consists in Virtue and true Goodness it hence follows that all the Religion of the Means is insignificant to our Reconciliation with God if it doth not render us truly virtuous So that till this is effected there is so vast a Gulph between God and Us that neither We can go to Him nor He come to Vs and unless he alter his Nature by becoming impure as we are impure or we alter ours by becoming pure as He is pure there will be so immense a Distance between Him and Us as that it is impossible we should ever meet and agree So that what the Prophet saith of Sacrifice may be truly affirmed of all Religion of the Means Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of Rams or with ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl will He be reconciled upon our bare believing praying or receiving Sacraments c. No no He hath shewed thee O man what is good And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Mich. vi 7 8. II. THIS Religion of the Means is of no farther Use as to the perfecting our Natures than as it is instrumental to produce and promote in us those Heavenly Virtues which are implied in the Religion of the End For doubtless to be a Perfect Man is to live up to the Highest Principle of Humane Nature which is Reason and till we are once released from the slavery of Sense and Passion and all our Powers of Action are so subdued to this superiour Principle as to be wholly regulated by it and we chuse and refuse and love and hate and hope and fear and desire and delight according as right Reason directs we are in a maimed and imperfect Condition Now what else is Virtue but a Habit of Living according to the Laws of Reason or of demeaning our selves towards God our selves and all the World as best becomes Rational Beings placed in our Condition and Circumstances And till we are in some measure arrived to this our Nature is so far from being perfect that it is the most wretched and confused thing in the whole world A more undistinguished Chaos where Frigida cum Calidis Sense and Reason Brute and Man are shuffled together without any order like a confounded Heap of Ruines And therefore as for this Religion of the Means it will be altogether insignificant to the Perfection of our Natures unless by the Practice of it we do acquire a Habit of acting according to the Law of our Reason which Habit includes all Heavenly Virtue For constantly to know and do what is best and most reasonable is the very Crown and Perfection of every reasonable Nature and therefore so far as our Faith and Consideration our Sorrow for Sin and the other Instrumentals of Religion promote this Heavenly Habit in us so far are they perfective of our Nature and no farther III. THIS Religion of the Means is of no farther Use to Us as to the Entitling us to Heaven than as it is productive of those Heavenly Virtues which the Religion of the End implies For our Title to Heaven depending wholly upon Gods Promise must immediately result from our performance of those Conditions upon which he hath promised it which till we have done we can have no more Claim or Title to it than if he had never promised it at all But the sole Condition upon which he hath promised it is Universal Righteousness and Goodness for so without Holiness we are assured that no man shall see God and Mat. v. our Saviour intails all the Beatitudes of Heaven upon those Heavenly Virtues of Purity of Heart Benignity of Temper c. So also Rom. ii 7 the Promise of Eternal Life is limited to our Patient Continuance in well doing And that we may know before hand what to trust to our Saviour plainly tells us that not every one that cries Lord Lord that makes solemn Prayers and Addresses to me shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven And this is the will of God saith the Apostle even our Sanctification that is our being purged from all Impurities of Flesh and Spirit and inspired with all Heavenly Virtues And the Apostle expresly enumerates those Virtues upon which our Entrance into Eternal Life is promised 2 Pet. i. 5 6 7 8. Add to your Faith Virtue and to Virtue Knowledge and to Knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly Kindness and to Brotherly Kindness Charity For if these things be in you and abound saith he they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ that is That you shall receive the proper Fruit of that Knowledge which is Eternal Life for thus v. xi he goes on For so or upon this Condition an Entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. So that unless our Faith purifies our Hearts and works by Love unless our sorrow for Sin works in us Repentance or a Change of Mind unless our Prayers raise in us Divine and Heavenly Affections that is unless we so practise the Duties of the Religion of the Means as thereby to acquire the Virtues of the Religion of the End it will be all as insignificant to our Title to Heaven as the most indifferent Actions in the World IV. THIS Religion of the Means is of no farther Use to the disposing and qualifying us for Heaven than as it is an effectual means of the Religion of the End Which is a perfectly distinct Consideration from the former For it would be no advantage to us to have a Right to Heaven unless we were antecedently qualified and disposed for it Because Pleasure which is a Relative thing implies a Correspondence and Agreement between the Object and the Faculty that tasts and enjoys it But in the Temper of every wicked Mind there is a strong Antipathy to the Pleasures of Heaven which being all chast and pure and spiritual can never agree with the vitiated Palat of a base and degenerate Soul For what concord can there be between a spiteful and devilish Spirit and the Fountain of all Love and Goodness between a sensual and carnalized one that understands no other Pleasures but only those of the Flesh and those Pure and Virgin Spirits that neither eat nor drink but live for ever upon Wisdom and Holiness and Love and Contemplation Certainly till our Mind is contempered to the Heavenly State and we are of the same disposition with God and Angels and Saints there is no Pleasure in Heaven that can be agreeable to us For as for the main we shall be of the same Temper and Disposition when we come into the other World as we are when we leave this it being unimaginable how a Total Change should be wrought in us meerly
whole he should maintain a Modest Opinion of himself and not think better of his own Conduct and Management of himself than it deserves For by so doing he will be apt to overlook his own Misgovernments and so incapacitate himself for any farther Improvements And in these five Particulars consists all that Virtue which belongs to a man considered meerly in the Capacity of a Rational Animal The First is the Virtue of Prudence The Second is the Virtue of Moderation The Third is the Virtue of Fortitude The Fourth is the Virtue of Temperance The Fifth is the Virtue of Humility All which as I shall shew are Essential Parts of the Christian Life and such as do effectually contribute to our Heavenly Happiness I. PRUDENCE And this is the Root and Ground-Work of all other Virtues 'T is this that gives Law and Scope to all our Motions that proposes the Ends and prescribes the Measures of our Actions For Prudence consists in being guided and directed by Right Reason as it proposes to us the worthiest Ends and directs us to the fittest and most effectual Means of obtaining them So that to live prudently is to live in the constant Exercise of our Reason and to be continually pursuing such Ends as Right Reason proposes by such Means as Right Reason directs us to which is the proper Business of all the Virtues of Religion And hence Religion in the Scripture is frequently called by the Name of Wisdom or Prudence The Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom saith Job and to depart from Evil that is Vnderstanding Job xxviii 28 And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom saith David Psal. cxi 10 where the Fear of the Lord comprehends all the Acts of Religion which are therefore wise and prudent because they are the fittest Means to those worthiest Ends which Right Reason proposes So that to exercise our Reason in the Search and Discovery of what is absolutely best for us and to follow our Reason in the Pursuit and Acquest of what it discovers to be so is that virtue of Prudence whereunto we stand obliged as we are Rational Animals FOR our Reason being the noblest Principle of our Nature That by which we are raised above the Level of Brutes yea by which we are allied to Angels and do border upon God himself ought upon that account to be submitted to as the supream Regent and Directress of all our other Powers and to be looked upon as the Rule of our Will and the Guide of all our Animal Motions And when to gratifie our sensual Appetites or unreasonable Passions we either neglect those Ends which our Reason proposes to us or pursue them by such Means as our Reason disallows of we reverse the very order of our Natures and tread Antipodes to our selves And while we do so it is impossible we should be happy either here or hereafter For every thing you see is diseased while it is in an unnatural State and Condition while its Parts are displaced or put into a Disorder or distorted into an unnatural Figure And so it is with a Man who while he preserves his Faculties in their natural Station and Subordination to each other while he keeps his Affections and Appetites in subjection to his Will and his Will to his Reason he is calm and quiet and enjoys within himself perpetual Ease and Tranquillity But when once he breaks this order and suffers his Passions or his Appetites to usurp the Place of his Reason to impose contrary Ends to it or prescribe contrary Means his Faculties like disjointed Members are in perpetual Anguish and Anxiety And hence it is that in the Course of a wicked Life we feel such restless Contentions between our Spirit and Flesh between the Law in our Minds and the Law in our Members because our Nature is out of Tune and its Faculties are displaced and disordered and that sovereign Principle of Reason which should sway and govern us is deposed and made a Vassal to our Appetites and Passions For in all our evil Courses we chuse and refuse resolve and act not as Reason directs us but as Sense and Passion biasses us and our Reason having nothing to do in all this Brutish Scene of Action either sleeps it out without minding or regarding or else sits by as an idle Spectator of it and only censures and condemns it And it is this that causes all that Tumult and Contest that is in our Natures and till by the Exercise of Prudence our Faculties are reduced and set in order again our Mind will be like our Body while its Bones are out of Joint continually restless and unquiet And therefore to remove this great Indisposition of our Nature to Happiness Prudence is required of us as one of the principal Virtues of the Heavenly Part of the Christian Life FOR thus our Saviour injoins that we should be wise as Serpents as well as harmless as Doves Mat. x. 16 which though it be here prescribed in a particular Case only viz. that of Persecution yet since the Reason of it extends to all other Cases and it is fit we should be Prudent in all our Undertakings as well as in suffering Persecution it is upon that account equivalent to an universal Command So also Ephes. v. 15 See that ye walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise i. e. In the whole Course of your Actions take heed that ye follow the Guidance of your Reason and do not suffer your selves to be seduced by your blind Passions and Appetites which are meer Ignes Fatui or the Guides of Fools And accordingly the Apostle prays for his Christian Colossians That they might be filled with the Knowledge of God in all Wisdom and spiritual Vnderstanding Coloss. i. 9 i. e. That they might have such a knowledge of Gods will as might render them truly prudent and cause them to pursue the best Ends by the best Means And though this Virtue seldom occurs in the new Testament under its own Name yet as in the above-named Places it is expressed by Wisdom so it is elsewhere by Knowledge as particularly 2 Cor. vi 6 where he commands the Ministers of the Church to approve themselves such by several Virtues and particularly by Pureness i. e. Continence and by Knowledge i. e. by Prudence For besides that Knowledge as it signifies an Vnderstanding of Divine Things was not a Virtue in the Apostles but a Gift of God and so not proper to be enumerated amongst these Virtues there is hardly any Account to be given why the Apostle should place Knowledge in the midst of so many Moral Virtues if he did not thereby mean the Virtue of Prudence which is as it were the Eye and Guide of all the other Virtues So again 2 Pet. i. 6 where he bids us add to Faith Virtue i. e. Fortitude or Constancy of Mind and to Virtue Knowledge and to Knowledge Temperance By Knowledge it is highly probable he means Prudence
to give a larger Account FROM the whole I would recommend to the pious Reader the Consideration of the admirable Structure and Contrivance of the Practical Part of Christianity which having proposed to us an End so great and sublime and so highly worthy of our most vigorous prosecutions hath also furnish'd us with such choice and effectual Means of all sorts to attain it The consideration of which would be in itself a great Inducement to me to believe Christianity a Divine Religion though I were utterly unacquainted with its External Evidence and Motives of Credibility For it can never enter into my Head that such a rare and exquisite Contrivance to make men good and happy could ever owe its Original to the mere invention of a Carpenters Son and a company of illiterate Fishermen Especially considering how far it excels the Moral Precepts even of those divine Philosophers who believ'd the future State of a blessed Immortality and exerciz'd their best Wit in prescribing Rules to guide and direct men thither AND having given this large Account of the instrumental Duties of the Christian Life and also inforc'd the several Divisions of them with proper Arguments and Motives I thought fit to add a fifth Chapter wherein I have given some Rules for the more profitable reading of this practical Discourse and also some general Directions for the Exercise of our private Religion in all the different States of the Christian Life together with certain Forms of private Devotion fitted for each State In which I have supposed what I doubt is a very deplorable Truth viz. that the Generality of Christians after their Initiation by Baptism into the Publick profession of Christianity are so unhappy as to be seduc'd either through bad Example or Education into a vicious State of Life and that consequently from thence they must take their first start into the through Practice of Christianity Not that I make the least doubt but that there are a great many excellent Christians who by the Blessing of God upon their pious Education have been secur'd from this Calamity and trained up from their Infancy under a prevailing Sense of God and Religion and therefore for such as these as there is no need of that solemn method of Repentance prescribed in the first Section of the fourth Chapter so neither is there of those first penitential Prayers in this fifth Chapter which are accomodated to that State For these persons have long since been actually ingaged in the Christian Life and as 't is to be supposed have made considerable Improvements in it and therefore as they are only concerned in the Duties of the second and third States of the Christian Life so they are only to use the Prayers which are fitted to those States which with some variation of those phrases which suppose the past Course of our Life to have been vicious they may easily accommodate to their own Condition But the Design of this Discourse is not only to conduct them onwards in their Way who have already entered upon the Christian Life but also to reduce those to it who have been so unhappy as to wander into vicious Courses or rather though it serves both Purposes 't is wholly designed for the same persons viz. to seek and bring back those lost Sheep who have straid from the Paths of Christian Piety and Vertue and then to lead them on through all the intermediate Stages to the happy State of immortal Pleasures at the end of them And now if what hath been said should by the Blessing of God obtain its designed Effect upon any person I ask no other Requital for all the Pains it hath cost me but his earnest Prayers to God for me that after my best Endeavours to guide and direct him to Heaven I may not fall short of it my self THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. COncerning the Ultimate End of the Christian Life the Necessity of explaining what it is in order to our understanding the Christian Life Page 1. that Heaven is the End of it p. 2.3 c. that Heaven and Gods Glory are the same thing p. 5.6 what kind of Happiness Heaven implies with a general Account of the Happiness of Rest and the Happiness of Motion shewing that Heaven includes both but consists principally of the latter p. 7.8 c. that the Happiness of a Man consists in the vigorous Motion of his Vnderstanding and Will towards suitable Objects p. 11.12 and chiefly in the Knowledge and Choice of God p. 12.13 c. and also in the Knowledge and Choice of those that are most like him p. 21.22 c. the Glory of the Place p. 25.26 the Eternity of the Enjoyment p. 26.27 two Inferences from the whole p. 27.28 c. CHAP. II. Concerning the Means by which the End of the Christian Life is to be obtained that the Means must be more and greater than what was necessary to the first End of man viz. the Enjoyment of an earthly Paradice p. 33.34 c. that the great Distance of man from Heaven in his degenerate State creates a Necessity of many more Means than otherwise would be needful p. 35.36 c. two Kinds of Means necessary to our attainment of Heaven viz. the Practice of the Vertues of Christianity and the Vse of the instrumental Duties of Christianity p. 38.39 c. that the instrumental Duties of Christianity conduce no farther to our Happiness than as they are Means of Vertue proved in four particulars p. 42.43 c. CHAP. III. Concerning the Proximate Means of attaining Heaven viz. the Practice of the Christian Vertues shewing what Vertues this kind of Means consists of and how much every Vertue contributes to the Happiness of Heaven A distribution of the Christian Vertues into Humane Divine Social p. 57.58 SECT I. Concerning the Humane Vertues shewing that from the Constitution of humane Nature there are five Vertues necessary to its Happiness p. 59.60 c. first Prudence p. 62.63 c. secondly Moderation p. 70.71 c. thirdly Fortitude p. 79.80 c. fourthly Temperance p. 89.90 c. fifthly Humility p. 97.98 c. SECT II. Concerning the Divine Vertues which are comprehended in this first sort of Means shewing what they are and how effectually they conduce to our future Happiness that from the Relation we stand in to God there arises an Obligation to six several Vertues all which are necessary to our Happiness p. 108.109 c. first Contemplation of his Nature p. 109.110 c. secondly Adoration of his Perfections p. 117.118 c. thirdly Love p. 123.124 c. fourthly Imitation p. 136.137 c. fifthly Resignation p. 147.148 c. sixthly Trust and Dependance p. 162.163 c. SECT III. Concerning the Social Vertues which are included in this first sort of Means shewing that from our Inclination to Society and from the Nature and Condition of humane Society there arises a necessity of five Vertues to our everlasting Happiness p. 175.176 c.
for ever in a glorious Place which separated from all the rest of Heaven would be but a poor and hungry kind of Happiness For Life is no otherwise a Happiness than as it is the Principle of all our pleasant and grateful Perceptions and if we could live for ever without perceiving it would be the same thing to us as if we were nothing but a Company of everlasting Stones and Trees and what great matter would it signifie to live for ever in a glorious Place unless we could be for ever affected by it with a delightful sense and perception which is impossible because all delightful sense as hath already been proved arises out of the vigorous exercise of our Faculties about such Objects as are suitable to them but what can there be in the most glorious Place so suitable to a Rational Mind and Will as to keep them for ever vigorously employed and exercised about it It may indeed for a while employ the Mind in an eager Contemplation of its new and surprizing Beauties but how soon would the Mind dis-relish it were it to be its only Entertainment for Eternity And as for the Will what would a fine Place signifie to it if it were not replenished with such Objects as are suitable to its own Options And indeed there is nothing that can everlastingly gratifie a Rational Mind and Will but what has in it such an Infinity of Truth as is everlastingly Knowable and such an Infinity of Goodness as is everlastingly Desireable or which is the same thing nothing but what hath Truth enough in it for the one to be vigorously contemplating for ever and nothing but what hath Goodness enough in it for the other to be as vigorously loving adoring and imitating for ever And such an Infinitude of Truth and Goodness is no where to be found but in God But God as well as the Place and Duration of Heaven being an Object that is external to us neither is nor can be a Happiness to us unless we act upon him and freely exercise our Faculties about him unless we Know him and Love him c. So that that which Felicitates all is our own Internal Act 't is by this that we enjoy Heaven and perceive all the Pleasures of it 'T is not by being in Heaven that men are constituted Happy but by vigorously exerting their Faculties upon the Heavenly Objects For without this to be in Heaven or out of it would be altogether indifferent to us The Happiness of Heaven therefore consists in a State of Heavenly Action in being so attempered and connaturaliz'd to the Objects of Heaven as to be always acting upon and chearfully employing our Faculties about them For as there is no Pleasure in Acting coldly upon suitable Objects so there is Pain and Trouble in acting vigorously upon unsuitable ones And therefore to make Heaven it self a Happiness to us t is necessary not only that we should act vigorously upon the Objects of it but that we should so act from a suitableness of Temper to them That we should contemplate God submit to his Will adore and imitate his Perfections from a God-like Temper and Disposition For otherwise these Acts will be Penances instead of Pleasures to us and the more intensely we exert them the more painful they will be And if we were in Heaven all that Heavenly Exercise in which the Happiness of it consists would be but a Torment and Vexation to us unless we had a Heavenly Temper For as the Parts of Matter can never rest but do move about in a perpetual Whirl-pool till they are hit into a place or Interstice that is of the same Form and Figure with them so there is nothing can rest in Heaven but what is Heavenly All that is otherwise rebounds and flyes off of its own accord and can never acquiesce there till 't is of the same Form and Temper and Disposition with it From hence therefore it 's evident that the Happiness of a Man in Heaven consists not so much in the outward Glory of the Place as in the inward State of his own Mind which from a suitableness of Temper to the Heavenly Objects doth always freely employ and exercise its Faculties about them II. THAT the Heavenly State is nothing else but the Perfection of all Heavenly Vertue For it hath been already proved That Heaven consists in a clear and intimate Knowledge and a free and uncontested Choice of God and of those Blessed Beings that resemble him and these Two comprehend all Heavenly Virtue So that the difference between the state of Grace and Glory is not in Kind but in Degree For Grace is the Seed of Glory and Glory is the Maturity of Grace 'T is Knowledge exalted above all Error and Prejudice above all Difficulty or Obscurity of Apprehension 't is Love strained from all repugnancies of Flesh and Spirit and refined into a pure Celestial flame t is Obedience to and Imitation of God perfectly separated from all sinful Defects and freed from the Clog of counter-striving Principles 't is Adoration of and Dependency upon him without the least degree of Indisposition or Despondency in a word 't is a free and uncontrolled Motion of all the Heavenly Virtues together in which they are every one most vigorously exerted without the least Check or Impediment This therefore being the State of Heaven as is evident from what hath been discoursed it hence follows that the main difference between Virtue and Heaven is only Gradual that Virtue is the Beginning of Heaven and Heaven is the Perfection of Virtue And if so then as the lowest Degree of true Virtue is a step Heaven-wards so every farther Degree is a nearer Approach towards the Heavenly state So that as we grow in Grace and proceed from one Degree of Virtue to another we draw nearer and nearer to that blessed Condition in which we shall be all pure Virtue without any sinful Alloy or Intermixture And this is the true State and Condition of HEAVEN CHAP. II. Concerning the Means by which this Great End of the Christian Life is to be attained IT is to be considered that the great Design of Christianity being to advance our Natures to such a sublime Degree of Purity and Perfection as is requisite to capacitate us for the Enjoyment of a Heavenly Bliss it was necessitated in order hereunto to strain our Duty to a greater Height than any preceding Law had done before it For the End of all Gods Laws is the Happiness of his Subjects and therefore that they may be effectual Means to promote this End it 's necessary that the Duties they enjoyn should be such as the Nature of our Happiness requires Now in the first state of our Nature which was that of Innocence we seem to have been design'd only for a Terrestrial Paradise that is to enjoy a Sensual Animal Happiness in a state of Earthly Immortality And to serve and promote this end God gave us
Affection corresponding with the most perfect Draughts and Models of its own Reason it must needs highly approve of and be perfectly satisfied with it self and while it surveys its own Motions and Actions it must necessarily have a most delicious Gust and Rellish of them they being all such as its best and purest Reason approves of with a full and ungainsaying Judgment And thus the Soul being cured of all irregular Affection and removed from all corporeal Passion will live in perfect Health and Vigor and for ever enjoy within it self a Heaven of Content and Peace IV. ANOTHER Virtue which appertains to a man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is TEMPERANCE which consists in not indulging our Bodily Appetites to the Hurt and Prejudice of our Rational Nature Or in refraining from all those Excesses of Bodily Pleasure of Eating Drinking and Venery which do either disorder our Reason or indispose us to enjoy the pure and spiritual Pleasures of the Mind For besides that all Excesses of Bodily Pleasures are naturally prejudicial to our Reason as they indispose those Bodily Organs by which it operates For so Drunkenness dilutes the Brain which is the Mint of the Understanding and drowns those Images it stamps upon it in a Floud of unwholesome Rheums and Moistures and Gluttony cloggs the Animal Spirits which are as it were the Wings of the Mind and indisposes them for the Highest and Noblest Flights of Reason so Wantonness chafes the Bloud into Feverish Heats and by causing it to boil up too fast into the Brain disorders the motions of the Spirits there and so confounds the Phantasms that the Mind can have no clear or distinct Perception of them by which means our Intellectual Faculties are very often interrupted and forced to sit still for want of proper Tools to work with and so by often loitering grow by degrees listless and unactive and at the last are utterly indisposed to any Rational Operations Besides this I say which must needs be a mighty prejudice to our Rational Nature by too much familiarizing our selves to bodily Pleasures we shall break off all our acquaintance with spiritual ones and grow by degrees such utter strangers to them that we shall never be able to rellish and enjoy them and our Soul will contract such an Vxorious Fondness of the Body that being the Shop of all the Pleasure it was ever acquainted with that 't will never be able to live happily without it For though in its separate state it cannot be supposed that the Soul will retain the Appetites of the Body yet if while it is in the Body it wholly abandons it self to Corporeal Pleasures it may and doubtless will retain a vehement hankering after it and longing to be re-united to it which I conceive is the only sensuality that a separated Soul is capable of For when such a Soul arrives into the Spiritual World her having wholly accustomed her self to bodily Pleasure and never experienced any other will necessarily render her incapable of enjoying the Pleasures of pure and blessed Spirits So that being left utterly destitute of all her dear Delights and Satisfactions which are such as she knows she can never enjoy but in conjunction with the Body all her Appetite and Longing must necessarily be an outragious Desire of being Embodied again that so she may be capable of repeating her old sensual Pleasures and acting over the brutish Scene anew AND this as some think is the Reason why such gross and sensual Souls have appeared so often after their separation in the Churchyards or Charnel-Houses where their Bodies were laid because they cannot please themselves without them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The soul that is infected with a great Lust to the Body continues so for a great while after Death and suffering great Reluctancies hovers about this visible place and is hardly drawn from thence by force by the Demon that hath the Guard and Care of it Where by the visible Place he means 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is About their Monuments and Sepulchres where the shadowy Phantasms of such Souls have sometimes appeared For being utterly unacquainted with the Pleasures of Spirits they have nothing in all the spiritual world to feed their hungry Desire which makes them when they are permitted to wander to hover about and linger after their Bodies the Impossibility of being re-united to them not being able to cure them of their impotent Desire of it but still they would fain be alive again and reassume their old Instruments of Pleasure Iterumque ad tarda reverti Corpora Quae lucis miseris tam dira Cupido And hence among other Reasons it was that the Primitive Christians did so severely abstain from Bodily Pleasures that by this means they might gently wean the Soul from the Body and teach it before hand to live upon the Delights of separated Spirits that so upon its separation it might drop into Eternity like ripe Fruit from the Tree with Ease and Willingness and that by accustoming it before to spiritual Pleasures and Delights it might acquire such a savoury Sense and Relish of them as to be able when it came into the spiritual world to live wholly upon them and to be so intirely satisfied with them as not to be endlesly vext with a tormenting Desire of returning to the Body again For so Clemens Alexandrinus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We that are hunting after the Heavenly Food must take heed that we keep our Earthly Belly in subjection and to keep a strict Government over those things that are pleasant to it For saith he a little before 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither saith he is Food our Work nor Pleasure our Aim but we use them only as necessaries to our present Abode in which our Reason is instituting and training us up to a Life incorruptible i. e. They did so use them as that as much as in them lay they might wean their Souls from the pleasures of them that so they might have the better Appetite to that Spiritual Food upon which they were to live for ever AND therefore thus to temperate and restrain our selves in the Use of bodily Pleasures is one of the necessary Virtues of the Christian Life For hitherto tend all those Precepts concerning abstaining from fleshly lusts which war against our Souls I Pet. ii 11 and mortifying the deeds of the Body Rom. viii 13 and keeping under the Body 1 Cor. ix 27 and putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Coloss. ii 11 And we are strictly enjoined to be temperate in all things to watch and be sober and walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in excess of wine revellings and banquettings The sense of all which is That we should not indulge our bodily Appetites to the vitiating and depraving of our spiritual that we should not plunge our selves so far in
the Pleasures of the Flesh as to drown our Sense and Perception of Divine and Heavenly Enjoyments but that we should so far subdue and mortifie our Sensuality as that it may not have the Dominion over us nor be the prevalent Delight and Complacency of our Souls but that the commanding Biass and swaying Propension within us may be towards Divine and Heavenly Enjoyments that so when we leave this Body we may not be so wedded to the Pleasures of it as not to be able to be Happy without them but that we may carry with us into Eternity such a quick Sense and lively Rellish of the Pleasures above as to be able to live upon and be for ever satisfied with them SO that at first View it is evident how much the Practice of this Virtue conduces to our Future Happiness For by taking us off from all excess of bodily Pleasure it disposes us to enjoy the Pleasures of Heaven and connaturallizes our Souls to them So that when after a long Exercise of Temperance we come to leave the Body our Soul will be so loosned from it before hand and rendred so indifferent to the Delights of it that we shall be able to part both with It and Them without any great Regret or Reluctancy and to live from them for ever without any disquieting Longings or Hankerings after them For as when we are grown up by Age and Experience to a sense of more manly Pleasures we despise Nuts and Rattles which when we were Children we accounted our Happiness and should have reckoned our selves undone had we been deprived of them So when by the Practice of a severe Temperance we have acquired a thorough sense of the Pleasures of Virtue and Religion we shall look upon all our bodily Pleasures as the little Toys and Fooleries of our Infant State with which we pleased our childish Fancies when we knew no better And whereas had we been deprived of them then we should have cried and bemoaned our selves as little Children do when they lose their Play-Games and reckoned our selves undone and miserable upon the Experience we have had of the Nobler and more Generous Pleasures of Religion we shall be able to despise these little poor Entertainments of our Infancy to take our leave of them without a Tear in our Eyes and to live eternally without missing them For our Minds being for the main reconciled to Rational and Spiritual Pleasures we shall put off all Remains of bodily Lust with our Bodies and so flie away into the spiritual world with none but Pure and Spiritual Appetites about us where meeting with an infinite Fulness of Spiritual Joys and Pleasures of which we had many a foretast in the Body our predisposed Mind will presently close with and feed upon them with such an unspeakable Content and Satisfaction as will ravish it for ever from the Thoughts of all other Pleasures So that now we shall not only be able to subsist without Fleshly Delights but to despise and scorn them our Faculties being treated every moment with far nobler Fare and better Joys V. ANOTHER of those Virtues which belong to a man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is HUMILITY which consists in a modest and lowly opinion of our selves and of our own Acquisitions Merits or Endowments Or in not valuing our selves beyond what is due and just upon the account of any Good we are possessed of whether it be Internal or External For Pride or an over-weening Self-Conceit is the Bane of all our Virtue and Happiness It causes us to overlook our Defects and thereby hinders us from making farther Improvement and it possesses us with an opinion that we deserve more than we have and thereby renders us dissatisfied with our present Enjoyments For by how much any man over-values himself by so much he under-values what he enjoys because while he compares what he enjoys with the fond opinion that he hath of himself he always finds it short of his Desert and so can never be satisfied with it Yea such is the cross and capricious Humour of a proud Spirit that the more it possesses the bigger it swells with the opinion of its own Desert and the more it is opiniated of its own Desert the less it is satisfied with that which it possesses and enjoys For when a man is exceeding apt to flatter and cokes himself he will catch at any Pretence to exalt his own Merit and Desert and be ready to measure it not only by what he is but by what he has too and then reckoning his outward Possessions to be the Rewards or Products of his Inward Worth the more he has the more he will still imagine he deserves to have So that his Opinion of his own Desert will still run on so fast before his Enjoyments that though they should follow it never so close as the Hinder Wheels of a Coach do the Fore ones yet it would be impossible for them to overtake it And so long as he conceives his Enjoyments to be behind his Desert he will be always discontented and dissatisfied with them and while he continues of this Humour the utmost Bliss and Glory that Heaven affords would not to be able to satisfie him For if he were set equal in Glory with the highest Saint he would be so puffed and exalted by it in his own Conceit that he would fancy he merited the Glory of an Angel and if from thence he were advanced to the Throne of an Arch-Angel he would flatter himself into a conceit that he deserved the Glory and Dignity of a God And so long as he fancied his Advancement to be below his Merit he would never be contented with it how high soever it were but be continually vexing and repining that he was raised no higher AND this I verily believe was the Temper of the Devil and that which finally ruined and undid him For when he was an Angel of Light he was doubtless placed by the Father of Spirits in such an Order or Degree of Dignity as became the Dignity of his Nature But he reflecting on his own Indowments and the Glorious Condition wherein he was placed began first to swell with an arrogant and overweening conceit of himself and to set too high a value upon his own Angelical Graces and Perfections and as the natural Effect of this to imagine that he was not high enough advanced in the Scale of the Heavenly Hierarchy and that his Station in the Common-wealth of Angels was beneath the Grandeur and Dignity of his Nature This made him look up with envious Eyes upon the Glorious Orders above him into whose sublime Rank he being forbid to aspire by God the Prince of Spirits he proceeded by Degrees to malign and hate both Him and Them And this he first expressed by entring into a Conspiracy against him with some of his Fellow-Angels whom he found most apt to be wrought upon by him together with whom he made an open
you come there Since therefore this may happen to ye and is not altogether unlikely it concerns ye as ye hope for Heaven to fore-arm and prepare your selves against it So that our Christian Warfare exposing us as it doth to so many certain and probable Difficulties it is not without reason that the Apostle exhorts us to be stedfast and immovable always abounding in the work of the Lord forasmuch as we know that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord. II. TO the Course and Progress of our Christian Warfare it is necessary that we propose to our selves the most excellent Examples For Experience tells us that good Example hath a stronger Influence upon men than good Precepts or Counsels and the reason is plain because he that only gives others good Advices or Instructions doth not give them that Security that he believes himself as he that seconds his Counsel with his own Example For they who are instructed do in a great measure depend upon the Judgment and Authority of their Teachers and therefore must have a reasonable Security that their Teachers do believe themselves before they will be induced to believe and comply with what they are taught and such a Security is not to be fetcht so much from their Words as from their Actions But when by their Examples they transcribe their own Doctrines it is visible they are in earnest and that is a probable Argument to their Disciples that their Doctrine is true So that good Example teaches with greater Force and Authority than good Doctrine can do because it more sensibly confirms what it teaches and doth at the same time direct us what to do and by a very popular Argument prove that we ought to do it Besides when the matter which the Teacher advises or enjoins is hard and difficult he ought for the Encouragement of those whom he teaches to give them a full Assurance that 't is practicable which no Argument will so effectually do as his own Example For when they see that he himself practises what he teaches that is an ocular Demonstration to them that 't is practicable So that good Example carries in it this strong Encouragement to Goodness that there is nothing in it but what is possible and that the greatest Difficulties that attend it are such as may be conquered by Diligence and sincere Endeavour And as it gives us the most sensible Direction and Encouragement to Virtue so it also represents it to us to the greatest Advantage For whereas Precepts and Discourses of Virtue are only the Pictures and artificial Descriptions of it a virtuous Example is Virtue animated and exposed to our view in all its living Charms and Attractions And therefore by how much Nature exceeds Art and the most accomplished Beauties excel their Statues and Pictures by so much is Virtue in Examples more amiable and attractive than in Precepts and Discourses Since therefore in good Examples we see Virtue alive and in motion exerting it self in the most comely Actions and graceful Gestures this must much more effectually recommend and indear it to our Minds and Affections than the most pressing Discourses or lively Descriptions of it THIS therefore is one of those great means of holy living which the Gospel hath prescribed us viz. that we should propose to our selves the best and most excellent Examples that we should be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises Heb. vi 12 and that we should be followers of the Apostles and Leaders of the Flock of Christ as they were of Christ himself 1 Cor. xi 1 But because the Examples of the best of Men have a great many imperfections in them and are very often intermixt either with Excesses or Defects and tainted with Superstition or Enthusiasm by reason whereof they frequently mislead those that tread too close upon the heels of them therefore we are more particularly directed to the Example of the great Master of our Religion which though it consists of an unspotted Innocence and perfect Virtue yet is every way accommodated to the State and Condition of humane Nature and Conversation For he conversed among men with a modest Virtue and such as was every way consistent with an ordinary Course of life His Piety was even and constant and unblameable but such as fairly complied with civil Society and a secular Conversation It affected not high Transports and Raptures of Devotion but was such as was both fit and easie for Mortals to imitate His Virtue consisted not in prodigious Fastings or sour and unpracticable Abstractions from Sense but in a life of Justice and Temperance of Humility and Charity and Patience and the like that is in such a life as is not only proper but possible for us to transcribe So that in his glorious Example he hath transmitted to us an imitable Virtue for he took care not to out-run the Capacities of Men in inimitable Expressions of Sanctity and Virtue but so far as he could innocently complied with our Weakness and kept pace with our Strength that so he might entertain us all along with the Comforts of his Company and the Influence of a perpetual Guide And as that Rule of Faith which he hath propounded to us is fitted to our Understandings being very short easie and intelligible so as an excellent Writer of our own hath observed that Copy of Manners which he hath set before us is not only fitted with Excellencies worthy but also with Compliances possible to be imitated by us AND as his Example is all imitable so it is all throughout substantially good For it consisted in a modest Piety a simple and unaffected Goodness His Devotions to God never affected the Stage nor did they ever evaporate in enthusiastick Rants or unaccountable Raptures of Passion but were always secret and serious calm and manly animated with a seraphick Fervour and yet conducted with Reason and Sobriety His Government of himself was exact and regular his Affections were always fixt to their proper Objects and never exceeded the just Limits of Reason and his Appetites were always moderated by his Vnderstanding and never transgressed the bounds of Temperance and Nature His Conversation among men was most innocent and candid free and ingenuous neither vain nor morose haughty nor sordid but equally poised between all Extremes He was just without Partiality humble without Affectation charitable and beneficent without Noise or Respect of Persons His Zeal was wise temperate and substantial such as did not spend it self in a furious Contention for or Opposition to things of an indifferent Nature but it quietly submitted to the Customs of his Countrey and of the Church in which he was born and educated and all his Invectives were against Hypocrisie and Immorality which were the only things to which his noble and generous Temper could never be reconciled In a word his whole Religion was modest and serious and affected rather to be seen than to be heard
because he places it in the midst of those two Virtues which border nearest upon Prudence NOW that the Practice of this Virtue is a most proper and effectual Means of our Everlasting Happiness is evident from hence Because the Practice of it is a constant Exercise of Reason For to act prudently in Religion is to follow the best Reason to aim at Heaven which is the best End and direct our Actions thither by the best Rules 'T is to consult what is best for our selves and how it may be most effectually obtained In a word it is to intend the chiefest Good above All and to level our Lives and Actions most directly towards it This is Religious Prudence in the General and as for those Particulars of it which we are obliged to exercise in the several States Relations and Circumstances wherein we are placed they all consist in doing what is most fit and reasonable with respect to that Great and Blessed End FOR by living in the continual Practice of Religious Prudence we shall by degrees habituate our selves to a Life of Reason and shake off that drowsie Charm of Sense and Passion which hangs upon our Minds and renders our Faculties so dull and unactive And having disused our selves a while to obey their blind and imperious Dictates our Reason will reassume its Throne in us and direct all our Aims and Endeavours to what is Fittest and most Reasonable For we being finite and limited Beings cannot operate divers ways with equal vigour at once and our Faculties are made in such a regular and aequilibrious order that proportionably as the one does increase in Activity the others always decay And so accordingly as we abate in the strength of our Brutish we we shall improve in the vigour of our Rational Faculties But to act suitably to their Natures being the End of all our Faculties and Powers of Action the God of Nature to excite them thereto has founded all their Pleasure in the vigorous Exercise of them upon suitable Objects Since therefore our Reason is the best and noblest of all Powers of Action to be sure the greatest Pleasure we are capable of must spring out of the Exercise of our Reason Wherefore since Prudence consists in the Vse of our Reason the Practice thereof must needs effectually contribute to our Pleasure and Happiness For Vse and Exercise will mightily strengthen and improve our Reason and render it not only more apprehensive of what is fit and reasonable but also more persuasive and prevalent and when once it is improved into a prevailing Principle of Action and hath acquired not only Skill enough to prescribe what is Right to us but also Power enough to persuade us to comply with its prescriptions to chuse and refuse to love and hate to hope and fear desire and delight and regulate all our Actions by its Laws and Dictates then are we entring upon our Heaven and Happiness FOR that which makes us unhappy is that our sinful and ureasonable Affections do so hamper and intangle us that we cannot freely exercise our Faculties upon such Objects as are most suitable to them that our Minds and Wills are so fettered by our vicious Inclinations that we cannot exert them upon that which is most worthy to be Known and Chosen without a great deal of Difficulty and Distraction But now under the Conduct of our Reason our Faculties will by Degrees recover their Freedom and disengage themselves from those vicious Encumbrances which do so clog and interrupt them in all their Rational Motions And when this is throughly effected we are in full Possession of the Heavenly State which as I have shewed consists in the free and vigorous Exercise of our Rational Faculties upon the best and worthiest Objects For when once our Passions and Appetites are perfectly subdued to our Reason all our Rational Faculties will be free and every one will move towards its proper Object without any Lett or Hindrance our Vnderstanding will be swallowed up in a fixt Contemplation of the sublimest Truth our Wills intirely resigned to the Choice and Embraces of the truest Good our Affections unalterably devoted to the Love and Fruition of the most excellent Beauty and Perfection and in this consists the Happy State of Heaven So that to live prudently or which is the same to govern our selves by our best Reason is both a necessary and effectual means of attaining to the Heavenly State II. ANOTHER Virtue which appertains to a Man considered meerly as a Rational Animal is MODERATION which consists in proportioning our Concupiscible Affections to the just worth and value of Things so as neither to spend our Affections too prodigally upon Trifles nor yet be over-sparing or niggardly of them to real and substantial Goods But to love desire and expect things more or less according to the Estimate which our best and most impartial Reason makes of their Worth and Goodness For he that affects things more than in the Esteem of Reason they deserve affects them irrationally and regulates his Passion by his wild and extravagant Imagination and not by his Reason and Judgment And while men do thus neglect their Reason and accustome themselves to desire and love and affect without it they necessarily disable themselves to enjoy a Rational Happiness For besides that their Rational Faculties being thus laid by and unemployed will naturally contract Rust and grow every day more weak and restive Besides that their unexercised Reason will melt away in Sloth and Idleness and all its vital Powers freeze for want of motion and like standing water stagnate and gather mire and by degrees corrupt and putrefie till at last it will be impossible to revive them to the vigorous Exercise and Motion wherein their Pleasure and Happiness consists Besides this I say by habituating our selves to affect things irrationally i. e. to love the least Goods most and the greatest least we shall disable our selves from enjoying any Goods but only such as cannot make us happy For he that loves any Good more than it is worth can never be happy in the enjoyment of it because he thinks there is more in it than he finds and so is always disappointed in the Fruition of it And the Grief of being disappointed of what he expects does commonly countervail the Pleasure of what he finds and enjoys While he is in the pursuit of any Good which he inordinately dotes upon he is wild and imaginative he swells with Phantastick Joys and juggles himself into Expectations that are as large and boundless as his Desires But when once he is seized of it and finds how vastly the Enjoyment falls short of his Expectation his Pleasure is presently lost in his Disappointment and so he remains as unsatisfied as ever And thus if he were to spend an Eternity in such Pursuits and Enjoyments his Life would be nothing but an Everlasting Succession of Expectations and Disappointments So that all inordinate Affection destroys its own