here pour'd upon us for a wise and good man will not only regard what he suffers but what he deserves to suffer for his offences against God Also let no man judge and condemn another remembring the saying of St. Paul Ro. 2.1 Thou art inexcusable O man for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest dost the same things For 't is very unfitting he that owes ten thousand talents should be a severe exacter of his Brother's mite and he is a fool that thinks to cure others by his distemper that is by his pride and his impatience Who art thou saith the Apostle Rom. 14.4 that judgest another mans servant To his own master he standeth or falleth And how canst thou say to thy Brother let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye when thou thy self beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye Luke 6.42 God alone that can amend and forgive or else punish the sins of men hath right to judge of them our part is to prevent them if we can or else bring men to repentance however to hide and bear with them indeavouring first to amend our own faults before we take upon us to correct others As God is merciful and patient to us all so must we be to our Brothers CHAP. XXIV Remedies against Impatience 1. MAny and various are the affairs a man must go through in his life and very different are the humors and companies he must converse withal so that it is next to impossible all men should be of his opinion and all things should fall out according to his mind therefore he must resolve before hand and be very careful that he lose not his Peace and his Patience whatever happen To that end let him consider in all his concerns and undertakings what things may come cross to his desires and above his power to help and having took a view of them let him prepare himself to bear them if they come For this will avoid the surprize and lessen the grief and compose the mind This must be therefore our first and chiefest task to understand the nature of things and to use them accordingly as that they may be taken from us and they are and must be subject to thousands of changes and chances which we cannot hinder and they are to serve not to command us and withal they are out of our power so that we must not be troubled if we cannot dispose of them as we would 2. These considerations well weighed will make a wise mans mind stedfast and even able to entertain all events with a generous indifferency Is he depriv'd of his good name of his estate or liberty is he threatned with persecutions or with death itself he is not mov'd nor dejected he had consider'd long before that such things might happen whether he would or no and now he can bear and overcome them 'T is not outward things that wound us but the wrong notion that we have of them our own mistaken conceits do us the most hurt No man grows pale with fear or perplext with anguish but he that passionately would avoid or obtain that which is not in his power mind your duty and let not your passions go out of your own sphere and you shall avoid all those troubles which come from abroad where mans Jurisdiction cannot reach The Christian Martyrs were constant in the midst of their wearied tormentors their patience could not be conquer'd even women and children were undaunted in the midst of the flames they could not be overcome though they might be kill'd because they valued not those things which Tyrants might give or else take away Things without were nothing to them but things within things that were their own as their vertue their divine faith and love these they kept and preserv'd and in so doing were happy For these are the true goods which depend only from our selves and which the world can neither give nor take away from us CHAP. XXV Of Humility the proper Vertue of Christians 1. LEarn of me saith our Divine master the eternal wisdom the inexhaustible fountain of Grace and Vertue Learn of me what sure some great matter for he that bids us learn hath himself created Heaven and Earth and commanded the light to shine out of darkness Will he therefore teach us to make a new world and so bring things out of nothing also No that belongs only to God He bids us learn not what he made but what he himself was made for us Who being in the form of God yet made himself of no reputation taking on him the form of a Servant and being made in the likeness of men Phil. 2. Learn of me therefore saith he not to raise the dead or cast out Devils not to cleanse lepers or give light to the blind not to walk on the Sea or to work such wonders as he enabled some to do but Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart Mat. 11.29 He would not teach what himself would not do but he himself becomes our lesson and this he makes the sum of his wisdome and his saving doctrine that we learn to be meek and humble after his example So great so difficult a thing was lowliness that we could not learn it but from the humiliation of the most highest 2. Indeed human pride can be cur'd by none but him who being God yet humbled himself and became obedient to death even the death of the Cross And humility is the chiefest vertue of Christians proper to them alone unknown to the Philosophers and wise men of the world recommended by Christ by his Example and by his Precepts above all other duties That we following him in his abasement might at last come to his glory Now that we may think meanly of our selves we must seriously consider who it is that calls us the wretched State whence he calls us the Bliss he calls us to our perverse dulness to follow and the assistances he gives to forward us For we shall never come to the prize of our high calling except humility goes along and follows our best works which are the steps we make towards it Because our vertues shall avail nothing if we be proud of them and if we seek for praise and glory here we shall not have any hereafter 3. If at any time our thoughts be lift up and we fancy our selves to be something the Earth which is always present will tell us whereof we are made and whence we had our origin For dust we are and to dust we must needs return and upon this humble and low foundation we must build the highest vertues For if a man had the gift of miracles and could remove mountains if he could speak all languages and foretel things to come if he had converted all the infidels and given all his substance to the Poor yet he would be in great and perpetual danger of falling and losing his reward
oblig'd to observe The Divine are contain'd in the Ten Commandments and in the New Testament which contains the precepts of Faith Hope and Charity Faith obligeth all the Faithful to believe the doctrines of Christianity as they are sum'd up in our Creed By Hope we trust by the grace of God and our own sincere endeavour to obtain and use all necessary means of Grace and Eternal Life at last all which in this assurance we heartily beg in the Lord's Prayer And Charity requires of us to love God above all things and our Neighbour as our selves A Christian by these three virtues is made a new and holy creature Faith inlightens and directs his understanding Hope raiseth him up and sets his will at work for God and to God Charity unites him wholly It is also necessary to understand the necessity of Baptism and the Lord's Supper and true Repentance which are all Divine Institutions indispensably necessary to all that will be saved For except a man be born again of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.5 And Except we eat the flesh and drink the bloud of Christ we have no life in us Joh. 6.53 And as for Repentance it is the only remedy we have for the sins committed after Baptism that by it we may be made clean again 2. Lastly there are also Human Laws Enacted by the Church or the State we live in and them we are also to know and to observe with meekness and humility and for Conscience sake But no man of himself is able to keep all these Laws which God hath bound upon us none can obey them without the true light from above enlighten and guide him as it is written Psal 94.12 Blessed is the man whom thou chastnest O Lord and teachest him in thy Law For ever since sin came into the World men without the light of Faith sit in darkness and the shadow of death and take an account of good and evil not by the measures of truth but by their lusts and depraved passions We must therefore earnestly beg the divine assistance that he that commands what he wills would enable us to do what he hath commanded healing our blindness and impotency destroying self-love and filling our hearts with devout love to him for the end of the Commandment is Charity and he that truly loves God keepe his Commandments without hypocrisie or reservation CHAP. XXXIV The difference betwixt the outward and the inward man 1. OUR Christian hope is not for this World nor for this present time and we were not created to enjoy that Earthly happiness which the World only seeks but God made us for that Eternal Bliss which he hath promised and whose excellency we cannot as yet understand For eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither is it entred into the heart of man what things God hath prepared for them that love him We therefore that are called to the possession of that Kingdom which was prepared for us from the beginning of the World ought not to govern our selves only by human reasons and live by natural instincts after the common manner of men who are unacquainted with the ways of Eternity and the motions of Divine Grace But happy are they that wisely dive into the depth of things who live to God and commune with him in their hearts and suffer not their thoughts and affections to range and dwell abroad 2. These men live an inward life they are recollected and dwell at home always disposed to hear Gods voice within them and to understand his secrets Whereas they live an outward life that are most affected with outward things having fair pretences for their worldly-mindedness being greedy of news and curious sights and sensual pleasures walking saith the Apostle Eph. 4.17 in the vanity of their minds alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them For the more a man profits in carnal wisdom the more ignorant he becomes in the things of God As much as we love the creatures as much we lessen our love to the Creator CHAP. XXXV How dangerous it is to be governed by opinion and false apprehension of things 1. HE is a wise man that weighs things justly and then esteems them according to their intrinsick value for every thing in the world hath a twofold aspect or a double face the one natural and real and the other disguised and fallacious The first is what God judgeth and hath revealed it to be and the second depends on mens passions and false opinions Thus for Example the Dignity of a Bishop is in effect and according to Gods appointment a high and Angelic office of such a weight as should make human strength tremble and shrink under it it is a place of great honour but also it requires the greatest labour and diligence to watch for the Souls intrusted with the dignified Prelat who shall give a strict account for them in the day of judgment But in the Worlds account a Bishoprick is only a degree of honour in the Church which promotes the owner of it to riches and greatness and temporal advantages Hence it is that they that rightly apprehend what the office is fear and avoid it and are so far from seeking that they refuse it when offer'd and it is much to be feared that they follow the worlds judgements and seek themselves that seek it and make it their aim and the object of their passionate desires The same may be said of all other dignities and places of trust in Church and State Generally men have a wrong notion of them and understand not their definition and hence the confusions and malvorsations that are in the world that men mistake things and hate truth and will not see nor follow divine light but the darkness of their own perverse hearts 2. Such names are commonly used amongst men as are consecrated by the Bloud of Christ and the highest virtues of his greatest Saints as that some be called Bishops Priests Deacons Monks or Hermits Some Kings Princes and Magistrates and all together Christians but who is there that duly considers the great worth the strength and true significations of those names what virtues what perpetual care what duties they require from such as bear them the bare Titles with a vain shadow of the things remain but the reality and significancy of them is vanish'd few men are in truth what they call themselves few live according to the name of Christian because few make it their first care to follow the example of Christ This unhappy deceit is also an effect of the first and worst of evils Self-love the most crafty deceiver hardly found out by the wisest and seldome quite conquer'd by the best of men 3. The truth is that the good and evil things of this present life are so mixt and confused that if we take an exact view of the nature of them we shall hardly discern the one
shake off the thoughts and the comforts of Gods presence because it puts a restraint upon our appetites And when at any time Spiritual joys are denyed us we presently seek for Earthly pleasures because we open not the eyes of our Faith to see God present and we embrace him not with devout affection and we care not to converse with him This is the way to Perfection which God himself shewed to Abraham to have always a sense of the Divine presence Gen. 17.1 I am the Almighty God walk before me and be thou perfect Holy David likewise made a great use of this to be always mindful that God is with us Psal 16.8 I have set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved He can never but be happy that dwells with the Author of all happiness CHAP. XXVIII Why the imitation of Gods Saints appears difficult 1. WE think it a matter of great difficulty to follow the example of those Christian Worthies that have gone before us because we represent them to our selves as being now of another nature freed from the body inhabitants of the mansions of bliss whence anger lust and all temptations are for ever banish'd and where they enjoy peace and joy and eternal felicities But if we really desire to follow their steps and to conform our lives to theirs then are we to consider that as we are so were they mortal men cumbred with the uneasie burthen of the flesh infected with sin tempted by sinful affections and exposed to miseries and dangers but that by Faith they overcame all these subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness and by fighting obtain'd the Crown 2. Elias saith St. James 5.17 was a man subject to the like passions as we are and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain and it rained not on the Earth by the space of three years and six months and again he prayed and the Heaven gave rain and the Earth brought forth her fruit The same may be said of any other Saints that have done the greatest wonders they were like us made of the same clay and subject to the same passions and temptations while they were on Earth They were only above us in this that with great and assiduous pains they conquered pride and lust and escaped the snares of the Devil by diligent care and invincible resolution Why then do we draw back and make delays to them that are truly resolved and willing 't is not difficult to become Saints by the imitation of those that have gone before us if shaking off our sloth and laziness we would seriously endeavour we might by the help of Divine Grace arrive to the same height of Sanctification and bliss as they have For he hath proceeded far towards holiness that sincerely desires to be holy CHAP. XXIX How we should in all things aim at Gods Glory 1. IT is the precept of St. Paul that God should be the end of all our works that they may be good and acceptable 1 Cor. 10.31 Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the Glory of God and again Col. 3.17 Whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God and the Father by him For a good work which is not done upon Gods account doth become evil it being the nature of virtue to receive its form from the end rather than from the act And if we cleave to the creatures and love them for their own sake without reference to God this is that lust or sinful love which Saint John condemns 1 Ep. 2.15 Love not the World neither the things that are in the World love them not so as to rest in them For here we are Pilgrims Travellers going home to our Fathers house to our God and so what creatures we meet in our way we may use them as conveniences to carry us forward towards him but we may not dwell with them as if we were at our journeys end God alone is to be lov'd for himself he alone being infinitely good and the last and best end we can propound to our selves in him alone our appetites shall rest satisfied our enjoyment shall be secure and our joys undisturb'd for ever Whosoever knows not and pursues not this end knows not why he lives nor how to live well but he that knows it knows whither to direct his intentions and whither to tend in all his actions 2. It is granted that some natural actions as to walk to eat to sleep and such like are of themselves neither good nor evil yet all Divines teach that they become sin if we do them not to some further and better end that is to live to serve God whose glory should be the ultimate design of all mens actions because as he is the beginning so should he be the end of all things The light of the Body is the Eye saith our Blessed Saviour Mat. 6.22 if therefore thine Eye be single thine whole Body shall be full of light but if thine Eye be evil thine whole Body shall be full of darkness This Eye is the intention of every man in his actions if it be not good they become works of darkness and good it cannot be except it be refer'd to God the supreme goodness Every good thing comes from God and whatever returns not to him is evil CHAP. XXX Self-love is the root of all evil 1. AFter our first Parent by preferring himself to God committed that grievous transgression whereby all mankind became obnoxious to death lust and ignorance darkness and evil propensities seiz'd upon our nature man forsook God and turn'd to seek himself and having lost all sense of spiritual comfort ran dissolutely after carnal pleasures Hence Self-love the greatest Enemy to virtue came to tyrannize over men who to comply with it seek nothing now but wealth honours and sensual delights And now saith the Apostle Rom. 8.7 The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be for all its instincts and impulses have a tendency to sin and to sin only 2. And yet self-love which seeks so much our own ease and satisfaction is indeed its chiefest hinderance for God having created us for his glory and enjoyn'd us to design it always when by self-love we seek only our selves and our own advantage we do nothing whereby to obtain Gods favour and eternal life but rather fall into a wretched state of damnation We are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh saith Saint Paul Rom. 8.13 For if ye live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Now to this mortification we are strongly oblig'd by Christian Religion its great design is to bring us out of our selves to God that as we yielded our members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity even so now we should yield them servants