder at this which I now tell you for it is a very great truth which I thought not safe to conceal from you And if you will have so much patience I will discover to you the trick of it and show you by what mechanical powers this liveless Engine for it is no better is stirred and acted in the wayes of God You know the force that Colours and Sounds and other such material Objects have upon our senses and how they excite a great many motions in our animal spirits without asking our leave or staying for our consent You cannot be ignorant neither that these motions are in the soul it self which hath resentments according to the quality of those objects that it is impressed withall And again you cannot but perceive by my discourse with you that the figures and images of things may be raised in your fancy by that means as well as conveighed by the doors of sense Suppose then that the beauty and loveliness of Christ were described to a company of men in very fresh colours and fair lineaments That he was painted before their imagination by some sweet-ton'd Orator as white and ruddy the chiefest often thousand That this speech of him should be trim'd with nothing but gems and pretious stones rayes and glories odors and perfumes crowns and diadems wherewith he saith this Prince of Glory and Woer of Souls is perpetually adorned And then he should tell them that his heart stands open to them that he intends to lay them in his very bosome that he would fain embrace them in his arms and will wash them in his blood make them amiable and fair as well as himself put upon them the robes of his righteousness cover with his glorious garments to hide
all their deformities and so present them to God without spot or blemish that they may reign as so many Kings with him for ever Suppose I say that such a discourse were made with much affection and I believe you have sometimes heard the like would it not as agreeably move the imagination of a fleshly man and be as apt to touch his heart with an inclination to this beautiful person as a lovely face presented before the eyes doth give him a pleasure and stirs up a passion in him toward it Truly I nothing doubt but this picture of Christ might impress such a conceit of him in the fancy as might excite admiration desire love delight and such other passions as shall be the imitation of those that are in pious souls who are in love with the Vertues and Spirit of our Saviour He may not at all suspect but that he bears an affection to the Lord Jesus and in great zeal anathematize and curse all those who are not just affected like himself He will condemn as much as your self all those dull and gross souls who are imployed in setting the postures of the face and amusing the world with countenances He laughs at them who are busied in ordering the motions of the head and bending the eyes to devotion He is far above these actions of the body and feeling his soul in a devout posture and toucht with Religious passions he knows no reason why he should not think himself to be worthy to wear the name of devout and Religious And when these apprehensions and emotions as we call them are once begotten it is no hard matter to maintain and breed them up to a greater growth They may be fed perpetually with new objects that yield a fresh delight The description of Jerusalem may be made so full of pleasure that an earthly man may be ravished therewith And he hearing also certain signs and marks given of those who are said to have an interest in Christ and shall be Heirs of Jerusalem it is very easie to conceive how such a man may set himself a work first to imprint his Fancy with such Characters and then to form his passions to some expression and Apish imitation of them Fancy you know hath a great command over all the passions and being acquainted very well with the way to them and the manner of awakening them can call them forth upon this occasion as easily as upon any other It can make them as busie when these divine matters present themselves as when sensible objects knock at our doors and demand to be admitted to our converse There are no names of dearness which men of this stamp cannot bestow upon Jesus They can speak of him with an high pleasure and pray in a pathetick style and not without devout transport They find a Love to this kind of Communion with him They can rejoyce to think of his fulness and sufficiency They can be astonished at the freeness of his Grace They can mourn for their sins and then call themselves blessed for so doing Nay more than this they can excite the passion of gratitude in their hearts and if they hear withall that they must be regenerate and born again they can follow the Fancy of that so long till they think that they feel the throws and pangs of the new birth a change wrought in their souls and all the rest in the method and order wherein they had it described to them They will first be cast down in great humiliations They will complain of the naughtiness of their hearts and the corruptions of their natures They will loathe and abhor themselves as abominable creatures They will disclaim all their own righteousness and strength and think of bringing their hearts to the Promise And if they have heard any better language to express this work they will bring themselves to an imitation of all that is contained in that also They will labour to detest their former courses and to make a choice of a new life They will strain themselves to spit upon their sins and to cast a smile upon the wayes of Virtue They will at least offer themselves to Christ to be formed anew and pray him to make them such as he pleases Thus is one of the Religious Puppets of the world produced This is the beginning and progress of that piece of work which a good man now at Jerusalem was wont to call a Mechanical Religion And if you doubt at all whether or no there be such an Artificial Device as this which passes for Piety do but call to mind one thing which you cannot but know if you have been a person of any observation and you shall be convinced of it There arises you see very often new modes and fashions of Religion among us The old wayes are much decryed and the last invention is voted to be altogether Divine Now if one of these persons whom I have spoken of shall chance to fall into the acquaintance of a Sect that is much different from the present which he hath long followed you shal see him easily shift his form and speedily turn into another shape He can soon quit the way wherein he was and become religious after the manner of this novel plat-form All the old signs and marks of Regeneration shall stand for nothing and now he distinguishes himself from the men of the world by other Characters Which is an evident token that he is moved by the power of imagination and as external objects shall strongly impress themselves that he hath no internal life but is carried by the impulse of forein things which change his motions at their pleasure He seems to himself to be alive and to be no less than divinely acted but alas he is only a walking Ghost as appears in this too plainly That like those Images of living Bodies he can alter himself so quickly and be moulded into another figure Such a shadow of a Christian perhaps was he that hath been the occasion of all this discourse whom we are not to think to have an inward life because of the noise and bustle that he made and the confidence wherewith he spake for these do but still render him more like those Ghosts who have a greater boldness and cause many times more stir than they that are really alive That we may be sure therefore that you are a living man you must expose your self to our touch and demonstrate it to the sense of feeling You must say as our Saviour did when his Disciples took him for an Apparition come near and handle me and you shall see that I do not cheat you Let those that approach you perceive that Christ liveth in you and shew forth your works out of a good conversation and that in meekness of wisdom I mean in plain words that it must appear to the world that you are a substantial Christian by all the acts of an Holy Life You must make them sensible
mind then in Humility and Meekness to condescend to others yea to lay our selves at their feet and beg of them for the sake of the Lord of Peace that they will be the children of Peace This is to become the sons of the most High and heirs of the greatest Glory And now let me ask you for what end would you shut up your self in your Closet or make a Cell of your house Is it not that you may improve your self in the knowledge of God and do you not hope there to converse more with Heaven you need not then be put to the trouble of this confinement for I assure you nothing will so much promote your end as Love of your neighbour This will make you feel what God is and give you the clearest and strongest sense of him And the larger and wider your Charity grows the more able will you be to conceive the vastness of Gods Love and the less doubt you will have of his Universal good will It will dispose you also more then any thing else to believe the Gospel and will win your assent to those reports which seem most incredible When you find in your self such a great loye to others it will be easier for you to conclude that God might love us so much as to send his only Son into the World and give him also to dye for us sinners And if there be any thing of greater force then other to bring you acquainted with the joy and peace of Jerusalem and to make discoveries beforehand of it this must be that happy Spy For they consist very much in the dear love and friendship which there is between all the inhabitants of that blessed place But these things I will leave to your own thoughts and only pray you to imploy your mind in all your secret retirements so much in these meditations that you may issue forth from thence very full of God and as a man inspired to do much good For this active devotion is that which God loves He will impart more of his blessings to you if you open your hands in doing benefits to others then if you should lift them up all day in prayers to Heaven He refuses nothing to the stirring and diligent souls whom love and good-will have set in motion He delights to give to those who imploy his Grace It is a pleasure to him to bless those who go forth to meet his favours and do not expect them in their Chambers But we never imploy his Grace better then when we imitate the effusions of it upon us in our kindness and benignity to others And we are never more like to meet his blessings then when they are blessing of him for the good that we have brought unto them I know you will be ready to say hereafter that you can design a great deal more than you doubt you shall ever do That the Idaea you have of this Noble quality is very high but you are affraid it is above your reach And therefore I pray you before hand that you would not trouble your self with such thoughts but only remember these two things That when you have done all the good that ever you can that will dispose you still to do more and in the mean season you are to take care of this to rejoyce heartily that there are others in the World who can do more good then you If we were once arrived at this noble disposition of rejoycing in the good of others either in that which they enjoy or that which they can do we should be so far from wanting Charity that we should equal our selves with the most excellent and blessed natures As we should have no cause to complain that we are not in the same throne with Princes nor to envy the learning of those who sit in the Chairs of Wisdom so we should not come behind the devotion of the greatest Saints nor be much inferiour to the Angels who think it no small part of their happiness that they can rejoyce in God and in all the marks of his goodness wheresoever they can discern them Are we less happy because our Wit is not so strong our revenues not so large our station not so high and so our power to oblige others not so great as those of many of our neighbours No such thing but we shall rather be the more happy if in the midst of a low condition and in a meaner rank we can keep our selves from the rust and canker of envy which is wont to grow soonest in such places as are low and damp He hath raised himself to a very high pitch whose soul surmounts all discouragements and rejoyces in the Universal good of mankind by whomsoever it is procured Hereby we shall make the happiness of every person that is above us to be our own For how is he more Happy then I who gets a victory if I triumph in it as much as himself Wherein is he Superiour to me whose riches increase if I be not only contented therewith but much better pleased in his prosperous estate then I was before he injoy'd it Nay if it make me well to see him in health and refresh my spirit to see him merry and really render me better to behold his progress in wisdom and vertue then I have the benefit of all these and they become mine as much as his in whom they are And can you contrive a better way then this to make your soul the resort of all pleasures the very Center wherein the happiness of the whole world shall meet the Rendevouz if you will give leave to that word of all those joyes which are scattered every where among Gods creatures It is not possible for you to do it nor is there any delight so noble and sublime so pure and refined as this that with so much ease you may enjoy It is the very extract of all other pleasures it is the Essence and Spirit of them without the grosser parts which are wont to detain half of the pleasure from us Though other pleasures make more noise yet this gives greater contentment They make a louder sound but the commendation of this is its silence and quiet The world takes more notice of others but the very secrecy of this joy increases its sweetness and vapours not out the purity thereof Other injoyments may be greater in bulk but this is more in value They are obtained at a great charge but this we injoy at other mens cost Those persons have the labour and sweat together with their delight and we have the pure pleasure They work not for themselves only but they must do us some service thereby We come in for a share of all their gettings and want nothing which they have but only the toil and the pains And yet so innocent is this pleasure that while we enjoy all that others do we leave them all they had and take nothing away from them As the Bees suck an
to follow their Vertues But I may rather wonder with what face men can speak against those who neglect the observance of these Dayes when they themselves are the chiefest cause of it or the best colour for it They dishonour all holy rites and bring a reproach upon holy times and if it had not been for such as them those dayes might have been in more credit even with those who now despise them What do we see say those scrupulous persons but riot and luxury at such seasons All places are full of vomit and men seem to be celebrating the Feast of Ceres and Bacchus i. e. of Bread and Wine of some heathenish drunken belly-god They fancy there is no restraint layd upon their appetite if they do but strictly forbear their ordinary labours They are like some bad Christians in the old times who made no doubt of being drunk so they did but take off their cups as they sate on the Martyrs Tombs It is easie indeed for these objectors to see something else They might behold some devout people who frequent the Worship of God and rejoyce most in remembring their Saviour and his great Grace in sending those that Preached the Gospel to the World But the number of the other are so great who never regard such things that by looking on them they are tempted to take no notice of all the rest The Taverns are fuller by far then our Churches and the Theatre is more frequented then the House of God And therefore it is for such as you to set your selves a work to take away this objection which they will not take away themselves Do you satisfie them that these dayes are no necessary cause of doing evil by your own example of doing good Leave their Argument no force at all for it is in your power to do it and let them see that the marriage between these Festivals and Profaneness is not so legitimate but they may be divorced Deprive them of this colour and leave their peevishness so naked that it may be exposed to the view of all Or if they have taken a real offence remove it out of their way and let all that they alledg have a full confutation in your holy life Answer them by your behaviour that there is no need to take away these dayes for you can take away all the wickedness and leave them still remaining Let them see that you can rest from your labours and yet not spend your whole time in sport and play Let them find the Bible or some good book in your hand oftner then they do the Cards Let your Spirit rejoyce in God your Saviour more then your body doth in meat and drink Feed your soul upon the Heavenly mysteries of our Religion and do not live as if the Saints were only good Purveyors for our Kitchins So will you both bring these dayes into esteem with others and your self into greater favour with God And I beseech you desire all you know that they would not sleight such admonitions as these I give you But that for the Honour of our Lord for the credit of his Church who hath appointed these solemnities for the love of their own souls who are intended to receive the benefit of them they would behave themselves soberly and religiously at such seasons That so the Church may not be forced to do with these as it hath done with the Feasts of Love and other rites used by the Apostles themselves i. e. abolish and banish them because of mens obstinate abuse of them For it is a very absurd thing as one of the ancient Guides saith to study to honour the Martyrs with too much fulness who we know pleased God by fasting and abstinence It is a prosperous way of doing honour to our Saviour by pampering and pleasing our selves who it is known did honour his Father by denying himself and despising all the pleasures of the flesh Therefore exhort every one to feast themselves with an holy fear Let them make Feasts of Charity and doing good to their poor neighbours Let them be Feasts of Love to make us friends one with another Feasts of the Spirit to put us in mind of the joyes of the Lord and the eternal Supper of the Lamb. And now I think I may have leave to conclude my directions having put you into the hands of better Guides then my self the sum whereof is briefly this Let your principal design ever be to knit your heart to the Love of Jesus and the ardent desire of being with him at Jerusalem Let this be your great business to set your Soul directly towards the place where he is and to stir up in it such longings as these O that I were with Jesus when shall I come to Jesus And since he is the Way to himself there is nothing more needful for the accomplishing your desire then to propose him before your eyes for your imitation As for Prayer Meditation and such like things they are to be designed to this end that your Love to him may be inflamed your Desire after him increased and your Resolution of doing his will and treading in his steps be made unmoveable Whatsoever therefore you find proper to advance that Love that Desire that Resolution be it Praying or Reading Discoursing or Solitude Walking or Reposing your self Visiting of others or Keeping at home make use of it for the time that your Soul rellishes it and as long as it quickens your Desire and indeavour of enjoying the love of Jesus and the blessed sight of him at Jerusalem But when any of these shall prove irksome to you be not troubled at it but try for that time some of the rest which may be then more useful because more pleasant to you And when any of those Enemies I have mentioned shall disturb your peace beat them off as soon as you can but be not troubled because they do not presently yield provided you do not yield to them neither And if after a Victory they rally in the same manner again be not affrighted at that neither as if now they had greater courage but endeavour only to beat them as before and by obtaining a new Victory to show that it is your courage which is increased And do not think you shall be in danger to lose the Victory over them if you suffer your Bow sometimes to be unbent Do not think a Pilgrim must be so severe as never to recreate himself in the way he goes By perpetual Watchings and labours your enemies may undo you as well as by any other means Take but heed that you fall not into their Quarters when you divert your self and let but your pleasures still lye in your way and you need not fear to make use of them Remember the Example of the Saints of God and stir up your self to imitate their zeal and their discretion both together And rest assured my Friend that this good Desire thus cherished thus augmented and
his way of the smoothness of which notwithstanding all that had been said he too much presumed and made him watchful because he saw he could not pass without some enemies So it gave him some degree of courage because he perceived they might be overcome and confirm'd his belief of the Wisdom of his Director who foretold these troubles and gave a proof withall of the efficacy of that Remedy which he had prescribed and above all revived that Joy and gladness in his heart which he thought began to languish and faint away Full of joy he was even to an excess and he suffered by it a kind of transportation partly from the brightness of the Truths he had received which yet were fresh in his mind partly from the increase of his understanding by the experiment which he had made but chiefly I think from the Victory which he had obtained over those enemies that attacqued his Soul For in truth there is no greater Triumph then that which the Soul feels when it comes off a Conquerour and applauds it self for the Valour and Courage which it hath expressed in its conflicts There was another thing indeed which added something though not much to his joy viz. that ded something though not much to his joy viz. that his enemies he hoped had received such a foil that he had sent them away discouraged if not disabled from making any further attempts upon him But so mutable is our condition here and so many are our enemies that he had not travelled many dayes after this Triumph before he was arrested with a new trouble to exercise his Wisdom and Patience His soul which just now was ready to leap out of his body he felt to sink so low that it was as if he had no soul at all His spirits not only began to flagg and hang down their heads but were grown quite faint and weary as if they meant to swoon away Which was partly occasioned by his going too fast and taking over-long Journeys and partly by a very hot day when the Sun beat very strongly upon his head and partly by the very violence of his joyes which stirred his spirits so much that in the agitation they flew away and partly by letting slip two or three of those Instructions which had been left with him which should have been a Cordial to him but were as impossible he found to be by any means recalled as it was to bring back his tyred spirits which were flown from him Very melancholly and sad he now began to be and the more because he had been so joyful O how desolate said he within himself is this place into which I am faln I am forsaken sure of God or else I that was so high yesterday should never have sunk into this pit which is next door to the dwelling of damned spirits Was ever any man in such a deplorable estate Was there ever any bereaved thus of all his comforts which should sweeten his way when he hath no other company Oh Who will restore unto me the dayes that are past Who can call back but the joyes of yesterday into my bosome What are those sins that have cast me into the displeasure of my Lord Or What shall I do to regain his favour which I would purchase at any rate though I dyed the next moment Thus he lay many dayes sometimes bewailing his former affrightment which he suspected might deserve this desertion as he was apt to call it sometimes complaining that he could not find the cause and so could not be cured sometimes reflecting on the times of joy which were gone and sometimes taking a view of his misery which made him but the more deeply miserable And which was worst of all he kept his bed all this time and stirred not a foot in his Journey being indeed so ill that he despaired of life But see how the Providence of God watches for an opportune season to do us a kindness When he was in the greatest torture that he had felt all the time of this Agony there came an unexpected Letter to his hands from his beloved Father which was to this effect My friend for so I cannot but call you since you express such love to me These are to let you know that though I am absent from you yet I follow you with my thoughts and good wishes which attend you in all your motions I am so far from being forgetful of my promise that I am much better I assure you than my word You desired me to pray for you and so I do But I cannot content my self with that unless you as well as God know that I have a remembrance of you That is the very reason of my sending this Paper after you that it may be a token how regardful I am of your concerns and sollicitous about your welfare So sollicitous that having enjoyed some good thoughts this morning I could not but impart them unto you because I fancied they would prove upon some occasion or other very useful to you They are a Meditation upon one of the Fsalms of David where he bids his Soul not to be disquieted but to hope in God as the health of his countenance and his God and they are infolded in a distinct Paper within the bosome of this Letter because they were too long to be inserted in the body of it Farewell Upon the very first receipt of this Letter before he had broke it up his pale cheeks began to be streaked with a little blood as a prognostick of his recovery to health again But when he opened it and read the kind expressions of the Love of his Friend one might see how the spirits crept up as he went along out of the Center whither they were retired In so much that the light danced in his eyes yea leaped out as if it meant to kiss those lines which now saluted them But then as soon as he arrived at the Meditation it self and had carefully perused all the parts of it his face shined like an Angel and one would have thought he had not been the man that was so lately dejected For it was so pat to his present condition and so exactly suted to the necessities under which he laboured that it seemed as if it had been indicted by God and not by his Friend There he found a discourse of the Nature of Joy of the causes of its decay of the Interess that our Animal Spirits have in it of the way to recover it and the means to be content without it and above all of the Resignation of our selves to the Will of God to serve him chearfully without those sensible pleasures as well as in their company And not to name other things which were more fully debated between them afterward these now rehearsed were so fully opened that he was partly amazed and partly elevated to the height of his Joyes again when he thought that God had put it into the heart
of the Father to send at this time a Letter of such comfortable import unto him I see said the Pilgrim that not my Friend only but Jesus also is mindful of me I see both that He prayes for me and that Heaven likewise hears those Prayers It would be an unsufferable wrong to my Blessed Saviour should I hereafter think my soul forsaken of him Nay it will be an ill requital of the favour he hath now done me should I not resume my ancient joyfulness again And therefore be no longer disquieted O my Soul be not cast down within me It is not in vain to hope in God but in that very hope thou mayest be joyful and therefore in the fruition of thy expectations O how greatly oughtest thou to rejoyce Psa 97.11 Light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart Psa 9.10 They that know thy Name will put their trust in thee for thou Lord hast not forsaken them that seek thee And therefore I cannot but say Wait on the Lord Psa 27.14 be of courage and he shall strengthen thy heart Wait Psa 13.6 I say on the Lord. I will sing unto the Lord because he hath dealt bountifully with me Yea I will hope continually Psa 71.14 and will yet praise him more and more Many other the like effusions of his heart one might then have heard and they lasted so many dayes that they became instrumental to the redeeming much of that time which had been lost in fruitless complaints upon his bed He did not go so fast as he was wont but he went much further than before in the same number of hours His Joyes were not so violent but they became more sweet and they grew more equal He could not recover yet the Memory of some things he had received but this he better understood that he must desire nought but Jesus He was not so full of heat but his light was more resplendent He did not expect now to be alwayes in the same temper yet he was confident he should never more suspect the Love of his Saviour He perceived that he could not ever retain the same Joyes yet he learnt withall that the way to have them sooner restored was not to fret for want of them But though in this condition he made a great progress his way towards the Holy City of God yet the light which was in his mind did not cast such a splendour about his soul but that one day he suffered some obscurity The occasion of it was a cloudy thought which came over his understanding suggesting to him That he did not serve God purely enough because his eye was too much upon Jerusalem For it had been commonly received for a Truth among some persons whom he had formerly conversed withall That we must obey God out of meer Love to him without any hope of rewards at all This you will say was a strange conceit and it had as strange a cure For it pleased God that he opening a Book which he carried along with him the next morning after these thoughts troubled him the first thing that he cast his eye upon was this passage in a certain Chapter of it That Moses had respect to the recompence of reward Heb. 11.29 You cannot think how much it surprised him that he should light upon these words rather than any other without his choice or so much as a design to receive satisfaction in this particular And yet that which I am next to relate was more wonderful in his eyes and made him stand in a greater astonishment at the goodness of God towards him For it being suggested to him from the memory of some fragments of certain Sermons which he once heard That Moses and those under the Law who were but Bondmen might have respect to Rewards but that it did not become those who had the Spirit of Adoption to be so Mercenary and he being a little perplexed with this trifling Objection It happened that looking down upon the same page of his Book again his eye fell directly upon the second Verse of the next Chapter which told him That Jesus endured the Cross for the Joy that was set before him The first glance which he had of this place was like a Beam of the Sun in his eye which immediately dispelled all his darkness and made his soul flash out in such expressions as these Who are these men that are wiser than Jesus What mean these dreamers to fancy themselves above that which was not below our Saviour Or how came they to be so proud as to despise the Promises of God and think they stand in no need at all of them On my soul go on and be not stopt a minute longer by this scruple Fix thine eyes upon Jerusalem and let thine heart be ravished with it for the Mediatour of the second Covenant as well as of the first had a respect unto it After he had hit so luckily on these two passages which lay so near together a great many more of the same kind presented themselves instantly to his mind not much unlike the Beams of the Sun which having once torn a cloud in sunder break forth more and more till the whole body of that great light appear to us And this likewise raised his spirits unto some further degree of chearfulness when he thought how our Lord still provided for his relief and took the pains to pull the smallest Thorn that troubled him out of his feet And yet this could not hinder but that they were too much dejected a little after by a company of other petty thoughts which like so many importune Flyes were alwayes buzzing this new fancy in his ears That he did not directly intend the glory and honour of Jesus in all his Actions He considered indeed with himself that he endeavoured to do well and that he he loved to do so and that he lookt upon it as the very Life of God but yet he thought he did not so actually respect him in every particular motion as his duty required Now here it fell out very happily and not without a Divine Providence as he thought that one night being in a dream he imagined he saw one coming to him and whisper this sentence in his ear which of a long time he had not read Rev. 19.9 They repented not to give him Glory Whereupon starting suddenly out of his sleep as if some good Genius had awakened him and given him a new mind he presently began to tell himself that when he first repented and undertook this New Life he gave Glory to God and that by every step he took in this course of Repentance i. e. amending of himself he did actually honour him and more materially than any other way glorisie his name For this is a constant acknowledgement of him a minutely confession that we are fools and he is wise that our will is nought and his is good
that he is our Lord and we his Subjects and that after all our search we find our Happiness to lye in him alone and in separation from him the best condition in the world will leave us miserable And he had not long pondered upon these things with much satisfaction before those words of the Psalmist came into his mind He that offereth praise glorifieth me Psal 50.21 and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the Salvation of God Which made him fall into the praises of God and to resolve that he would do so every day and early design all the imployments of it to his service concluding that whilst he held this course and ordered his wayes aright he exalted God in the world by lifting up his Will into a preheminence and command over his own subjecting himself unto it both as most supreme and also wise and good And after a great many thoughts of this nature at last he made a short reflection upon the person who had made him this visit in the night And when he remembred that he fancied it was his Friend who came to his Bed-side he had a new pleasure to think of the benefits of Sleep The praises of which he could not upon this occasion forbear though at certain times he wished his thoughts might never be intermitted by it What an heavenly power said he is this for so I am ready to call it how much am I beholden to it for its silent refreshments That which useth to part the dearest friends hath now brought them together That which separateth those who touch each other hath made those near who are far asunder O Divine Gift O beloved Rest which God bestows upon us How great are these charms which lock our doors to all the World and now have opened them to my friend How much better are these dreams then many of my waking thoughts How much rather had I be in the arms of the brother of death then in the feeble injoyments of many parts of my life I am content just now to be restored to his embraces if my Friend will but meet me there again in this manner At least I hope I may conclude that when we are Dead indeed he will not fail to meet me whose Image finds me out when I am in the Images of death CAP. XXVII How the Pilgrim fell into a great sadness and how strangely it was cured by an unexpected meeting with his Guide Who discourses of the nature of sensible joyes And at last upon his desire contracts a particular Friendship with the Pilgrim IN such thoughts or rather dreams as these he spent a little portion of his time with great delight And now having vanquished so many enemies and impediments in his way of divers sorts he was willing to believe that he should be molested no more but pass in perfect peace to the Vision of Peace A great many dayes he remained in these pleasant expectations and went a good way onwards to his resting place without the least weariness of any part about him He seldome departed from meditation but either with his mind illuminated with new light from heaven or his will inflamed with a new ardor or his whole heart steeped in new sweetness And though sundry new enemies also attempted him yet such a profound peace seemed to have taken possession of his heart that they could not move the least disturbance there The joyes that he felt made him despise all baits of pleasure which lay in his way The Conquests which he had got made him think himself above the scorn and laughter of the World And though he was sometimes bitterly reproached yet he comforted himself with this that they did but prepare him matter for new triumphs But he could never be drawn to any other contests wherein the Generality of men were then very zealously ingaged nor did he affect any Victories among the disputers of the World He lived in love and peaceableness with all his fellow-travellers He thought himself so rich also in these graces that it was no trouble to him to be poor And he had such a sense from whence he received them that they were no temptation neither to be proud But yet for all this it chanced that some exercises of Devotion to which he had bound himself being one day omitted either through indisposition or by reason of some lawful if not necessary occasions which diverted him he was cast into such a pensiveness of mind as proved at last a great affliction to him For he indulged to himself those thoughts because they pleased him at first but by too frequent reflections they grew to a melancholy mood and from thence proceeded to a dull and listless temper of Spirit In this condition you must needs think his joyes were again abated which added very much to the trouble of his mind and indeed they fell in time to so low an ebb that he feared they would never rise again but leave him at last quite dry and without one drop of comfort And so truly in the issue of things it proved for as they forsook him so he was tempted again to forsake his way which was now become but irksome to him without those refreshments The pleasure and rellish that he was wont to feel in holy duties was quite gone In stead of clearness there succeeded darkness dryness of spirit took the place of affection and in the room of joy and gladness he was loaded with nothing but groans and heaviness He often professed that he could feel nothing at all but remained as a man that had lost the use of his soul And therefore though he continued for a while to pray and perform his duty in other things as well as he could yet finding that he was but like a man that drinks very much when the liquor hath no tast and gives him no pleasure in the going down he was tempted to throw it all away and thought he had as good not do those things at all as do them with no delight And accordingly he gave up himself wholly to be tortured by his own thoughts which imployed themselves in nothing else but making sad representations of the misery of this state which you must needs think was so grievous that it is not possible to draw a picture of it For since the soul is of far greater force then the body the pains and anguish which arises in it must needs be far more pungent and afflictive then those which touch the outward man He suffered a kind of Martyrdom every day or rather he was continually crucified and had nothing but Gall and Vinegar given him to drink He thought he had reason when he complained of greater pains then the Martyrs endured For they being inwardly illuminated and touched from heaven found the highest comforts in their torments the greatest liberty in their imprisonments and in the midst of flames the divinest ardors of Love in their hearts
deceive and cheat you with its dissimulations while you are in this state endeavouring to slubber over negligence under the pretext of I cannot do any more It is true we are not tyed to that which we cannot do but yet the flesh will sometimes juggle and complain of impotence when there is nothing hinders us but only Sloth Here you must look upon your self with a great many eyes you must become your own spy and narrowly watch the most secret motions of your heart For this Eve that is within us is so desirous to be cherished and pleased to be walking up and down the Garden and to be eating of the forbidden fruit that she wants not a thousand inventions to make us believe that her demands do not extend to superfluities but only to things necessary for us that she doth not desire ease and pleasure so much as rest from hard labours and she is in a mighty chafe if we will not give a perfect credit to her She perswades us sometime that we are much weaker than in truth we can affirm our selves to be She tells us that we cannot with safety think of any thing else but her and is not willing to let us make a tryal She bids us attend only to her quiet and satisfaction and not suffer the mind to disturb her repose at all And the more we humour and gratifie her desires the more still she bemoans her self to move our pitty towards her It concerns us therefore to be careful in observing what good it is that we can then perform without a manifest prejudice to our health and to make provision that it be not neglected by means of the heavy complaints of laziness and sloth Look up unto Jesus as often as you can Tell him in the secrets of your soul that you heartily love him Open your very bosome to him and shew how desirous you are to be more conform'd unto him by this affliction Pray him to come and ransack your heart and to throw out of doors whatsoever is offensive to him Let him know that you had rather not only be sick but dye a thousand times than not be friends with him And so entreat him to take pitty upon you Promise him to do whatsoever he would have you And exhort all others of your acquaintance that they would love and serve him more than you can do And this let me add for your comfort that sometimes he bestows more favours upon sick men in their Beds who can pray in no other manner but by the humiliations and prostrate submissions of their Wills to him than he doth upon some others who spend many hours on their bended knees in that holy exercise And do not despair I beseech you of receiving this mercy though you think your self never so unworthy of it since it costs him no more but only his Will to bestow it With these and such like Discourses the Good man entertained his friend in this sickness for many dayes which put the time into a speedier pace than otherwise it would have pass'd away Though he kept his Bed for some weeks yet the hours did not seem at all tedious to him but rather fled away as fast as he used before to do himself So happy a thing it is to have a partner in our troubles and the assistance of another shoulder beside our own to bear our griefs Good Discourses are like the breath of Heaven which when the burdned Vessel feels she cuts her way through all the waves and never complains of the greatness of her burden Nay they proved to him like the cool Air which refreshes the gasping Traveller in a hot day making his very body feel its leggs the sooner by the delicate touches which they gave unto his Spirit All the Art of his Doctors and an whole Apothecaries shop had not been able to restore his consumed flesh so easily and in such a little space of time as these Soveraign Cordials which distilled from the Good mans lips and were drawn he felt from the very bottome of his heart I have wondred sometimes when I considered the suddenness of his recovery for though he lay some weeks in a feeble condition it was because he did not at first receive these Medicines which so soon as he tasted he became another man and seemed to have a New Essence infused into him It is no new piece of Philosophy but an Axiome older than Hippocrates and which calls Solomon that great Physician its Father Heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop Pro. 12.25 but a good word maketh it glad And in another place of his Aphorisms we read that A merry heart doth good to a Medicine Pro. 17.22 but a broken spirit dryeth the bones CAP. XXIX Of the trouble which the Pilgrim was in about some business which had layn neglected during his sickness Of his desires after a contemplative Life Of Solitude The Profit of it especially at the beginning of our Christian course And how they that enjoy it do not find all the satisfaction which they expected in it BEing able therefore by the good inspirations of his friend whose mouth he acknowledged was a Well of Life to go about the house Pro. 10.11 He spent as much time as he was able in praising God instructing the servants and doing good to all his neighbours not neglecting any duty which God or man required of him But so it was that having been long sick there were some necessary businesses in which both he and his friend were concerned that had layn as long as himself without any regard These called very importunately upon him for his attendance and being very weighty and requiring quick dispatch would not cease to sollicite more of his thoughts than he was willing to allow them It will be of no use to tell you what they were but it may be sufficient to let you know that they were of such moment that without a manifest wrong both to himself and others he could by no means put them off nor make them rest contented with a cold and slow management of them And yet from hence his mind took occasion to spring a new doubt which he had not power to remove himself till he had made it known to his Friend though his affairs were not so urgent but that they left him a little leisure to consider of that which might have given him some satisfaction For whensoever a crowd of little occasions throng'd in upon him and would not be denyed his company then he began to frown upon himself because he did not find so much vacancy as his heart desired for private Prayer and Recollection To this the Father said as soon as he had eased himself of the scruple by telling of it that for his part he was very glad to find he had such a vehement love for retired thoughts and secret converse with God and that he sighed so much after it as far more delightful to
it is very hard to beat off the assaults of enemies when they come in so great troops upon us It is good counsel therefore at such a time Retire into your self Shut up your soul within doors and let it not stir abroad And truly he hath very honourable thoughts of us who thinks us fit to bear our selves company He reposes a great confidence in us who dares trust us to our selves For there is no worse society for a man than his own if he do not design to become good Fools and mad men ought not to be left in their own hands For as the wise employ their Solitude in pious counsels and sober advices for the good government of themselves so the wicked then meditate bad designs and plot the fulfilling of naughty desires They whet their anger or irritate their lust or brazen their foreheads to commit all villany and what fear and shame concealed from the world they bring forth then before themselves and prepare it to come abroad See then what a good opinion I have conceived of you in that I bid you not to fly your self I must needs take you for a man of worthy thoughts or else I should not permit you to be alone And let me tell you that I promise my self you will improve your own company so well as to be worthy at last to be trusted in the open World When your mind is well fortified and your resolution confirmed the World will need such a good example to reform the evil wherewith it abounds We are not born for our selves alone but others must feel there is a good man still remaining among them It is fit indeed that at certain times you should all your life sequester your self from men so it be without affectation of singularity or making any noise but there you must not bury your self nor make your Closet a Tomb wherin to converse with no body but the dead Your Light must so shine before men that seeing your good works they may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven And you must shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous Light But having given you an example of both these in the Blessed Jesus I will not suspect your memory of so much unfaithfulness as to think you stand in need to have those instructions repeated I will rather pray you to let me know how you find your self in those retirements and whether you meet with so great satisfaction in them as now you expect to reap And truly afterward he confessed that making his retreat very frequently into this Soveraign Privacy he could not alway be Master of those brave thoughts which he imagined he should have enjoyed That Life he saw had its imperfections and he lookt to enjoy there those delightful spectacles which too often withdrew themselves from his sight and could not be wooed to favour him with their continual presence He found that we do not yet live in the Country of Idaea's and the Land of Perfections but that we dwell in lower Regions andare forced to travel among Chimaeras ' and to fight many times with monstrous Imaginations At the best we do but see the shadows of things or if we gain a true Image of them yet we must be content to sit down a great way on this side of that excellent life the Image of which we have conceived in our mind The Pattern is too big for us while we are shut up in these Prisons And to be so free in our thoughts and affections it is necessary that we obtain a release from these bodies Only thus much benefit he reaped from this dear Solitude wherein he sometimes reigned that he was verily perswaded he should one day arrive at the Freedom and Peace of Jerusalem He could not think that his Soul should alwayes dwell so far short of that happy Country of which he had such a lovely picture in his mind It seemed unreasonable to imagine that when all other things are suffered to grow to their height and utmost perfection the spirit of man only should ever remain a dwarf or rather continue a child and never be unloosed from its swadling-bands No no would he frequently say I feel my Soul untying these Bands It grows too great for these cloaths and cannot suffer it self to be thus confined It aspires to that happy State which admits of no defects and will make me call my self a Man It longs and groans to be above it self It stretches its hands to reach the Perfection of Purity and to lay hold on Eternal Life It would fain remove from these shadows and hopes to converse with the very things themselves Oh how it sighs to do what it now designs How it breathes after the enjoyment of that which it hath in desire The day will come sure that shall cast no cloud about my mind nor stir the least breath of inordinate passion in my soul It will not be long before I be alwayes serene and have the happiness to live in a constant tranquillity and untroubled repose The time I believe hastens when my knowledge shall be so clear that Faith shall find no employment and Hope shall receive a discharge and Charity shall be left alone in its full strength With these and other such like pleasant thoughts they entertained themselves as they travelled over many fair Plains deceiving the length of the Miles by the variety of Discourse and the prettiness of sundry contemplations For the truth is His Good Angel as I may call him never fail'd to put him in mind of such things as might be worthy of observation in their Journey or might administer a profitable or innocent delight to sweeten their way And among other things I remember that one day as they went through a certain place which was more like a Garden than an High-way He askt him if he was not afraid of those strange Beasts in green skins and those armed men with weapons of the same colour in their hands At which he smiling said though you have been conscious to much of my weakness yet I have so much courage as not to be affrighted at the Images of things which I see cut in hedges You shall see how confidently I will walk naked by that Lyon and that the Bear in the other thicket shall strike no terrour into me And it pleases me very much to think that the trouble which my often-infirmities have given you is not so great but that you can make your self merry with them and I am willing to recreate you a little more by bragging thus of my present boldness Indeed said the Father you could not have well gratified me more than you do insporting with that which others more morose would have taken for a reproach But let us seriously I pray you consider Is there much more harm in many of those things at which the world is wont to tremble Do they not fly from
they have his Word and hear him speaking to them But they must have a greater communication with them both than this amounts unto They must set their affections on things above they must have their conversation in Heaven they must be like to God and made partakers of a Divine Nature They must be renewed after the Image of him that created them in Wisdom in Righteousness in Purity in Charity and Love so that God may dwell in them and they in him No less Good than this must you design for your Souls You do not act like reasonable Beings till you seek by all means this conformity with your Original from whence you spring Do you doubt at all of what I say Let me send you then to that Philosopher again that you may blush once more to see your selves in greater Ignorance than those whom you reproach with the name of Infidels Diogenes saith he hearing a Sophister once making a vain-glorious declamation L. 3. c. 2. put forth his middle finger and pointed at him saying See there is the man behold him for that is He now you may look upon him and know him if you will At which words there being a great stir and tumult excited he proceeded thus in his speech unto them Do you think that I shew you a man as we do a stone or a log only with the indicatian of my finger No I have no such meaning it is a folly to think of distinguishing a man from his neighbour by such an Instrument But when one hath shown you his opinions that he hath of things when he hath demonstrated to you what are his great concerns then he hath shown him to you as he is a man And from thence now you may take this mans Character whom you have heard speaking to you He hath told you what he thinks and what he most desires I only bid you to mark and observe him Let us see thy opinions and notions also saith the Philosopher who makes application of this story Let us behold thy sentiments that we may be acquainted with thee Discover to us what thou lovest and chusest above all other things Dost thou place thy happiness without thy self Dost thou value all things more than thy self Thou readest the best Philosophers thou studiest Chrysippus and such good Authors and this is all Why then we see very well who thou art Hast thou not discovered to us in what esteem we are to hold thee A poor-spirited Creature angry and furious fearful and distrustful querulous and complaining of every thing proud and conceited of thy self covetous and voluptuous desirous of glory and popular applause accusing all things and never quiet nor at rest These things thou shewest us and by these we are to esteem thee It is not thy Books nor thy Masters and Tutors nor any thing else but such as these that shew the man And what I beseech you can be more proper to be spoken in the ears of most Christian Auditories You read the Bible you have the Books of Christian Learning in your hands Do these denominate you Christian men and women Must we call you the Disciples of our Saviour because you sit before us and hear our Sermons No such matter Shew us O man thy thoughts shew us thy decrees and opinions of things Let us see thy understanding thy will thy choice thy affections that we may know whether thou art a Christian or no. And where shall we see these but in the actions of thy life Covetousness love of pleasure tell us plainly what thou art Pride and study to be admired in the World proclaim thee to us more than all that we see beside If thou wilt give a proof thy Humanity and of thy Christianity too if thou wilt have us believe that thou art not yet turned an unreasonable creature live according to thy reason practise thy Religion preferr thy Soul before thy Body the concernments of an immortal Being before the trivial injoyments of a few moments Do not tell us of thy professions nor of thy belief when we see with our eyes that which better declares thee to us Let thy Soul recover its command again let it be restored to its Empire and Dominion let it rule all the passions and affections of the lower part that we may know thou art a Man and not degenerated into a Beast And now by this time you may well think these Pilgrims were awakened unless they meant to snort eternally And indeed the poor men were so warm'd or rather inflamed with this discourse that they could refrain themselves no longer but burst forth into a passionate weeping first for their fault and then for joy that God had sent them so faithful a Monitor They gave him most hearty thanks for his excellent Sermon as they could not chuse but call it and promised most solemnly to think more of the value of their Souls and thereby excite themselves to use their best diligence to save them We will go said they to the Father of our Spirits we will make it our constant endeavour to reconcile our selves to him We will say Father we have sinned against Heaven and against thee we have sinned against our selves We have wronged our own Souls we are no more worthy to be called thy Sons no not worthy of so much as to be called the Sons of men We have lived like Brutes we have spoiled thy Workmanship and miserably effaced and mangled thine Image But we repent and remember from whence we are faln We are desirous now of nothing so much as to be conformed to thy self O let us be thy servants if we are not worthy to be called thy children Admit us but into the lowest place in thy family to the meanest degree of thy Love And if that be too good a name for us to be stiled thy servants we are willing to be thy Vassals thy Bonds-men any thing that thou wilt have us For we are the Captives of thy Mighty and All-conquering Love and we shall think our selves happy if we may sit in the most inferiour rank of those that shall eternally sing thy Praises CAP. XXXI How the Pilgrim was falling into the contrary Extreme and was prevented by his Director Of the Necessity of Discretion And the assistance which one Vertue gives another How he was troubled that he should have any passions Of the use of them That it is fit for us for us to love our friends passionately and to take great delight in their company IN such ardent effusions as these they a long time unloadned themselves of the passions which they felt in their hearts Which being all vented there still remained a very great one for this Good man which they were not able to utter Very sorry they were that it was not possible for them alwayes to accompany him and when they took their leave it was with so many fresh tears and vows of never forgotting his instructions that he thought
made any proficiency in the School of Piety wherein with so much care he had been bred No said his companion Nothing at all That is very strange indeed and you must pardon me if I tell you that it is a melancholy conceit For have you overcome so many temptations and yet done nothing Do you love God and your neighbour so much as to have an infinite desire of doing good and yet not at all bettered Have you suffered such a long Martyrdom and yet been lazy and idle Have you had so many sights of Jerusalem and yet made no progress in your journy Was not the last Prospect which you gained of that place fairer then the former and did it not seem nearer and closer to you How should that come about if you had stood still and not gone forward towards it Away with these black thoughts which the fumes of melancholy and nothing else do breathe into you For my part I think you have profited so much that I please my self to look upon you no less then a Gardiner doth to behold the Trees which he planted when they bring forth fruit or a Father rejoyces to see the children of his cares grown up to the stature of men and women I desire only that you would cherish an honest emulation of your self and cast a jealous eye on your own worth lest you should not be so good as your self Do but labour not to come behind nor fall short of your own Vertue Do but keep up close to your own example and I shall think you such a proficient that I shall glory in the name of your Instructer But for the present come along with me and let us refresh our selves a little in yonder fair Bowling-green that we may excite those natural spirits which I see are heavily oppressed by that grim enemy I just now named of all pious Souls And you shall soon see better thoughts in your Soul when you have better blood in your Body With much ado he perswaded him to consent to this motion and though thereby he received some relief yet the same dejected humor too much continued For his mind being strongly impressed with those conceits they could not so soon be discharged and blotted out Besides the continuance therefore of that exercise and the use of some Physick he thought good at seasonable times more particularly to remember all that the Gratious God had done for him Bidding him to take great heed lest under the guise of this Humility as it is esteemed he proved unthankful for his favours and by studying to depress himself he withall depressed the bounty of his goodness He let him know also that the perfection which he aimed at the want whereof might possibly be the root of this new trouble was not to be attained by such violent passionate and impetuous motions but by leisurely quiet and silent steps unto it Did you mind said he the flowers as we passed along how some were hidden in their green Cups others were half-born and the rest newly disclosed Or have you never marked the Rose how it swells into small knobs or buttons which when they are full grown do rive by little and little until they have discovered all their treasures Suppose you should unbutton it as soon as it swells or go about suddenly to rip it up when it is opening it self would you not endanger the spoiling of its beauties and deprive your self of that wholly which you desire too soon to enjoy Your own case is nothing different and if you will not be content to grow leisurely you may miss of the happiness at which you would so speedily arrive You must not make so much haste as I have often told you You must give your self leave to ripen and allow a fair time for your proceeding to perfection And in the mean season be not so unreasonable as to think you have nothing because you have not all that is in your desires It may seem strange perhaps at first sight but it is certainly true that the desire of much Vertue may prove inordinate Though you may think that it can never be too passionately pursued yet assure your self your desires are undue when such an affliction of spirit attends upon them as is wont to accompany the desire of other things If the violence and fierceness of them rend your heart there may be as much hazard in it as there is in tearing up a Rose when it is in labour to bring forth its leaves That is you will never be so good as other wayes you might nor obtain so much by your own eagerness as would come of it self in a course of nature I do not intend to quench your Zeal nor is all this said to make you less fervent in your study to become more pious or to move you to leave all to Gods Will without your own industry But my meaning is that just as you take order in your worldly affairs so should you manage your self in those of your Soul We must be diligent in the pursuit of such things as are needful for our Bodies yet we ought not to afflict our selves with the anguish of cares and fears and such like passions but quietly put the issue of our labours into Gods hands and patiently expect what he will bless them withall Even so must you bestir your self with as much industry as you can for the good of your Soul yet with this condition that if you cannot acquire all that you would you do not suffer your heart to fall into a fit of impatience vexation and fretting at your present estate which must needs be joyned with a great distrust of God By this means while you would avoid one fault you run into another And you keep your self with such violent hands from compassing your desires that you seek for Perfection by the means of the greatest Imperfection and would redress your disorders by constantly living in them You must thank God therefore for what he gives and patiently wait upon him for more when he pleases to bestow it And I am apt to think that Humility and Patience in the company of our imperfections when we do our best indeavour to out-grow them is as acceptable to God as the nobler Improvements of others that complain of no such imperfections For the one is the Gift of God as well as the other and he that gives them to be without such defects gives you Grace to bear them meekly when they cannot be helpt I would have you my Friend not to cease to follow the bravest Examples and when you cannot be Master of all you desire yet still to continue your desire But be not disgusted at your self I beseech you that you are in a state of desire and not of perfect enjoyment Let not this take away your peace that you are not in the foremost ranks of those that are marching to Jerusalem Be not cast down and sorely afflicted within your self that you do
their thinking and speaking of it This they lookt upon as a common friend to both that would translate them to those happy regions where friendship is in its Kingdom and raigns over every heart All the favour they would have beg'd if it were wont to grant any petitions was that with one stroke it would arrest them both and carry them thither together And if any body could have made good the Paracelsian promise of spinning out the life of man to a length equal with the clue of time and making our vital oil of the same durable temper with that which feeds the Lamps of Heaven All things were so in common between them that I verily think one of them would not have accepted of such a courtesie on condition to injoy it alone without the other No they rather desired as I said that the one might not see the other expire but that the same hand might cut off both their threds at once and that one moment might put out those Lamps which were not willing to burn asunder All the wishes that our Pilgrim made besides this was only that they might live so long till he could give some remarkable proof of his affection to his Guide For though he knew that he loved him above all things and could contradict even his former wishes by dying for him yet it did sometimes a little discontent him that he was in no capacity to show his tenderness but only by words and protestations Though the wisdom of his Conductor had stood him in so great stead and he could not well spare any of it yet he was so foolish now and then as to think that if he had been less wise he himself had been more happy Because then he might have stood in need to receive those counsels which now he only gave and been requited for those courtesies which now he made him a pure debtor for Many other benefits also that are usually communicated between friends he found himself utterly destitute of all means to confer they being either not in his power or his Guide in no need of them This sometimes raised a small disquiet in his mind and one day I remember he could not contain himself but he began a discourse to this purpose which shall put an end to this present Relation I should think my self said he the happiest man alive was I but able to correspond with you in the duties and offices of friendship and were I not constrain'd to return you only a weak and fruitless passion for that efficacious love which hath done me so many services It troubles me a little to find that my passion is as useless as it is extream and as void of benefit to you as it is violent in it self It is no less barren then I doubt it may be burdensome and hath as little profit as I see it hath brought you much trouble Though the honour be very great you have done me in bestowing such a place upon me in your heart yet I know not sometimes whether I should not complain in the enjoyment of a favour which as it was not in my hands to deserve so I cannot possibly requite True indeed it is that I have given my self to you but that is no more than strict Justice exacts since I have received your self as a gift to me Friendship they say is a commutation of hearts and therefore it is but fit that you should have mine in room of your own And yet alas mine is of such small value that I doubt you will be wholly a loser by the change Is there no means for me to do you service or to rest content with a will to serve you Cannot you either shew me how I may be useful to you or shew your self a disposition to it in that heart which I have given you I should be satisfied I think if you knew my will as well as my self It remains in your power not my own to settle my mind in peace if you will first believe I love you and then set a value upon that Love which you know is the cause of all well-doing and ought not to be blamed for want of power Very true said his Guide who laid hold of that word I think that I have found a treasure in your Love and I will have it pass for currant payment though it cannot express it self in such sensible effects as you would have it It is enough to me that you have such a passionate affection for me though it could never find the means to do any thing but only tell me how hearty it is I am pleased with the intentions and desires which you have to do me any good It is an extraordinary contentment to me to contemplate the imaginations which are in your mind of what you would do for me could power be courted by your will to come and joyn it self unto it They are the Vulgar who call nothing benefits but what they can feel with their fingers It is the portion of gross Souls to be insensible unless your courtesies to come at their hearts pass through their hands The purer and more refined Spirits touch the very Souls of their Friends and feel the kindness which lyes in their breasts They are so subtil as to see a courtesie while it is so young as to be but only in design They touch it before it be cloathed in matter or have passed beyond the confines of thoughts They meet it in the first rudiments and embrace it while it is only in meaning and drawn in the imagination They receive these inward acts of Love as most pure and spiritual being separate from all the terrestrial part which affect the vulgar minds And in one word there is not any thing dearer to them than those motions of the Soul which finding nothing they can do correspondent to their own greatness and force do terminate in themselves They are pleased to see them stay there and go no further because there is nothing fairer than themselves to be met withall wherein to end and rest Do not depretiate your affection therefore nor vilifie it in that manner you are wont as though it were not worthy my acknowledgement Do not tell me any more that it is no valuable Love which doth not serve our Friends for this service depends upon occasions and they depend on an higher Being and are only in the dispose of Providence All that I can be beholden to you for I have received already from you and for the rest if it could be bestowed I must make my acknowledgements to something else Be contented then that you give all that is in your hands and that if it were in them to make occasions you would still let those be wanting which most of all prove a friend Nay let me tell you I am so favourable in my opinion to your affection and so apt to give it the best advantage that I am not yet resolved but there may be
good design through rashness and hast It keeps us from tripping up our own heels by running too fast It keeps us from being tired while it keeps us from taking too long though continued Journeys It keeps us alwayes at our work by keeping us from over-working our selves It makes Religion easie and pleasant by making it free and unconstrain'd It brings Religion so much into our love that it will never fall into our hatred It preserves us from destroying the body while we are labouring to save the soul It feeds the soul without any gluttony and saves it from nauseating spiritual things by providing that it take no surfeit of them It conducts our affairs with more temper and less rumour with more effects and less show It makes us zealous without rashness and excites us to do good to our selves without prejudicing the good of others It quenches the furious heat which affrights the wicked and discourages the weak and upbraids the soberness of those who are strong It shews that it is possible at once to be Religious and yet Wise It adorns the Gospel and is a great grace and ornament to him that wears it It commends Piety to the World and doth not impair it in our selves It gives a lustre to all the Vertues and they borrow their beauty from it And in one word it is at least their Handmaid which must ever wait upon them or else they will dishonour themselves Our young Pilgrim you discern by this time was a man of so much wit that he could not but see the design of this story and think that it had an aim at himself And being very much cooled and refreshed by this charitable breath which the Father had spent upon him he instantly apprehended that he had contrived to give him a divertisement and an instruction both together For sometime he could do nothing else but commend this Vertue till at last he remembred there was some praise due to the Father who had given him now such an instance of it And having rendred him his thanks both for the lesson and the seasonableness of it he assured him that he would never travel without this Discretion about him No more you had need said his Companion for though I called her only the Handmaid of the Vertues yet in truth she seems to be a Mistress among them and to dispose them to their several duties For one Vertue you must know is in need of its neighbour and cannot live alone They must help one another continually or else they will be very lame and defective They must lend to each other a mutual support or else they will be in danger of falling to the ground Meekness must lend its hand to Zeal and Zeal must do as much for it again or else the one will be but Fire and the other will be but Phlegme Seriousness must be beholden to Chearfulness and chearfulness must call to be repayed by it or else we shall be either all earth or nothing but Air. Humility wants a little confidence an holy Faith must be joyned with some Fear an high Generosity and great courage is very imperfect without Modesty and a severe Justice must be acquainted with sweetness and complacence Or if the one should refuse the other this assistance it will feel such a want it self that it will be forced to beg that which it doth deny But what is it I beseech you that pairs and links them thus together and makes them do this mutual service unless it be the Discretion and Judgment which the Holy man recommended to you This superintends over all and issues forth her directions and orders to them which if they be not obeyed they do most hurt where we intended the greatest good and they run to the borders of Vice when we designed the highest degree of Vertue This makes a sweet mixture of Faith in God with fear of our selves of Godly Sorrow with Spiritual Joy of innocence with prudence of lowliness with greatness of mind of heavenly-mindedness with diligence in our Callings of delight in God with a pleasure in our friends and those who are good It teaches us to discourse and not be talkative to be silent but not melancholy to be content with what we have but not be idle to labour but not be impatient to bear a dear affection to our friends but not to their faults to reprove others and not incur a reproof our selves by undue severity towards them Enough said the Pilgrim I see such need of this Vertue that you may be confident I shall never be willing to be without its company But truly I think it must be your Discretion more than mine own that will be my security for I have been you see afflicted with such contrary passions that I am ready to wish that I had none at all There is not one of those that I have about me but it is sometimes such a trouble to me that I should think my self more happy if I were wholly deprived of them They are so strong and violent so boisterous and turbulent that if they do not overtop my reason yet I cannot overcome them without suffering a great tumult and disorder What should we do with things which it is so hard to rule Were it not better to discharge them all since there needs more discretion than I am Master of to keep them The Good man was a little troubled to hear him speak after this sort and askt him with a greater quickness than he was wont to use Would you then be well pleased if I should bring a Sythe and mow off your leggs Had you rather be carried than go upon your feet The poor man was amazed at this question and askt him what he meant My meaning said the Father is plain enough Your passions are nothing else but those motions of your soul whereby you go to that Good or run away from that Evil which your understanding presents to your heart You would be so far from being happy by being deprived of them that I maintain you could not be happy at all without them A Tree would be as happy as you if you had no desire nor love nor hope nor none of the rest of their company And therefore you may as well desire to have no feet or to have a Dead-Palsie smite your loyns and disable you to move as wish to have no passions or to have them so benummed and stupified that you shall not feel them We must not pluck out our eyes for fear they be abused with unworthy spectacles nor stand stock still for fear of falling nor alwayes stay at home because the weather may prove rainy Nay When did you see any excellent Vertue which was not accompanied with a plentiful portion of these Or When was there any love or courage or any such like thing in a noble degree but you might discern it edged with no small passionateness of spirit And do not think that our passions
are of little use for it is plain they are good for more purposes than one There is at least a double end for which they serve They first incite and dispose the Soul to seek those things which are good and necessary for us and then secondly they fortifie and conserve us in this disposition and make us to persist in our inclinations to those things which are profitable for us the thoughts of which else might easily be blotted out They stir you up and bring you to that good which objects it self to your mind and then they impress it there and cause it to stay with your Soul For you cannot but observe that those things which move you with any passion when you see or think of them do stick longest in your mind and those with which you are not affected are but little remembred All your business then is and in that you must bestow some pains to get better eyes to guide you in your goings and not to endeavour that you may not stir at all You must study I mean to understand the true difference between good and evil to be able to judge what is fit for you and what not what good can certainly be attained and what evil avoided and what is quite without the limits of our power and then how is it blameable if you be carried with a great passion to the one and from the other Do not think all things to be evil which the World calls by that name nor admire the goodness of any thing above its price nor follow that zealously which you are in doubt whether or no it can be attained and then your passions will be so far from being your Masters that in fear of that you will not refrain to use their Service And if you should chance to be surprised with a fancy of some evil or good before you can have liberty to discourse the true nature of it and your passions hereby become very strong and are raised to a greater height than you would have them there is no reason to be troubled for none can prevent these sudden assaults nor can they be quell'd without some scuffle within If you can conquer you have well acquitted your self And that will be attended with those triumphs which will more than recompence the trouble of those furious and rebellious commotions You will not think those things bad without which there could not be such a brave and noble thing as Victory is Be content then I beseech you to be of the race of Adam and do not affect some higher Original Go not about to destroy one half of your self by labouring to be free from all passion For they that undertake this as hath been well said by those before us instead of making a good Man do only raise a Statue In order to make a man wise and live in peace they turn him into a dead and insensible Image These kind of Images say they are more suitable for the ornaments of the Porch then for the uses of life And if we be not blind we may discern between hardness and softness a middle temperament which is called solidity and firmness The Pilgrim was so much pleased with these words that he could scarce forbear to hugg him when they were ended And his passions having found such a defendor to take their part were ready to serve themselves but too much of this friendly discourse in their behalf I love you infinitely said he clasping about his neck or to speak more moderately I love you above all earthly things There is no Musick can be so charming to me as your words They can both appease my raging humours and excite me out of my dull and phlegmatick inclinations You are my Intelligence my Tutelar Angel the good Genius of my soul without whom I think I should either have no Passions or Nothing else Go on I beseech you to oblige me and to make me if it be possible more in love with you Be not weary of the charge you have undertaken and do not despair neither but in your company I may learn more discretion to govern those passions which I see must not be rooted out When he had vented this passion of love as much as he pleased and was capable to attend to some new discourse the Father thought it not unseasonable to ask him if he did not begin already to repent of all those embraces which he had bestowed upon him Nay do not wonder pursued he at this demand for I do not intend to question the greatness of your love but by what I have observed I believe you may be afraid that it ought not to be so great I have long taken notice that you are so scrupulous as not to dare to trust your own soul nor rely upon the credit of your severest reason Though you think it is impossible but that there should be such motions as you feel and know your self to be of such a complexion that if you will love at all it must be with a passionateness and fervency of affection yet upon the next ebullition as I may call it in your soul you are ready to condemn your self and to quit those Maxims of reason which you took to be infallible I know my friend that there is in this a pardonable or rather commendable niceness of soul a delicacy and tenderness of conscience which would not in the least offend God but it must be confessed that there is something of weakness and unsetledness of mind in it also which dare not adhere to its own Conclusions We are not to let a sudden fancy shake that which is so well and rationally established Or rather we are to ponder those things so long and to settle our selves so strongly in our reasons which are the ballast of our souls that we shall never desert them upon the pretence of any pious fears lest we should displease God To suffer our selves to love any person that is amiable very much or put any such like case is it justifiable or is it not If not away with all these Passions and dig them up But if you will have them remain be not angry that they grow and blossome and bring forth fruit and produce it in abundance And a little the more to confirm your mind let me fay something to you of that tenderness of affection which I observe in you towards a vertuous friend that inclination which you have to be with him and especially of that pleasantness and mirth you are apt to yield unto in the company of those you love You think perhaps that this is too much and that you take too great a liberty of pleasing your self But I beseech you did you ever observe any great vertue in those cold creatures or rather in those morose and austere natures who judge it a crime to love their friends with any passion to feel a joy in their approach to talk pleasantly in their company and to use