declination of our body will miss us and hit our neighbours head A little winde will turne a great storme A sudden commotion in the State will create every where new interesses He that held us by the throat will be suddenly set upon by another will let us go to defend himself If we see no way for us to scape God seeth it After we have reckoned all the evill that our adversary can do we know not what God will do In the creation he made the light to shine out of darknesse and ever since he takes delight to fetch the comfort and advancement of those whom he loveth out of the things they feare That which we feare may happen but it will be for our good Unto many the bed or the prison hath bin a Sanctuary in an ill time Unto many the publique calamity hath bin a shelter against the particular Many times that which lookes grim a farre off smiles upon us neere hand And what is more common then to be promoted by those things which we feared most Exile and confiscation condemne us often to a happy tranquillity taking us from the crowd and the tumult to set us at large and at rest These considerations serve to decline not to overcome the evill Wherefore there is need of stronger remedies For that we may be healed of Feare it is not enough to say Perhaps the evill will not come or will not prove so terrible as it lookes Say we rather Suppose the evill must unavoydably come I do imagine the worst Say it be poverty close prison torture the scaffold the axe All that can take nothing from me that I may call mine God and a good conscience are mine onely true goods which no power and no violence can take from me All the rest is not worth the feare of losing Isa 12.2 Behold God is my salvation I will trust and not be afraid for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song he also is become my salvation Then the remedy to the shaking ague of feare consisteth in knowing these two things The evill and the liberatour The evill cannot be very great since it hath an end No evill of this world but ends by death Death it selfe is good since it ends evills how much more when it begins eternall goods to the right Christian death is not a matter of feare but of hope Let us take away from the things we feare that hideous vizard which imagination puts upon them calmely looking into their nature and getting familiarity with them by meditation Let nothing that is incident to humane condition seeme strange or new to us What happens to one may happen to any other The ordinariest cause of feare is surprise That we be not surprised we must think betimes upon all that may come and stand prepared for all So nothing shall seeme strange when it comes But the chiefe remedy against feare is to lift up our hearts to the great Liberatour that hath goods and evills in his hand that sends afflictions and deliverances that brings downe and brings up againe that gives us strength according to the burden which he layeth upon us and multiplyeth his comforts with our afflictions Being perswaded that God is most wise and most good and that all things work together for good unto them that love him we will represse our feare of the accidents of life and second causes saying The will of the Lord be done we are sure that nothing but good can come to us since nothing can come but from God Wheresore instead of fearing to suffer evill we must feare to do it which is the safest course to prevent suffering He that commits sin is more unfortunate then he that suffers paine for suffering moveth Gods mercy but sin moveth his indignation That man cannot but feare sinne that beareth in mind that God hates it and markes it There then we must feare and the chiefe deliverance that we must aske of God is that he deliver us from every evill worke 2 Tim. 4.18 As we feare sufferings because of themselves so must we feare evill workes because of the evill that is in them besides the sufferings that attend them soone or late This Feare of love and revecence towards God puts out all other Feares He that feares God needs not Feare any thing else CHAP. XVII Of Confidence and Despaire OF these we need not say much having spoken before of Hope and Feare for confidence is the extremity of Hope and Despaire is the extremity of Feare Confidence which otherwise may be called a firme expectation is a certainty that we conceive of a future desired good or of the love and fidelity of a person whereby the heart is filled with joy and love Despaire is the certainty that the mind conceiveth of a future evill very odious or of the enmity or infidelity of a person whereby the heart is seized and in a manner squeazed with sorrow and hatred These Passions being so opposite yet ordinarily will passe the one into the other I meane Confidence into Despaire from Despaire to pass to Confidence it is rare The surest course to avoyd falling into Despaire for things of the world is to put no great confidence in them Moderate hopes being frustrated turne into moderate feares and sorrowes But a great and joyfull Confidence being disappointed will fall headlong into extream and desperate sorrow as they that tumble from a high precipice get a heavy fall One subject onely is proper for mans entire Confidence which is God all good all mighty and all wise Without him all things that men use to repose their confidence upon are waves and quicksands Men are mutable and though they could give a good security for the constancy of their will they can give none for the continuance of their life The goods of the earth faile our expectation or come short of our satisfaction or slip from our possession They will leave us or we them No wonder if they that repose their full and whole confidence in them are seene so often to fall into despaire Here then the true counsell for tranquillity is to trust wholly upon none but God on other things according to their nature and capacity They shall never deceive us if we require nothing of them above their nature There is a kind of Despaire improperly so called which is no more but to give over hoping a thing which upon our second and better thoughts we have found either inconvenient or impossible That Despaire will rather bring rest then trouble to the mind Wisemen are pliable and easy to be satisfyed with reason It is wisedome to despaire and desist betimes from unlikely and unfeasable designes It is a true Despaire when one seeth himselfe absolutely disappointed and excluded from the object of his chiefe love desire hope at which the soul is smitten with such a sorrow that she hates all things yea the very thing that she desired so much and herselfe more
kingdome of God within the soule Blessed and holy is he that hath it and to him is next in happinesse and holinesse he that sincerely endeavoreth to get it and to that end yeelds to God the raines of his affections brings his will under Gods will and humbly invites him to fixe his dwelling beare rule within his breast It is the end that I aim at in this worke And I beseech the God of peace so to blesse and honour it as to make it an instrument to work His peace in the souls of his servants beginning at my soule To that work every Christian ought to put his hand as he loveth God and himselfe To which wee are the more induced and in a manner compelled by the contrariety of the Time While the storme of warre or intestine dissensions is raging in all parts of the world not leaving one safe corner for peace the wise Christian must take sanctuary in that inward peace that peace of God which though it passe all understanding yet will dwell in the understanding and the affections of those that faithfully seek it and keep both hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God through Jesus Christ Get once God within you you have a shelter at home against all injuryes abroad as he that in a tempestuous raine flyes into a Church and in Gods house finds peace and safety whilst the whole aire abroad is enflamed with lightnings and roaring with thunder and the land floods are hurling down houses drowning sheep and shepheards and destroying the long hopes of the Husbandmans labour For the faithfull soul is Gods Temple which he graceth by his presence and blesseth with his peace not suffering it to be removed though the earth be removed and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the Sea This peace at home in which our duty and our happinesse are concentred is an inviting subject for a diligent contemplation Let us examine wherein consisteth the true peace of the soul and contentment of mind and how wee must keepe peace with God with our selves with our neighbours in adversity in prosperity and in all the occurrences of life CHAP. II. Of the Peace of Man in his integrity and the losse of that peace by sinne THe fundamentall rule of great reformations is to bring things to their beginning By that rule that wee may know the true peace of God and how wee may get it wee must cast back our sight upon the beginning how God gave it to man and how he lost it soone after And here wee must use that which the Spirit sayd unto the Churches Rev. 2.5 Remember whence thou art fallen and repent Man newly created after Gods likenes was in perfect peace with him for God making an image of himselfe would not have made it dissenting from him and peace is a prime lineament of Gods Image That first human soule recently breathed out of Gods mouth followed with delight the fresh and pure traces of his divine production and man finding in himselfe the likness of his Creator tooke a great joy and glory to compare that copy with the original That moving image of God did imitate his actions as doth the image of our body in a glasse And whereas in the worke of regeneration St Paul saith that the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him and that he is created after God in righteousnes and true holines it followes that the first man was created such since wee learne that such must be the renewing of man to be created againe after the image of God These lively expresses of the image of God knowledge righteousnes and holines could not be in that first man without an entire peace and consonance with his Creator And having peace with God he had it also with himselfe His desires were not at variance with his fears nor his knowledge with his actions His thoughts belyed not his words His cupidity did not draw against his conscience his conscience layd no accusation against him From that good intelligence with God and with himselfe he could not but reape a great content in his mind that content also being a lineament of the image of God to whom as holines so happines is natural and essential For that contentment of mind he got no smal contribution from the beauty and plenty of Nature smiling upon him and the willing submission of all animals flocking about him as loving subjects meeting to wellcome their new Soveraign For his peace with God kept all creatures in peace and obedience under him Abroad the clemency of the aire and the pleasantnes of a garden of Gods planting delighted him And at home his familiarity and free accesse to his Maker filled him with joy and confidence And his original righteousnes if he could have kept it would have perpetuated that blessed peace unto him for peace is the most proper effect of righteousnesse as it is exprest by Isatah The work of righteousnesse shal be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietness assurance for ever Isa 32.17 Truly God forbidding him to eat of that excepted fruit upon paine of death did intimate that as long as he kept in obedience death could take no hold of him nor any of the appurtenances of death for such are all the infirmities of the body all the griefes of the mind and all the crosses of this life Ezekiel in the eighteenth Chapter is copious upon this demonstration that life is inseperable from righteousness and mortality from sinne This last was justified by wofull experience for man going from his righteousnesse forfeited his life and his peace And presently a dark cloud of confusion and misery troubled his golden serenity The voyce of God which was the joy of man suddenly became his terrour Gods presence which was his life became so formidable to him that it went for a currant truth Judg. 13.22 Wee shall surely dye because wee have seene God Man being fallen off from God most part of the creatures fell off from him and that rebellion continued ever since Those that have sense and motion openly deny to yeeld subjection unto him flee away from him when he will come neere them or flye upon him with open hostility And to get service from them he must tame them young before they be able to resist him Other Creatures destitute of sense yet seeme sensible enough to let him know that they yeeld to him a forced service Neither can the earth be wonne to doe any good for him but by great labour and long expectation Diseases enter into his body with the meate that he eateth and the aire that he breatheth Stormes beat upon him Summers scorch him Winters chill him Foxes have holes and birds of the aire have nests their garments are natural warme in winter light in summer To man onely Nature gives not where to lay his head nor so much as a skinne capable to abide his
servants Now because the life of man is laborious and allwayes in action we learne out of Gods example to examine all our works severally and joyntly to see whether they be good and rejoyce when we find them so Thus God said Let the light be and the light was And God saw that the light was good The like after the workes of every day of the first week And in the end of the creation God made a review of all that he had done And behold all was very good to signifie that God seeing all his works good and compleate took great delight in them and did remunerate his own actions with the satisfaction which he he took in his owne wisdom and goodnesse That we may then imitate God let us do nothing but good and againe when we have done it let us see how good it is Though it cannot be but very defective yet if we find in it sincerity and an ingenuous desire to do good we may in our measure rejoyce as God did for doing good and shall enjoy a sweet peace within representing both in the good that we do and in the delight that we take in well doing the image of him that hath created and adopted us to expresse his likenesse Our confidence in God by the merit of his beloved Sonne is the ground of true peace and content But that confidence is fed by works By faith we beare testimony to our hearts that we are reconciled with God and by workes we beare testimony to our faith As by the respiration we know that a man is alive and by the same respiration the man is kept alive So the exercise of good workes is together the marke of faith and the way to maintaine that spiritual life As God hath wisely ordered that the actions necessary for the preservation of naturall life should be done with delight likewise the exercise of good workes whereby the life of faith is maintained gives a singular pleasure unto the faithfull soul Psalm 40.8 I delight to do thy will O my God said David And the Lord Jesus could say that his meat was to do the will of him that sent him John 4 32. Wherefore as healthful bodies eat their meat with appetite so godly soules apply themselves with a holy appetite to good workes In both it is an inward sence of necessity that provokes the appetite it being as impossible to live with the life of faith without good works as to keep the body alive without meat or drink And as these satisfy the stomack good actions give a sweet satisfaction to the soul But as one cannot live alwayes in the strength of one meale but must take new food every day else the body will pine away and die in a short time likewise the use of good workes must be daily too much intermission will abate the pulse of faith trouble will get into the conscience or a heavy numness which will end in the extinction of spiritual life unlesse the appetite of doing good worke 〈◊〉 awakened by repentance and faith get new strength by good exercises For this exercise the Lord Jesus gave us an example that wee should follow his steps Who did good in the whole course of his life and more in his death Who spent the night in prayer and the day in healing the sick and converting sinners Who for ill words returned saving instruâ—◠〈◊〉 Who overcame contempt with humility and adversities with patience Who did good to them that persecuted him to death healing the eare of Malchus that was come to take him and praying for them that crucifyed him Who to obey God his ather despised his owne life denyed the love of himselfe and made this free and miraculous submission to God in the terrours of death Father not my will but thy will be done The joy and glory which he got by that submission must encourage his Disciples to preferre the obedience to God and the duty of a good conscience before all interesses being sure that to forsake them for God is the way to preserve them and that by suffering for his glory wee get glory The content that accreweth to the soule by tending carefully Gods service and loving nothing like it cannot be exprest but by those that feel it How great was St Pauls satisfaction when he sayd 2 Cor. 1.12 Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity and godly sincerity not in fleshly wisedome but by the grace of God wee have had our conversation in the world And how sweet was his rapture of joy when he sayd being neere the end of his race 2 Tim. 4.7 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith Henceforth there is layd up for me a crowne of righteousnes which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me O what pleasure is comparable to the testimony of a good conscience The joy of a great conquerour who hath newly got an imperial crown is not comparable to St Pauls happines when he rejoyced to have fought the good fight of faith and stretched himselfe towards the crowne of righteousnes layd up for him Increase of worldly goods increaseth sorrow When they are above sufficiency instead of easing the minde they oppresse it Worldly pleasures are shortlived leaving behinde them an unpleasant fare-well and often a sting of crime Worldly honour is winde which either will blow a man downe or puff him up with an unsound tumour But godlines and good actions give a sincere joy a solid content a lasting peace a satisfaction penetrating to the inmost of the soule This is richly exprest by Isaiah in prophetical termes Isa 58.10 If thou draw out thy soule to the hungry and satisfye the afflicted soule then shall thy light rise in obscurity and thy darknes be as the noone day And the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfye thy soule in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters faile not Although Devotion and good conscience and the practise of good workes were sad things as the world imagineth them yet ought wee to undergoe that sadnes in this life of few dayes to make provision for the other life which is eternal since this life is a moment on which eternity depends And wee should sow in teares to reape in joy But seeing that a good conscience active in piety and good workes gets thereby even in the present a serene peace and a heavenly comfort not credible to any but those that feele it is it not a great incouragement to doe well That the way to make us happy is to make us saints It is none of the least arts of Satan for turning men away from the practice of godlines and vertuous actions to represent Devotion and vertue with an austere habit and a sowre face enough to make children afrayd and growne men also many of them having with a gray
getting our liberty That way plenty pleasure and joy are bought at an easy rate for very little will content a mind weaned of superfluous desires and he hath little or no matter left for sorrow feare anger hatred and envy the tormentors of the soul What is able to disquiet that man that thinkes nothing to be his but God and a good conscience and possesseth the things of the world as not possessing them But to quiet the murmure of love and desire which are querulous and unlimited passions we must do them such equall justice that while we stop them one way we open them another Being kept short for the things of the world let them have free scope towards heavenly things to love God and desire his spirituall and permanent goods without limit and measure The great injuries are those which a man doth to himselfe when to obey lust or anger or coveteousnesse one makes himselfe guilty and miserable when for the love of the world one loseth the love of God when out of miserablenesse the body is denyed his convenient allowance When for things of no worth a man prostitutes his health his life and his conscience When men will sinne for company cast themselves into ruinous courses out of compleasance and damne themselves out of gallantry Who so will seriously think what he oweth to himselfe and what account of himselfe he must give unto God will endeavour to keepe the precious health of his body and the golden serenity of his conscience he will enjoy with simplicity that portion which God giveth him of the contentments of life and above all things he will carefully keep his onely good which is God Justice being well administred within us will be practised abroad with facility and delight Rom. 13.7 Render to all their dues tribute to whom tribute is due custome to whom custom feare to whom feare honour to whom honour Let the debtour be more hasty to pay then the creditour to receive All the Law-bookes are but comments upon this precept of Justice to render to every one his owne Yet they omit the most essentiall parts of it the duties of charity humanity and gratefulness Which being without the rules of civill lawes have the more need to be learned and observed by ingenuous and religious soules And we must beleeve contrary to the vulgar opinion that they are debts and that doing good to them that stand in need of our helpe is not giving but restoring Therefore the workes of mercy are represented in the CXII Psalm as works of Justice He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore his righteousnesse endureth for ever Let us then be perswaded that when we do all the good of which God giveth us the faculty and the occasion we do but justice Let us pay due assistance to him whose need claimes it counsell to him that is in perplexity kindness to them that have shewed us kindnesse pardon to them that have offended us good for evill to them that persecute us love to them that love us support to the weake patience to the impatient reverence to superiours affability to inferiours All these are debts Let us omit no duty to which we stand obliged by the lawes of civill society Yet that is too scant let us omit no duty to which we have the invitations of piety and generosity All the good workes that we may do are so many duties It is the large extent that St. Paul gives to our duty Phil. 4.8 Finally bretheren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things And the fruit of that study in the following words is that which we seeke in this Book the Peace of the Soul our union with God Do these things and the God of peace shall be with you Truly peace quietness and assurance are the proper effects of righteousness are as naturall to it as the light to the Sunne Isa 33.17 The worke of righteousness shall be peace saith Isaiah and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever Considering Justice as the solid stemme in which lyeth the substance of all vertues as her branches I will not follow every bough of that that tree Two Vertues onely I will stand upon as the preserving qualities of that universall Justice These are meekeness and magnanimity They are the necessary dispositions to frame a right vertue in the soul and peace with it Under meekeness I comprehend humility and docility which are but diverse aspects of the same face that meeke and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price 1 Pet. 3.4 As for great edifices there is need of deepe foundations likewise to edifie the soul and build vertue and peace in it there is need of a profound humility which being joyned with faith is the foundation of the structure and the perfecting also for we must be humble that we may be vertuous and the more we are vertuous the more we are humble With that meekeness the word of God must be receaved which is the doctrine of Vertue and salvation Jam. 1.20 Receive with meekenesse the engrafted word which is able to save your soules saith St. James Isa 61.9 God hath anointed his Sonne to preach good tidings unto the meeke Psal 25.9 The meeke will he guide in judgement and the meeke will he teach his way A mind well-disposed to Vertue and the peace of the Soul will distrust himselfe as a shaking unsound foundation to repose his trust wholly upon God He will labour to heale himselfe of all arrogant opinions and obstinate prejudices being alwayes ready to receive better information and submit himselfe unto reason It belongs to that meekeness to be free from the impetuosity of the appetite for that which St. James saith of the wrath of man that it worketh not the righteousnesse of God Jam. 1.21 may be said of all other Passions they are evill if they be vehement for in a spirit agitated with vehement passions justice cannot settle that very vehemency being an injustice and a violation of that sweete and equall oeconomy of the soul fit for justice and peace Passion goeth by skips and jolts but Reason keeps a smooth even pace and that pace is fit to go on Justice's errand To meekenesse magnanimity must be joyned Meekeness makes reason docile and pliant in goodnesse Magnanimity makes her constant in it Both are the framers and preservers of righteousnesse meekenesse because it humbleth us before God and subjecteth us under his good pleasure magnanimity because it raiseth our minds above unrighteous ends and wayes and makes us aspire to that great honour to have our will conformable unto Gods will and become partakers of his Nature which is Righteousness itselfe St. Paul makes use of magnanimity to sollicite us to holiness Col. 3.10 If ye be risen with Christ seeke those
Repentance and Faith are seldome set on work by prosperity but Adversity raiseth our hearts to God and the feare of danger makes us flee to his Sanctuary A wise godly man will manage affliction for that end not contenting himselfe with the first pious motions suggested by feare and sorrow He will husband that accidentall heat of distresse to warme his zeale and having sought God out of necessity he will seeke him out of love The unkind entertainement he findes in the world will helpe him to take off his affection from it and transport his heart where his treasure is Acknowledging Adversity to be the wages of sin he will learne to walk before God in feare and from the feare of his judgements he will rise to the feare of his holiness esteeming that the greatest Adversity not to beare his heavy plagues but to transgress his holy will This filial feare of God is the way to prevent or avert many afflictions for they that humble themselves in prosperity need not to be humbled by Adversity Many times the repentance of the sinner hath wrested the destroying sword out of Gods hand Many times when good men have bin beset on all sides the feare of God hath opened them a gate to go out for he that feareth God shall come forth of all Ecces 7.18 Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him out of them all he keepeth all his bones not one of them is broken Psal 34.19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous because God formeth him to patience and perfecteth his faith by long exercise which endeth in comfort as he wrestled with Jacob a whole night and blest him in the morning He deales otherwise with the wicked for he lets them thrive a while but when he takes them in hand with his justice he destroyeth them utterly Psal 92.7 When the wicked spring as the grass and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish it is that they shal be destroyed for ever God exercised his people of Israel with diverse trials for forty yeares in the wilderness but he extermined the Cananites suddenly God forbid we should be of those to whom he gives but one blow Rather let him wrestle with us a long time with his fatherly hand which with the tryall brings strength to them that are tryed and gives them the crowne in the end of the combar Here is the patience and the faith of Saints Our very nature ought to acquaint us with adversity For suffering is the naturall condition of men Job 7.1 Is there not a warfarre appointed to man upon earth To be cast downe with sorrow for the adversities incident unto mans life sheweth ignorance of our condition The way not to be surprised with any thing is to be prepared for all and to think that the evill which happens to one man may happen to any other since all are men alike As at dice whosoever playeth is subject to all the casts of the dice he that is engaged in the game of life is subject to all the events incident to the living and must be prepared for them But because it is not fortune but providence that disposeth of the accidents of life the greater is our obligation to beare good evill accidents with a holy equanimity because all that happens to us is unavoidable as ordained by a fatal and eternal law Upon that wee must conceive as well as wee can that humane events and several personal interesses are so interwoven by that high providence that they have a mutual dependance among themselves and their meetings which in our regard are casual are twice necessary in regard of God both because they are decreed in his counsell and because they are requisite for the execution of many things To which if wee adde that God all-wise and all-good doeth nothing permitteth nothing but for a good end wee cannot reasonably complaine of any crosse befalling us though wee had not deserved it For wee must consider ourselves as pieces of the universe and engeenes which that great workman sets on going for the execution of his ends which being all good all meanes also tending to them are good in that regard Our crosses then being determined and directed to some good by the good hand of God which wee must firmely beleeve we must also beleeve them to be good because they serve for Gods end which is alwayes good So not onely wee must beare them with patience but receive them with content yea with thankes rejoycing as happy that even in suffering wee are instruments in the good hand of God to doe his work and advance his glory which many times we see not but he seeth it and that must silence and content us Being thus disposed this advantage we have above many of the wheeles and weights of that great machine of Providence that whereas some of them have no will some an ill will our will is acting with Gods will and our love to him boweth our self love to his pleasure so that for his glories sake into which all things end our afflictions appeare good unto us and so they are indeed since by them God is glorified Events being thus chained up and interlaced together it is a great injustice against God and the order by him settled in the universe to grudge at any thing that happens to us as though wee would have God to unweave in our behalfe the web of his providence create a new decree and make a new counsel-booke for us Let us goe willingly where Gods decree leads us for goe wee must howsoever Is it not better to goe streight forward where God will have us to goe then to be dragged backwards Indeed there is no need of a high reach of reason to perswade a man to bear with unavoydable accidents and to will that which it were to no purpose not to will But when wee consider besides that it is the will of God if wee be his true children we shall will cheerefully what he wills When we are in prosperity there is no praise to will what God willes for then God willes what wee will But that is pleasing to God to consent to his will when he smites us and to say after the Lord Jesus the patterne of all perfection Father not as I will but as thou wilt That resolution brings a great rest and a great perfection to the soul for by that meanes our will is changed into Gods will The way to have all our will is to will nothing but what God wils When God sends us affliction thereby He gives us a great matter to glorifie him and to draw a blessing upon ourselves For whereas unavoydable Adversities make us worse when we pull against them they worke in us a peaceable fruit of righteousnes when we not onely beare them patiently but receive them joyfully as comming from God I verily beleeve that God beholds nothing from heaven that pleaseth him more then a will so
we no harme there is need of a great measure of charity and discretion To that end a wise man will not be the chiefe speaker in an unknowne or dangerous company but be content to second those that are more able or more willing to speake unlesse the discourse be like to turne to a contentions matter for then it will be prudently done to put the company upon some innocent discourse acceptable to all But companies are apt to speake of that which hath the vogue of points of State in factious times and of points of religion almost at all times As for points of State any man may be bold to interrupt the discourse saying Let us leave State businesses to Statesmen The discourse of religion the great occasion of falling out must be turned if we can to the use of comfort and amendment of life rather then arguing about points of beleefe Indeed we we are commanded to be alwayes ready to give an answere to every man that asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us 1 Pet. 3.15 Which when we are called upon we must doe it as the text modifieth it with meekenes and feare not with bitternes contention And the Apostle requires of us to be ready to answere not eager to question Reason serveth to convince but charity is the chiefe and welnigh the onely way to perswade Vehemence will make an adversary stiffer for even the force of an insoluble argument though calmely propounded makes no other impression upon prejudicate spirits but to make them startle and finding no helpe in reason to leane the more fiercely upon passion Though you stop your adversaries mouth you shall not thereby convince his reason and though you convince his reason you shall not turne his beleefe For that you must winne his affection and affection is not wonne with Syllogisms for I speake of men not such as they should be altogether ruled by right reason but such as they are for the most part blinde and heady having their reason enslaved to custome and passion There is great difference betweene convincing and converting The first may be done by the goodnes of the cause or the subtility of the disputant But converting is the worke of God onely It is enough to perswade us that spirit and soule are too different things when we see spirits capable of the highest Philosophical reasons to be unable to understand plaine reasoning about matters that concerne their salvation In vaine shall you convince the spirit with reason unlesse God open the eares of the soule In such meetings in stead of seeking wherein we differ and falling out about it we should seeke wherein we agree and praise God for it If newes were brought to us of the discovery of a great Christian Empire in Terra Australis where they beleeve the holy Scriptures and the Creed and receive the foure first General Councels No doubt but it would rejoyce us much and we would love them though they differed from us in the doctrines built upon those common grounds And why doe we not beare with our neighbours and countrey-men who agree with us in so many fundamentall points who worship the same God Father Sonne and Holy Ghost who embrace the promises of the Gospel in Jesus Christ and endeavour by the love of God and the exercise of good workes to glorifie God and attaine to his kingdome Could we abhorre one another more if one partie worshipped Christ and the other Mahomet Even where the quarrel was onely about points of Discipline the dissension was heated even to confiscations battells and sacking of townes So furious is superstition and funest in its effects what party soever it take for it is found in good and evill parties being natural to all weake and passionate soules If it maintaine falshood it dishonoureth the truth by putting a wrong byasse upon it It is a compound of ignorance pride rashnes and cruelty All which moulded with a bastard zeale and infused in black choller make up the most malignant venome of the world For one that is of the stronger party it is insolence to provoke him that is of the weaker in the most sensible point of all which is conscience And for him who is of the weaker party to provoke him that is of the stronger it is both insolence and folly In a milde and well composed spirit the dangerous errours of others moove pitty not hatred And if pitty sets him on to reduce them to the saving truth prudence will take him off betimes from that designe when he seeth it impossible And it is impossible when charity will not doe it which must not be violated for any pretence whatsoever Psal 85.10 Mercy and truth shall meet together righteousnes and peace have kissed each other Truth cannot be establisht without mercy nor righteousnes without peace Making breach in charity to preserve faith is demolishing the roofe of the Church to mend the walls Having found by the trial of a hundred yeares that battells and syllogisms will bring no general conversion let us fight no more but by prayers and let all parties strive for the palme of charity and moderation The two rivers of Danubius and Sauns falling into one channel goe thirty leagves together unmingled If the difference of our opinions will not suffer us to mingle yet we may joine Let us goe quietly together in our common channel the State where we live tending to the same end the publique peace and the glory of God This conceit I owe to that blessed sonne of peace that rare teacher and high patterne of moderation and tranquillity of minde the right Reverend Bishop Hall who hath not written one onely booke of Christian moderation but all his learned and gracious workes and the whole course of his wise and religious life are a perpetual comment upon that golden vertue When we conferre of any matter with persons of a different tenet our end must ever be to find the truth not to get the victory And that end must be sought with a meeke and moderate way That milde course will yeeld us a double benefit for it will preserve the liberty of our judgement which is taken away by the heate of dispute and precipitation A hasty disputant will soone be brought to non plus Besides when good sense is assisted with moderatiō it sinks better into the adversaries reason as a soft showre soakes the ground better then a stormy raine A moderate rational man either shall win the assent of his adversary or his good opinion Railing and insultation are offensive more to him that useth it then to them that are misused by it for when passion riseth high in words it giveth a prejudice to the hearers that reason is out of combat Anger is an ill helpe to reason for it disableth reason from helping itselfe Dogs that bark much seldome bite for it is feare that makes them barke Great and good workes are done with little noise So was the