written and allowed of by the Ancient Fathers and the whole Church of God in all Ages And then as to the necessity of Prayer if we consider our many wants Temporal and Spiritual to be relieved many sins wherein we still offend God to be pardoned many Temptations and Dangers from which to be preserved many Benefits and Assistances received and all these with a respect also to our Fellow Christians we cannot but acknowledge every moment of our Lives had we no other necessary Duties too little to be spent in this one Great Duty of Continual Prayer 1 Thess 5.17 Our good Lord assist us by his Holy Spirit in the diligent and sincere performance thereof The other Chief Means of our obtaining Divine Assistances against our Lusts is 2ly Frequen Communicating as many good Christians now do and the Primitive Christians did almost every day I do not intend here to treat largely of this Holy Sacrament there being many good Books Written designedly on that Subject but only recommend to the Reader without medling with God's power therein which transcends all Humane Conception and Comprehension the Immense Benefit of this Holy Mystery to each worthy Communicant in reference to his particular Necessities For obtaining Remission of this or that Sin a Remedy of this or that Infirmity a Deliverance from this or that Affliction for receiving a Benefit or giving thanks for a Benefit received for helping our Neighbour for encreasing the Holy Spirit and Love of God in us Because as by one Spirit in Baptism We are made one Mystical Body of Christ 1 Cor. 12.13 so likewise in the Eucharist are we made to drink into the partaking of one Spirit The Blessed Eucharist being as necessary for the continuing and encreasing as Baptism for the first receiving the Holy Spirit Because also this is that particular Nourishment instituted by Christ for the preserving our Body and Soul to Everlasting Life that particular Pledge and Assurance of our Resurrection that true Bread from Heaven which mystically also Incorporates us into Christ and makes us continue and grow up into perfect Members of his Body that so thus partaking of the Nature and Spirit of the Second Adam the Heir of all things we may become with him Sons of God Heirs of Eternal Life as we were by the First Adam of Eternal Death That true Heavenly Bread lastly so Exalting and Assimulating our Nature into Christ when worthily Communicating as to make us one with him as he and the Father are one According to our Saviour's Prayer when he was Instituting this Blessed Sacrament I pray thee Father John 17. that they may be one as we are one O Blessed Union between poor Man and his Maker O happy those Souls who here worthily feed on this Heavenly Bread the only true Nourishment of the Life of Grace enabling them in the Strength thereof to walk even to the Mount of God the Life of Glory The Conclusion THE Summ of this Discourse is The Sins of the Flesh are most dangerous because most natural to us And by reason of their filthiness most loathsome to Almighty God and most severely punished by him For not only those of the greater magnitude Fornication Adultery Incest Sodomy Beastiality are followed with God's most Tremendous Judgments but also we find in Scripture Vncleanness and Laciviousness Gal. 5.19 Eph. 5.3 destinct from the foregoing and of a less denomination every where joyned with such Sins as exclude the Practisers thereof from the Kingdom of Heaven The way to prevent such Sins and to avoid the punishment of them is To mortify our Passions our Memory and Imagination to beware of impure Suggestions cheirsh Holy Inspirations and avoid all the occasions of such Sins to Improve lastly the Grace of God in us by Assiduous Prayer daily Examination of our selves perfect Repentance frequent Communicating and all other holy means pressing still farther to higher and higher Gifts particularly to the attaining that most excellent Gift of Charity which makes us love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves hate even our own Lives for love of Him who first loved us undergoing the the greatest sufferings with Thankfulness and Complacency performing all our Actions on purpose to please him referring them to his Honour offering them up to his Praise and Glory To whom Father Son and Holy Ghost be all Honour Praise and Glory to all Eternity Amen God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in Truth Joh. 4.24 Grace and Truth i. e. means of Salvation came by Jesus Christ Joh. 1.17 God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts that they that live should not henceforth live unto themselves but to him who dyed for them Gal. 4.6 2 Cor. 5.15 Wretched is that man who is all for the good things of this Life a good House good Apparel good Provision c. and is content to have a bad Soul Int. Christ Some Short Directions and Heads of Meditation for the Persons Concerned in the Preceeding Discourse CHAP. I. Of Meditation it's Requisites and how it differs from Contemplation MEditation is called the first Essential part of Prayer leading to Contemplation Thanksgiving Petition c. in which all the Principal Faculties of the Soul the Memory Vnderstanding Will and Affections are severally employed The Memory recollects the matter to be Meditated upon and also placeth the Soul in the Divine Presence The Vnderstanding judgeth of the Subject and its Vertues and accordingly proposeth it to the Will The Will excites in us divers Acts and Affections either of Love Affiance Gratitude c. towards God Or of Hatred Compunction desire of doing better c. towards our selves which is indeed the main Scope and end of Meditation Then follows our Praying and representing to Almighty God our Miseries Necessities Temptations which we most earnestly beg him to redress for his own Love and Compassion's sake and the Merits of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ But when the Faculties of the Soul are unactive or slow in their Operations as it often happens they are to be excited by the help of good Books which ought always to be at hand when we Meditate and in all such holy exercise we are to approach the Divine Presence with our greatest Reverence and Humiliation And it is also necessary before every Meditation to make a strict Examen of Conscience 1. What Benefits we have received that day from Almighty God for which we are to return Thanks 2. What Sins we have that day committed running through every hour in thought word and deed for which we are to beg pardon 3. We are to resolve upon an amendment in every particular by the Grace of God After such strict Examination of all our Thoughts Desires Words and Works judging our selves that we be not judged of the Lord and Confessing our Sins in the bitterness of our Soul as the Church requires and taking also
are those high things so far surpassing our Understanding that according to St. Paul Eye hath not seen 1 Cor. 2.9 2 Cor. 12.4 nor Ear heard nor hath it ever entred into the heart of Man to conceive them And if none or all of these Meditations and innumerable others relating to our Saviour and another World with which the Holy Scriptures and other good Books amply supply us cannot prevail to secure us it is certainly much better rudely to quit the Company and leap out of the flames than to stay out of Complaisance to be burnt in them CHAP. VI. The Second Rule Of Suggestions THE Second Instruction is To take great care of Suggestions and to observe from what Principle or Cause they proceed Whether 1st From our selves or our own Lusts Or 2ly From the Devil Or 3ly From the H. Spirit of God and accordingly we are either to entertain or reject them Now it is not easie even for the greatest Asceticks to discern upon all occasions from which of these Principles a Suggestion arises but if it be such as tempteth us to any Notorious sin any Filthy uncleanness we may presently know from whence it comes And then it is much better and easier to suppress it in its very beginning to stifle it in the Embryo before it be conceived in us by our consenting to it or at least before it break forth into any outward action which when finished brings forth Death Jam. 1.15 Filthy unclean Suggestions we cannot always prevent but we may refuse consenting to them or taking any delight in them and so suppress and keep them under by God's Assistance till at length we Totally extinguish them O that God's Holy Spirit would take such full possession of my heart as not to suffer any unclean Suggestion to enter there But if the sin to which we are tempted be habitual to us or the sin which doth most easily of all others beset us Heb. 12.1 we are then to bend all our forces against it make the strongest resolutions we can for some short time at least suppose for a day and so renew our resolutions every Morning the known practice of a Renowned Bishop of the Church of England in Point of Matrimony taking particular Notice how often it assaults us and in the midst of the Temptation using some external action if nothing but violence will do such as throwing our selves down upon our knees or face beating our Breast supplicating our Lord with sighs and tears when God pleases to give them for his assistance who hath promised that he will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able 1 Cor. 10.13 but will with the Temptation make a way for our Escape or enable us to bear the pressure of it At least it is wisdom to delay the Execution of the foul Act to which we are tempted for by deferring it our reason may gather new forces our Passions abate or some External Accidents may intervene Some pious reflection of our own may occurr or some good Friend may come in to whom we may impart our deplorable Condition and ask his good Advice who at such a time is much better able than we our selves to give it and in this sence chiefly it is that the bearing one anothers burdens is the fulfilling of the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 After the vanquishing of such a Temptation and the leaving as far as we can our own Nature to go over to Grace there usually comes an Angel to comfort us or what is better some holy Inspiratons of the Divine Spirit to encline us who of our selves cannot so much as think a good thought to thank God for our deliverance 1 Cor. 3.5 and to pray for more Grace and Strength against another time Such holy Inspirations we must take care not to repell for that would be more or less to Resist Grieve and Quench the Holy Spirit of God in us But on the contrary we must Cherish all good Thoughts and by them endeavour to introduce by little and little Vertues instead of our ill Habits When once we intend to begin a new Course of Life we must not in the least consult with Flesh and Blood but rather fall immediately upon it If at any time why not now if not now perhaps never Was the saying of St. Austin And in the acquiring of any Vertue suppose Continency Chastity or the like we may with the same Father boldly throw our selves upon God who will not withdraw himself to let us fall Projice te in Deum c. But yet our own sincere Endeavours after a pure mind and right intention must not be wanting to which God always gives a Blessing tho' we are not always sensible of it Now some perhaps may think Solemn Resolutions to one Just beginning to break a long custom and habit of any filthy sin to be both Rash and Dangerous because when once broken as many times first Resolutions are the ill habit being as yet much stronger than the good one to be introduced the over-grown Sinner is apt to be either too much discouraged and so fall into despair or to be more hardned in his most shameful Vice and so Incorrigibly go on still in his old wonted Road of Debauchery It may therefore be much safer for a beginner to make a limited Conditional Promise and such as is Releasable upon a Forefeiture Suppose for Example we resolve to abstain from such a filthy sin from such lewd Company for so long a time or if we do not we will indispensibly pay so much Money to be given to the poor say so many Prayers fast so many Meals shut up our selves so many Days from all Company and the like and this besides and over and above the necessary requisites of our Repentance which present forefeiture or punishment in our Purse or otherwise many times hath a greater Influence upon us towards the breaking off a Debauched Custom than either the fears or hopes of what may and certainly will happen to us according to our deserts in another World Moreover the resolving upon such a Penalty for the Forefeiture as does really afflict the Body such as Fasting long Retirement Watching c. or diminishing our beloved treasure and substance by giving large Alms to Prisons Hospitals poor House-keepers c. will certainly fix in our memory an hatred of the sin and so mind us of every Suggestion of it and deterr us from embracing it because if a temporal punishment be immediately to follow it much lessens the desire of the imaginary pleasure and oftentimes occasions the reflecting also on the future real punishment eternal Death which is the final Doom and the Inseparable wages of all unrepented Rom. 6.23 unforsaken sin But then to every good purpose we must not forget to joyn this Resolution also that if we should at any time by infirmity or surprize relapse into the detestable sin against which we have resolved
for he that stands must take heed least he falls Rom. 11.21 and be not high minded but fear we will not however abandon our selves to it but on the contrary renew and make stronger Resolutions against it with severer Penalties annexed and so valiantly continue on the fight till it shall please God to give us the Victory Such voluntary Mortifications are likewise Efficacious not only for the taming and keeping under the body but for the obtaining also from God by our thus siding and taking part with his Divine Justice against our sins the particular Gift and Grace of which we stand in need Some unclean Lust is not to be subdued Mat. 17.21 some Devil not cast out without Fasting as well as Prayer Our sparing Self-Mortifications is like sparing the Rod to the Child but the using of them is the ready way to prevent God's Judgments from falling upon us in particular or upon our Countrey for our sakes and by reason of our sins or to remove them when begun Thus Ezra and his People fasted and besought God Ezra 8.21 and he was entreated for them And so another time Queen Esther and the whole Jewish Nation just as they were going to be Massacred Est 4.16 were preserved by the same means of Fasting and Prayer The Ninevites also were spared upon the same account of their great Humiliation Jon. 3.10 And so the Prophet Daniel attained to so great Knowledge and Wisdom and so high a degree of the Divine Favour by his long fasting and mourning and praying for God's only Church and People Dan. 1.17 Dan. 10.3 And indeed I know no other way of stoping God's Judgments even when they are breaking out upon us than by thus applying our selves to Mollify his Justice that we may not fail of his Mercy But yet the greatest Humiliation of all and most Beneficial Jam. 5.16 is the telling our sins to one another as often as we commit them particularly to our Spiritual Pastors which will be apt to awe us if not hardned from sinning in that kind any more and our Pastor by his good Directions Prayers and the power with which Almighty God hath entrusted him is able with our concurrence to administer the best Remedy to all our sins And then another Person tho' he were not more Learned being no way concerned or interested in our Affairs must needs be more void of Passion more Impartial and Consequently can better Judge of us better Direct and Guide us than we our selves O that we could thus die to all things but God and take no pleasure but in Self-denials and Mortifications for the sake of Jesus From whence flows that Humility Purity of heart Mat. 5.8 to which our Saviour hath Emphatically annexed the Blessedness of seeing God! CHAP. VII The Third Rule Of the Occasions of grosser Sins THirdly We are to avoid the Occasions of the sins of the Flesh Some of them I shall name 1st The making Provision for the Flesh to fulfill the Lusts thereof Rom. 13.14 Strong Meats strong Drinks high Sauces are not convenient as being many times very hurtful to the Memory and Understanding always heightening and disordering the Passions Be not drunk with Wine saith St. Paul to his Ephesians wherein is Excess Eph. 5.18 And in Excess a Man knows not what he does but is ready to go along with his Company and to commit with them the greatest lewdness and outrage whatsoever under the pretence of a Frolick Lev. 10.9 Wherefore Priests under the Old Law in the time of their Attendance on God in the Execution of their Function were forbidden such things And all Christians now are in some manner God's Priests Rev. 5.10 Great Caution therefore is to be taken of Invitations and publick Entertainments It is much safer to eat alone or with few and those Abstemious Persons And then rather mean Diet to be chosen than Delicacies poor Peoples Children we see thrive best often calling to mind the hard fare of our Lord and his poor Disciples whom he chose poor Who fed on Ears of Corn Barley-Bread Mat. 12.1 Joh. 6.9 Fish an Honey-Comb Water and the like and St. John Baptist upon Locusts and Wild-Honey and the holy Men of Egypt according to St. Jerom upon much harder Fare Often remembring also the All-satisfying Food promised us in Heaven which will keep us from ever hungering or thirsting any more Blessed are they that shall eat Bread in the Kingdom of God Luk. 14.15 Rev. 19.9 And Blessed are they that are called to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Lord evermore give us that Heavenly Bread that never perishes and that Heavenly Water also which shall be in us a well of Water Springing up to everlasting Life The great reason why we ought if we intend to avoid the sins of the Flesh to take particular care of living Temperate in our Diet and of observing frequent Fastings especially the Solemn Fasts of the Church is because by our Eating and Drinking the Flesh arms and furnishes it self as it were with new Provisions for fighting against the Spirit New Matter and Fuel is administred to Concupiscence and the Brain many times so heated as not to be able to make a right Judgment of things It was after a great Dinner when Herod for the sake of a filly Dancing Mar. 6.21 Girl consented to the beheading of the Venerable and Chast St. John Baptist as having been an open Enemy to his Incestuous Marriage It was in Drunkenness when Lot committed double Incest with his Two Daughters Gen. 19. Hos 4.11 Rom. 13.13 And we find all along in Scripture Drunkenness and Gluttony inseparable Companions of Lust And then the necessary Repairs of our Body returning so often we are obliged in a manner to be continually upon our Guard and to put a Knife to our Throat as the Wise Man adviseth that we be not overcome by our Appetite This Concupiscence in Eating and Drinking by reason of the dayly necessities of the Body is no such thing says St. Austin in his Confessions which we can resolve to cut off at once and touch no more as we may do other things Eat and Drink we must yet not to Excess The reins therefore of the Throat are to be held with a moderate hand between too little and too much And who is he O Lord says the same Father that is not sometimes transported beyond the Lists of Necessity Whoever he be a great one he is let him magnifie thy Name So that in one word our living temperate and watching over our Appetite so as to thwart it in every thing is the taking away the chief and most principal occasion of Lust and as I may say the quenching of it in its very Cause Fraena gulam c. Bridle your Appetite says Thomas a Kempie and you will the more easily bridle every Inclination of the Flesh To Temperance in Meat and Drink and frequent
the Earth and Sea giving up their Dead and a particular Examination of them according to God's unerring Books which will then be opened Consider 4. The Difference that will then be between the Good and Bad. The Good having Co-operated with God's Grace shall be Cloathed with Glorious Bodies and placed on Christ's Right Hand The Bad not Co-operating with God's Spirit Cloathed with Corruption and placed on Christ's Left Hand And the Consciences and Thoughts of all hearts will be then laid open Reflect What shame confusion will it then be to the Impenitent when out of their own Mouths and Consciences they will be both Accused and Condemned Consider 5. How astonishing it will be to the Wicked to hear the Sentence of the Judge Go ye Cursed into everlasting Fire And how joyful to the Righteous to hear Come ye blessed possess the Kingdom prepared for you c. Reflect Make firm Purposes to live well and in vertuous Circumstances and intreat the Judge to be propitious to you and that you may always bear in mind this terrible Judgment and Sentence to escape it which is said to have occasioned the Institution of the severest Order of Christians in the World Saturday Of Hell Consider 1. What a Punishment it would be to be bound Hand and Foot and cast into a hot fiery Furnace there to remain burning and unconsumed tho but for a short time And as every Member of the Body so every Power and Faculty of the Soul receive its peculiar Torment Consider 2. How hard and unsupportable it must needs be to be Slaves to the Devils and Companions of the damned amidst the most exquisit Tortures and incessant Blasphemies and Cursings of Allmighty God Consider 3. How long these Torments will last If after some Thousands of Years there were to be an end it would somewhat lessen them But after an Hundred thousand Years succeeds an Eternity that cannot be measured Reflect How foolish is it to chuse such endless Torments for a transitory Pleasure Endure any Punishments here to avoid them Here cut here burn but save me in the World to come was St. Austin's Prayer Entreat Almighty God that you may be so awed by them whilst living that you may not deserve to experience them when dead Sunday Of the Joys of Heaven Consider 1. The Place and the Company How great Joy it must needs be to inhabit in the City of God the heavenly Jerusalem and converse with the holy Angels and all the Saints which have been from the beginning of the World Who having the same Charity one for another being all filled with the same holy Spirit rejoyce in every ones Good as if it were their own Consider 2. The greatness of the Reward The Body it self will be spiritualized and all its Senses and Powers exalted and adorned with most admirable Gifts And the Soul enabled to see and know God as he is and to love and enjoy him to all Eternity which is the only true Blessedness And though there be far different degrees of Glory yet no Envy but on the contrary Rejoycing See the preceeding Discourse Reflect Give God thanks who hath given you to hope for and made you capable of this Glory and humbly implore him mercifully to preserve you though ungrateful in true Vertue and holy Living that you may at length come to that glorious Place and there praise and magnify him to all Eternity CHAP. III. Heads of Meditation for the Second Third and Fourth Weeks Second Week MOnday Of the Incarnation of our Saviour His leaving the Bosom of his Father and taking upon him Humane Nature Voluntarily and yet by consent of the whole Trinity A Mercy denied to the fallen Angels And a Mystery which the good Angels desired to look into Tuesday Of the Visitation of the ever-Blessed Virgin and the Salutation of the Angel Hail c. Wednesday Of the Nativity of our Lord in a Stable yet honoured with Miracles Thursday Of the Shepherd's Vision the Angels Hymn the coming of the Three Kings by the Guidance of a Star or Angel Friday Of the Offering up of our Saviour in the Temple The Humility of the Mother of our Lord being not obliged to any such Oblation Old Simeon's Prayer Lord now lettest c. He could not die till he had seen the Lords Christ Saturday Our Saviour's Baptism and the Testimony the Father and the Holy Spirit then gave of his Divinity Sunday Of our Lord's Transfiguration and the Consolation the Three Disciples also took therein It is good for us to be here c. The Third Week MOnday Of the Eight Beatitudes the Sum of Christian Perfection placing happiness in things seemingly most contrary to it such as Poverty Persecution c. But yet the true and only way to Blessedness declared to be so by him who is Wisdom it self and who himself also became our Example in sufferings Tuesday Of the Lord's Prayer containing all the good things we are to pray for and all the evils we are to pray against Wednesday Of the Rich Glutton and the ten Virgins The difference between Dives and Lazarus both in this World and the other And between the ten Virgins in the other World notwithstanding their seeming equality in this Thursday Of the Conversion of Mary Magdalene and the Woman of Samaria Both of them great Sinners The former possessed with seven Devils and the latter lived in Fornication But their Repentance was as remarkable as their Sins And their after life as Vertuous as their former had been Vicious Friday Of the Paralytick at the Pool of Bethesda and of the Man born blind Both cured by our Saviour And both afterwards openly Confessed him To leave our sins and follow Christ takes away the Cause of Sin For there is a Lameness and Blindness also in the Soul Saturday Of the Prodigal Son and the Man that fell among Thieves The Prodigal was received by his Father upon his returning and repenting The poor Man fell among Thieves by his leaving his right way Jerusalem for Jericho God for his pleasure the Church for the Company of Thieves and Robbers Reflect Conversion to God's Church and Repentance the only Remedy Sunday Of our Saviour's raising from the Dead Lazarus the Son of the Woman of Naim the Daughter of Jairus One of them was newly dead the second carried out the third three days buried The newly dead immediately upon our Saviour's speaking rose and walked was perfectly cured the rest not so soon Reflect So it fairs with Sinners More difficulty for habituated Sinners to rise to a Life of Grace The Fourth Week MOnday Of the Institution of the Blessed Eucharist He that Eats worthily of this Bread shall live for ever shall overcome his Lusts be filled with Celestial Joys c. But he that Eats unworthily eats his own Damnation if he dies in that condition not discerning the Lord's Body Tuesday Of our Saviour's Passion in General Who it was that suffered The Son of