right Judgment and pure Reason abstracted from all Fancies and Opinions Some are wholly led by Traditions and the Authority of others or by their own Education and Custom which is a slavery of the Mind worse then that of the Body Some on the other side do so much affect liberty of Spirit that they conceive a generall prejudice against all common Truths because they are backed by such common advantages though they are not grounded upon them But a cleer and free Spirit seeketh Truth it self and entertaineth it wheresoever he findeth it which is the right temper of a true Philosopher The truest Philosophy and that which distinguishes it from Sophistry is to deduce it from Speculation to Action and instead of Disputing to prove it by Exercise and Example There is commonly a great distance and in some a kind of contrariety between Theory and Practice for that Good which engages the Will and the whole Man to Practice is not simple Right but rather Profit not Duty but Benefit Thus though the Mind judge a thing to be Just and Honest and so fit to be done in general but withall judgeth it Unprofitable and so not Convenient for him to do his Practical Judgment opposeth and overcometh his Speculative He seeth better and followeth worse that is worse in point of Right but not worse as he deemeth in point of Profit Cicero like a true Philosopher in his excellent Book of Offices harps upon the right string proving Honesty to be the greatest Utility yea one and the same thing and so indeed they are in themselvs but the Mind of Man apprehends them under several Notions The fallacy consists in this that we look only upon the particular present Good though far less and do not consider the more universall and greater Good to which it ought to be subordinate and being opposed becomes Evill for so it is the loss of a greater Good then it self A Temperate man looking upon the Wine as it is red in the Glass is by his Appetite incited to drink thereof as well as a Drunkard and knows there is a natural Good and Pleasantness in it but when he wisely considers the whole state of his Body and Mind and thereupon finds it will do him more Hurt then Good he most willingly abstains from it as Evil. So a man who hath a Member gangraenated as he looks upon it particularly is loth to loose it with so much pain but considering that it is better for him to part with it then that the whole Body should perish he as willingly abdicates it as he would pull out an arrow sticking in his side Thus if in all our actions we would seriously reflect upon the whole Nature of Man and of the universe and upon God the Creator of all we should clearly understand that this great King and Governor of all hath prescribed such Common Laws for the safety of the whole Empire and the true Good of every Subject that though Justice may seem contrary to some particular and lesser Good yet it is most consonant to our Chief Good and true Happiness to which the others must be reduced And thus we may gain the Practical Judgment of a right Philosopher but yet in the Executive part we shall meet with many difficulties through humane frailty and naturall impediments which must be overcome by constant Exercise Acts of Virtue confirm Habits and Habits facilitate Acts. Virtus docetur arte vita discitur There are so many Errors and Lusts within the Soul and such Temptations without that this Summus Philosophus is but an Idea and if there were any such yet without true Piety he were but a painted Image XVII Of the Sceptikes and Cynikes THere is scarcely any Humor of Men or Manner of Living that hath any shadow of Happiness which the Philosophers have not refined and drest up in its best Attire and so presented it to the World for the Chief Good only Money that common Idoll of other men was never professedly set up by any Philosopher as Luther said of himself that he had been tempred to all sins except Covetousness The strangest kind of Philosophy or rather the contradiction of all Philosophy is Scepticism which sprang up after all the rest out of their Differences and Disputes In all Ages when Scepticism abounds it is a most certain Symptome of the declination of true Philosophy and a prognostike of a general decay thereof ensuing which we may justly suspect in these times wherein plain and solid Truth is every where arrained and men affecting the name of a Great Wit and Liberty of Spirit leave the beaten path of true Learning and Wisdom and wander at large in the Wilderness of their own Imaginations which at first much please and delight them but afterward prove vain and unsatisfactory and then they grow malecontent and quarrel with all Learning Knowledge Reason and Religion like distracted men who by too strong an intention of their Imagination have hurt their Cranium so these by too much nicety and subtilty of Wit strain their Criterion But the most dangerous is Practical Scepticism which depends upon the other and yet the other many times proceedeth from it Men of loose and vitious lives indulgent to their own Genius cannot endure to be controlled neither by others nor by their own Judgments and therefore affect a Licenciousness in Thinking as well as in Acting Others who are Dogmaticall enough in Opinion prove Scepticall in Practice having a Form of Knowledge but denying the Power thereof yea many who have proceeded very far in the Practice thereof being at last confuted by adverse Fortune renounce Truth and Virtue and Religion and yield up all to her as Brutus said when he came to dy O Virtus colui te ut rem at tu nomen inane es Socrates indeed professed that he knew only this that he knew nothing which was a modest complaint arising from a thirsting desire of knowing more not an abandoning of that he had already for he was a constant Teacher and Instructer of others and most clear and positive in all his Instructions which is farthest from Scepticism yea he was so contrary to it that he affirmed it to be Madness and Wickedness to enquire of the Gods themselvs concerning those things which men by their own reason and understanding might comprehend as it is not to enquire of them concerning future Contingencies which no Humane Reason can certainly foreknow That Speech of Socrates was rather in opposition to the Sophisters who know least and yet were most peremptory in their opinions and imposed them on others Confidence without Reason or taking Truth upon trust is a great impediment to sound Knowledge but to despair of knowing any thing and so to sit down in perpetuall distrust is an absolute bar to all Knowledge Sceptikes place the Happiness of the Mind in a Tranquillity or Indifferency to all Opinions There is undoubtedly one Truth but they say there is no
Vain and Fanatike Though some of them were meer Impostors yet others verily believed that they were divinely inspired The Miracles of Saints and Martyrs since the Apostolicall times seem rather Legends and Fables then credible Stories The confident perswasions of a strong Faith may seem somewhat like a Prophecy though far different from it and of another kind and so the Judgements of some wise men have been taken for Predictions whereas Prophecy is not so much the confirmation of a mans own Spirit in the ordinary way of believing or judging as an extraordinary revelation of Future things immediately and expresly by God perhaps in a rapture or extasy when he who uttereth it least understandeth it Also there may be a power of casting out Divels by Praier and Fasting which is not now to be performed as formerly by any speciall Gift with a word of command certainly effecting it but in the ordinary way of Praier which God is pleased to honor with an equall effect There are also Miracles of Providence as we may so call them whereby God is pleased to deliver his Church out of her greatest streights in an extraordinary manner and by unexpected means as he did formerly by Signs and Wonders and Miracles of Nature Such was the recovery of Germany by the same hand which first betraied the Protestant Cause Maurice Duke of Saxony after all his Successes and Preferment strangely revolting from Charles the fifth to the contrary party the defeating of the Spanish Aramado as Drake termed it with Squibs the discovery of the Gunpowder Treason by a Letter or whatsoever other Indicium there was of it yea the preservation of Christian Religion in all Ages maugre all Persecutions and Heresies and the restoring of it in these latter dayes without a Miracle is none of the least Miracles Certainly the clear revelation of the Mysteries of Faith and the manifestation of the Graces of Gods Spirit in the Harts and Lives of men are evident testimonies that God hath not forsaken his Church the least dram of true Grace being more valuable then all Miraculous Gifts whatsoever and the principall end thereof As for Enthusiasms and Revelations they were of use in former times and very necessary before Scripture was finished being either Scripture or instead of Scripture but since St. Iohns time who wrote the last Book of Scripture in the Isle of Pathmos under Domitian they seem also to have ceased for if this were true they ought to be believed equally with Scripture being the immediate and infallible Word of God as well as it which is now the only rule and measure of Faith sufficient to make the man of God perfect But all those Fansies are not so dangerous as other Spirituall Errors in the Foundation and Essentials of Faith to which such Spirits are very prone striving to ascend above Truth asmuch as others fall short of it Thus by exalting the free Grace and Spirit of God they destroy the Morall Law and with the Penalty take away the Precept or Commanding power though the Law be as obligatory in it self and prevalent over the Conscience of a Good man without it as with it and most perfectly consistent with Grace which enableth us to perform what the Law commandeth Others trample on the very Ordinances and Duties of the Gospel presuming to finde a neerer way to Heaven then God hath appointed There are new fashions and dresses of Religion very pleasing and popular as all Novelties are especially such as seem more sublime and Spirituall But the old Orthodox Truth is the best and still prevaileth at last There is no Doctrine in the world which hath been so curiously scanned and throughly sifted in every Point and Puntilio thereof as Christianity the greatest Scepticisms and most subtile Criticisms and niceties of Wit have been exercised about it and the whole Body thereof like the Body of our Savior hanging upon the Cross vexed and tortured in every joint and yet it continues whole and entire though there may be some prints of the Nails and Spears of Heretikes remaining upon it yet not a bone thereof may be broken which plainly proves it to be Spirituall Divine preserved only by the Author of it Paracelsus threatned that he would deal with the Pope Luther as he had done with Galen and Aristotle and probably if he had undertaken it we should have had some such Mercuriall Theology from him as is now vented in our times The difference seems not much unlike Sound Divines like Galenists administer solid and substantiall Truth whereas our Paracelsian Preachers deal in Quintessences and Spirits and the like Chymistry of Divinity and cloth them with strange words and Mysticall expressions Divinity hath found the same usage in these times with all other Arts and Sciences and the same Humor of this fantastike Age runs through all Men think to advance Learning by fine Conceits and strong Lines as they call them which have enervated the solid part thereof so do these emasculate Religion by their vain Opinions and quaint Expressions There is no greater Bane of true Piety then Error on the right hand and sublime Heresy especially when it grows Popular and is generally received Yet Truth is no less Truth though all the World should be in an Error One Athanasius may stand to his Creed in the midst of an Arrian Empire As a man who sees the Sun shine though all others should say the contrary is no whit less assured of it because he sees it Indeed we can hardly guess at things which are before us how much less can we find out Spirituall and Divine Truth or practice what we know Let us therefore pray to God for his Spirit who first reveled it to the world and who only can lead us into all Truth and into all Grace which is our true Happiness VII Of a Christian Life THe great work of the Spirit of God in our Harts is the new Creature and the effect thereof new Life Christian Life is the Enjoiment of all things for enjoying Christ who is Heir of all things and hath purchased all with his bloud we enjoy all things by a new and better Title and in a more excellent and Spirituall manner as the Fruits of his Redemption and Gifts of his Love It is generally affimed by Divines that true Grace chiefly respects Gods Glory and our own Happiness in a subsequent and inferior manner so that we should be willing to suffer even the pains of Hell it self for the Glory of God which is a fine Notion and an high Expression but if rightly considered we shall find no such distinction in the Thing it self Indeed if we take Happiness for a releaf from Pains or a Paradise of Pleasure or any other thing then the very enjoiment of God and Christ it is a true Sentence but the highest Happiness of the Soul being that very enjoiment the one cannot be separated nor really distinguished from the other He who
spirituall delights not only by apprehending all other things but also by reflecting on Himself It is a pleasant thing to behold our face in a Glass much more to see our own Soul which is both Face Mirror and Ey But the least sight of Divine Glory ravisheth the Soul with the greatest joy Here the Mind having mounted the utmost Circle of Natures Globe taketh her flight and passeth over into Infinity and there enjoys not only the perfection of all created Good but finds out another and better Nature and a new World of Worlds As God is the chiefest Good so Man being capable of Knowing him is also capable of the highest Happiness III. Of Perfect Happiness THE severall degrees of Knowledg are capable of a proportionable Happiness and perfect Happiness must be perfectly adequate and proportionate to Knowledge for whatsoever the Soul can apprehend it may in some kind enjoy and there cannot be perfect Happiness without perfect Enjoyment Beasts have no other end of living but to live put them into pleasant pastures and leav them to themselves to eat and drink and follow the motions of their own nature they are Happy enough because they know no better or greater thing to desire When I hear the Nightingall singing in a Wood though Poets Fansie her to complain of I know not what injuries I conceiv her then perched welnigh on the top of her highest felicity free from care and grief and entertaining her self with her warbling notes Surely these inferior Creaturus attain a neerer degree of their perfect Happiness then Man doth of his A little satisfies a small stomach whereas larger Bodies require more The Soul of Man though finite hath some apprehension of Infinity and therefore nothing less will satisfie it the very negative Knowledge therof doth forbid any finite thing to be the adequate Happiness of Man whose vast and boundless Appetite exceedeth every thing which hath bounds and limits and can swallow down the whole World at one draught like the ut most Sphere whose concavity comprehendeth all things and the convexity thereof joyneth to an endless immensity though as Man cannot directly and affirmatively apprehend Infinity so neither is he capable of an Infinite Enjoyment yet the least defect or want of that Infinite Good which he naturally coveteth being Infinite doth more unsatisfie then any finite delight can content him for so much as is wanting of requisite Happiness is filled up with Vanity and Vexation All men have not a distinct apprehension and explicite desire of an Infinite Good yet the same Instinct being naturally in all the Soul is insensibly carryed out unto it and cannot finish the progress of her desire till she have gained that which is beyond all apprehension and all desire Vulgar spirits tasting some drops of finite Goodness in the severall Creatures suppose that by an endless multiplication of them they shall at last attain that Infinite Good which is the utmost object of the Mind and therefore never cease adding House to House Land to Land and World to World and so think to piece up an Infinite Good with an endless variety of finite Good things though the more they have the more they explicitely desire as drawing neerer toward an Infinite Good which is that endless end to which they are implicitely tending Others through their boundless Lusts and vast Imaginations fansie to themselves some kind of Infinity or at least a Center of rest in the finite Objects of their particular desires thinking if they may accomplish some petty design to which they are wholly devoted that then they shall be perfectly Happy and flattering themselves like the Yong man in the Comedy who boasted if he might but enjoy his Mistress Ipsam fortunam anteibo fortunis meis Hence the Mind of Man while it is in the pursute thereof and hath any farther expectation whereon to feed goes on cheerfully and with much delight hunting after this shadow of fansied felicity but having once arrived at the utmost Period is soon confuted by its own Experience and the vehemence of this vast Appetite suddenly languishes and the Soul shrinks up and pines away in shame and discontent There is many a petty Miser who takes more pleasure in multiplying a few pence then if he had been born Heir of the whole Earth There is more ravishing delight in wooing and courting and the Romances of Love before Enjoyment then after Give a Pyrrhus the Empire of the whole world at once and you undo him The Game is more pleasing to such Humors then both the Stakes without it Hence also is that common and naturall affectation of Novelty because the Mind being unsatisfied with any thing it hath already still coveteth more New things please at first but are afterward found to be as vain as the rest But as no finite thing can fully satisfie the Mind of Man so it is most evident that no multiplication of finites can make up an infinite for all the Parts being finite and numerable the whole must necessarily be finite also Therefore it must be One Infinite Good in the Enjoyment whereof the true Happiness of Man doth consist and which as the Chief Good renders all those finite things Good by a subordination to it self as the utmost End This was the chief study of all the ancient Philosophers to find out the Chief Good and by their severall opinions concerning it they were distinguished into their severall Sects It is the Elixar of Life the true Philosophers stone which infuses a Golden tincture into all inferior Metalls and cures all the diseases of the Soul by reducing it to a right temper Solomon hath discovered it to the World a Work worthy of a King not only of Israel but of the whole Earth being so profitable a Good to all Mankind Great Wits bewail the loss of his Naturall History but make no use of his Ecclesiastes wherein the discourseth of every Plant which grows in the Paradise of Man from the lowest Hysope to the tallest Cedar and so leads us to the Tree of Life placed in the midst of the Garden I mean that Infinite and Universall Good which is the Perfection of all the rest IV. Of the Vanity of all Worldly things VAnity of Vanities saith the Preacher Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity We have here a Preacher and his Text containing a Doctrine sufficient to confute all the Heretikes of this World who place their Happiness in any Creature for having strictly examined the Particulars he casts up â—he Accompt and finds the totalâ— Summ to be but a Cipher Vanity of Vanities all is Vanity Knowledge and Experience make a perfect Doctor and both met together in him If all men since the fall of Adam had consulted among themselvs whom they should employ to seek the lost Adonis of their Happiness they could not have found a fitter then Solomon whom God and Man had prepared for it Lo saith he I am come to great Estate and have
far below a great Spirit Apostates of all other men most strictly embrace this present world and study to extract the greatest sweetness it can afford their desires being greatly enlarged with the tast which they had of the Chief good and they have reason to do so for at the best they make but a bad bargain but all fall not in the same manner some fall forward with their faces toward the earth and wallow in the mire of sensuall uncleanness as Nicholas the Libertine and his beastly Sect others of a more generous and sublime Spirit by supine gazing on the Heavens from which they fell and barking at the Stars which they left fixed in their Orbs such were Lucian Iulian and the Devils It seems Spiritual wickedness is most sublime and delightful much more Spiritual virtues and graces which are the proper perfections of the Soul Averroes and the rest of the Arabian Philosophers are ashamed of that sensual and beastly Paradise which their Mahomet provided for them as most unworthy of the soul of Man and far short of his true Happiness VI. Of Health HEalth is the temperate Zone or habitable part of Mans Life As sleep is the image of Death so is sickness of Hell being rightly termed a Dying Life whereof Death many times is the sole Physitian Many Princes dwell in stately Palaces whose souls are ill seated in Cadaverous bodies Health is commonly the Peasants prerogative which no riches can purchase of him whereas if he could be bought out of it he might sell it at the dearest rates what would not a rich man give to another to undertake the pain of the Stone or Gout for him could they be laid upon others as outward burdens and labors are Health in Great men is a great advantage Henry the fourth of France was bred hardly among the Peasants which preserved his life and prepared him for those great Actions which he afterward performed Cicero reporteth of one of the Scipio's that he had equalled Africanus if he had not been kept under by perpetual sickness Besides health is the very Paradise of all Sensual Pleasures in which they grow and flourish yet Courtiers usually corrupt it by a licentious course of life and so disable both Body and Mind not only for the performing of Civill Actions but also for the enjoying of Naturall Pleasures which they so much affect So unnatural is the vice of voluptuousness that it destroyeth Health which is its own foundation As Health consists in Temperament so the best way to preserve it is Temperance Diseases caused by emptiness may be more dangerous but there is more danger in exceeding Hence are most of our vulgar sicknesses Feavers Pests Catarrhs and Coughs the Trumpeters of Death Violence and excess may be good Physike but are bad Diet unless we dare venture on them as Mithridates used Poison to fortifie our selvs against casual extremities But a sober and discreet mixture of both seems most conform to the various occasions of life The Ecclesiastical Order was to fast the Eve before a Feast but the Physical rule holds as well afterward till it be digested and the best kind of fasting is to eat a little Excess of Affections especially Malignant as Fear Grief Envy Malice and all Anxiety of mind destroyes the body more then that of Food but delightful objects and pleasant studies are the minds Recreations Keep both Body and Mind clean and fresh freeing them from all burdensom and offensive things But Tiberius his Aphorism That every man is his own best Phisician is worth all others being most true as to the preservation of the ordinary state of Health though not in extraordinary cases or overgrown Diseases which must be helped by the hand of Art Experiments first founded the Art of Physike and no Experience like that within a mans self and Tiberius his life set a Probatum est to his Aphorism for though he was generally most licentious and libidinous yet he preserved himself in good health to a reasonable old age living seventy and eight years He was indeed of a strong constitution but we find the same effect in men very crazy and more sober as Hippocrates Galen and others who first studied their own cases and thence became most eminent Physicians Though Health be very pretious yet it may be overvalued some are so curious of it that they fear the least blast and shadow of Inconvenience as he who imagined himself made all of Glass and was afraid lest every knock should break him whereas indeed this tender niceness is rather a destroier then a preserver of Health Caesar by continuall imployment and hard usage overcame two constant Diseases the Headâ— ach and Falling-sickness and many in our late Wars who before were thought weak and infirm being put upon Service and the necessity of suffering have proved able and hardy beyond expectation However health must be adventured as well as life Pro salute publicae Pompey said Necesse est ut eam non ut vivam when the Common-wealth was concerned He who makes health his chief good and utmost end lives only that he may live and prolongs his time to no purpose VII Of Strength STrength is the Issue Male of Health and Beauty the Female the conjunction of both is very rare and the perfection of Hero's We will speak of them severally There are two kinds of Strength one of Acting the other of Enduring The former is the meniall servant of a Mans self and he who is not his own best Man is his slaves slave and a voluntary Criple There are many offices of life which cannot handsomly be performed by others as necessary Actions and all Exercises The manner of the Turks to sit on Carpets shooting their Arrows and have their slaves fetch them is an unmanly Exercise Some are so vainly idle that they commit the very dressing undressing of themselvs to their servants which is a womanish Fashion there may be some state in it but certainly no convenience A small competency of Strenght sufficeth for common Actions and Agility serveth the turn better then Robust Force Gross and fat bodies are more strong in their Center but have a less Circumference or Sphere of activity being burdens to the earth and themselvs Light and nimble bodies though of less Strength have more use and enjoyment of it The want of a convenient proportion of ordinary Strength renders the Body more infirm and defective then any extraordinary measure thereof can advance in happiness for even in those things whereof there can be no excess and so a mediocrity cannot be the perfection yet it is the Center and hart of the whole It may seem strange that Strength should be increased by sickness and distemper which is an Infirmity as in Feavers Madness Anger yea sometimes by fear it self But this Strength arising from a sudden conflux of spirits is not solid and permanent consisting rather in a violent quickness then in a constant endeavour
as he said to his Soul Thou hast much Goods laid up for many years take thine ease eat drink and be merry We speak not now of Pleasures Spirituall which Orpheus intendeth in that Metaphoricall Sentence Perpetuall Drunkenness is the reward of Virtue and our Wise man expresseth more soberly A Good Conscience is a continuall Feast but of those Pleasures to which these Metaphors allude not as they are the native Pleasures of the Body but the outward Objects and Instruments thereof which the World affords and the Body uses the Divine Oracle tells us There is nothing better for a man then that he should eat and drink and make his Soul enjoy good in his labor Pleasure is the Pay of Nature which turns Work it self into Sport Yet there are are some strange Spirits who seek to put off their own Nature and are displeased with the very Pleasures thereof differing from other men as though they were Creatures of another Species Such were some of the ancient Philosophers who affecting to be singular supervulgar and taking advantage of the common inclination to Excess in Pleasures resolved upon the contrary Extreme that so others being conscious to themselvs of their own Infirmity might admire them as more then Men. But it is a great and universall Error to admire things for their difficulty and rarity rather then value them according to their true worth We are naturally so fond of this Humor that if we do but hear of any strange thing we love to enlarge it and act it in Buskins Difficulty seems to add the honor of a Miracle which is Sacred and Religious but such are the Miracles of Juglers and Enchanters whereas all Gods Miracles are of great use and efficacy There are difficult trifles and difficult vices To starv a mans self is as sinfull as it is difficult It hath been the practice of Superstitious persons in all Ages to torture themselvs like Baals Priests as though to destroy or wrong Nature were to worship the God of Nature Who will have Mercy and not Sacrifice Mercy to our selvs as well as to others It is true there is Spirituall Physike as well as Naturall but neither Feasting nor Fasting are a Christians constant Diet. Discreet Sobriety is the best use of Nature not only most wholsome but also most pleasant Hunger is the best Sawce for it sawceth the Palat as others do the Meat and the reducing of our Stomach to our Diet yields more sweetness and delight then the fitting of our Diet to our Stomach The first exhalations of Corporeall Spirits are alwaies freshest and quickest therefore we should never set our Pleasures on tilt nor jade our Recreations Too much Honey is not good Surfetting is ever nauseous and crapulous and so a forfeiture of that Pleasure wherein it exceedeth The best way of enjoying Pleasures is fairly and soberly to entertain them when they offer themselvs not Gnathonically to hunt after them or feed on them with longing desires which cannot be satisfied Thus a sober man may enjoy more even of those outward Pleasures then all the mad Roman Emperors and certainly they did over-run the purest part of Pleasure by cloying their Appetite and dulling the Relish thereof and therefore invented new prodigious Pleasures as nothing satisfied with naturall and ordinary As a Bear is mad after Honey so some men by reason of their naturall Constitution or unnaturall Lusts are so madly set upon some particular Pleasures that whensoever the Objects thereof are presented unto them they cannot possibly forbear prostituting Fame and Fortune Reason Religion and all to their foolish Fansies and vain Desires The Vanity of all these worldly Pleasures appears in this that if they be strong and quick they are very short and if they last longer they are very dull and the Griefs and Miseries to which we are all subject are far greater in proportion then our Pleasure A Fit of the Stone or Gout puts us into an Extasy of Pain more acute and lasting then the greatest ravishments of any bodily Pleasures nor was ever such an Instrument of Pleasure invented as the Rack the Cross the Persian Boat the Bull of Phalaris were terrible and tormenting Many Pleasures are very shamefull but all have something of Levity in them which is expressed by our Laughing Playing Dallying and the like relaxations of Body or Mind This shows that we should only use them as Recreations and not make them our constant Business or Course of Life XII Of Honor. HOnor moves in an higher Sphere then Pleasure and commonly Retrograde to it For Honor consists in Action but Pleasure in Recreation Honor is the price or value of any thing set upon it by God or Man Every Creature is Gods Coin and he hath stamped upon it the valuation of that worth and excellency which is in it according to that Classis in which it is ranked and the particular Eminency of it in its own Kind This is Honor in honor abili true naturall Honor though not honored by men as Beauty is truly beautifull though no Ey see it The other is Mans Estimate or Indication thereof which is Honor in honorante and this is the Honor whereof we now speak as one of the Goods of Fortune Civill Honors are very necessary in a State for thereby the State it self becomes more Honorable more compact within it self by an orderly disposition of all the Members in their severall places and degrees The Romans made the best use of it of any State in the World They divided themselvs into three sorts Nobles Knights and Commons as their highest middle and lowest Ranks and all of them were capable of most honorable Emploiments and Offices of State so that they who were not born to Honor might acquire it and they who were might augment it from their Birth they were stiled Libertine Plebeian Patrician and the like from their Offices Consular Praetorian Quaestorian Senatorian and the like from their Actions Triumphall African Asiatike Father of the Country and the like and though Titles of Honor were not to be purchased for Money among them yet in their Censing they had some consideration of mens Estates For he who well husbandeth his private Estate doth thereby enrich the Commonwealth and bears a greater share of the publike Charge Their Images or Arms were not Ensigns of the Family but of the Person and no man was permitted to set up his own Image till he had ascended the Curule Chair which was a Personall advancement Continuation of a noble race for many ages is a great blessing of God upon it and the Honor of the Ancestor an Heirlome as due to the Posterity as any Honorary Estate annexed unto it yet certainly Personall Honor is the worthier and the best foundation of the other though that prevail far more in the favor and opinion of men so that whereas New men by their most honorable performances can hardly defend themselvs from contempt Hereditary
Nobility is as hardly lost by the greatest vices Though the Law and Princes who first bestowed it revoke it for Treason or other forfeiture thereof yet I know not how something still sticks in the Minds of men and the Character of their ancient Nobility seems indeleble so Fatall is it to be born or not to be born of Great Parents in the judgement of the world The Case is the same with that between Protestants and Papists concerning Antiquity the Papists deduce it through many Successions but the Protestants derive it from the first Originall God hath made us all of one Bloud and We are also his Off-spring and descend from one common Ancestor But it must be so as the World will have it and wise men should not be too Philosophicall herein for it is Politically good and usefull in the generall at least far better then a confused equality The best Rule for all things of this nature is neither greatly to affect them nor disdain them The greatest Happiness of Honor is the favourable respect and inclination of others which of all outward things Honor and Beauty the Escutcheon of Nature do most effectually procure and the Good will of men is a very great Comfort sweetning a mans whole Life and entertaining him in all Companies but the very same thing sufficiently demonstrates the Vanity thereof that it is in the power of others whose Humors are as inconstant as the Waves and their Breath as vain as the Winds The very Ensigns of Honor show what it is the Trophies Banners Escutcheons Crests Pictures Images and the like Vespasian was tired with a Triumph the greatest solemnity and show of Honor that ever was instituted among men and certainly it could not but weary a grave and wise man to be carried up and down the Streets to make a show to the People XIII Of the Goods of the Mind THE Mind is the third and highest Region of Man which includeth the other two within it self and communicateth Heat and Life unto them As it informeth its own Body so it manageth and improveth all the Gifts of Fortune Thales to show how easy a thing it was for a Philosopher to grow rich foreseeing the fruitfulness of some Olive yards bought them at the beginning of the year and got a great summ of money by them Solomon having a large Heart employed and husbanded his large Estate as providently as any mean man doth his small Fortune He was a great Merchant trading into Egypt and Tyre even as far as Ophyre and thrived exceedingly by it and he expended his great Riches in a most Glorious and Magnificent manner Lucullus was famous for his Feasts and Entertainments Petronius a Master of Pleasures inventing Laws and Orders even of Licentiousness What Honor is without Activity and Nobility of Spirit these times of triall sufficiently discover The Mind of one Man sufficeth for the Government of a whole Nation yea of all the Nations in the World which though it never happened to any yet we have large Instances in the first four Monarchs of the sufficiency of some Great Spirits The Mind of man is capable of knowing all things God hath set the World in his Heart which is an Intellectuall Globe wherein all things subsist and move in Spiritual Images and Idea's not only Individually and Physically but also Universally and Metaphysically Thus the whole World is Mans University and there have been some such Monarchs of Learning as have been singularly excellent in almost all Arts and Sciences Animus cujusque est quisque The Mind is the Man The Genius of a Wise man seems to differ almost as much from a Fools as a Man doth from a Beast It is true all souls are equall in their Kind and Faculties but certainly not in the degrees of their Powers and Virtues In Heaven where the Spirits of just men shall be made perfect yet they shall all differ one from another in Glory which is the perfection of their Grace Homo homini quantum tum interest and as the enjoiment of the Chief Good is the proper perfection of the Mind so the Excellency or Baseness thereof is best discovered by the higher or lower moving thereof toward this perfection Some mens Minds are set wholly upon drudging and moiling which is a condition not much above Beasts Others have a Humor of Gaming others of Dallying and Sporting of Eating and Drinking and making themselvs Merry such as think themselvs no mean Fools of making themselvs Famous in the World of Rising higher and higher like seeled Doves they know not whither Some of Learning much and Practising little some of Ruling others and yet neglect themselvs others of Ruling and Governing themselvs and yet neglect their Chief Good which is infinitely above themselvs setting up those inferior ends instead thereof Like Barclays Heraleon we have all some particular Madness and private Fansy It is commonly said that Men are twice Children or rather the follies of Childhood grow up into our whole life in greater degrees more maturity The old Adage is very opposite Children play with Nuts and elder men with Oaths then which no sport can be more foolish and dangerous Thus do mens Ends and Aims discover their Principles The White of the Ey and the White of the Mark are tied together with a direct Line Every Creature in its several kind hath a natural Acme or Period of perfection to which it tends and which it endeavors to attain with all the power and vigor it hath only Man degenerates into lower and baser Ends then that for which he was made busying himself about some particular Design and so goes on from one thing to another neglecting that highest and chiefest Good whereof he is capable which is the greatest Error of Life and brings upon him the curse of Cain rendring him a Vagabond on the face of the Earth and makes him wander up and down like a Begger knocking at every door and crying out to every Creature Who will show us any Good Never thinking to gain this setled Estate of Universall and perfect Happiness which may supply all his wants and maintain him in a State of perfect Felicity but rather chuses to live miserably upon the scraps of the Creatures sharking and shifting as well as he may to support this frail life and satisfy the necessities thereof and at last wishes he may dy like a Beast having lived like a Beast and made no provision for an Eternal Life The Jewel of Mans true Happiness is to be found in this Treasury of the Mind yet not among the inferior and particular Goods thereof but in the fruition of the Chief and Universal Good without which all the rest are vain and of no value XIIII Of Learning THe first and lowest of the Goods of the Mind is Learning or Speculative Knowledge that Pabulum Animae which never satiates but is more increased by feeding and not diminished by communicating No sort of men
action and they on whom they are practised are Enemies beforehand and so more lawfull yet even in that Scipio gained more by the reputation of his Justice and Fidelity then Hannibal by all his Cunning Certainly he was more to be honored and better beloved But in all Civill and Domestike affairs fair and square dealing joined with good discretion is generally as effectual and alwaies more comfortable The next part is Action and Execution It is an universall Law imposed upon all men That in the sweat of our face we must earn our Bread He who shuns Labor runs upon Inconvenience which is far more troublesome and so the Burden returns upon him with greater Pressure Many men of large Abilities relying wholly upon their Wit and neglecting the use of ordinary means suffer others less able but more active and industrious to go beyond them The way to dispatch much is to be alwayes doing to keep beforehand with Business and rid it off our hands as fast as it comes on which makes it go away merrily Order and Method are good helps but not to be too precisely observ'd especially such as consist in Imaginary Lines and Figures as to defer to begin a business till the beginning of a Day a Week or a Year whereas perhaps the end of the time precedent may be as good an Opportunity and so much the better because it is sooner Lastly there are certain Ceremonies and Forms which must neither be affected nor neglected To be of a sober and grave carriage to use a civill respect toward the Person but yet retain the thing yielding in Circumstances that we may better hold the Substance We must live according to Fashion and Custom as far as lawfully we may To salute to visite to court and such like civill Complements are very commendable It is the unhappiness of some Learned and Wise men who because they see through the vanity of these things do not only despise them but declaim against the World for them so long till the World exclaim on them Though Wisdom be the most curious Artifice of the Mind effecting those things which Poets imagine and Historians relate yet it is also vain and uncertain The wisest man knows not always how to levell his Ordnance aright by reason of the inconstant waving of the whole sea of Business and all great enterprises and dealings in the World are like Cranes or such other mighty Engines which if they be well managed perform Wonders but if the foot once slip or the Engine fail it may knock out his brains who uses it But the worst and greatest opposition is from the wickedness of men The whole World lies in sin which a Good man cannot forbear to oppose though it be most contrary to all rules of Policy and may prove the certain ruine of himself Many a man against whom the World hath nothing to say but in the matter of his God hath been undone only by his Piety Machiavel hath truly observed that the way of Christian Religion if strictly pursued is directly contrary to the way of Policy As our Saviour said of himself so may all his Servants say likewise Their Kingdom is not of this world The Jewes have a Proverb much to the same purpose concerning such great dealers in the world That a greater Huckster cannot be innocent which makes me wonder at those ancient Worthies Ioseph Moses Daniel and the rest how they could govern great Empires yet continue so strictly Honest Religious but I consider that they were assisted by an extraordiself Spirit and sometimes God himnary was fain to help them out with a Miracle But to fear God and keep his Commandments is the only Wisdom and will at last when the Accompts of the whole World shall be cast up be found to be the best Preferment and highest Happiness XVI Of Philosophy SOlomon saith He who ruleth his own Spirit is better then he who taketh a City Yea it is no small advantage in Civill affairs for a man to have the command of himself upon all occasions standing upon the shore of a firm Mind and beholding others tossed on the Sea of their own Passions and so suffering them like great Whales to beat themselvs till they become tame and tractable The greatest Conquerors have been conquered by their Lusts which we may truly stile as Diogenes doth Kings Concubines Regum Reginas The end of true Philosophy is to rectifie the Soul The strange effect thereof in Polemon may seem a kind of Theological Conversion who coming into the Schole of Xenocrates with his drunken company crowned with Garlands purposely to outface him and his Philosophy Xenocrates going on with his Lecture of Temperance pressed it so far and wrought so much upon him that he immediatly abandoned his former course of Life and became his Disciple succeeding him in the same Schole and proved the most strict of the whole Sect. But though Conversion to God from whom Man is wholy alienated cannot be wrought without Divine Grace yet as there are Remainders of Bodily Excellence so also some seeds and Principles of Moral Virtue which may be advantaged by a good Constitution of Body and greatly improved by Education and Instruction In this the Philosophers went too far that they attributed to Man a full liberty and power of governing himself and all his affairs by the absolute Soveraignty of his own Spirit and indeed the Poets seem better Divines in their Expressions to this purpose then the Philosophers beginning their Poems with A Iove principium or the invocation of a Deity and ascribing the acts of their greatest Hero's to some Tutelar God We may yea we ought to exercise and improve any power we have in our selves but we must always depend upon God for his blessing and assistance herein as well as for the obtaining his supernatural Grace The Spirit of a Man is very Malleable if it be carefully and wisely handled The first and most immediate Issues of the Mind are our Thoughts being as it were the Animal Spirits thereof whereby it acts all its Business or like Leucippus his Atomes the Seeds of the Spiritual World which while they float in a vast Inanity are lost and come to nothing but being fixed and embodied prove most beautifull and excellent Forms He who intendeth what he doth is most like to do what he intendeth Yet we must not be so intent upon any thing as to loose the command of our selvs Delightfull Studies are like strong Wines drunk in with pleasure but after fill the head with a throng of unruly Spirits which distemper and intoxicate it In such cases it is good to entertain some other Studies as pleasing and so pass from one to another till the Mind be lull'd asleep Some by the help of a Game at Chess which is a most studious and sollicitous Sport have escaped the Tyranny of their serious Anxieties As we must thus manage our Minds so we must govern them by a
Reason which hath not a contrary Reason so that Man cannot certainly know it To what end then is Reason bestowed upon Man if he can only hunt after Truth and never find it out He who despaireth to finde it looseth it as well as he who mistakes it A man in a Journey meeting with many severall waies and not knowing which to take must enquire and judge and satisfy himself as well as he may and so proceed for should he stand still and spend the whole day in doubting and musing he should certainly run into the same inconvenience which he seeks to avoid whereas by pursuing the most likely way he may more probably accomplish his intended Journey If the danger of Erring to which all Humane Nature is subject were a sufficient excuse not only Knowledge but also all Action should cease Judges should not judge Teachers should not teach Professors of Physike or any other Art should not practice Men should doubt of acting or not acting any thing living or not living so to avoid the Waves of uncertainty sink into the Sea of confusion Sceptikes are coÌ„monly in the Schole captious in Life Satyrists in the State Neutrall in Religion Scoffers and Despisers which are all as destructive Errors to Humane society as can arise from any Dogmatical opinions They generally incline to contradiction and are vehement in opposition and yet know not but that their contrary Reason may be as weak as the other And thus to presume that their own Negative Arguments are right and true is as much Dogmatical as any positive Affirmation which shows the falseness and perversity of this Humor which if it were true to it self the professors thereof should suspend all Reason whereby they act as Men and only sit still and look about them like Beasts As the Sceptikes were opposite to all Philosophy so were the Cynikes to all Humanity for considering the certain Miseries and uncertain Comforts of the Life of Man they judged it best to contract themselvs and all their affairs into as narrow a compass as they could discharging themselvs of whatsoever was more then necessary Diogenes seeing a Boy drink out of his Hand threw away his Dish and Crates wished that the Stones of the River were Bread as the Water is Drink that so he might be furnished with a certain Provision by Nature Hence they despised both the Flattery and Fury of Fortune harding their Minds and Bodies against her by lying in the Snow in Winter and in the hot Sands in Summer begging of Statues and provoking common Whores to scold with them Though Scepticism may seem Modesty Cynicism Humility and Poverty of spirit as well as of all outward things yet these Humors puff up the Mind with a conceit of Liberty Greatness as much as any Diogenes when he stood in the Market to be sold for a slave and others cried out Who will buy a good Slave cried out as fast Who will buy a good Master and his behavior toward Alexander was such that it made him wish himself Diogenes if he were not Alexander No mean condition could suffice him nor could he like Parmenio divide Empires but resolved to conquer the World either by subduing or by despising it But this cannot be the true Happiness of Man for though preparation and obstinacy are great advantages in suffering whereby the very Boies of Sparta turned torments into sport and exercise yet he is truly wise who can both endure Evill and enjoy Good which is a temper most sutable to the whole State of Man and the one without the other but an half part of Wisdom joyned with as much Folly for it orders but one half of the Life of Man and destroies the other This strange and uncouth Sect had another Humor far wors then the former to despise deride all others which plainly discovers the vanity and petulancy thereof Some have so great a Felicity of wit that they make wit their greatest Felicity jesting themselvs out of all that is earnest and will not suffer any solid Truth to fix upon them but like fools make a sport of every thing Others think to jeer men out of their follies and reform them by abusing them Such Satyricall scoffs and quips are like Squibs and Crackers which do harm in Festivalls and no good in Fights imbittering and provoking ingenâ—ous spirits and marring the best Reproofs turning Physike into Poison To make a sport of other mens Infirmities is as impious and inhumane as to laugh at their miseries Heraclitus was far more charitable herein then Democritus yet such is the naturall pravity and malignancy of Men that they delight almost as much in speaking and hearing ill of others as in their own praises whereas the nature of the Tong is not to wound but to supple and heal But the worst of this sort and indeed rather a Divell then a Man was Timon the Athenian who hated all Mankind It may be said of such Misanthropi as it was of that conceited Misogynus whose Mistress was Nullae that it was like to prove a happy Match for he loved Nulla and Nullae loved him They who hate all deserv to be hated of all which is a condition so far from Happiness that no Humane thing can be more contrary unto it XVIII Of the Cyreniakes and Epicureans THE Cyreniakes were most contrary to the Cynikes as may appear by the discourse which passed between the two grand Masters of the Sects Aristippus told Diogenes That if he knew how to live at Court he should not need to eat Herbs and Diogenes answered him again That if he knew how to eat Herbs he should not need to live at Court These Cyreniakes did not profess any state of universall Happiness but pieced and patched it up with particular acts of Pleasure chiefly Corporeall Their main Argument which they use to defend this sensuall Philosophy is a sufficient Confutation thereof They say that Man while he is yet a Child and not deluded with false opinions doth naturally delight in Bodily Pleasure and is offended with the least Pain which only proveth it a Childish Felicity and not far from Brutish an Infant little differing from a Beast being strong in Sense and weak in Reason but to make any Corporeall thing the Chief Good of a Rationall Soul is most Irrationall This sensuall Lust or Love of Pleasure is alwaies accompanied with a gross self-love or rather proceedeth from it which the Cyreniakes did openly profess and avow making the whole world their Circumference and themselvs the Center Aristippus went so far as to cast off Naturall Affection to his Children who are the next to a mans Self yea as Limbs and Parts of the Parent when he abdicated his Son he approved it to be as just and naturall as to cut off his Hair or pair his Nails when they grow offensive Theodorus was so infamous for these gross opinions that he was commonly called The Atheist and again Ironically
and Mystery being sometimes dark and cloudy and sometimes again thundring and lightning and shooting flashes of sacred fire into the hart of the Reader piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit and of the Joints and Marrow The very first verse of the Divine Evangelist which by superstitious persons is used as a Charm or Exorâ—ism proved an holy spell to Francis Iunius metamorphosing him from an Atheist to a Christian. I cannot but wonder how Politian or any judicious Critik could so far undervalue the Scripture as to disparage and despise it Certainly though it express not so much elegancy as to humor vain minds yet it hath sufficient to defend it self from contempt and is most apt and genuine for the Divine matter which it expresseth we may justly suspect they never faithfully studied it nor well relished the matter and scope thereof and then no wonder if they contemn it as many Wise men do their Tully and Virgil because they were never well versed in them nor rightly understand their Art and Intention But a true Believer who apprehends the true Sense and Savor of the Scriptures looks upon them as Gods Great Charter to Man and the Evidences of all his Happiness IV. Of God IN the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth God who made the World and no Ey saw him and who only can dissolv it and best knows how and when he will do it hath most evidently set it forth in his Word whereas the Philosophers speak doubtfully of it and are strangely perplexed and troubled about it Divine Knowledge proceeds from Causes to Effects and begins with God the first Cause of all things but they according to the way of Humane Reason proceed from Effects to Causes and so travailing to the utmost end of Natures Firm Land find out those first created Principles of Matter and Atomes which are but the Dust of Matter and a Chaos or Heap of all things and discovering nothing beyond these but a Vast Ocean and Gulf of Infinity rather turn back into the bosome of Nature and ascribe this self-creating power which is infinite and eternall to those lowest and meanest things then to an infinite and eternall Creator though God seemeth purposely so to have ordered the Course of Nature that the most perfect things should be constituted of things less perfect that thereby we might be led on to the acknowledgement of him for if the Superior Natures as Angels and Men had produced the inferior we might more reasonably have supposed them to be the first Causes of themselvs and others but to deify Matter or Atomes and make them our Creators is most irrationall Though Philosophy seems to doubt it yet all Religions and all Nations have confessed an Eternall Creator Every Creature is a Letter of his Name and the beautifull Fabrike of the whole World plainly spels a Deity and as the Creatures prove a Creator so also they prove both what he is not that is not like them finite and vain and in some sort what he is that is the infinite perfection of all these excellencies which are in them and infinitely more in himself then them all Thus David argues He that planted the Ear shall he not hear and he that framed the Ey shal not he see He that teacheth Man Knowledge shall not he know That is God in his own Divine and Infinite manner doth see and hear and understand all things as we do in our finite and imperfect manner the Excellency thereof must be attributed to him but the Imperfection must be removed from him So he is said to be angry at sin that is he is a perfect enemy to all Sin but Passion and Offense which is an Infirmity in us may not be conceived of him Thus God himself vouchsafeth to condiscend to our capacities interpreting and translating himself into our Language by Anthropopathies and Anthropomorphies and the like If we might only speak properly of him it were impossible for us to express or apprehend him for nothing can be univocally predicated of God and the Creature there being an infinite disproportion between them So God is infinitely Good not by any multiplication of degrees above us which do not alter the Species of Goodness but in another kind of Infinite Goodness for no multiplication of degrees can arise to an Infinity As our Savior said There is none Good but God that is as he is Good so we may also say There is none but God that is as he is whose Name is Iam. Again our Notions of Essence and Goodness being Finite the expressions thereof cannot perfectly declare him who is Infinite and therefore are not properly predicated of him but those and the like highest Titles of Nature as Substance Spirit Act must be understood of him infinitely otherwise then of us for To whom shall we liken God or what likeness shall we compare unto him He is that Rule of Goodness that Generall and Metaphysicall Good whereof we speak at large and therefore Abstracts do better express him then Concretes and Adjectives He is Being Bonity Power Wisdom Iustice Mercy it self and so it is said God is Love not properly but potentially and infinitly and as he is One because he is Infinite so also because he is Infinite all these must necessarily be One in him yea One with himself for an Infinite cannot consist of Parts which cannot be all Infinite because they are many and if they be Finite cannot make up one Infinite Therefore the highest conception we can have of God is that he is One Infinite Perfection in himself which is eminently and virtually all Perfections of the Creatures and the most perfect knowledge we have of him is that we cannot perfectly know him because we do know him to be thus infinitly perfect yet is this knowledge sufficient to make us perfectly happy in the enjoiment of him whom we know to be virtually and effectually all Finite Good and Infinitely Good in himself Let us therefore look round about the whole frame of Nature and view all the parts thereof considering all their Excellencies as so many Raies of Divine Glory whereof he is the Sun from which they proceed and on whom they depend comprehending all in himself as their first Cause in whom they were potentially before they were created Then let us ascend above the highest Heavens and the whole Compass of Nature which cannot contain him and go forth out of this World into that vast and boundless Temple of Immensity and Eternity which he inhabiteth and at once universally possesseth and so return into the bosome of that Infinity out of which we have proceeded Let us consider the possible effects of an unlimitted Power and we shall find Worlds very cheap with him who made this great Globe out of nothing Let us contemplate that Infinite Goodness which exceedeth all Covetousness and that Glory which surpasseth all Ambition and ground all upon the reall foundation of Being
infuseth an Infinite Virtue into all his merits and is able to regenerate aswell as redeem doth most perfectly sute with our necessities and fully supply them His own Doctrine Life and Death are the best Arguments of his Divinity yet doth he not want other testimonies The Sacrifices of the Patriarchs and the Jewish Types did prefigure him The Prophets were his Harbingers to bespeak places and seasons for him The Martyrs his Heralds to proclaim him to the World dying in that Belief which the nature of Man so much opposeth and the whole World either hath or shall both persecute and embrace it The third great Mystery is our Union with God and Christ who hath praied that we might be one as he and his Father are one not Essentially nor Personally but Spiritually so as no other Creature is united to God For Man being made last of all the Creatures as the summ and Epitome of the rest Christ by taking upon him the Humane Nature invested himself with the whole World and though he hath purchased all the inferior Creatures for the use of Man and the Elect Angels as ministring Spirits may partake of a Confirmation in their good estate yet the Conjugall Union is contracted between God and Mankind in a more speciall and immediate manner Nor is this a Naturall Union such as was that between Adam and all his Posterity whereby sin is derived to them but Spirituall by a more particular personall application Christ apprehending us by his Spirit and we him by Faith Now as the Union of God and the Soul is that wherein our Happiness consists so this being the highest neerest Union advances Man to a further degree therof then any other Creature whatsoever And this is the highest Evidence of the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ. For God being Infinite and the whole World Finite and so Infinitely below him though after he had perfected the first Creation he rested from his Works yet he rested not in them as in his Son whom he begat from all Eternity in whom he only rests satisfied and declared from Heaven that he is well pleased And though he pronounced them very good that is in their kind yet in respect of himself who only is truly and Infinitely Good they are all as Vain and Null But Jesus Christ thus Espousing the Creation and Endowing it with his Infinity gathers up all in himself so presents both together as an Object Infinite and adaequate to his Father Let us therefore entertain this blessed Savior with the full embraces of our Soul and think no other thing worthy our affections who have such a glorious Object presented unto us When we read the Histories of mighty Kings and the great Captains of the World our Minds are filled with honorable thoughts of them and we applaud them with great delight The very Romances of Heroike Love work strangely upon our Fansies and we are ready with the Tyrant to wish over selvs a part in them whereas here we have the only Son of God the King of Glory the mighty Conqueror of Principalities and Powers yea of Death and Hell and Sin triumphing over all the strength of Evill the chiefest among ten thousand yea fairer then the Children of men The brightness of his Fathers Glory and express Image of his Person who having set his hart on the most wretched and deformed Soul of Man left his Fathers Court laid aside his Roiall Robes taking upon him not the Disguise but the Form of a servant living in the meanest and laying down his life in the basest and most cruell manner for her sake whose Love was less then her Desert and Enmity against him greater then her Misery Espousing her to himself and at once infusing both Love and Beauty putting his own Crown upon her Head and so bringing her home to his Fathers House to live with himself in eternall Bliss This is the high Perogative of Divine Love to love the Unlovely and make them Lovely to purchase the Poor and make them Rich to affect the Unwilling and make them Willing to pity the Miserable and make them Happy O my Lord and my God! thou Beauty of all Beauties and Perfection of all Perfections The God of Love yea Love it self Teach me the Law of Divine Love and enflame me with this Celestiall flame inspire me with thine own Spirit and let me live in thy Life rejoycing in the pure fountain of thy Ioy and resting in the Bosom of thy eternall Rest. VI. Of the Spirit WE enjoy God only in Christ and Christ only by the Spirit As the Spirit of God in the first Creation moved upon the face of the waters and brought forth the perfect Beauâ—â— thereof out of a Chaos of confusion and the same Spirit formed Christ himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin so he bringeth forth Grace out of the Chaos of sin and formeth Christ in us regenerating us unto eternall Life Though the Spirit be a sure witness of its own work where it is yet it is a most easy thing to mistake the spirit of Satan or our own spirit for it where it is not Socinians and men of Reason esteem Faith only to be Fansy and Enthusiasts set up Fansy in stead of Faith as the Poet well expresseth it Aut Deus aut sua cuique Deus sit dira cupido There is a Spirituall Drunkenness and Madness which in some is so strong and prevalent that it ends in a naturall Madness and distemper of the brain which is hurt and tainted with the vehement impression of these Imaginations as much as with the Fansies of Carnall Love or Pride or any other violent affections which commonly distract men Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess but be filled with the Spirit saith the Apostle shewing that in Wine and in all the spirits of Creatures there may be excess and inebriatiation only the Spirit of God doth fill and satisfy the Soul with Spirituall Grace which yet some who would seem more Spirituall then others least regard and rather affect extraordinary and miraculous Gifts which have ceased long since having been chiefly exercised in three extraordinary seasons and upon extraordina-occasions by Moses who delivered the Law to the Iews by Elias and Elisha who restored the Law which they had made void and lastly by Christ and his Apostles who preached the Gospel with the last of whom they seem to have expired for soon after when the ceasing of the Heathenish Oracles was objected by the Christians against Iulian the Apostate he retotred upon them the ceasing of their Prophecies Some suppose that these extraordinary Gifts shall be restored unto the Church when she shall be fully recovered out of the Antichristian Eclips but why might we not rather expect to have found them in our first Reformers Luther was a man of an extraordinary Faith and yet wrought no Miracles The Anabaptists at the same time affected them and pretended to them but were found
narrow plank in a dark night and comming the next day to see what danger he had escaped fell down dead with astonishment The common sort of men walk in the dark and so regard not these things but like adventurous Soldiers are hardned with past success though their fellows fall daily on every side Stoikes satisfy themselvs with their Opinion of a Fatall Necessity so the Turks say their Destinies are written on their foreheads which is a desperate Humor but no Security and upon such a conceit to neglect the means of our own preservation adds Guilt to Misery and deprives us of no small comfort in suffering that we were not wanting to our selvs for the prevention of it But as it is the Destiny of such men to perish so it is their Destiny to perish by their own folly which is a double Evill And so Zeno the Stoike could answer his servant whē he would have excused his fault by pleading that it was his Fate he telling him that it was his Fate also to be beaten Politicians think to build above Providence and to set their Mountain so sure that it cannot be moved but how easily are the greatest designs and wisest counsells overturned by the least and most unexpected accidents Iulius Caesar was a man of the largest abilities and no less performance He so far prosecuted all naturall means as if no man had more distrusted his Fortune and yet so much relied on his Fortune as if he had needed no other means when he was in that extremity wherein he could make no use of his Wit or Strength he boasts of it and trusts to it alone Caesarem vehis Fortunam ejus He so often succeeded well in such cases that he kept an Ephemeris thereof God who had ordained him to be the Founder of the Roman Empire did strangely excite and support his Spirit and though it cannot be presumed that he had any knowledge of Divine Revelations and Prophecies concerning himself yet he seems to have had some kind of Belief of the thing I mean an extraordinary Confidence and Assurance of success We shall find him as great an Instance of Divine Providence both in his Rise and Fall as ever was in the World We will begin with his Civill War and recite only his own observations First he had the good hap to deal with an Army without a Generall and then with a Generall without an Army both which met together might probably have match'd him He was so put to it by Petreius and Afranius at Ilerda in Spain that it was reported at Rome they had ended the War which might have been made good if Pompey had come to their aid through Mauritania as was expected Again before the great Battail of Pharsalia when he was assaulted in his trenches he was so far worsted that he plainly confessed he had been conquered if Pompey then had known how to conquer Lastly in the Battail of Munda he was put to fight for his safety as at other times for Honor Labienus only by wheeling about with his Horse for advantage was apprehended by the rest to fly and so resigned the Victory to him so small a matter doth many times turn the Dy of War over and over and determine the greatest affairs of the World and the most secret conspiracies many times leak and run out at the least hole Caesar escaped a most imminent danger of being murdered at supper in the Egyptian Court if the Conspirators had then attempted it and afterward when they were fully prepared for the action his Barber who had no other direction then the strange Instinct of a naturall fearfulness was thereby put upon the search and discovered the Treason which was as weak a Guard to his Person as the Geese to the Capitol yet both proved effectuall But when God had determined to ruine him we shall see how no advantages no warning could preserv him He alwaies held Brutus and Cassius in suspect and professed some fear of those pale lean fellows The Conspirators were many the business long in agitation the danger foretold by Spurinna his wife dream'd of it and had almost staid him Hee had a Paper of the whole Plot delivered into his hands as he was going to the Senate and had begun to read it the Conspirators themselvs were daunted and thought they had been betrai'd yet all this could not preserv him from being slain in the midst of the Senate and made a sacrifice to Pompeys Image Now let all the great Captains and Counsellors of the World learn to acknowledge an over-ruling Providence and submit all their Power and Policy to the Beck of a Divine Will A Christian enjoies Providence by referring himself to Gods Protection and so walks constantly in a streight way in the midst of all changes and vicissitudes with aequanimity of Spirit being most assured that though he cannot well understand the Particulars yet the Summ of all shall be Gods Glory and his own Good which is that Happiness to which he is tending X. Of Prosperity PRosperity and Adversity are the different Issues of the same Parent being the severall dispensations of Providence and as they have the same Root so they yield the same Golden Fruit of Happiness I have learned saith the Apostle in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content Both may be enjoied with Content but learning and skill to do it are requisite Men think it an easy thing to be happy in Prosperity accounting that the only Happiness though they know not how to enjoy it As if a Mariner sailing with wind and tide he knows not whither should think he is making a very good Voiage There is a silent and still stream of Fortune wherein some men swim down quietly from the spring of their Birth to the common Ocean of Death so that they do not much remember the daies of their Life because God answereth them in the joy of their hart This is that kind of Prosperity so much commended by Philosophers and Poets Beatus ille qui procul negotiis c. A pretty kind of idle Felicity a Pastime or sweet Sleep stealing away our Time with the soft hand of ease and rest and at last shutting it up like a fair Day in the common Darkness of Death with others There is also a strong Gale of success carrying on the Designs of some Great Men who adventure themselvs and all their fortunes on the Ocean of the World in such a constant course of Prosperity that they never meet with any cross winds Many of the Graecian and Roman Captains proved alwaies victorious and were never beaten by any Many rich men thrive perpetually and never suffer any considerable loss yet this is no other then a busy Dream or a Play well acted as Augustus the most fortunate Prince intimated who when he was going off the Stage took his leav of his friends like an Actor Valete et Plaudite The right way of enjoying Prosperity
the Soul Discretion or a right discerning between things that differ is the genuine sense of divine Goodness and the sinfulness of Sin whereby the Mind clearly beholds the Beauty of the one and the Deformity of the other and is so satisfied and filled with this Light that there is no reserv of any contrary opinion or secret subtilty of a corrupt wit lurking in any corner which may prevail against it and seduce the Soul from God Good Disposition is the bias or inclination of the Soul toward God and aversion from Sin a rising from an inward Sympathy with the one and Antipathy against the other These two beget a Christian Nobility and Gallantry of Spirit in coctum generoso pectus honesto The Mind thus setled and fortified within it self is able to encounter all the proud Fansies and vain Imaginations of men whereby they exalt themselvs against Heaven to despise the greatest prosperity of the most glorious Sinners to nauseate the Circean Cup of their sweetest pleasures and scorn the witty impieties of a Lucian or a Iulian and the whole Stage of profane Scoffers to pass through the Labyrinth of a thousand Errors and keep the streight path of Truth though covered all over with the thorny arguments of the acutest Sophistry or possessed with Lions and Dragons of persecution Hence proceeds an inward Joy and sweet Delight in God and all Goodness as naturally pleasing to the new Nature of a rectified Soul David is a most famous example of this happy temper of Mind and therefore stiled A Man after Gods own Hart judging as he â—udgeth loving what he loveth and hating that which he hateth and when he had sinned against this Ingenuity by those presumptuous sins of Murder and Adultery in the matter of Vriah which checked this honorable title with the Rein of a sad exception in his Poenitentiall Psalm he praies for the restoring of this right and free spirit Paul the greatest Conqueror that ever was in the world was eminently acted by this Spirit being the most profound and powerfull Preacher of the Gospell of Grace and the highest Example thereof in himself And though this spirit of Grace were not perfect in them much less in common Christians yet it is that true Genius thereof in all striving and prevailing against the evill spirit of Corruption in them and being the very Characteristicall note of true Conversion and that which Divines call Sincerity Of all particular Graces the first and fundamentall is Faith in Christ because this unites the Soul to him who is the Fountain of this new Life sucking from him a Divine influence and deriving it to all other Graces and so mingling it self with them resigns all back again to Christ not as works or merits but as his Gifts and Graces by him to be presented to God This Evangelicall Faith doth more perfectly unite the Soul to Christ and God by him then all the inherent Grace of Adam and this union of Faith is perfected in a more high and spirituall Love which also flows from it for as we are now more beholding to God so we are more obliged to love him and God also loves most where he gives most This Love begets Obedience Love being the most serviceable and active Affection of the Soul and not only binds us to the Command but ingages us of it self to become like to him whom we do love nor can there be any mutuall delight between God and the Soul without likeness Can two walk together except they be agreed Glory being Grace perfected where there is no Grace there can be no Glory As Christ though he suffered for sin yet would not endure the least stain thereof in himself so though a Christian by his suffering is freed from the curse of Sin yet is he no less an enemy to all Sin And as the Grace of God doth not restrain him from commanding by which he worketh Grace in us so neither should it hinder us from using the means by which it is conveied to us This obedience of a Christian though very weak and imperfect in it self yet being performed in the Strength of Christ is more acceptable to God then all the perfect obedience of Adam There is no condition which hath not a Grace fit for it whereby it may be sweetned and sanctified which is the happy Enjoiment thereof a Heaven within though there be a Hell without In the world saith Christ yee shall have tribulation in me ye shall have peace Grace is a Panoply against all troubles and a Paradise of all Pleasures XVI Of Duties DUties are the Exercise of Graces or the Souls Gymnasium the ordinary way wherein God hath appointed to meet us and converse with us and so instead of all those extraordinary manifestations of his presence in former times As in our Naturall and Civill life he hath ordained severall Callings and Emploiments for the well spending of our time and advancing our temporall Estates so also in the Spirituall life he hath instituted certain Ordinances and Duties for the acting and improving of our Graces They who live without a Calling and some constant Business wander up and down in the Wilderness of Vanity and Vice such as despise or neglect Duties prove as extravagant and licentious in Religion There is a double Error concerning them Some are very strict and sedulous in Duties but rest in the work done and count them by their Beads or measure them by their Hourglass rather then weigh them in the Balance of the Sanctuary not regarding how and with what Spirit they perform them whereas the very Heathens esteemed it no Litation if there were any notable defect in the Intralls but sacrificed again taking that for none yea worse then none as being omnious and unlucky Others speak so much of the Spirit and inward part of the Duty that they wholly neglect the Body thereof but there is a great difference between a Body and a Carcase Outward worship without Spirit and Truth is a dead Carcase but with it is a living Body They pretend to the Spirit and wait for the impulses and motions thereof but neglect the waies aud means which the Spirit hath prescribed in his Word and if we strictly observ them we shall find such generally to be as formally Spirituall as others are formall in Duties full of words and notions and placing all religion in them God hath purposely ordained solemn and set Duties to restrain our wandring Spirits and bind them to his service which otherwise through the manifold diversions of worldly occasions or this vain pretension of waiting upon the Spirit we should wholly neglect David was a most holy and spirituall man and his Psalms as full of spirituall life and vigor as any part of the Old Testament yet we may observ in them how commonly he begins heavily and with much diffidence so quickning by degrees concludes with much assurance of Faith and Spirituall Joy Therefore Duties are not to be
deferred because we are dull and indisposed but so much rather to be practiced that thereby we may gather heat and life and we have no warrant otherwise to expect the Spirit of God then in his own way Our Spirits are like Instruments of Musike which must be often tuned or like Watches which must be wound up daily The morning and evening sacrifices under the Law seem to typify to us under the Gospell the spirituall offering up of Christ at the beginning and end of the day Duties are the Diet of the Soul and it is best to make constant and set meals of them though as our naturall food they may be iterated or deferred upon speciall occasions but to omit them for any long time is dangerous and wholly to neglect them deadly Christian Duties whereof we now speak are either such as God hath prescribed in the way of naturall worship which we ow unto him as to pray preach meditate confer and the like and in these there is nothing ceremoniall or servile more then in the Worship it self which is exercised by them or such as are specially and extraordinarily instituted by God as the Sacraments and being such may not be rejected unless we should plainly resist God or else such as are mixt of both and so partake of the nature and reason of both as morall Duties circumstantiated by Divine Institution As for those proud and foolish Spirits who say they are above Ordinances and Duties they may aswell say they are above all Religion and God himself The right enjoiment of Duties is first to attend them as our main business without which we do not use them much less injoy them Mary was as much busied in hearing Christ as Martha was about his entertainment The Heathen Priests began with Hoc age they thought it a very irreligious thing to be remiss and vain though in a vain Religion When a Coal fell upon the hand of him who held the Censer while Alexander was sacrificing he rather suffered it to be burnt then stir it To Attention we must join Intention of Spirit as we must love God so also we must serv him withall our heart withall our Soul and with all our might Good intervenient thoughts may be generally good but are very sinful in this particular circumstance Again we must mingle every Duty as well as Hearing with Faith beginning proceeding and ending all in Christ who is the great and universall Ordinance of God As our Spirit doth animate the Duty on our part so doth the Spirit of God on his part This communion of our Spirits with the Spirit of God in the Duty is the happy enjoiment thereof which renders it as spirituall as immediate influxes of the Spirit in any extraordinary way Hence proceeds Joy and Delight men of action naturally delight in Business chiefly such as they find profitable to them As profit begets delight so delight begets profit Be not slothfull in Business fervent in Spirit serving the Lord. God doth not impose Duties upon us as tasks and burdens as a Master exerciseth his Servant but as a Teacher his Scholar for his instruction and education They are the Paedagogy of Heaven preparing us for it this apprehension of them takes off all the drudgery and servility from them and renders them our reasonable and willing service most profitable to our selvs and acceptable unto God XVII Of Conscience COnscience is the greatest obligation to Duty the supreme Dictator and chief Magistrate in the Soul and not only as a Magistrate externally imposing Laws and Commands but rather as a Genius or Daemon within us speaking Oracles and exercising a Divine authority over us which must be exactly satisfied in every point with a direct and active obedience and in this respect it hath some kind of co-ordinate power and authority with God himself for as Conscience without Divine authority will not justify an action so God will not accept it without the concurrent authority of Conscience there must be as it were mutuall Indentures between both parties God first indites and seals the deed and Conscience must also seal the Counterpart without the one our service is unlawfull and without the other unreasonable This double authority being requisite to every action any contrariety or diversity between them puts the Soul into a strange confusion for whether we do follow an erring Conscience we sin or whether we do not we sin and when the Conscience doubts and hangs in suspense between two contrary opinions not knowing which way to take like Pentheus who thought he saw Et solem geminum geminus se ostendere Thebas it sins whether it goes one way or other or neither if the case be such as the thing ought to be done or not done This miserable condition in which the Soul is thus intangled proceeds from the naturall corruption thereof which is a difformity from the Mind of God and that Divine authority as a right Judgment is a conformity thereunto yet men secretly charge it upon God as a severe exactor of that which is beyond their understanding and think very hardly of him that they should be involved in this Labyrinth of Error and put into such a necessity of sinning though this proceed not from any darkness of Truth which is a most pure and clear Light but the blindness which is in their Minds To avoid this Naturalists and Socinians suppose him a good easy and indulgent God content with any thing and well liking to be served with their good meaning subordinating the authority of God to Conscience rather then the authority of Conscience to God and so to deify their corrupt Reason debase dishonor the Deity Others who are not so impudent as to expect a toleration for their Consciences from God yet exact it from men It is true no humane authority can force the Conscience which to imagine is as ridiculous as that there should be a Law made against thinking but if it may not restrain words and actions which are things overt and belong to the outward man it is an ordinance of God to no purpose for where there is no Law every man may act according to his own Conscience and if he may do so where there is a Law the Law is vain and of no force or authority This is another difficulty of Conscience when the publike and authoritative Judgment and the private differ but more easily resolved then the former If the thing be unlawfull it is better to obey God then Man yet God who hath commanded us to be active in such cases hath also commanded us to be passive in suffering which is the only lawfull escape he hath reserved for such as are under lawfull authority and which neither destroieth the publike authority nor our private Conscience But proud and furious Spirits impatient of suffering and despising this low and humble way of passive obedience whereof Christ himself all his Apostles have given us both the precept
and the example will rather confound all Laws and Bonds of Humane Society then be crost in their own wills A right Conscience will preserv it self in a right way and by right means both in doing and suffering otherwise Martyrdome it self should be only Patience perforce and the hight of Christian Grace inferior to Heathenish Virtue As Religion is a chief Bond of Humane Society and indeed the very Spirit and Soul thereof which governeth the inward man so the differences and dissentions about it have alwaies proved dangerous and sometimes fatall to the State and therefore may be no more to lerated then civil Seditions What confusion and mischief did the Arrian Heresy work in the Roman Empire the different expositions of the Mahometan Law serv to foment the wars between the Turks and Persians So doth the Popish and Protestant Doctrine among Christians and the Lutheran and Calvinisticall Arminian and Antiarminian among Protestants The most strange and prodigious villanies which were ever acted among men have been commonly the effects of an erring Conscience Such was Agamemnons sacrificing his Daughter whereof Lucretius doth so much complain Orestes his killing of his mother being perswaded to it as Euripides relateth by the oracle of Apollo The Vespers Massacres Powderplots of false and furious Zelots the most impious Paricides Rebellions and Treasons of Anabaptisticall Spirits have been the Dictates of their fanatike Consciences An evill Conscience is the greatest Tyrant a mans own evill Spirit or the Divell within him possessing and ingaging the whole man and disturbing the world Yet because of the Errors in Conscience and much mischief proceeding from them to abdicate Conscience it self is a most desperate and profane Humor destroying all sense of Good or Evill and confounding Heaven with Hell whereas a good and right Conscience is like the Holy Spirit our best Director and Comforter As we cannot serv God without it so neither can we enjoy any actuall Happiness in him without the testimony thereof his Spirit bearing witness with our Spirit that we are his Children This is both the Basis and Acme of the Soul the foundation and perfection of a Christian life being indeed the most roiall and generous thing in Man Horace his description thereof is as Calvin observeth too high for a Heathen but true of a David and a right Christian. Iustum tenacem propositi virum Non civium ardor prava jubentium Non vultus instantis tyranni Mente quatit solida neque Auster Dux inquietae turbidus Adriae Nec fulminantis magna Iovis manus Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae The Iust mans Iugdement and resolved Will No fury Popular injoining ill No urging Tyrants face Shakes setled on a solid Base Not the Souths Stormy breath which doth command Rough Adria nor great Ioves thundring hand Though the crack'd Globe should fall He fearless bears the breach of all XVIII Of the last Iudgement Conscience is the supreme Judge within a man but very erronious in matter of Right though seldom erring in matter of Fact nor is it alwaies rectified by the Judgement of others whereof their Consciences are also Dictators yea the very Providence of God in this world which men look upon as his Judgement at present supposing him alwaies to favor the Victorious is so various many times so contrary that many times a Cato may justly prefer the other side But certainly there is such a thing in nature as Justice though she have long since left the earth and the Iudge of all the earth must do right and doth immediately pass sentence upon every evill act assoon as it is committed though it be not speedily executed The greater the present confusion of all things is the greater is the certainty of the last Judgment God never made a world to no purpose and Rationall Creatures which are his chief Subjects only to rebell against him The Heathen were so perplexed with the consideration hereof having no certain knowledge of this last Judgement that sometimes they thought there was no God Esse deos credamne denying the very Creed of Nature and surrendring the belief of a Deity to their doubting of his Providence it seeming more credible to them that there is no God then that he should be unjust Sometimes they thought God did not regard these inferior things but only made a sport and pastime of them Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus Sometimes they thought one God favored one side and another the other Mulciber in Trojam pro Troja stabat Apollo Saepe premente Deo fert Deus alter opem The Manichees went so far in this Opinion as to set up an universall and standing Paire of contrary Gods whereof one is the Author of Good and the other of Evill which is the naturall Idolatry of many barbarous Nations The Mysteries of Providence have puzled the whole world and indeed it is so strange an Administration that there seems to be left no more then what is meerly necessary for the preservation of the world Assoon as any Family or State grows up to a maturity they have their period and are thrown down again and when any man becomes strictly honest and religious he can hardly be suffered to breath nor enjoy a common being among men Aristides the Just and Socrates who lived as he taught could not be endured in the most learned City of the world Even among Christians the power and life of that Religion which is generally professed is most opposed whereas they who have been most forward in any false Religion have been alwaies most honored Certainly there is another manner of account to be taken of these things or else we must suppose God to be a most indiscreet Phaeton unwise Governor of the World which is very irreligious and irrationall God can no more rest in this confusion of all things then he could in the first Chaos but will aâ— last bring forth the perfect module of his Providence and Justice and the cerrain expectation thereof is that which doth easily absolv him and answer all objections for then shall this Face of Providence which now toward us seems monstrous and deformed as it shall look toward God appear most beautifull not only in the principall lineaments thereof but in every hair of the least circumstance then shall every thing attain that perfection for which it was ordained and designed by him and be set in its right place and order never to be removed or disordered any more The first Creation was but an Embrion of this other world of perfection which shall be then completed and so shall ensue that eternall Sabbath wherein God shall rest and reign for ever The chief materials of this new World are Angels and Men the everlasting Monuments of his Mercy and Justice who are now in a continuall progress toward the most contrary terms of extreme Happiness and Misery Then shall Truth and Error Good and Evill be as cleerly