them from extravagancy and at once to make our Devotions the less tedious to our selves and the more acceptable to God CHAP. II. Of several other instances of secret Devotion THough Prayer be the most general duty of Religion the common instrument of all Piety and the most immediate address to God yet it is a great mistake to make it the only instance of secret Devotion for there are several others of great moment amongst which I reckon in the next place 2. Study and Meditation not only to direct and assist our Prayers of which I said something before but especially to cultivate and improve our own minds that we may be wiser and consequently both more capable of doing God better service in this World and also fitter for the Society of Angels and the Conversation of the spirits of just men made perfect in the other World For we are to consider that God Almighty hath set a mighty value upon our Souls in redeeming them by no less a price than the blood of his only Son and therefore we should be intolerably ingrateful towards him if we bestow no cost upon them but live as if we were mere matter and body and take care only to please and gratify our senses and in the mean time abandon our minds to folly and ignorance to sloth and superstition We are to consider also that the same infinite goodness hath by the same purchace deliver'd us from the fear of Eternal Death which otherwise would have kept us in perpetual bondage and so have contracted our spirits and rendered our very selves so inconsiderable to our selves that no man could have had the heart to take any care of himself but would be tempted to have lived like a beast because he expected to die like one or worse but now that we are made to hope for immortality and to live for ever and ever there is great reason a man should spare no cost no labour and pains about himself since he may reap the fruit and enjoy the comfort of so doing in the better enjoyment of himself a thousand Ages hence and to all Eternity Moreover the same Divine Goodness hath designed us to a glorious estate of happiness in his own Kingdom of Heaven a state of intellectual pleasure and the most sublimed ingredients of felicity which a dull sottish and sensual Soul can never be capable of perceiving if he were placed in the midst of them and therefore he is more than brutish that doth not dispose himself so that he may be meet to partake of that inheritance with the Saints in light To all this we are to consider that the general apostafy of mankind hath weaken'd our natures clouded our understanding and disorder'd all our powers and together herewith the foolish opinions and traditions of the World have abused and deceived us yet more and more so that we must be most silly and unhappy Creatures if we do not indeavour to deliver and disingage our selves from both these Calamities And the case is not totally irreparable in respect of either of these mischiefs if we be not wanting to our selves for to the intent that we might in some measure recover our selves it hath pleased God to give us time to consider in privacy and retirement from the noise of the World that we may recollect our selves he hath set before us his works and providence to meditate upon we have his holy Scriptures to inlighten our minds and guide us out of the perplexed state of things we enjoy the publick ministry and abundance of good Books to help us to understand those Scriptures and above all we are assured of the assistances of his holy spirit against the weakness and confusion of our own understandings So that as there is great reason and great necessity that we should apply our selves to study and meditation so we have as great incouragement to hope for success in so doing for by application of our selves to the means aforesaid we may not only rid our selves of that wildness and ferity which is ordinarily upon our natures but outgrow vulgar opinion and tradition and come to be able to make a true estimate of things set before us we may greaten our spirits so as to despise those little things which silly men dote upon we may free our minds of childish fears and unaccountable superstitions we may understand the true reason of Religion the loveliness of virtue and in a word have worthier notions of God and clearer apprehensions of the World to come And although it be acknowledged that all men are not alike capable of these improvements either by reason of the weakness of their minds or the unhappy constitution of their bodies or the perplexed condition of their outward affairs yet certainly God Almighty hath by the means aforesaid put it into every mans power to be wiser than he is if he would but apply himself to the use of them and therefore let the devout man be sure to make the experiment To further him the more wherein let him to all the considerations foregoing adde these two following First That forasmuch as he was made in Gods Image it is no less than a contempt of the Divine Majesty to have no regard to the cultivating and adorning that part of himself wherein he especially resembles his Maker and consequently it will appear to him to be a very fit and proper instance of worship towards God to improve his own Soul and therefore it is here justly placed amongst the expressions of Devotion Secondly Let him consider that the great game of Eternity is but once to be plaid and that there is no retrieving of our neglects and carelessness afterwards therefore there is all the reason in the World that we should play it intently and warily my meaning is that therefore we ought to redeem time from folly and sensuality and apply it to the advantage of our Souls and he that doth so and begs Gods blessing upon it will undoubtedly find his mind inlarged his life more regular and his spirit more comfortable which are all the chief ends of Devotion 3. The next instance of secret Devotion for I am not curious in what order I place them shall be the exercise of Faith in God and dependance upon him in pursuance of an acknowledgment that he alone governs the World and the framing a mans heart to take notice of him to have recourse to him and stay it self upon him in all exigencies and accidents and passages whatsoever that he may impute nothing to chance fate or the stars but possess himself with a deep and setled apprehension of the great interest of God in all revolutions or occurrences This is a point of great and real honour to the Divine Majesty as it sets God always before us and places him continually in our Eye as it brings us to an intire resignation of our selves to his dispose and puts us into a constant gravity and a reverence towards him
that he tempt not himself to flatness by an affected length of these holy duties for though it be a sign of an indevout temper to be too compendious and concise in them as if we grudged the time spent in Gods Service and although it be also irreverent towards God to be so short and abrupt as if we briefly dictated to him what we would have done yet it is to be guilty of the same fault to be impertinently tedious with him as if he could not understand us without many words or would be wrought upon by tedious importunity Besides all this it is to be considered that often when the spirit is willing the flesh is weak and that our bodies cannot always correspond with our minds now in such a case to affect the prolonging of our Devotions is to lose in the intention what we get in the extension of them for it will be sure either to make us go unwillingly to our duty or to perform it very superficially in either of which circumstances it is not likely we should be pleasing to God or be able to make any comfortable reflections afterwards upon such performance The measures of Devotion therefore are not expresly prescribed by God but are to be determined by a prudent respect to the peculiar constitution of the person the condition of his affairs and the extraordinariness of the occasion and to go about to exceed these bounds is an argument of intemperate zeal which is never acceptable to God and is so far injurious to a mans self that it manifestly hinders what it pretends to promote To these I add Fourthly Let not the devout man be very curious or sollicitious about the from or expressions of his secret duties I mean whether his Prayers be read out of a Book or be the present conceptions of his own mind so long as they are offered up from an understanding Soul and an humble and affectionate heart for these are all the things that God looks at and wherein his honour is directly concerned and therefore as he hath no value for eloquence of speech on the one hand so neither hath he for strength of memory or for pregnancy and variety of phancy on the other but only as I said that we worship him with our understanding and do not like Parrots utter words whereof we have no sense or notion that we bring an humble and contrite spirit as sensible of the infinite distance between him and us and an heart seriously affected with his presence and the nature and value of the things we are conversant about It is true that a composed form is most sutable to publick worship where as I noted before the dignity and credit of Religion is concern'd and that perhaps in private duties our present conceptions may most please and affect our selves but our acceptance with God especially in these secret duties depends neither upon the one nor the other but upon those inward dispositions of the Soul aforesaid Wherefore let no man cheat himself into an opinion that those heats of phancy or transports of affection which sometimes happen in conceived Prayer are instances of real and extraordinary devotion or that because the use of a form or Book may perhaps be destitute of such flights therefore those duties are dead and formal forasmuch as those services may be most acceptable to God which are less pleasant to our selves since it is not those sudden flashes but a constant and even servour of piety which he hath regard to And this leads me to another advice namely Fifthly Let the pious man think himself obliged to pray without ceasing and that he is never to lay aside or intermit the regular course of a daily devotion upon any pretence whatsoever but especially not upon the absurd pretext of awaiting the motion of the spirit for although it be true that the Spirit of God ceases not to move men to their duty the way of the Spirit of God is not to move sensibly and to make violent impressions upon us and therefore he that suspends the performance of his duty till he is so jogged and stirred up to it will never pray at all and indeed what reason can there be to expect such a thing or what need of it in the case of a known duty if it were the will of God to put us upon some extraordinary service then it were reasonable to expect some special mandate or impulse upon our spirits from him which might both warrant the enterprize and quicken us in the prosecution but in ordinary duties the motion of the holy spirit in the Scripture is and ought to be sufficient and he that will not be stirred up by that doth but pretend to wait for a spirit in excuse of his own Atheism Unbelief or intolerable slothfulness and in so doing lays himself open to an evil spirit whose design it is to check and withdraw men from Religion and this is matter of sad and common experience that from waiting for the motion of the spirit men very usually grow first to frequent omissions then to carelessness of their duty and at last to a total neglect of it Therefore let not any man slight a regular and methodical Devotion as a meer formal and customary thing since this is the very attainment of Piety when that which is matter of duty becomes also in a good sense customary and habitual and he that out of such a temper performs the duties of Religion constantly and reverently gives far greater proof of sincere Christianity than he that seems to himself to do them with greater heat and transport but needs from time to time to be jogged and provoked to the performance Sixthly To all these I adde in the last place that it is very advisable though not absolutely necessary that in these secret Devotions a man should where it may be done with privacy and without oftentation or such other impediment pray vocally and audibly for although God knows our hearts and observes all our thoughts and the motions of our affections before we express them and therefore needs not that we should interpret our minds to him by words yet it is fit we should imploy all the powers and capacities we have in his service our Bodies as well as our Souls and our Lips as well as our hearts Besides though we cannot affect God with the tone and accents of our Speech yet we often times affect our own hearts the more and raise them a note higher in concord with the elevation of our Voices but that which I principally intend is this viz. by the harmony of our tongue and voice our hearts are as it were charmed into the greater composure and intention upon that we are about And so whereas it is the usual complaint especially of melancholy and thoughtful persons that their hearts are apt to rove and wander in these secret duties of Religion by this means we have it very much in our power to keep
as it provokes us to address our selves to him upon all occasions to pray to him to trust in him to walk humbly and thankfully before him And it is of mighty advantage to our selves as it strengthens and fortifies our weak spirits by the contemplation of that mighty providence we are under and that we are protected by a wise and good and powerful Being whom nothing can be too hard for and who is liable to no surprize or mistake as it assures us that nothing befals without him and therefore every thing is ordained for wise ends and shall be turned to good in the conclusion this also inables us to be contented in every condition secure against all fears and to arrive at such an evenness of spirit that we shall not be tost with every accident hurried by every emergency but possess our selves in patience and tranquility And consequently this must needs be a very worthy entertainment of our retirements and such as deserves and requires the application of our minds to it that we may be under the power of this perswasion and be able to answer to our selves the atheistical objections against it to give some account of the intricacy and obscure passages of Providence without some skill in which it will be very difficult if not impossible to walk either piously or comfortably but by this exercise we hold continual conversation with God we live and walk with him he is always at hand to us to awe us to support and comfort us and our hearts become not only a Temple where we solemnly offer up our services at set times to him but an Altar where the holy fire never goes out but sends up constantly the sweet odours of Prayers and Praises to him 4. Another exercise of secret Devotion is to premeditate our conversation and so to forecast the occurrences of life that we may conduct our selves both with safety to our Souls and to the best advantage of our spiritual interests forasmuch as he that lives ex tempore as we say and unpremeditately will neither be able to avoid the dangers which will be sure to encounter him nor to improve the opportunities which may offer themselves to him In our converse in this World we must expect temptations from the Devil allurements from sensual objects provocations from the folly or malice of evil men vexations by unhappy accidents and above all abundance of evil examples to debauch and corrupt us and that man will most certainly be surprized by some or all of these that doth not forecast them and arm himself against them and therefore a wise man will not adventure to go abroad and take in the infectious air of the World till he hath antidoted himself against the danger by the advantages of retirement and the secret exercises of Devotion To this purpose he will before he goes out of his Closet not only consider the common Calamities of the World the reigning sins of the Age but the especial difficulties of his calling and profession and the peculiar infirmities of his own temper and withal will forethink and prepare himself against such efforts as by reason of any of these may be made upon him If he can foresee that he shall unavoidably fall into evil Company he will first indeavour to warm and affect his heart with the quicker sense of Religion that he may not only take no hurt himself but if it be possible imprint some sense of good upon those he converses with If any thing be likely to happen that will strike him with melancholy he will first go to God by Prayer for strength and constancy of mind and indeavour to fix his heart so intently upon another World as that the occurrences of this may not discompose him If he be likely to meet with that which may provoke him to anger he will compose himself to as great a coolness as possibly he can that no passage may inflame him If any allurement to sensuality present it self he will consider how he may retreat into grave Company or earnest business that so he may decline that which is not easily to be withstood And on the other side concerning opportunities of doing or receiving good forasmuch as every wise man is sensible that the seasons of things are no more in his power than the time of his life is that no enterprize succeeds well which is not nicked with a fit season and that it is impossible to recal it when it is slipped by therefore the pious man will forethink what may offer themselves probably in such circumstances as he stands in lest he should overlook them when they present and so he lose an advantage of doing glory to God or good to men and of promoting the interest of his own Soul and accordingly will dispose his heart in secret to apprehend them and to improve them he examines his capacity and stirs up his attention and projects the means either how he may reap some benefit by good and wise Company or how he may seasonably interpose a word on Gods behalf in common Conversation or how he may do some good thing that will turn to account another day 5. But if either by the neglect of such opportunities as aforesaid the pious man omit the doing of some good he might have done or by security of conversation he fall into any of those dangers he ought to have watcht against then there is a fifth great work for private Devotion for in this case there lies a double care upon him first that he slight not his danger and secondly that he despair not of remedy but be both deeply sensible of his miscarriage and also rise again with indignation and resolution First That he slight not his fault as generally men do by the plea of Example or the pretence of humane infirmity and so harden himself in his sin but feel a deep remorse and conceive a mighty displeasure against himself for it Secondly That on the other side he aggravate not his guilt to such a degree as to preclude repentance by despairing of the divine mercy but presently flee to the grace of the Gospel and implore Gods Pardon with setled purposes never to offend in the like kind again Now neither of these are done as they ought to be but in retirement viz. when a man hath opportunity of dealing impartially between God and his own Soul and therefore especially because the occasions of them often happen are justly reckonable as a part of Closet Devotion and accordingly they are represented by the holy Psalmist Psal 4. 4. Stand in awe and sin not commune with your own hearts in your chamber and be still c. Wherefore let every man that hath any sense of God upon him be throughly perswaded to set some time apart for this purpose that he may romage his own heart and find out all the evils of his life and when he hath discovered any particular guilt upon his Soul let him not forsake