thy continuance in well-doing thou shalt most certainly accomplish to thy unspeakable comfort but if thou art a captive to the false and deceitfull pleasures of sin as I have been hearken unto me who can upon too too long an experience Lord pardon my many relapses assure thee that what fair appearances soever sin presents thee with in its first approaches it will leave a sting behind and after the commission of every sinfull act thou wilt most certainly be so far removed from God as the greatness of thy sin was and as the testimonies of a good conscience decay so will the accusations of an evil one come in their room till insensibly thou fall into horror and despondencies of spirit one of the least of which is far too dear a price for all the pleasures the world can afford thee These are the entrances of Hell into thy soul upon the withdrawings of God and spiritual consolations without which the soul languisheth as the body fainteth upon a decay of the animal or vital spirits this must thou look for after the continuance in any known and presumptuous sin but if thou find it not thy condition is dangerous for the obduration or hardening of the heart is the threshold of Hell look quickly then and seriously into thy soul labour to get a sight of thy sins in the Book of Conscience whiles they may be blotted out pray earnestly to God for a true sense of them for Prayer is the Key of Heaven consider often of Death Judgment Heaven and Hell think how odious the sin of ingratitude is between man and man and that unthankfulness for the Blood of Christ is the highest of that kind think of the shortness of mans life and the great business is to be done in that little life that thy short life is posting to an end O the folly and madness of sin it is a continual acting against reason a treasuring up of wrath with the God of all Power a providing for the society of Devils and damned souls who will be cursing their Maker and one another to all eternity 't is that which only is dishonourable to man a disturbance to Commonwealths it is the satisfaction of Devils if they could have any the trouble of Angels and blessed souls nay the grieving of the Holy Ghost and the continual murthering of the Son of God I have no design in this short Discourse but the Glory of God the conversion of souls and the discharging of my own Conscience by testifying to as many as I can the detestation of my former life that so the ill consequences of my example may be in some measure repaired by this publication of my self and therefore wish to that end that all may see this that saw my debauchery and I beseech God to give me boldness in the confession of my faults and to make me only shamefull of recommitting them Above all things I advise men to beware of immoderate drinking which dulls the understanding and makes the soul impatient of contemplation it disposeth vehemently to the pleasures of sense and to a gigling impertinent mirth it precipitateth to the acts of uncleanness and exciteth all the passions exposing men to many and daily hazards both of soul and body and rendring them unfit for any employment either in Ecclesiastical or Civil Affairs And since it is so that some mens bodies by their temperament do require strong drinks more than others it is not a total abstinence but a moderate use of it which is expected for which end I think it a very good rule by which to set some observable bounds to drinking that men would drink so far as to cherish the stomach but not to the least elevation of the brain and the stomach is satisfied with a small quantity unless a man lie under the cheat of a habit but when the spirits of the wine or any strong liquor begin to mount up to the brain from whence the soul doth principally and most immediately act the contemplative power begins to be disquieted and unfixt and the soul now to fluctuating as it were and wavering in her motion her best and steady operations being hindred pleases her self with being conversant about outward things and trivial objects and lies more exposed to the danger of frequent temptations this which I speak of is but the first change of the brain when it is altered from its usual tone and composure and although a man may drink to this pitch and yet carry civility about him and a favourable correspondence with men because his tongue doth not falter neither is his understanding so obscured as to fail at least in matters of common converse yet this person who hath done nothing unacceptable to the world hath so changed the Scene within himself that he is now more at the command of his sensual appetite than before and his noble faculties begin to lean towards the world and stagger in the sight of God though his legs stand firm before the eyes of them that see him I appeal to the consciences of any such plausible drinkers whether they do not find themselves more cold in acts of devotion more fond of outward pleasures more affected with the thoughts of temporal honours and the favour of great men more than the love of Jesus Whether the contemplation of eternity and the estate of their souls in reference to that being doth so well relish with them at that time If they did so why do they not wave a Stage-play and go to publick prayers which are at that time Why instead of going to a wrangling Gaming-house do they not study the game of Christianity that they may beat that experienced Gamester the Devil and win their souls which lye continually at stake and are in imminent danger of being lost What a sad thing is it that so noble a Creature as man should rest in and be contented with trifles for whom are prepared the glories of eternity if here he will take upon him the easie yoke and light burden of Christ Now although many men that drink not may and do often these things and far worse yet drink betrayes them more easily to vanities and idle pastimes therefore be carefull to avoid this degree of drinking and thou wilt then be secure from the scandalous sin of visible drunkenness which is the beastly consummation of the former I do not speak this to perswade men from society and chearfulness as if Religion and Mirth were things inconsistent since I know that true Mirth is found no where else But we do for the most part mistake Mirth the most of any thing accounting that it consists in laughter only whereas properly a man may be most truly merry when he laugheth least For none laugh more than Idiots and men of weak understanding and sensualists while men advanced in knowledge and quieted in mind by serious and due reflections on themselves do it but seldom but none will deny but the latter
the proper Objects of its nature and so long as there is that appetite the mind cannot be said to enjoy true pleasure But here I expect to have it objected to me That upon this account the Virtuous Man as well as the Sensualist cannot be said to enjoy true Pleasure because the former as well as the latter hath not while he is in the body his appetite satisfied To this I answer That when the mind is once set right and hath made a choice of that which is intrinsecally good and suitable to its nature immediately it begins to enjoy true Pleasure because although it do still desire more yet doth it not covet any thing better or of a more excellent nature than it hath already tasted of so that the desires of the mind are stopt quoad rem because it doth not covet any thing contrary to or desperate from what it hath already pitch't upon but not quoad mensuram rei because it desires to be put into a full fruition of that which it now enjoys but in part upon which account the Kingdom of Grace and Glory seem not to me to differ otherwise than gradually so that the Spiritual man hath something of that he desires but not all yet so much as he hath sufficeth to bring him true Pleasure though not to make up the integrality of it while the Sensual Man pursuing a wrong Object cannot possibly while he doth so arrive at true pleasure The second thing requisite to constitute or make an Object suitable to the mind is that it have wherewithal to gratifie all the appetites of the Soul but no external thing can accommodate the mind with more than it hath in it self that is it cannot entertain it with spiritual delights how far short will it prove then of satisfying the Soul with all it is capable of in spirituals this being more than any created Intelligence can administer to it for though we find many excellencies in Angels and the Souls of Men by the reason that they are intelligent Natures yet they have not that sufficiency in them which is requisite to an Object that is in all respects suitable to the mind which must not only present it with something spiritual and incorporeal but likewise with whatsoever it can covet within the genus of spiritual and immaterial existencies and this nothing can do but that satiating Plenitude which is only to be found in God which appears to be true by that propensity which Men of large apprehensions have to enquire into those remote Truths which yet they cannot see clearly into there is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1. 19. which hath such a Magnetick virtue in it that it is alwayes drawing the Soul towards it self neither will the Spirit of Man be ever at rest till it be united to the Son of God and put into a full fruition of the Deity How do we hear even young Students wrangle about the dividing of a body into so small parts and that it is not capable of further division for not conceiving how it can be that so long as there remains something in quantity that quantity should not be capable of being separated at least Intellectu though not Actu and yet not understanding how a body can admit infinite separations they are still searching into this Abstrusity which remains with God What Battologies have we about Free-will and respective Decrees not being able to distinguish between the precognition of God and his concurrence of volition or necessitation how are we prying into the mystery of the Incarnation into the nature of the Trinity there are certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which S t Peter speaks of to be in S t Pauls Epistles which although they are things hard to be understood yet are we still coveting to comprehend them which aspirations of the Soul do shew that it was created for matters of a higher concernment than any created substance can furnish it withall from themselves for such things are to be found only in God inhesively or subjectively but they may be communicated to us by Angels who know them either by acquisition or divine infusion and these tendencies of the mind are arguments to me that the Soul of Man is capable of apprehending those abstracted Truths which it so covets to know while it is in the body because our pressing to know seem's to me to be an immediate effect of our wanting or being ignorant of something which our minds are comprehensive of and therefore Beatified spirits cease to desire more because their capacities are fill'd which is perfect Happiness ad modum recipientis But it may be objected That the Angels which fell desired to be equal with God but it was impossible it should be so therefore we must not measure our capacities by our desires To this I answer First that I do not believe they ever did because it must seem to be below the extent of their knowledge which reached to so vast a height to entertain with the least hopes such a childish Ambition but rather that their Lapse did arise from a spleen and malice to God for advancing Mankind so high or if it could be so we must distinguish between an undue and vitious and a natural or necessary act of the will I 'le suppose their's to have been an audacious and arbitrary willing of that which was ipso facto destructive to their happiness but these propensities of our Souls which God hath so infused into us that we cannot suppress them are continual willings as it were against our wills and are therefore natural and to be accounted of as the effects of our present defective state and these I am induced to believe will hereafter attain to what they have strain'd for here But not to make any farther digression Let us enquire into the second thing requisite to true Pleasure which is fruition It is not enough that there is in nature an Object suitable to the mind but there must be such an application of it to our persons as may make us true Possessors of it and here I cannot say exclusively that there is no fruition in the Pleasures of sense for were there not the Devil would have no train at his heels but they will be found to be very inconsiderable and equivalent with none at all And first let us consider the Glutton who makes not that the end of eating which he should namely the support of his natural life as S t Augustine Hoc mihi docuisti ut quemadmodum Medicamenta sic Alimenta sumpturus accedam How soon doth his sweet bit pass over the threshold of his tongue and then his Pleasure is over for that morsel consisting but in ipso transitu and although he puts in another and another yet it cannot be long e're his stomack will be filled and then he must cease repeating it till Nature or Art have disposed of the Load after a Scene of sick Qualms in the mean
which was not long after but in the midst of my idle and sensual life I had intermissions of consideration not without some trouble my bashfulness which I always had in a measure more than ordinary did much incline me to drink finding that did embolden me for which reason I have wisht I had been brought up at some publick School rather than in my Fathers House supposing that strange company and being from under the tender wing of my dearest Mother I might have been rouzed up by being put more to my shifts and my bashfulness abated by being accustomed to the company of strangers And indeed I found manifestly that being so much confined to home through the carefull fear and love both of my Father and Mother bashfulness and melancholy did so gain upon and take root in me that it was always a great disturbance to my life I found likewise my memory both slow and not retentive occasioned by that fixtness which was upon me and that occasioned by the want of business to employ my memory and inform my judgment and excite my thoughts which contributed much to fix me more in melancholy and want of confidence which though not so considered of by my Father and Mother yet I found manifestly in my self it was a great occasion of mischief to me and did expose me to a loose life But Lord had I stirred up in my self that stock of Grace and those Divine Principles which were infused into me by thy self the fountain of holiness and purity and the instiller of holy motions thou wouldest undoubtedly have come into my soul with such controuling power as would have reduced my disordered mind to an obedience to thy heavenly will the absence of which hath bred in me so great matter of discomfort but if thy goodness shall spare me for so much future obedience as may place me in the favour of thy self I shall more esteem it than thousands of Gold and Silver A Prayer I Desire Eternal Jesus to call upon Thee from the depth of my sorrows upon Thee O Divinity incarnate whose mercies are bottomless and whose Merits can bury the most vast extuberances of repented sin from the eye of thy Fathers Justice and secure the relenting sinner from the stroke of his Omnipotent hand which nothing can intercept but thy self who art all and whose intire Obedience can answer all the objections of Divine fury and out-wrastle Justice when she makes her greatest assaults But O my presumptuous soul though it be true that the Mercies of God in Christ exceed all proportions and that there are continuall springs of compassion which are ever flowing from the breasts of his goodness yet how can that avail thee while thou art bathing thy self in sensuality and courting thy treacherous lusts who were the murtherers of the blessed Jesus whom if thou chase from thee which thou must needs do if thou welcome thy sins she goes along with the blessed Lamb and never leaves him where he is she is still to be sound and had not he come into the visible world she had never presented her self to mankind but they must have been ever separated from the Glories of Eternity What can the best extracted cordial do to a man who is naturally dead neither can these cordials of salvation advantage thee who art spiritually so Most blessed Lord make me a subject capable of thy mercy by faith and repentance for else the preparations of thy mercy will be my greatest misery to see redemption at a distance causeth a languishment of the soul here if she have any residues of Grace while mercy is not irrecoverable but to see her removed when she can never return yet so many times offered in the day of Grace is the most bitter ingredient of eternal misery Suffer me most glorious Jesus who am but dust and ashes to speak unto my Lord and let me ask at the mouth of wisdom how it comes to pass that my heart should pant after thee now and anon grow cold and disobedient can Christ and Belial be inmates together If I love thee and desire thee above all things to day why do I leave thee next since thou art more delectable the second day than the first and the third day than the second since thy essential sweets do not like those thou hast created glut the appetite but become the more gratefull the more frequently they are tasted Oh it is my original corruption which strives to demolish those reparations of Grace which are in my soul by thy death and to obscure those reinfused sparks But Lord let thy additional Grace joyned to that twinkling light which yet remains in me improve it to such a flame by thy frequent supplies that by its light I may discover my sins and by its heat they may be consumed who would betray me into that fire which should ever light me and ever burn me but never consume me Blessed Redeemer I have not onely my own inherent sinfulness and the spirit of spirits separated from thy self to encounter withall but there is another cause in nature which depresses my soul from rising up to her Lord the flesh which is ever warring against the spirit and besides the usuall evils of it there is more in me than the bodies of men do often bring with them thou know'st it Lord for thou made'st me and since thou did'st I am silent I know thou madest me to thy Glory what though I have more of earth in the composition of my body than others have by which the motion of my animal and vital spirits is obstructed though my apprehension and memory be not so quick and retentive if I obey my Redeemer and hearken to his charms the spirit of Jesus shall inspire and quicken my soul which if it be nimble and active in its correspondencies to the Rules of Christ I shall have a large amends for the splene and dulness of my body But when I have been troubled with the incumbency of this weight I have not looked up unto my blessed Jesus whom I might have seen through my thickest blood since that excellent spirit which I am by Creation doth not require the body to its sublime operations but instead of this most injured Saviour I have run to thy Creatures for help yet that I might have done for they had not been but to preserve my being and support my natural life but ah wretch that I am I have made an inordinate use of them and turned thy blessings into my own curses instead of putting my soul into a more serviceable estate for thy glory by correcting the disproportions of my temperament I have defaced her beauty with intemperance and exposed her to the assaults of Lusts and Devils But Oh most meek and mercifull Jesus though I made a resignation of my self thou didst not give me away by substracting the residues of thy Grace but my spirit even in her most deliberate aberrations from thy Rule was the
promoted by our Essential consistency of Spirit and Body the material and bodily part always disposing us to the pursuance of Outward things contrary to the approbation of the Intellectual But since the depravation of Mans Will by the fall of Adam we are united to Errour and need not a Tempter to lead us out of the way for both the Principles of our Being do now dispose us to wrong Objects therefore to lay open this grand Fallacy it being in a matter of so great concernment as is the Eternal happiness or perdition of Men let us examine what is requisite to the constituting of true Pleasure To the making up then of true and real Pleasure I shall lay down these three Conditions as requisite First That the Object be suitable to the Soul Secondly That the Soul be put into Fruition of this suitable Object Thirdly That the perpetuity of this Fruition be ensur'd to it Now let us enquire whether External things considered simply in themselves and not relatively as they have respect to greater ends have these three Conditions in them or no. First then Is any External thing an Object suitable to the mind of Man I answer That no External thing is because they all want two Qualifications which are requisite to make an Object suitable to the mind the first of which is That it be congeneal and of the same nature with the Soul that is a substance immaterial or spiritual The second that it have in it a sufficiency to gratifie all the Appetites of the Soul First No outward thing is immaterial or spiritual for a spiritual substance comes not within the notice of our senses and though in Scripture we read of the appearing of Angels as three to Abraham two to Lot one to Cornelius another to S t Peter yet this must be suppos'd to have been by the assumption of bodies to which they were united not essentially but occasionally and pro tempore for in other places the Scripture tells us what their natures are calling them Spirits Psal. 104. vers 4. Heb. chap. 1. vers 14. and although I find no decisive Text for that Opinion of the Church of Rome that there is a Tutelary and a seducing Angel attending upon every Man and Woman and likewise Children which was indeed held amongst the Heathen under the terms of bonus and malus Genius yet it speaks indefinitely Heb. 1. 14. that they are all ministring Spirits for the Elect but notwithstanding their presence appears not to them when they come in their own Natures So likewise the Souls of Men are not within the notice of our senses being Spirits and incorporeal substances as Angels are for which we have the testimony of Scripture Man was made after the Image and Similitude of God But since the sense of these words Image and Similitude is much controverted in the Schools let us look into the twelfth of the Hebrews at the ninth verse Furthermore we had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live where Souls are called Spirits in opposition to flesh Besides the Testimony of Scripture we have a demonstration of their nature in the death of every Man for though the Soul be separated from the body yet the standers by see it not we hear nothing but the groans of the dying person caus'd by the motion of Parts we feel nothing but a coldness in the extremities of the body caused by the cessation of motion we smell nothing but a putrid savour caus'd by the corruption of humours neither do we tast any thing On the contrary all outward and corporeal things are obvious to some one of our senses for instance though we cannot hear the Light we can see it though we cannot see the Air we can feel it and though we taste not the white of an Egg yet we can see it or feel it and though we cannot smell a piece of Glass yet we can likewise see it or feel it and so of all material things that are at a due distance from the organs of our sense And here before we look into the second thing requisite let us examine why it is necessary that the Object be of the same nature with the Soul Thus then the Soul of Man being immaterial that which makes it happy by the fruition of it self must likewise be immaterial for as it is a fundamental in Physick that Nutrition is made by Similaries so likewise is this assertion true in the Metaphysical complacency between the Soul and the Object it cannot receive a proper supply from any thing that doth not bear an affinity with it in its substance and qualities This reciprocall delight between Parties is discoverable in every species of Created Beings and in every action in Natura naturata In Physicks flame and flame embrace one another but a furious conflict ariseth from the convention of fire and water in Morals goodness accords with goodness but vice will not be suffered to dwell with virtue and in the Metaphysical action of the contemplation of the Soul we see experimentally that she cannot content her self with inferiour Objects but is still seeking to her self some more excellent matter of delight which desires of the mind intelligent men may take notice of in themselves if they will be self-observers This appetite of the Soul is the reason why Solomon was not contented with all his clusters of delights though he turn'd over the whole world as it were yet he arrived not to the summ of his desires but still there remained in his spirit an appetite after something more than any exteriour thing could furnish him withall so that at last he openly proclaims them all to be excuse the catachresis but full of emptiness Seneca saith of Augustus Caesar that he delighted to talk of laying down the Scepter and of betaking himself to a recluse life And we read that the Emperour Charles the fifth resigned up the Low-Countries and Burgundy and afterward all the rest of his Dominions to his Son Philip in his life-time And of the Emperour Theodosius that he delivered up the charge of the Empire to his two Sons Arcadius and Honorius though with power to resume it which he never did and many other precedents of the same kind doth History present us withall of which it is reasonable to think that it was not only the troubles which usually attend Crowns caused this in them others being deputed to bear the greatest burdens in that kind but rather that all their enlargements could not present them with any thing agreeable to those secret appetites of their minds and this dissatisfaction there is in all the entertainments of sense by which it appears that the great capacities of the Soul can never be filled up with these lean and scanty Objects and whiles that Capacity is unsupplyed there will be a coveting of those things which are