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
is rightly to understand it and the true worth and nature of it The Covetous and Querulous like sick men are never satisfied but undervalue all the Good things which they possess and because they have not what they would neglect to enjoy what they have On the contrary Prodigalls and Parasites like Children Idolize every trifle which over-weening Opinion as much hinders true enjoiment as the diminishing Humor and Discontent of others and ends in the same Insatisfaction wherein the other begins A Christian looking upon all his Prosperity as the effect of Gods Providence enjoies it in another manner then any worldly man The ancient Hebrews seem to have had a most familiar knowledge of Gods Providence When Isaac asked the supposititious Esau concerning his Venison How is it that thou hast found it so quickly my Son He answered Because the Lord thy God brought it to me Though he lied in the thing yet the Phrase discovers what apprehensions they had of the most common mercies which also Isaac elegantly expresseth speaking of the pleasant sent of his Garments See! the smell of my Son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed When we thus look upon God as the Father of Lights the author and giver of every good and perfect Gift we see him as easily begetting and multiplying Mercies as the Sun doth Beams This takes away all Anxiety and Fear of loss or want which doth more diminish the Comfort of them then that Care and Labor which they cost in purchasing Again as Gods chief intention in bestowing his Gifts is to allure and bring us home to himself so a Christian accepts them upon the same tearms as the Pledges of his love and Favor A Penny which is the Earnest of some great Bargain is another manner of thing then an ordinary Penny being given and received under another notion and this is the right way to improve and sublimate Prosperity to the hight more then any Ambitious Humor or vain Sensuality can do eating and drinking with a merry hart for God accepteth our works and so we may well accept his Gifts But though outward Prosperity be a Jewell in the Treasury of Gods Mercy yet it is not the White Stone of his Justice The very Heathen who were most affected with sensible Divinity knew how to distinguish between the Cause and the Success They who insist on this argument commonly want a better and will not stand to it themselvs when they are worsted Decision by the Sword even in a lawfull War is like waging Batail in a VVrit of Right which the purer light of Christianity hath antiquated as very uncertain and unwarrantable Success is the Blessing of God upon a Good Cause and his Curse upon a Bad. It is at most but a concurrent witness which signifies nothing of it self the Justice of the thing is its own best proof God hath not promised that his Church and People shall not suffer but that though they suffer they shall not perish like the bush which burned but was not consumed and that in the day wherein he hath appointed to judge the world they shall prevail and triumph for ever over all Injustice and Oppression But to improve Success to the use of all advantages which it puts into our hands though otherwise irregular and unlawfull and to justify it by Gods Providence giving us such an opportunity is as if a man should plead that he may do any evill which is in his power and justify it by this that God hath given him the power and opportunity of doing it and so make Gods Providence patronize his Lusts and turn his Grace into wantonness Though Adversity be a necessary preparation for Heaven by reason of our corruption which is best mortified by it yet Prosperity in it self is as fair and ready a way and the beginning thereof to the Godly He is certainly a most Happy man who can so enjoy it as to profit as much by it as by Adversity Judgements drive but Mercy leads to repentance This is an excellent temper of Spirit most pleasing to God and comfortable to our selvs but very rarely to be found in any XI Of Adversity THere is such a various mixture of Prosperity and Adversity in the Life of man that he who knows not how to enjoy both can never live happily in either Nemo confidat nimium secundis Nemo desperet meliora lapsis Many mens spirits are like tender and delicate Bodies which have a Most quick and exact sense of Pleasure but a litle Pain kills them like Flies very brisk and busy in the Summer of Prosperity but when the Winter of Adversity overtakes them dead in the nest Man is born to misery and Christians have commonly a double Portion of it and of all Christians the best and strongest are usually exercised with the greatest Afflictions or made such thereby If therefore there were no Enjoiment nor Fruit of suffering they should then be indeed of all men most miserable but as it is Gods usuall way of dealing with his Children so his Promises and Benedictions run generally that way Though Affliction hath no naturall Good in it self yet it produceth much Morall Good yea it commendeth the naturall Good and correcteth the Morall evill which is in Prosperity for Prosperity is as Diet but Adversity as Physike which recovereth from Surfets and reduceth to a right tast Though Prosperity be more honorable in it self yet the Virtues of Adversity are more honorable then of Prosperity The highest Romances of Worldly Glory are alwaies founded in the deepest Sufferings O nunquam tranquilla exordia fatis Heroum eximiis nec denique naufraga Virtus And those reall Conquerors are most famous who have encounter'd the greatest Adversaries Adversity overcome is the highest Glory and well undergone the greatest Virtue The Poets feign of Hercules not only that he slew Tyrants and Monsters but also that he bore the whole weight of Heaven on his shoulders shewing thereby that Virtue is as well exercised in Bearing as in Acting Have you not heard saith Iames of the Patience of Iob as of a most famous and memorable thing and it is indeed very admirable to contemplate him assaulted by Satan and overcoming only by enduring Satan had challenged Iob before God that he would make him curse him to his face and God permits him to try him and torture him to the utmost only sparing his Life which was no advantage but a lengthening of his fuffering yet Iob armed with nothing but Patience like a Rock in the midst of the waves repells all his assaults standing so firm that he cannot force him to a complaint which is the most naturall Infirmity of men in such a condition nor extort one foolish word from him In all this Iob sinned not nor charged God foolishly yea instead of Cursing he falls to Blessing The Lord hath given and the Lord hath taken away and blessed be the Name of the Lord which
AN ESSAY OF THE True Happines OF MAN In Two Books BY SAMUEL GOTT of GRA. I. ES. LONDON Printed by Rob. White for Thomas Vnderhill at the Blew-Anchor in Pauls Church-yard near the little North-Door 1650. The First Book I. OF True Happiness 1 II. Of the Degrees of Happines 8 III. Of Perfect Happiness 13 IV. Of the Vanity of all Worldly things 20 V. Of the Goods of the Body 25 VI. Of Health 30 VII Of Strength 35 VIII Of Beauty 40 IX Of the Goods of Fortune 46 X. Of Riches 52 XI Of Pleasures 61 XII Of Honor. 66 XIII Of the Goods of the Mind 71 XIV Of Learning 77 XV. Of Wisedome 83 XVI Of Philosophy 90 XVII Of the Sceptikes and Cynikes 98 XVIII Of the Cyreniakes and Epicureans 108 XIX Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes 115 XX. Of the Platonikes and of Socrates 125 The Second Book I. OF Religion 135 II. Of Faith 142 III. Of the Scriptures 148 IV. Of God 154 V. Of Christ. 163 VI. Of the Spirit 174 VII Of a Christian Life 183 VIII Of Nature 191 IX Of Providence 198 X. Of Prosperity 206 XI Of Adversity 213 XII Of Death 220 XIII Of Sin 229 XIV Of the Restuaration of the Soul 237 XV. Of Graces 248 XVI Of Duties 254 XVII Of Conscience 261 XVIII Of the last Iudgement 270 XIX Of Hell 278 XX. Of Heaven 288 The Preface I Beg no Patronage I need no Apology Truth is the best indeed only true Patroness if in any thing I have offended her let it be as a Null among Ciphers and signify nothing As Popish Writers use to say concerning the Church and Fathers If any thing be writ or said against them let it be unwrit and unsaid Though I should seem to Apologise it shall not be for any thing I have writ but only for writing in an Age wherein Letters are either neglected or distasted We have lately surfetted of Knowledge and now disgorge and nauseate it or if any Books be read they are only such as we disdain to read twice Pamphlets and Stories of Fact or angry Disputes concerning the Times In times of Action whosoever would appear considerable and make any moment in Business must pursue one of the Extremes and desperately run up to the hight of it so in Writing Preaching or the like to speak plausibly of the Times or vehemently to oppose them most advanceth Fame and Followers Yea in all other Times either to Flatter Princes and humor the Vices and Vanities of the Age or Satyrically to lash them hath been the common Art of Writing which I wittingly waive and leave to others Sober and Solid Truth passes on in a streight Line through the Crowd of Errors and Confusions without any great noise or show of it self Besides good Books as they are profitable so they are very chargeable We may not call them our own when we have bought them nor when we have read them To understand them rightly didicisse fideliter will cost almost as much as to indit̄e them and to practice them far more Men think it sufficient to turn over the Leavs but never care to gather the Fruit without which a Book is wholly lost writ and read to no purpose For my own part though I know writing of Books to be a very mean employment and of no great efficacy when such writing as the famous Talbot set on his Sword Pro vincere inimicos meos is by many counted the best Logike and Rhetorike and most authentike yet I am content to make use of it because I have no better antidote against Idleness and the inconveniencies thereof Having often consulted with my self how a man might live most happily both here and hereafter I used to commit my Thoughts to Writing finding by experience that as Meditation is the Glass of the Soul so Writing steels it and strengthens the Reflection representing our scattered Notions in a more entire and exact manner and imprinting them first on our own spirits I have lately collected my loose Papers and digested them into Method and now present them to the publike view that so others if they please may share with me and if I may communicate some considerable benefit to any one Reader I shall account my endeavours very well bestowed However they shall return into my own Brest and be alwaies welcome at Home The first BOOK Of the True HAPPINES Of MAN I. Of True Happiness HAppiness is the Life of Life and the Enjoyment of all our Good things Enjoyment begins in Knowledg Happy men if they Knew it is a common exprobration and in part true of all There is none who hath not something more then Hope left in the bottom of Pandroa's box at least so much as to maintain him in that state of Hoping which every man should improve to his best advantage and make the most of a little On the contrary Sentiat se mori was a torture as like Hell as the wit of man could invent Knowledge is the view of things and Contemplation the review and gazing on them bathing and soaking the Mind throughout with more piercing and fixed apprehensions Thus a Covetous man enjoys his treasures by counting and studying them as he in Horace Nummos contemplor in arca Admiration is more then Contemplation extending the Mind to the very utmost capacity yea in some sort transporting it beyond it self by wondering at that which it cannot comprehend These beget Love which is an Appetite of union Knowledge presents the Object to the Soul but Love resigns the Soul to the Object embracing and mingling with it and so sucks out all the sweetness that is in it This heat of Love begets Joy and Delight as a flame of Light flowing from it and this Rejoycing in the Object is the most perfect Enjoyment thereof True Happiness consists both in the true Taste of the Soul and also in the truth of the Thing it self An ingenious Poem or pleasant Fable made only to take the ear raise quicker affections in the mind of the Reader then the bare nakedness of more profitable Truth There is indeed a truth of Art in witty fictions which is reall matter of delight yet it argues great vanity to be more affected with the Embroidery of an artificial Ly then with the Plain work of better Instructions There are other meer deceptions The outward Senses deceiv the Fansie and which is more strange the Fansie can deceiv the very Senses and operate on them as much as the Thing it self not only as in a Dream but when they are waking and most intent He who sate in the empty Theater and seemed to see most wonderfull Tragedies was in a farther degree of vanity then common Spectators who contemplated an Hercules or Achilles or a great Prince in the person of some mean fellow whom they knew to be most unlike to them but his Fansie was both Spectator and Actor which is a double delusion I do not think as Avicenna
a God for indeed he who denieth God is his own God making himself his utmost end which is to Deify himself Aristippus is the Patron of voluptuous Courtiers and merry Companions though he had fewest successors in the Schole he hath most followers in the World This Geniall kind of Happiness consisteth in easy and delightfull Studies pleasant Discourses amorous Fansies Feastings Maskings Revellings and all kind of Courtship and Joviality All which ravish weaker Minds who when they enter into Princes Courts think them the only Heaven upon Earth and their pomp and pleasure the very Life of the Gods as the Cynike fitly stiled them Miracula Stultorum Mens spirits are no where better discovered then in a Court Vain men having once tasted of the delights thereof can hardly ever after endure to live privately whereas a sober man will love a private life better then ever he did before That which is most to be lamented is the loss of many a Brave and Gallant man through this Humor of Geniality How sad a thing is it to see the companions of an Vlysses charmed by this Circe and transformed into Beasts men like Aristippus of great Wit and Learning or as Petronius Pares negotiis fit for Business and of excellent Abilities to make no other use of them then to trifle away their time more pleasantly and ruine themselvs more wittily as strong Must resolving wholly into Spume and Vapor All Ages are full of such Examples but never did any man fool away a great Spirit and a greater Fortune like Mark Anthony who was so far bewitched with his Cleopatra that in the heat of the Battell of Actium when the Empire of the World his life and all lay at stake he fled from Augustus to pursue her whereas if he had fled from her he might very probably have pursued Augustus The Epicureans far excell the Cyreniakes for though they make Pleasure their Chief Good yet they refine it from the dross and dregs and exalt it from the particular acts and motions thereof to a constant state of universall Delight gratifying the Mind with all pleasing things and defending it from grief and perturbation in the midst of externall pains which opinion if rightly understood holds forth as high an Happiness as this World can afford marshalling the severall sorts of Pleasures according to their severall natures and degrees and making the Pleasure of Virtue to be Chief for the enjoying whereof we should cheerfully endure any inferior pains or miseries Yet they placed not this Happiness in the goodness of Virtue but in the Pleasure thereof But the Chief Good and the Chief Happines differ only in the Notion and not in the Thing For this Pleasure of Virtue cannot be had or enjoied without the Love of Virtue from which it doth arise To do a virtuous action without Love and Delight is no Virtue and to do it with the greatest Delight is the greatest Virtue and thus Epicurus well expresseth himself That Pleasure may be separated from all other things but not from Virtue for all other things must be subordinate to Virtue orherwise there is no true Pleasure in them But as Cicero observeth the Epicurean Opinion was very sublime and Philosophicall had their Practice been answerable unto it Horace plainly confesseth himself Epicuri de grege porcum Those outward Pleasures though admitted only as subservient to Virtue so prevailed against it that leaving the Mistress they fell in love with the Maid and instead of making Virtue the Chief Pleasure made Pleasure the Chief Virtue Thus was this most excellent Opinion which drest up Virtue in her fairest habit and presented her most lovely aspect to the Minds of men vitiated by a corrupt Practice Epicurus is the Institutor of a Private and Sedentary Life prescribing to dwell in a Garden of Pleasure enjoying the purest delights of Nature and entertaining our selvs with most beautifull Contemplations or good Society free from all cares and troubles Pomponius Atticus was a most exact man in this kind of Life and far more happy then all the great Conquerors of his time who troubled the World and themselvs with their vast Designs and great Enterprises This Epicurus thought to be the Happiness of God and did not only separate him from the care of Men but also Men from the care of God esteeming all Religion as Superstition or the impertinent curiosity of a fearfull Mind Yea he seems to separate us from the mutuall care of one another by withdrawing us from all publike affairs which must maintain every private State and therefore we ought to share in the Burden as well as in the Benefit and when it becomes our Duty is also part of our Happiness XIX Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes THE Epicureans favored those Affections which entertain Pleasure and mortified those which induce Pain but the Stoikes considering the great passion and perturbation which both the one and the other cause in the soul renounced them all and retired to the highest and purest region of Man which is his Mind as the Poet doth excellently describe it in his 6. Aeneid Igneus est ollis vigor coelestis origo Seminibus quantum non noxia corpora tardant Terrenique hebetant artus moribundaque membra Hinc metuunt gaudentque dolent cupiuntque nec auras Respiciunt clausae tenebris carcere caeco Comparing the Soul and Body of Man to Heaven and Earth The Mind which he calls a Heavenly seed is pure and Ethereall enjoying perpetuall peace in all its motions like the Heavenly Orbs. But the Body like the Earth of which it is made is dull and heavy and the Affections as the Aire or middle Region between both by Vapors ascending from the Earthly members fill the Soul with Clouds and Tempests which darken and imprison the Heavenly Light Now the Stoikes would have us live above these Clouds like Angels and Spirits but we can no more live in this World without Affections then without Bodies nor may we affect a Separate state in this Life The Rationall and Sensitive parts of Man are not two distinct Persons as an Horse and his Rider but rather like the Poeticall ficton of the Centaur who was both Horse and Rider in one so that the one being wounded the other feels it and sympathizes with it Thus the Mind rules the Fansy and Affections and they excite or damp the Corporeall spirits and cause fluxes and refluxes of them and so likewise the Body by the Humors thereof irritates the Fansy and Affections and they tempt and sollicite the Mind but as the Inferior part cannot compell the Superior so the Superior may not abdicate or sequester the Inferior Wherefore it may be justly admired how the Stoikes who made it their Chief End to live according to the Nature of the Universe should not allow Man to live according to the Universality of his own Nature in the full latitude and extent thereof It is an high exprobration of
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
and that my Soul knoweth right well So comparing both together When I consider the Heavens the work of thy fingers the Moon and Starrs which thou hast ordained what is Man that thou art mindfull of him and the Son of Man that thou visitest him c. Naturalists are much affected with the Sucly of Nature and Poets express a fluent and sweet delight in describing her but there is more Life and Spirit and Angelicall Speculation in one of Davids Psalms then in all their writings this Spirituall use thereof being more sublime and divine then any naturall contemplations as the Cardinall plainly confessed when he found a Countriman meditating on a Toad and blessing God who made him a Man As Adam was created in a state of Perfection so he had a great advantage of us in other respects being created in the perfect maturity of Understanding and rising up suddenly from the Earth out of which he was taken whereby he had a quicker and fresher view of the World then we whose Minds are dulled through Custome and Use and the edge of our apprehensions much rebated thereby Let us therefore make triall whither the Imagination of such an advantage may not somewhat excite and sharpen our understanding Let a man suppose himself made as David speaks Metaphorically in the lowest parts of the Earth in an adult State of Body and Mind Surely if he could well discern it he would judge it to be the common dunghill of the VVorld and would wonder to find any Metalls or Jewells hid in the rubbish thereof And then coming neerer the Surface and meeting with heaps of rotten Carcases and a few noisome Living Creatures he would deem it a very Grave and Hell of all things and could never expect that it should produce any thing but filth and corruption But then lifting up his head above the Ground and seeing it covered with the curious Tapestry of Herbs and Flowers spread for him as a Prince to tread on painted with the variety of all pleasant Colors and perfumed with most fragrant Odors and enriched with many secret and excellent Virtues then beholding the Armies of standing Corn and Forrests of goodly Trees crowned with innumerable Leavs and Fruits and perceiving the severall kinds of Beasts and Birds like so many Automata or self-moving Engins stirring up and down about him in their severall Postures and Motions he must needs stand amazed at so strange a sight and praise the fruitfulness of the womb which bare them But looking back upon the deep and wide Sea which threatens the shore with his insulting waves he would fear least that roaring Monster should step in among them and swallow up all in his devouring Jaws till he perceiv how when he is swoln to the hight of his pride and fury he begins to retreat and fall back into his native den without doing the least hurt and fetches off the tall ships carrying them away upon his Back and furnishes all the Aquaeducts of the Earth with fresh Springs and Streams ministring drink to the whole Family Again considering the pure Aire which he scarcely felt or perceived and yet is so far from Inanity that it fills up all the Chinks and Cranies of the VVorld fanning the Earth with the VVings of VVind and driving the great Ships to and fro with various Gales of Breath sometimes causing a quiet Calm and universall peace among the Elements and suddenly muffling the face of Heaven with black Clouds and rowsing up the sleepy Ocean tossing and tumbling it over and over and tearing the Bowells of the Earth making the Sturdy Mountains to tremble and the Rocks cleav in sunder is again as suddenly pacified he knows not how nor by whose perswasion how it carrieth about the Limbikes of the Clouds which distill down fruitfull showers and drop fatness on the Earth and in a moment convey all the Gifts and Blessings of Heaven to it Lastly contemplating those vast Orbs or Worlds of Light in their swift Motions and perpetuall Courses which never fail one minute of their appointed Time nor wander an inch out of their constant Way blessing the Earth with their very smiles and illuminating it with their Glorious Light he must necessarily acknowledge and adore the great Creator who hath founded this stately Globe and doth manage the Universall Empire of Nature by Secret Laws and inward Principles And though he cannot discern him by outward Sight yet his Understanding will as easily discover him as it doth an invisible Spirit in a living Body Besides as a Christian he tasts the bloud of his Savior in all things which renders those reliques and fragments of nature more sweet to him then all the first Paradise of perfection was to Adam IX Of Providence A Theists though partly convinced by Nature draw their chief arguments against a Deity from Providence and the present state of things whereas indeed this is the greater argument against them and such as fortifies the other for had Nature still flowed in a constant Stream of Causes and Effects she might more probably have been supposed to be the only Fountain of all things but when we see Nature which alwaies intendeth the Best not able to fulfill her own Laws nor effect her Intentions and so fall short of that end which she prescribes to her self we may plainly perceiv that there is a higher Power which over-rules her for the Creature was made subject to Vanity not willingly but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope Again she being thus lapsed and diseased might easily decay and perish if the same Power did not still preserv and continue her in all her Species though Individualls dy daily How litle excess of drought or heat destroies the hopes of the whole Year A pestilentiall Aire may infect the whole world and an Age of successive Famines and Pests might prove an universall destruction of all Living Creatures But he left not himself without witness in that he doth good giving us rain from heaven and fruitfull seasons and filling our harts with food and gladness Let a man seriously consider how Strangely his own Life is preserved how many severall Ingredients are requisite to patch it up how many sorts of Materialls are necessary to build an House how many Utensiles to furnish it how many kinds of Creatures are spent in feeding him and almost as many in clothing him besides all other occasionall Instruments of Life and he may justly wonder at the daily provision which God hath made for him Let him also consider how many possible Deaths lurk in his own bowells and the innumerable hosts of externall Dangers which beleaguer him on every side how many invisible Arrows fly about his ears continually and yet how few have hit him and none hitherto mortally wounded him and he shall find the meditation of those things which now he so much neglects strangely affect him Vives reports of a Iew that having gone over a deep river on a
against God It is called a Law of Sin as being directly opposite to the Law of God for what God saith Thou shalt do Sin saith Thou shalt not do and what he saith Thou shalt not do Sin saith Thou shalt do and so inverts the whole Decalogue and the very Law of Nature robing God of his Creature and setting it up against him and in his throne No created Majesty can endure a Consort much less Divine which is most absolutely and infinitely Supreme It is true Sin can never effect what it intends and therefore wicked men think it is nothing because it cannot hurt and wrong God but a declared intent is Treason even among men much more by the Law of God who is chieifly served or disserved by our Spirits and Wills yea this shows the most perfect malice of Sin that it fights against a Majesty which cannot be wronged and breeds a more haughty disdain and just revenge in him whom it opposeth to be defied by so base and Enemy Men may say they do not intend to hurt God yet they do transgress and offend his Law which is to offend himself though the intention may be to do God good service If therefore there be any such difference in Nature as Good and Evill if there be any Monster or Mischief in the World Sin is really the worst of Evills being most contrary to the Chief Good and in this relation it is infinitely evill though as it is a finite act it cannot be really and properly infinite for then it should be an Enemy equall to God but it comes as neer to infinite as possibly it can and if the Soul were infinite it would Sin infinitely as being eternall it will sin eternally yea it is as it were infinite to us for we cannot measure nor comprehend the utmost extent of the sinfulness thereof no more then we can number the particular acts Let us therefore stand amazed at the sight of this Hydra this killing and never dying Serpent devouring all Good and propagating all Evill Now what enjoiment can there be of such a perfect Evill Certainly next to the Grace of God a Christian reaps the greatest Happiness from it yea Grace it self which delivereth from Sin cannot be enjoied without the enjoiment of Sin from which it delivereth and the more horrid and hellish Sin is the more doth the Love of God appear in delivering us from it and in preserving the little spark of his Grace in the midst of an Ocean of corruption There is no such Antipathy in Nature as between Holiness and Unholiness the contrariety of Vice and Virtue is far short of it Grace is the highest perfection of the Soul and Sin the greatest imperfection As sin is the occasion of our greatest Good and highest Preferment so it is also of Gods greatest Glory and therein we should rejoice There is more Ioy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth then over ninety and nine Iust persons who need no repentance Thus the more we hate it the more we enjoy it and our greatest abhorrency doth most excite this affection of holy Joy and this is the high priviledge of a Christian to enjoy that which is most contrary unto him not only by forbearing it but also by Gods forgiving and recovering out of it to a state of higher Perfection and Happiness XIIII of the Restauration of the Soul THe Restauration of the Soul is the Conversion of it from Sin to God as the Corruption thereof was a defection from God to Sin This is a greater and more glorious work then the first Creation and the utmost Design of God in making the VVorld As in an ingenious Poem which is the Creature of Fancy the chief excellency is the Plot and the excellency of the Plot is the strange difficulty and intricacy of the Epitasis or troublesome state of the Business which is afterward beyond all expectation cleared up and resolved into an happy Catastrophe whereas if it should be carried on in a constant course of Prosperity it would seem very flat and dull without art or wit Thus God having made all things for himself and the manifestation of of his own Glory as the wisest end which he could propound to himself was not satisfied with the first work of Creation though exceeding good and perfect in its kind but assoon as it was finished suffered Sin to enter upon the Stage bringing Death and Hell along with it and so to confound and destroy all This was the Dignus vindice nodus such as all the Wit of Men and Angels could not unty till God himself came down from Heaven and resolved it into this more glorious work of Redemption which is an uncreating of Sin and a creating of Grace God cannot make Factum infectum but by pardoning Sin he makes it Quasi infectum Sin remitted is as though it had never been cōmitted Thus Justice it self justifies the unjust and being overcome it triumphs Justice and Mercy could not meet together in any other way and there is no other Instance in the whole History of the VVorld of any act of God which doth so perfectly exercise all his Attributes manifest all his Glory and consequently fulfill the end of Creation As God justifies the Ungodly so he makes him Godly which is the other part of this great work and no less wonderfull then the former If the entrance of Sin into the VVorld be so stupendious the expulsion thereof is much more The Peripatetikes suppose the Soul of Man to be like a plain Table or as we say a blank Paper on which Good or Evill may be imprinted and so equally indifferent to both But other Heathens have confessed the contrary Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur and all Christianity is against it If their Opinion were true probably some one man among so many millions might have lived pure from Sin perhaps through the whole course of his life or for a year or day or hour or at least might perform some one action perfectly good which none ever did Therefore the Platonikes say the Soul is like a Chariot drawn with two Horses whereof one is fair and generous the other deformed and resty The first is the Rationall part the second the Sensuall some Platonicall Divines call them Flesh and Spirit but it is most evident that not only the inferior faculties but also the superior are corrupted otherwise the inferior could not draw them away they being able of themselvs to put forth their own acts pure and incorrupt the Mind is free and cannot sin but from it self though it may be tempted and urged by others On the contrary sometimes the Mind urges the inferior faculties to sin beyond the common bounds of their nature and the utmost desires of Beasts besides there are many rationall and spirituall Sins wherein the inferior Faculties have no share The Pelagians seem to grant a mixture of both principles of Good and Evill in every Faculty and
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
altera Gehenna damnatorum The sensible sufferings of Hell are the other part thereof the Tunica molesta which covers the whole Man all over with pain and misery The pains of the Body are set out by the terrible violence of Fire and Sulphur which are put for the whole power of Nature armed with all its weapons and engines and sharpned to the quickest activity it hath yea beyond the present condition thereof as the Body it self shall be then fortified only to endure those torments which now would consume it in a moment Yea through this Hellish discord and distemper it shall become a most perfect engine of its own Misery more then all the externall impressions of Sicilian or Turkish tortures the tedious Tragedy of Raviliac or the horrible Disease of a dying Antiochus But the Soul which is the chief Sinner shall be chief Mourner at its own Funerall God who made it and knows how to punish it shall cause his wrath to pierce into the very Inwards and Vitalls of it which no other Creature can reach His dreadfull Ey shall shoot beams of Vengeance through and through the damned Spirits Every wicked man carrieth about him his own Hell and layeth up barrells of Gunpowder against that time which when the breath of the Lord like a flame of fire shall once have kindled will blow him up and fill the Soul and all the faculties thereof with an universall conflagration Sin is the fuell of this fire which shall never fail for neither shall the Guilt thereof be purged away by Suffering nor the Power be suppressed by Punishing but they shall for ever rage and blaspheme his name through the sense of their pain and anguish and for ever be punished for it Thus shall God to the utmost fight against the damned and they against him to all Eternity There shall be no discharge in that was This Wheel of Eternity is that on which the Soul shall be perfectly broken that Abyss which renders the pit of Hell bottomless and the continuall sense thereof is the most bitter Ingredient in every moment of suffering making the Soul endure all at once through the constant expectation of a succeeding perpetuity Eternity begets that Monster Despair which like a Medusa's head astonisheth with its very aspect and strangles Hope which is the breath of the Soul as it is said Dum spiro spero so it may be inverted Dum spero spiro Other miseries may wound the Spirit but Despair kils it dead Now a Christian enjoies Hell in a contrary manner as the damned are tormented with the sight of Heaven Gehenna est alterum Coelum beatornm The miseries of this Life commend Heaven unto us much more the torments of Hell Deliverance from great dangers affect the Soul far more then perpetuall security When a man shall consider with himself that he was in the same condemnation with others and yet is pardoned and preferred while they are executed it will make him hug himself and fill his Soul with the sense of a double delight conceiving as much joy in his deliverance as there is torment in others suffering Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem It is at present a naturall delight but not without some tincture of cruelty to behold the Tragedy of others but when the Justice of God hath once past sentence upon the damned as they shall for ever depart from him so shall they also depart from us and then all Humane Relations the grounds of Pity shall cease and be swallowed up in the Love of God so that we shall aswell rejoyce in his Justice and their Punishment as God himself who hath said He will laugh at their destruction Let the Saints be joifull in Glory let them sing upon their beds Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two edged sword in their Hand To execute vengeance upon the Heathen and punishments upon the People To bind their Kings with Chains and their Nobles with fetters of iron To execute upon them the judgement written This honor have all his Saints XVII Of Heaven HEaven is the contrary of Hell but far more glorious then Hell is miserable It is not only a paradise or reduction of Man to his primitive state of perfection but an higher exaltation of his nature as far above it in Glory as it is in situation Though Man was created perfect according to that state in which he was then made yet he was capable of an higher perfection and that capacity was not imperfection but the foundation of this greater perfection not a want of any thing which he then ought to have but only an absence of that which he might afterward have As a Child in the womb is a perfect Child and of a more excellent nature then the Foetus of any Beast though it be not perfect in all the degrees and operations of Man so is Man in the womb of this World or as the Apostle expresseth it by a Grane or Seed which is a perfect Grane but not a perfect Ear of Corn though it be the Seed thereof As Redemption was the End of Creation so is Glorification the End of Humane Perfection The Body shall be changed in qualities but not in substance for it must still continue the same and not be transubstantiated It shall be cleansed and purified not only from all naturall imperfections as Pains and Diseases and all Distempers or Deformities but also be stripped of all those naturall Virtues which are inferior perfections serving to supply the present necessities thereof as Eating Drinking Matrimony and the like For as in the naturall state Augmentation ceaseth when a man hath attained his Acme so shall Nutrition and Generation when he shall thus be perfected in himself and in his whole Species Then also all the objects of these inferior delights shall cease As it is the sumptuous excellency of a great feast to want all grosser meats being furnished with more curious dainties so it is the super-excellency of Heaven to want them all The Crowns and Scepters of the most glorious Princes their rich Treasures their Pomps and Triumphs and Roiall State and all the Glory of the world and the Delights of the sons of men are so much inferior and heterogeneall to Heaven that they cannot mingle with the pure nature thereof and so far from adding the least moment to that weight of Glory that like the dust of the Balance they would rather defile it which shows the perfect Vanity of all those worldly things whereof we formerly discoursed though in this Life they are the Handmaids of Happiness to do the drudgery thereof yet must they then when there shall be no more use of them turned out of their service Surely Mahomets Heaven is very mean and base which is made up of the dross and refuse of the true Heaven of Christians The Body being thus stripped of all those Husks shall be
efficit Quod si putatis longius vitam trahi Mortalis aura nominis Cum sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies Iam vos secunda mors manet Where now is just Fabricius Brutus where Or Cato the severe In a few Letters their surviving Fame Presents an empty Name But can those Titles which we read or hear Make Dead men to appear In dark oblivion ye all lye down Nor are your Persons known Or if you tâ—ink your Life by others Breath May be redeemâ—d from Death Time which this Life shall also from you take A second death will make The arguments which the World commonly draws from Death are very strange Epicures say Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall dy Certainly Death is the worst Master of Revells The Covetous will live Poor that he may dy Rich whereas indeed none dy Rich but the richest depart as poor and naked out of this world as any leaving all their welth to others Glorious men dy daringly that so they may be famous after Death yet all their Fame is but as a stately Monument set over their Graves Miserable men invoke Death and fly to it as their only Remedy but they are the worst Physicians who cure by killing These and the like are false enjoiments of Death and to no good end The reference it hath to another World as it is a parting Line between Life and Eternity doth best instruct us rightly to enjoy it Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do saith the Wiseman do it with thy might for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest He makes Death an incitement to Work not an invitation to Play and the chief VVork and Business of our Life is to gain eternall Life Blessed are the dead who dy in the Lord that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them All other Works all Arts and Sciences and the vast Projects and famous Enterprises which fill the History of the World end in the Grave In that very day his thoughts perish those only are our Stock and Provision for another VVorld Thus a Christian enjoies Death by being familiarly acquainted with him and taking him by the hand goes along with him in all his steps and motions dying dayly to the World and living to God and Heaven and when Death at last summons him to depart he willingly resigns up all as things which no longer concern him He looks upon Heaven as a Kingdom in Reversion after his own Life and looses nothing in the mean time by staying for it while he lives he encreases his future Glory and when he dies he goes to possess it Men of this world whose hope is only in this Life put Death far from them though it be most naturall and nigh unto them and the most certain of all future things and when Death appears and stares them in the face they behold him as a most strange and horrid thing either dying away through fear and astonishment as Nabal did or enraged like a wild Bull in a net as the famous Duke of Biron or with Iudas desperately plunge themselvs into Hell like Empedocles who cast himself quick into Mount Aetna The best of them look upon Death as an indifferent thing as Martial concludes his Happy Life Summum nec metuas diem nec optes But to me saith the Apostle to live is Christ and to dy is Gain which is the best and truest enjoiment both of Life and Death XIII Of Sin SIn is the Death of Souls the Father of Perdition which like the Cici or Worm in Ionas Gourd corrupted the world almost assoon as it was made The Mystery of Iniquity is almost as wonderfull as the Mystery of Grace and Godliness that it should be so exceeding sinfull and that being such it could possibly enter into the VVorld when it was so perfectly constituted that there was no cleft or crany in it by which Sin might creep forth enter into it untill it made way for it self Before Adam by fatall experience acquired the Knowledge of Good and Evill Sin might seem an incredible thing for how could it be imagined that a reasonable Creature of perfect understanding and exact integrity made only to serv and obey his Creator and conscious that all his Happiness consisted therein should rebell against him and at once plunge himself and all his Posterity into everlasting Misery As there was no reason for Sin so neither was there any root or ground out of which it should spring only a bare Possibility of doing that which was most unreasonable and unnaturall God made Man upright but they have sought out many inventions he was fain to seek out and invent the way of undoing himself and to create Sin which God had not made But that which is most wonderfull in Sin and which hath puzled the most profound Doctors is the consideration of Gods Permission and Providence how and why he should suffer such an Enemy to himself and all his Creatures to invade the World and ruin the whole Creation It is certainly the greatest quarrell and highest blasphemy which the Divells and damned have against God that he should make them to damn them and it is the strongest argument in the corrupt minds of the sinners of this VVorld who have not yet felt the Hell of Sin that it is no such great matter as Divines would perswade them thinking that because God doth permit it therefore he will also tolerate it This is the strange and prodigious birth of Sin and the Nature of it is answerable thereunto for it is no less then the doing of that w ch we ought not to do or the not doing of that which we ought to do and what we ought not to do is in the very next degree to what we cannot do Chast Ioseph puts the one for the other How can I do this wickedness and sin against God making morall Entity and Bonity as convertible as Naturall and Gods Interdiction as restraining as his Interposition This Monster assoon as it is born is so strong and adult in mischief that it destroieth the Womb that bare it and infecteth the whole Sphere of its activity though acts of Sin make it grow yet the first birth thereof makes it a complete Body and merits an universall and eternall punishment It hath blasted the whole inferior world and laid the foundations of Hell it self hence are all the Evills in Nature all the disorders in Humane society and villanies of Men. The Story of the Italian who first made his Enemy deny God and then Stab'd him and so at once murdered both Body and Soul declares the perfect malignity thereof and should the dire imprecations of revengefull Spirits be alwaies executed on others we should create Divells and Hells enough to destroy all Mankind But all this is the least and lowest Evill in it the perfection thereof consists in the contrariety and enmity