resolution of mutual forbearance Above all things wee must remember that wee are all guilty before God and stand in need of mercy and unlesse wee forgive them that trespasse against us wee pray against ourselves and aske our condemnation every time that wee say the Lords Prayer The meditation of death will conduce much to lay downe hatred To wish one dead is among the vulgar an expression of the greatest hatred If then wee may be satisfied with the death of our enemies we may be sure that all our enemies shal die but wee must be sure also that they may expect of us the like satisfaction The worst wee can doe the one to the other is to bring us to the end which Nature leads us unto As while two little fishes are fighting for a flye the Pyke comes that devoures them both while wee quarrell about small things death is coming which will swallow him that is in the right and him that is in the wrong the victor and the vanquished Looke upon the broyles of the age of our fathers What is become of the long and opiniatre quarrel of the Leagve in which all Christendome was involved death hath decided it It hath cooled the * Titles that the Leagvers assumed Ardent and the Zealous It hath stopt the full careere of hatred assisted with valournd power It will do the like to the quarrels of our dayes Let us not be so hot in our dissensions Death will quench our heat within a few dayes and send us to pleade our causes before our great judge It will goe ill with us if wee appeare in that judgement before wee have made peace with our judge by a true repentance and faith which without charity with our neighbours cannot subsist Why should our hatred be long since our life is short The same consideration will serve to temper the hatred of iniquity which for the most part is a pretence whereby wee cozen ourselves and others to palliate personall hatred If we take Gods cause sincerely in hand we must conforme ourselves to his will and wisedome expecting till he send his messenger which is death to attache the wicked before his judgement Psal 37.8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath Fret not thy selfe in any wise to do evill for evill doers shall be cut off 10. Yet a little while and the wicked shall not be If we hate wickednesse we may be sure that God hates it more yet and he will punish it but in his owne time to satisfie his justice not our fashion Certainly if we hated iniquity in good earnest we would hate it in ourselves Though our enemies be wicked we must love them for Gods sake and because we also are subject to the like infirmities we must love them for our sakes CHAP. XIII Of Envy HEre is one more of the Daughters of Pride and therefore a grandchild of Ignorance and Selfe love She is much like Hatred her elder Sister In this they differ that Hatred is bent against the evill and Envy against the good But to shew herselfe descended from Ignorance she mistakes the false goods for the true For no man will envy the Christian vertues of his neighbours nor the riches of his minde but the goods of fortune which often deserve rather to be called evils Let a man grow in learning holinesse let him be a Saint upon earth let him have Seraphicall raptures no man will envy him for it but let him once get favour at Court let his degree and his rents be augmented presently the arrowes of envy will be shot at him on all sides Indeed great Oratours great Warriours and men eminent in civill prudence are much envied by idle droanes but if you looke to the ground of that envy it is not the vertue and capacity of those brave men that begets it but the fame and credit which they get thereby Think not that Satan envieth God because he is good wise if he did he would endeavour to be so He envieth God because he is Almighty and because he is worshiped by men and Angels whereas himselfe would have all power in heaven and earth and every knee to bow unto him It is not vertue but the reward of vertue that moveth envy If it were in an envious mans power to distribute all the wealth spirituall and temporall which is among men he would not dispute to his enemies the possession of all the vertues but he would keepe to himselfe all the rewards This is the cause of that disposition When an envious man seeth others enjoy wealth he feareth there will not be enough left for him But as for Vertue he is sure that the plenty of it with others will not hinder his owne possession of the like So he doth not envy it For nothing moveth envy but such things as have moved cupidity before Cupidity is for light glittering stuffe and envy keepes pace with cupidity Vertue is a substance too dark and solid for their turne Learne we then to store ourselves with those goods which provoke no envy and which we may possesse no body being the poorer by our riches Envy is a great enemy to tranquillity of the suol It is the rottenness of the bones saith Solomon Prov. 14.30 which is a pregnant character of a passing malignant and corroding passion It hath two unnaturall effects The one that an envious man is afflicted with the prosperity of others the other that he punisheth himselfe The first effect is particular to Envy and herein it doth not enter commons with any other Passion The envious man is sick because his neighbour is well He groweth leane because another growes fat he thinkes that he loseth all that another gets and makes of his neighbours prosperity his adversity He is directly opposite to Christian sympathy and the commandement of the Apostle Rom. 12.15 Rejoyce with them that rejoyce and weepe with them that weepe for he is weeping with them that rejoyce and rejoycing with them that weepe Whereas the Apostle saith that Charity is not envious 1. Cor. 13.4 wee may invert the termes and say that Enuy is not charitable yea of all vices it is most incompatible with charity Envious men are the onely kind of men to whom without forme of justice without breach of charity wee may doe harme since to doe them harme wee need but doe good to their neighbours But it is needlesse to doe harme to an envious man or wish him more harme then he doth to himselfe vexing his mind and drying up his body by a continuall and just punishment This is wisely exprest in the CXII Psalme where after the promise made to the just that his righteousnes endureth for ever and his horne shall be exalted with honoùr the text addeth The wicked shall see it and be grieved he shall gnash with his teeth the desire of the wicked shall perish And it is very probable that in the outward darknes where there is weeping and
subjected and united to His that in the midst of afflictions he finds Gods will good pleasant and perfect and saith Gods will bed one He is all good and all wise And since he is as absolute and irresistible in his power as he is good and wise in his will it would be as foolish a part for me to hope to overcome it as impious to offer to contradict it This is the principal counsel against all Adversity yea the onely for we should need no other if we were come so far as to have no will but Gods will But to that high counsel many inferiour counsels are subservient Such is this When God sends us adversity that we may not thinke it strange to be so used let us compare ourselves with so many others that are in a worse case If we be prisoners in ourowne Country let us remember so many Christians that are captives of the Turkes and Moores Have we suffered some losse in our estates we need not goe farre from home to see whole nations driven out of their antient possessions shut out of their Country and reduced to mendicity Are you lame of a legge Looke upon your neighbour that hath lost both his legges by a cannonshot Thus the evils of others will be lenitives to yours It is a wholesome counsell to be more carefull to keepe a reckoning of the goods that remaine with us then of those we have lost He that hath lost his land must thank God that he hath kept his health He that hath lost health and temporall goods must thank God that none can take from him the eternall goods And whosoever hath lesse then he desireth must acknowledge that he hath more then he deserveth It is the way to keepe ourselves in humility before God and men and in tranquillity at home and turne murmuring into thanksgiving And whereas the remembrance of dead friends and lost goods fill us with sorrow it ought to fill us with joy If the possession of them was pleasant why should the remembrance be sad Why should wee entertaine more sadness because we lost them then joy because we had them it is the ordinary unthankfulnes of the world to reckon all the goods of the time past for nothing At the least affliction a long course of precedent prosperity is lost and forgotten like a cleare streame falling into a sink and losing its pureness in ordure Let us thank God for all the good dayes of our life so may me make present ill dayes good by the remembrance of good dayes past and obtaine of God new matter of thanksgiving We must use the world as a feast using soberly and cheerefully the fare that is before us and when it is taken away We must rise and give thankes We may justly be taxed as greedy ghests unthankfull to the master of the feast that hath so liberally feasted us if we Grudge when he calls to take away instead of Thanking him for his good cheere As he is our magnificent Inviter he is our wise Physitian Sometimes he sets his good plenty before us sometimes he keepes us to short dyet Let us receive both with an equall and thankfull mind All his dealing with us is wisedome and bounty Here let us remember this Maxime which I layd before as a maine ground of our tranquillity that the things which we lose are none of ours else we could not have lost them We were borne naked all that was put about us since is none of ours Yea all that was borne with us is not ours Our health our limbs our body our life may be taken away from us by others We must not then reckon them as ours But our soul which cannot be taken away and the best riches of our mind are truly ours All losses and paines fall onely upon the least part of ourselves which is our body and the senses and passions that are most conjoyned unto it if we may call that a part of man without which a man is whole But the true man which is the soul is out of the worlds reach and with it all the Christian vertues For which reason our Saviour bids us not to feare them that can kill the body and cannot kill the soul To be much cast downe with temporall losses shewes emptiness of spirituall riches to be very impatient of the incommodities of the body shewes that one hath more commerce with the body then with themind else a man might find matter enough of joy in the soul to conterpoyse worldly losses and bodily paines As a body that hath the noble parts sound will easily inure it selfe to beare cold and heat and all the injuries of the aire Likewise he that hath a sound soul and is strong within in faith integrity divine love and right reason wherein the true health of the soul consisteth will easily beare with all Adversities and retiring within himselfe when he is assaulted without he will take care before all things that it may be well with his inside and that nothing there be put out of order by the disorders without That serene state of the soul is the fittest for the vertue of prudence and the exercise of it in Adversity For to get out of the difficulties of life wee must maintaine our judgement free and our conscience sound And if the Adversity be of such a nature that it be past the helpe of prudence such as are sharpe incurable paines yet there is none but may be eased by reason faith and the comforts of Gods love For what Life is short no evil is very great when it hath an end No bodily paine can last longer then our bodies and no Adversity of Gods children either of body or spirit can continue longer then life But the inward assurances of our peace with God and the sweet entertainment of his love to us and ours to him are earnests and beginnings of a felicity without end By them the soule shut up in this prison of flesh looks out with her head forth ready to flye away She riseth againe with Christ in this very world by a lively hope Col. 3.1 She seekes those things that are above where Christ is sitting in the glory of his father She is in heaven already and hath onely the body upon earth To this the afflictions of our body contribute much 2. Cor. 4.17 For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While wee looke not at the things which are seene but at the things which are not seene for the things which are seene are temporal but the things which are not seene are eternal for wee know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved wee have a building of God an house not made with hands ternal in the heavens This is a high point of resolution and joy in afflictions which pagan Philosophie could never reach to beare the afflictions of this life
OF PEACE AND CONTENTMENT OF MINDE By PETER DV MOVLIN THE SONNE D. D. LONDON Printed for Humphrey Moseley and are to be sold at his shop at the Prince's Armes in St. Paul's Church-yard 1657. TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE RICHARD EARLE OF CORKE Vicount of Kinalmeaky and Dungarvan Baron of Yoghall and Bandon Peere of Ireland My Lord THese Contemplations belong to your Lordship by double right as fruits growne and ripened at the rayes of your favour and as characters of those vertues whereby you have wrestled out the difficulties of an age of Iron and Fire The roughnesse of those stormes makes your present tranquillity look smoother your Lordship takes the right course to have tranquillity at home in any weather consecrating your heart to be a Sanctuary of the God of peace where you entertaine him by faith love and good works not serving the world but making the world to serve you keeping a constant march through the various occurrences of both fortunes with a meeke resolute equanimity and a prudent sincerity To keep your minde in that golden frame if these endeavours of mine may be instrumental they shall but refund what they have received for to that tranquillity which I enjoy under your noble shelter I owe these meditations of tranquillity May they prove of the nature of those seeds which improve the soyle where they grow And may your good soul reape some fruit of these productions of your favour and my thankfulnesse I rest At your Mannour of Lismore July 30. 1655. MY LORD Your Honours most humble and dutifull servant PETER Du MOULIN PREFACE BEing cast by the publique storme upon a remote shore whence I behold the agitations of the world with a calmer judgement because former troubles have left me little occasion to be much concerned in the latter I find my selfe invited by this uncertaine interval of unexpected rest to meditate how I may find the rest of the soule and contentment of mind in all conditions And seeking it for my selfe I may be so happy as to procure it to others For that contemplation I made use of foure bookes this halfe-wilde countrey affording but few more The chiefe is the holy Scripture the meditation whereof brings that peace which passeth all understanding The next is the booke of Nature Then the booke of Gods providence in the conduct of the world both teaching me to say with David Psalm 92.5 Thou Lord hast made me glad through thy workes The fourth book is that which every one carrieth along with himselfe the spirit of man A booke where there is much to be put out and much put out which must be renewed before wee can reade in it any subject of peace and content for without the corrections of grace this natural booke is like that of Ezekiel Ezeck 2.10 written within and without with lamentations and mourning and woe It is the worke of wisedome and my endeavour in this treatise so to correct this fourth booke upon the three others that wee may study it with delight and find peace and contentment within us which may spare us the labour to seeke it abroad That wisedome which must worke in us that excellent effect is divine wisedome She is a tree of life to them that lay hold on her Prov. 3.18 happy is every one that retaines her And humane wisedome instructed by the divine seconds her and does her good service in that greate worke This philosophie swims against the streame of a great torrent So I call the numerous abettours of that eminent moral Philosopher Doctor Charron my countreyman who with great care separates divine wisedome from the humane and attributes to the humane alone that which onely belongs to the divine Preface to the three bookes of wisedome to make a man walke alwayes upright stedfast and content in himselfe I have more serene intentions in this booke which beares on the front the Peace and contentment of mind then to carpe at the learned and the dead And it grieveth me much to dissent from that brave man whom I truly admire acknowledging his booke of Wisedome to be of rare excellency and of singular use to such as know how to use it aright But it grieves me more that he hath persvaded so many seeming wisemen pretenders to the magistracy of wit Ibid. that integrity is not a dependance of Religion and that the vertue and integrity of Divines is altogether frowning chagreene austere servile sad timorous and vulgar One would think that he is drawing the picture of some old barefooted shee votary But Philosophical wisedome that is as he expounds it the human and civil he makes it free cheerefull lofty noble generous and rare It is likely that Charron describing Theological wisedome weeping austere base and poore spirited had before his eyes those rules of monastical discipline which he made once a shew to affect though very ill agreeing with his free masculine and lofty spirit as setting forth piety and wisedone in a servile and melancholy dresse Had he lived till now his solid rational wit had liked no better of the delicate and poetical piety that came since upon the stage of France some of it publisht in English to little purpose Where in stead of reason and authority to satisfie the judgement and comfort the conscience you shall find posies of light courtly conceits as if they presented the devotion of the people with beades of rosebuds shedding in their hands that turne them These two different wayes of piety are unsavoury to philosophical minds that would be payed with reason and good sense which if they find not in religion they will forsake it and seeke for wisedome in Philosophy I owe that duty to Theological wisedome to make it appeare to my power that she is the true Philosophy and that to her that magnificent character is proper and special Ibid. to make a mans spirit firme upright free cheerefull universal content every where which priviledges Charron reserveth to civil wisedome It is a high injury offered to piety to take vertve and moral Philosophy from her jurisdiction and transport to humane wisedome that which is proper to the divine Ibid. even the skill of living and dying well which is all Let us endeavour to shew by our example that Divinity doth not handle wisedome austerely and drily as he doth reprove her but sweetly and pleasantly Ibid. which hee saith to be proper to humane wisedome And that wee may restore that to Religion which Charron takes from her let us thinke it no shame to take place among those whom hee condemneth They take saith he Religion to bee a generality of all good Lib. 2. cap. 5. that all vertues are comprehended in it and are subordinate to it Wherefore they acknowledge no vertue or righteousnesse but such as moveth by motives of Religion I professe my selfe one of them that thinke so preferring to Charrons authority that of Saint Paul
the Devills haunting of gold mines and places where money and plate is hid gives a probable suspition that the Devill sticks by riches and breatheth upon them the aire of his malignancy Let every wiseman consider whether he will bestow for them as much as they cost that is whether he will weary his body vexe his minde offer violence to his conscience bring his heavenly soul captive under the things of the earth be diverted from seeking the goods which are onely permanent and true to them that have them once to runne after deceitfull goods which are none of ours even when we have them of which the keeping is uncertaine and the losse certaine though we might avoide the ordinary daingers whereby foolish rich men destroy their wealth and their wealth destroyes them The just measure of riches is as much as one needs for his use for that which is above use is of no use How they must be used we shall consider when we treat of Passions Here we seeke onely to know their price CHAP. IV. Of Honour Nobility Greatnesse THe proper rank of worldly honour is next after riches for it is to them chiefly that honour is deferred Without them the honour done to Vertue is but words Indeed the honour that followes is but smoake but yet smoake hath some substance words have none Of honour gotten by vertue and of its right worth something must be said when we speake of Renowne Here we have to do with that outward garish luster which dazleth the eyes of the vulgar gets salutations and opens a lane through the croud for a noble person Riches are to honour that which the bones are to the body for they keep it up When honour loseth riches it falls to the ground like hops without poles Nobility with poverty doth but aggravate it and make it past remedy A misery described in two words by Solomon Prov. 12.9 Honouring ones selfe and lacking bread In time of peace it is wealth that brings nobility and greatnesse In time of warre it is violence for by invasions high titles and royalties of Lordships had their beginning We may then value Nobility by its causes for wealth hath nothing praise worthy and it is the origine of new Nobility Invasion is meere Injustice it is the Origin of ancient Nobility so much cryed up There is a natural Nobility consisting in generosity and a nobility by grace which is our adoption to the right of Gods children These two together make a man truly noble Civil nobility is nothing in nature and consisteth meerly in the opinion of men and custome of nations We deduce it from masculine succession but in some Kingdomes of the East they derive it from the feminine because every one is more certaine of his Mother then his Father In China learning not extraction gives nobility In some places nobility consisteth in merchandize In some the military profession in some in leading an idle life Which different customes shew that worldly nobility lyeth altogether in fancy and in effect is nothing Yet such as it is it proveth a goodly ornament to Vertue it is like enamell which being of small value sets off the luster of Gold It addeth grace facility and power to vertuous actions Many vertues are obscured or altogether hid by poverty and meane condition Sobriety in a poore man is imputed to indigence continence to want of power patience to basenesse But these vertues become illustrious and exemplary when humility meets with greatnesse and temperance with power Vertue then shines when it is set in a high Orbe where a man takes for the measure of his desires not what he can but what he ought to do A right good man being high and rich hath great helpes to do good and power prompts him both with the occasion and the desire On the other side when greatness and meanes meet with a weake and perverse spirit it doth harme in the world And such are most men whose vicious affections appeare not when they are kept under by poverty obscurity but when they rise their vices will rise with them As Organs ill set and ill tuned shew not their defect while the bellowes lie down unstirred but when the winde is blowne into the pipes they gall the eares of the hearers by their discord and harshnesse Likewise many vices lie mute and quiet till the winde of honour and plenty get into them and blow up an ill composed minde with audaciousnesse rashnesse and discordance with himselfe which riseth too high with pride and together falls too low by miserablenesse and where all is out of tune by lust insolence and intemperance But even those that were evill before unless they have constant minds and throughly dyed with piety will bee corrupted by honour and plenty For all men whom wee call good are prone to evill and no greater invitation to evill then facility And if great honour which is never without great businesse doth not corrupt a man it doth interrupt him and as it gives him meanes to do good it takes off his mind from thinking of it and many times binds his hands from doing that good which he intends by reason of the diversity of businesse and several inclinations of men which he must accommodate himselfe unto it being certain the greater a man is the more he is a slave And it is in the highest condition that a man hath most reason to say after St. Paul Rom. 7.19 The good that I would I do not but the evill which I would not that I doe One is constrained to court those whom he despiseth favour those whom he feareth shut his eyes many times to see neither vice nor vertue till one use himselfe in good earnest to preferre conveniency before righteousnesse There a mans life is a continuall Pageant of dissimulation which he knowes in others and returnes it to them who also know it in him yet both parties put on the face of respect and kindnesse over an arrogant and mischievous minde and embrace those whom they would have choaked There also when a man would do good to others very often he doth harme to himselfe To advance one mans suite he must put back and discontent many and get ten enemyes for one friend who will lesse remember the good office then the others the injury which they think to have received by the repulse Truly high places are not fit for true friendship for they take away the freedome from it and by consequent the sweetnesse and the right use In the throng of businesse and companie the mind loseth its tranquillity And many times after one hath lost his rest he loseth his labour also It is a great misery for a man to be never his own and to have no time to think of God of which when one discontinueth the use he loseth in time the desire of it and too many acquaintances make one a stranger with God Paucos beavit aula plures perdidit
with covetuousnesse desire of superfluities but keepe within the bounds of nature and necessity Where there is a compleat vertue there is neither fortitude nor temperance Therefore these are not in God who is the original vertue He hath no need of fortitude for he hath no danger to overcome and no use of temperance for he hath no affection that need to be restrained whence it followes that man also when he is once brought to his perfection of vertue which is his full union with God shall have neither fortitude nor temperance as having no evill to oppose and no â—upidity to represse Justice is the onely vertue that outliveth the body and lives eternally with God not that justice establisht in the Polities of the world for in heaven there is neither selling nor contracting which are the subjects of communicative justice And as for the distributive which hath two offices to recompence vertue to punish vice humane justice exerciseth but the last recompence is accounted an act of grace and is rare Whereas Gods justice regardeth so much more reward then punishment as a thousand is more then three or foure as it is exprest in the precept against Idolatry Exod 20.5 and 6. That justice of good Christians which outliveth temporall life is the uprightnesse of their will which in the passage of the soul to the high seat of perfection will be wonderfully mended and sublimated While the spirit liveth in the flesh though the will were never disturbed from its uprightnesse by the tumult of passions yet it could not be raised to a degree of uprightnesse above the proportion of the illumination of of the understanding Now the understanding is obscured in this world with a mist of errour receiving but some few rayes of the Sun of righteousnesse through a cloud I like very well the setting forth of a faire and compleat notion of Vertue filling the soul with joy which is not a chimera and a fiction for every good soul must once be really brought to that perfection in his finall union with God who is the soveraigne good of man the originall perfection and vertue in substance But I wish together that while we set before the eyes of men a high character of a wise vertuous man compleat happy in himselfe we put them in mind of the fickly condition of mans soul as long as she dwels in the flesh that none be deceived with those Idea's of imaginary perfection which Pagan Philosophers ascribe to the wise man living according to nature To the Christian onely it becomes well to describe vertue in a perfect character 2 Pet. 1.4 partaker of the divine nature and though it be above his pitch yet to aspire to it for he knowes whom he hath beleeved and where he may get a perfection exceeding abundantly above all that he askes or thinkes according to the power that worketh in him Ephes 3.20 yea so farre as to be filled with all the fullnesse of God But in the mouth of Philosophers that expect no perfection but from their own nature nor a longer duration of their vertue then of their natural life and of such men there are more in the world then one would think those high expressions of the greatnesse and happinesse of a vertuous man are illegitimate unsuitable and unbecoming for either these characters are true and then they were not made for them or they are productions of a wild and phantasticall pride Seneca describing his wise man saith that he cannot be shaken with any thing and that he marcheth equal with God Alas poore little man Do but discharge a pistol at his eares though charged with powder only you shall see that stout champion which marcheth equal with God mightily shaken and discomposed in his march There needs but the sting of a tarantola to make him skip and dance put his vertue out of tune and turne all his Philosophy upside downe Another was saying virtute mea me involvo I wrap my selfe about with my vertue as if it had bin an armour cannon-proofe and thunderbolt proofe Though it had bin so and impenetrable to temptation besides yet it is not impenetrable to death for these disciples of nature onely pretend not to extend the life of their vertue beyond the life of nature To what purpose all those bravado's for a mortal vertue that the wiseman is alwayes free alwayes rich alwayes happy that he wants nothing because he hath himselfe that he is King of the universe and Master of fortune that in all conditions he is safe stedfast and content and finally that he is alwayes in health but when he hath got a cold as Horace jestingly addeth This is stretching man beyond man That wiseman after al that flourish is a calamitous creature weak needy unstable subject to erre to sinne to suffer and in the end to dye Certainly if among all the Philosophical vertues humility and faith be wanting they serve but to puffe up a man and make him burst and perish Let us before all things humble ourselves before God who is the onely wise and righteous mistrusting ourselves and putting our trust in him Then let us seeke wisedome in his wisedome and to frame our spirit upon it let us implore the assistance of his Spirit After that moral vertues will become easy to learne and pleasant to practise They shall obtaine a good reward in heaven and in earth work their own recompence CHAP. XX. Of the World and Life HAving lookt within and about us and beheld the course of the World in its parts let us now behold it in the great Which may be done two wayes Either in the outward scene of mens actions or in the inward motions of Gods providence that are visible to us in some part In both these respects the World is incomprehensible in the former for its great variety and confusion in the latter for its infinite deepenesse The outward face of the world is a stage of wickednesse vanity and misery Wickednesse is universall for although in Policies there be some face of order and justice without which no society can subsist Yet if one looke to the reality of the actions and intentions of men the two great trades of the World are fraud and oppression There is a general maxime which every man denyeth and every man in a manner practiseth That wisedome consisteth in thriving by other mens harmes Publique and private contracts bonds sureties and hostages are fences against that generall inclination and yet many times are imployed to execute it All securities both by strength and law are grounded upon that Opinion that none abstaines to do harme but he that wants power In the best composed States governed with most integrity particular interesse beares the sway howsoever publique good be pretended Wherefore that is the best forme of State where the more good the Soveraine Magistrate doth to the publique the more he advanceth his owne private interess Rapine is the
there were no Passion there would be no vertue If then the Passion be sick it must be healed not slaine and much lesse must it be slaine when it is in health lest it fall sick It may be sayd for the Philosophers that would cut off or rather root out Passion that it is an errour that doth little harme for man being naturally too passionate we must pull to the contrary extreme to bring him to a vertuous moderation for after we have rooted it out as much as may be there will remaine still too much of it Beasts have also their Passions and by them men are allyed with beasts But the Appetite of the beast is meerly sensual the appetite of man is partly sensual partly intellectual Passions may be marshalled into three orders according to the three principall faculties of the soul The inferiour order is of them that are onely in the sensitive Appetite and have their motions for the body onely as hunger and thirst Over these reason hath lesse power for she cannot perswade him that is hungry not to be so but she may retard the satisfaction of the appetite Other Passions are lodged in a higher storie and seeme to be seated in the Imagination as the Passion that one hath for curiosities and images of perfection increased by the desire These are more capable to be ruled by reason The third and highest order is of intellectual passions as the love of learning and contemplation These are more immediately in the power of reason It is the part of reason to forme and moderate those passions which are meerely under her jurisdiction and keepe a short bridle to those passions that are moved without her leave by nature chance or fancy As in a well governed kingdome all is done by the King the faculties of the soul must be kept in such order that within us all be done by Reason When that Soveraine is wise and well obeyed peace is in the inward State of man But when the Soveraine is made subject to his natural Subjects the sensual Passions then the soule is like a body with the heeles upward and the whole policy of the mind is turned upside downe Being to speake of the Passions as the winds that stirre and tosse that inward sea of the soule I must also speake of the Vertues that serve to represse them Not to treate of each severally and prolixely but to bring them to action and to minister to every Passion its proper remedy CHAP. III. Of Love LOve is the first of all Passions and the cause of most part of them It is the motion of the soule towards objects that promise rest and contenument By Love men are good or evill happy or unhappy as that Passion is applyed to good or evill objects In every soule there is a Master-love which beares rule over all the other Passions and subjecteth them to its principal object According to the quality of that object love is perfect or unperfect for as the objects of the sight change in some sort the apple of the eye into their colour and shape so by receiving the image of the beloved object into our soule our soule is transformed into it and wedded to its qualities He that loves a sordid thing becomes sordid Doth any love his hounds with that principal love his soule becomes of the same quality as his hounds He that loveth a high object becomes high by that love He that loveth God the soveraine good receiveth the soveraine good into his soule Many causes contribute to the contentment of minde but the chiefe cause of it is a worthy love And it may be truly sayd that neither in heaven nor in earth any thing is pleasant and contenting but Love God himselfe is love saith St Iohn 1. Ioh. 4.16 And I conceive as much as a finite mind dares conceive of the infinite God that in the substantial love embracing the three persons of the Godhead consisteth both their personal union and their felicity I have spoken before of the vertue of love which unites us with God and shewed that it is mans great duty and soverain felicity And hereafter I must speake of the Christian love due to our neighbours which is called charity and of the love of society which is friendship In all these relations love is a vertue either acquisite or infused But here wee consider it as a natural Passion which yet wee must endeavour to raise to a vertue and for that wee cannot but returne againe to the love of God The most natural love is the love of the sexe A Passion meerely sensual and common to men with beasts And yet it is that Passion which keepes the greatest stirre in mans heart and in the world That love softeneth magnanimous spirits and drawes downe the soule from the heaven of holy meditation to the dregs of the matter But for that Passion a man might come to a degree of Angelical purity in this world Wherefore there is great need to learne how to represse it To roote it out if one could find in his heart to doe it would be destroying nature and resisting the ordinance of God who gave that inclination to all animals for the propagation of their kind But because God gave also reason to men above other animals and his knowledge to Christians above other men the love of the Sexe hath need to be led by a better guide then Nature else it is brutish and that which is innocent in beasts is vicious in men By it men instead of the pleasure which they hunt after so hotly find sadnes remorse infamy destruction of body soule and estate It is a feareful sentence that no whoremonger nor uncleane person hath any inheritance in the kingdome of Christ and of God Ephes 5.5 It is a criminal deplorable folly to turne into a snare of damnation that volupty which the indulgence of the wise creatour hath given to all animals to invite them to the continuation of themselves in their posterity and to climb up at the window with perill to steale pleasure with crime whilest marriage opens the doore to it unto which God men honesty duty utility and facility invite us Love altogether carnal doth not affect the person but the pleasure unless by the person a mansselfe be understood Love of beauty is love of onesselfe not of the desired person since beauty is desired for pleasure When that love of the sexe is joyned with a true affection to the person and that affection grounded in vertue and encouraged with mutual love then love and friendship meete and increase one another And if marriage followeth it may prove the greatest of temporal contentments But as in unlawfull love there is need of continence to refraine it so in the lawful there is need of temperance to moderate it Temperance is the preserver of love of pleasure also Both are lost by excesse As the flame of a taper turned upside downe is quencht by
is dreadfull when it is assisted with power It is an impetuous storme overthrowing all that lyeth in its way How many times hath it razed Citties turned Empires upside downe and extermined whole nations One fit of anger of Theodosius one of the best Emperours of the whole list slew many thousands of men assembled in the amphi-Theater of Thessalonica How many then have bin massacred by the wrath of wicked Princes And what slaughter should there be in the world if meane fellowes had as much power as wrath What disorders anger would worke abroad if it were backt with power one may judge by the disorder which it workes within a mans soul for with the overflowing of the gall into the mass of the blood wrath at the same time overflowes all the faculties of the mind suffocates the reason maddes the will and sets the appetite on fire Which is to be seene in the inflammation of the face the sparkling eyes the quick disorderly motion of the limbs the injurious words the violent actions Wrath turnes a man into a furious beast If man be a little world wrath is the tempest of it which makes of the soul a stormy Sea casting up mire and foame and breaking it selfe against rocks by a blind rage In the heat of such fits many get their death or do such things which they repent of at leasure afterwards for wrath brings forth an effect fortable to its cause it comes out of weakeness and it weakens a man there being nothing that disarmes body and mind more and exposes a man more to injuries Indeed when anger is kept within mediocrity it sharpens valour and awakes subtility and readinesse of wit But when it is excessive it makes the sinewes to tremble the tongue to stutter and reason to lose the free exercise of her faculties so that a man out of too much will cannot compasse what he wills Latin Authors calling that weake violence ira impotens impotent anger have given it the right epithete for it strips a man of his power over his owne selfe and of strength to defend himselfe In that tumultuous overthrow of the inward polity what place remaines for piety charity meeknesse justice equity and all other vertues for the serenity of the soul is the temperate climat where they grow but the heat of choller parcheth them they are not plants for that torrid Zone I know that many times vertue is a pretence for choller Angry men justifie their Passion by the right which they maintaine thinking that they cannot mantaine it with vigour enough Thus whereas other passions are corrupted by evill things this it corrupted by good things and then to be even with them it corrupteth those good things for there is no cause so good but it is marred by impetuous choller The great plea of anger is the injustice of others But we must not repell one injustice by another For although an angry man could keep himselfe from offending his neighbour he cannot excuse his offence against God and himselfe by troubling the serenity of his soul which is expelling the image of God for it is not reflected but in a calme soul and bringing in storme and confusision which is the devills image As when a hogshead of wine is shaken the dregs rise to the top and when the sea is raging the mire doth the like a fit of raging choller doth thrust up all the hidden ordure which was settled before by the feare of God or men The wrong done by others to piety and justice is no just reason for our immoderate choler For they have no need of such an ill champion which is rather a hinderance then a defense of their cause and to maintaine them transgresseth against them To defend such reasonable things as piety and justice there is need of a free reason and a sober sense And whether wee be incensed with the injury done to them or that which is done to us wee must be so just to ourselves as not to lay the punishment upon us for the faults of another or make ourselves miserable because our neighbours are wicked To that end wee must remember that in the violation of justice God is more interessed then wee are and knoweth how to punish it when he sees it expedient And if God will not punish it as yet our will must not be more hasty then his and it becomes us not to be impatient for our interess when himself is patient in the wrong done to his owne Let the cause of our anger be never so holy and just the sentence of St James is of perpetual truth Jam. 1.20 The wrath of man worketh not the righteousnes of God If it be the cause of God that we defend we must not use that good cause to bring forth evill effects the evill that incenseth us can hardly be so grievous as the losse of humanity and right reason of which a man is deprived by excessive wrath for Wrath is cruell and anger is outragious Prov. 27.4 It resteth in the bosome of fooles saith Solomon Eccles 79. Our good opinion and love of ourselves which when all is sayd are the chiefe causes of anger ought to be also the motives to abate or prevent it for would any man that thinks well of himselfe and loveth his owne good make himselfe vile brutish Now this is done by letting the raines lose to choler whereas the way to deserve the good opinion of ourselves and others is to maintaine ourselves calme and generous never removed from the imperial power over ourselves by any violence of passion Pro. 16.32 He that is slow to anger is better then the mighty and he that ruleth his spirit then he that takes a citty I account not Alexander the Great a great Conquerour since he was a slave to his anger A man that never drew sword and is master of himselfe is a greater Conquerour then he That calme disposition shall not want many provocations from those with whom wee must of necessity live servants especially and servile soules like unto cart horses that will neither goe nor drive unlesse they feel the whip or be terrified with a harsh angry tone Seneca gives leave to the wiseman to use such varlets with the words and actions of anger but not to be angry A difficult taske It is to be feared that by counterfeiting anger wee may become angry in good earnest and a man hath need of a sound premunition of reason and constancy before he come to use those wayes so easy it is to slip into anger when one hath cause for it and is persvaded that the faults of an idle servant cannot be mended without anger But anger is a remedy worse then most diseases and no houshold disorder is worth the disordering of our soules with passion Better were it to be ill served or not served at all then to make our servants our Masters giving them power to dispossesse us of the command of ourselves whensoever
the smaller and unworthyer the object is the more shamefull is the despaire about it but in recompense it is more curable For then one is easily brought to consider in cold blood that the thing was not worthy either of his affliction or affection But when the object is great and worthy the despaire is more guilty and lesse curable Wherefore the worst Despaire of all is when one despaireth of the grace of God so farre as to hate him for nothing can be worse then to hate the Soveraine good onely worthy to be beloved with all the soul Many distrust the grace of God who are not therefore desperate though they think themselves so to be Let them aske of themselves whether they hate God and let them know that as long as a graine of Gods love remaines in them there is together a graine of faith though opprest and offuscated by melancholy For it is impossible that God should be their enemy and their Soveraine evill while they love him To them this comfort is addrest Prov. 8.17 I love them that love me and those that seeke me early shall find me And this likewise 1 Joh. 4.19 We love him because he first loved us If then we love him we must be sure that he loveth us and we must fight against the temptations of despaire saying with Job Though God stay me yet will I trust in him Job 13.15 and with Isaiah Isa 25.9 Loe this is our God we have waited for him and he will save us This is the Lord wee have waited for him we will be glad and rejoyce in his salvation Confidence is good according to the goodnesse of the subject that it reposeth upon Wherefore Confidence in God the only Soveraine good perfect solid and immutable is the best of all and the onely that can give assurance and content to the soul He that is blest with that confidence is halfe in Paradice already He is firme safe meek serene and too strong for all his enemies Psal 84.12 God is to him a Sunne to give him light heate life and plenty of all goods and a shield to gard him and shelter him from all evills ver 13. He gives him grace in this life and glory in the next O Lord of hosts blessed is the man that trusteth in thee CHAP. XVIII Of Pitty PItty is a Passion composed of love and sorrow moved by the distress of another either true or seeming And that sympathie is somtimes grounded upon false love because we acknowledge our selves obnoxious to the same calamities and feare the like fortune Pitty is opposite to Envy for Envy is a displeasure conceived at another mans good but Pitty is a displeasure conceived at another mans harme The Passion of Pitty must be distinguished from the vertue that beares the same name for they are easily confounded The Pitty of the vulgar which is imputed to good Nature and Christian charity comes chiefely out of two causes The one is an errour in judgement whereby they reckon many things among the great goods which are good but in a very low degree and likewise many things among evills which are not evill Hence it is that those are most pittied that dye and the best men more then any as though death were evill to such men and they that lose their moneyes which are called goods as though they were the onely good things and they that lose their lands which are called an estate as though a mans being and well being were estated in them The other cause of the Passion of Pitty is a sickly tendernesse of mind easy to be moved wherefore women and children are more inclinable to it but the same tendernesse and softness makes them equally inclinable to choller yea to cruelty The people that seeth the bleeding carkasse of a man newly murthered is stricken with great pitty towards him who is past all worldly sorrowes and with great hatred against the murderer wishing that they might get him into their hands to teare him to peeces But when the fellon is put into the hands of Justice condemned and brought to execution then the heat of the peoples Passion is altogether for pitty to him and that pitty begets wrath against the executioner when he doth his office So easily doth the passion of vulgar soules pass from one contrary to another from pitty to cruelty from cruelty to pitty againe and from compassion for one to hatred for another But all these suddaine contrary motions proceed from one cause which is the tendernesse and instability of weake soules whose reason is drowned in passion and their passion is in perpetuall agitation But the Vertue of Pitty which is a limb of charity is a firme resolution to relieve our neighbour that stands in need of our help and it hath more efficiency then tenderness This is the Pitty of generous and religious spirits aspiring to the imitation of God who without feeling any perturbation for the calamities of men relieveth them out of his mercy And whereas the Passion of pitty is for the most part caused by the ignorance of the goodness and badness of things he that is lesse mistaken in them is also lesse inclined to that passion for he calls not that misery which others call so Nec doluit miserans inopem aut invidit habenti Or if a wiseman pitty one dejected by poverty it will not be his poverty but his dejected spirit that he will pitty And so of him that is weeping for a slander a wiseman will pitty him not because he is slandered but because he weepes for it for that weeping is a reall evill though the cause which is slander be but an imaginary evill He will labour to get such a firme soul that neither the good nor the evill that he seeth in or about his neighbours be able to worke any perturbation within him The world being a great hospitall of misery where we see wellnigh as many miserable persons as we see men if we were obliged to have a yearning compassion for all the miserable we should soone become more miserable then any of them and must bid for ever Adieu to the peace of the soul and contentment of mind It is enough to give power to our neighbours to command our counsell our labour and our purse in their need but to give them power over the firmeness of our soul to shake and enervate it at their pleasure it is too much Let us depend of none if it may be but God and ourselves Let none other have the power be it for good or evill to turne the sterne of our minde at his pleasure It must be acknowledged that Pitty as weake as it is hath more affinity with Vertue then any other Passion and turnes into vertue sooner then any That way weake soules handled with dexterity are brought to meekeness and charity and that way many Pagans have bin brought to the Christian verity We owe the great conversions to the sufferings of Martyrs
them must be supplyed with serenity of mind and an easinesse inventive to frame to ourselves divertisements and make a pastime even of our misfortune If we may be merry it matters not upon what ground so it be not evill A serene mind that trusteth in God and doth good needs not look abroad for mirth He fetcheth mirth out of his owne stock To get the true taste of the outward contentments of life we wust but taste them not stretch our stomack upon them expecting our onely true contentment from God and within ourselves We must make use of all things and stay upon God alone The sense of Gods love and our reciprocall love to him give to the soul that onely true content but they take not from us the taste of the outward lawfull contentments of life Rather they give us that tast for to him that loves God and rejoyceth in his love all things looke pleasantly The certainty of his principall good keeps him so cheerefull that he takes contentment in in the smallest things as he that hath newly received tidings of great joy is well pleased with a coorse entertainment and delights even in those things that displeased him before CHAP. VII Conclusion Returne to the great principle of the Peace and Contentment of Mind which is to stick to God FRom these smal contentments let us remount to the great and principall and their stay It consisteth in the peace of God and union with him by faith and love There we began there we must end We have considered the world sufficiently to conclude that it consisteth in three poynts Vanity Wickednesse and Misery What is best in it is perishable When we have it in our hands it slips between our fingers and when it stayes with us yet it is none of ours since it is out of ourselves Among all the objects of our senses none is capable to give us a perfect and durable content Being thus unsatisfyed of all things without us if we enter within ourselves what satisfaction do we find in our nature we find errour in our opinions tumult in our passions hardness or terrour in our conscience when God dwells not in it by his grace Pagan Philosophers teach us indeed that within us or no where comfort is to be found But alas poore men they sought nothing within themselves but themselves And what is more weake more inconstant and more calamitous then man Then to this Philosophy one point is wanting which is all and that is to seeke God within us inviting him by humility repentance to choose his abode in our soules and there entertaining him with love and faith This is the only safe harbour for peace and contentment of mind Out of it there is nothing but storme The best worldly state is vanity and perplexity Of this Solomon is an excellent witness who having seene all the evill and tryed all the good of this world pronounceth this verdict Eccles 1.14 I have seene all the workes that are done under the Sunne and behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit That great King having long enjoyed an unparallelled prosperity saith in the end that he hated life and hated all his labour Eccles 7.17 18. although his labour was to content himselfe being exalted to the highest Orb of power overflowing with plenty and swimming in delights What reason then have distressed men to hate their life and labour when they weare out their life in want in lawsuites in sicknesse and receiving no other salary of their vertue but envy and ungratefulness Wherefore that wise Prince having throughly considered all that is good and evill in this world and this life ends in this conclusion which he recommends to his Sonne Eccles 12.12 And further by these my Sonne be admonished Of making many bookes there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh Let us heare the conclusion of the whole matter Feare God and keep his commandements for this is the whole duty of man For God shall bring every worke into judgement with every secret thing whether it be good or whether it be evill So doth Solomon express that God is the center both of our duty and of our rest and happinesse and that the only safety and solid content consisteth in sticking fast to him There we finde refuge in our dangers confidence in our feares comfort in our sorrowes counsell in our perplexities light in darkenesse and life in death There we learne to make the right use of prosperity enjoying the gifts of God with cherefulnesse and simplicity not vexing ourselves with cares to keepe them or with covetousness to increase them There we get a gracious illumination to our understanding a rule to our will a bridle to our appetite a sincere joy in our conscience How great how unspeakable is that happinesse when our heart is turned into a Sanctuary where God himselfe is pleased to dwell and speak peace to our soul assuring us that he is reconciled towards us in his Beloved There he leads us into all truth helps up our weakeness instructs our ignorance raiseth us up when we fall and sets us againe in the right way when we are gone astray We are assaulted by many enemies but they that are for us are more then they that are against us since we haue alwayes the Lord at our right hand We are unwise but we have free accesse to the Soveraine wisedome to consult it at all times And many times that high wisedome preventing our consulting mends what we have marred by our folly Which present blessings are small being compared to our glorious hope That incomparable honour and wealth to be received into all the rights of Gods children that incorruptible crowne of life that fulnesse of joy in the enjoyment of Gods presence they are depthes not to be fathomed with mans thought But whereas for materiall things the extent of our sight is long the reach of our armes but short In things spirituall and eternal it is quite otherwise with us for the two armes of the soul which are love and faith reach much higher then the eye sight of reason can penetrate With these armes the godly soul layeth hold upon the celestiall goods which shee cannot see and with a lawfull hastinesse antedates in the present the possession of the glory to come That expectation makes the Christian to disgest any bitternesse and calmely passe by all the incommodities of life For he will say in his adversities This but a step of ill way to an eternall glory All these evils have an end and then begins a felicity without end Without looking so farre the present sense of the love of God to us breeding our reciprocall love to him and that mutuall embrace of God and the soule living yet in the flesh though as short of the perfect union with God as the highest mountaines come short of heaven yet brings to the soul a dignity and contentment beyond all expression It