AN ESSAY OF THE True Happiness OF MAN. In Two Books. BY SAMUEL GOTT of GRA. I. ES.  
LONDON, Printed by Rob. White, for Thomas Vnderhill, at the Blue-anchor in Paul's Churchyard, near the little North-Door. 1650.   


The First Book.  
I. OF True Happiness. 1  
II. Of the Degrees of Happiness. 8  
III. Of Perfect Happiness. 13  
IU. Of the Vanity of all Worldly things. 20  
V. Of the Goods of the Body. 25  
VI Of Health. 30  
VII. Of Strength. 35  
VIII. Of Beauty. 40  
IX. Of the Goods of Fortune. 46  
X. Of Riches. 52  
XI. Of Pleasures. 61  
XII. Of Honor. 66  
XIII. Of the Goods of the Mind. 71  
XIV. Of Learning. 77  
XV. Of Wisdom. 83  
XVI. Of Philosophy. 90  
XVII. Of the Sceptikes and Cynikes. 98  
XVIII. Of the Cyreniakes and Epicureans. 108  
XIX. Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes. 115  
XX. Of the Platonikes, and of Socrates. 125   

The Second Book.  
I. OF Religion. 135  
II. Of Faith. 142  
III. Of the Scriptures. 148  
IU. Of God. 154  
V. Of Christ. 163  
VI Of the Spirit. 174  
VII. Of a Christian Life. 183  
VIII. Of Nature. 191  
IX. Of Providence. 198  
X. Of Prosperity. 206  
XI. Of Adversity. 213  
XII. Of Death. 220  
XIII. Of Sin. 229  
XIV. Of the Restuaration of the Soul. 237  
XV. Of Graces. 248  
XVI. Of Duties. 254  
XVII. Of Conscience. 261  
XVIII. Of the last judgement. 270  
XIX. Of Hell. 278  
XX. Of Heaven. 288    

The Preface.  
I Beg no Patronage, I need no Apology. Truth is the best, & indeed only true Patroness: if in any thing I have offended her, let it be as a Null among cyphers, and signify nothing. As Popish Writers use to say concerning the Church and Fathers. If any thing be writ or said against them, let it be unwrit, and unsaid. Though I should seem to Apologise, it shall not be for any thing I have writ; but only for writing, in an Age, wherein Letters are either neglected, or distasted. We have lately surfeited of Knowledge, and now disgorge, and nauseate it: or if any Books be read, they are only such as we disdain to read twice; Pamphlets and Stories of Fact, or angry Disputes concerning the Times. In times of Action, whosoever would appear considerable, and make any moment in Business, must pursue one of the Extremes, and desperately run up to the height of it: & so in Writing, Preaching, or the like; to speak plausibly of the Times, or vehemently to oppose them, most advanceth Fame and Followers. Yea in all other Times, either to Flatter Princes, and humour the Vices and Vanities of the Age, or Satirically to lash them, hath been the common Art of Writing; which I wittingly waive, and leave to others. Sober and Solid Truth passes on in a straight Line through the Crowd of Errors and Confusions, without any great noise or show of itself. Besides, good Books, as they are profitable, so they are very chargeable. We may not call them our own when we have bought them; nor when we have read them. To understand them rightly, didicisse fideliter, will cost almost as much as to indite them; and to practise them far more. Men think it sufficient to turn over the Leavs, but never care to gather the Fruit: without which a Book is wholly lost; writ and read to no purpose. For my own part, though I know writing of Books to be a very mean employment, and of no great efficacy; when such writing as the famous Talbot set on his Sword, Pro vincere inimicos meos, is by many counted the best Logic and Rhetoric, and most authentic: yet I am content to make use of it, because I have no better antidote against Idleness, and the inconveniencies thereof. Having often consulted with myself▪ how a man might live most happily both here and hereafter, I used to commit my Thoughts to Writing: finding by experience, that as Meditation is the Glass of the Soul, so Writing steels it, and strengthens the Reflection: representing our scattered Notions in a more entire and exact manner; and imprinting them first on our own spirits. I have lately collected my loose Papers, and digested them into Method; and now present them to the public view: that so others, if they please, may share with me: and if I may communicate some considerable benefit to any one Reader, I shall account my endeavours very well bestowed. However they shall return into my own Breast, and be always welcome at Home.   

The first BOOK Of the True HAPPINESS Of MAN.  

I. Of True Happiness.  
HAppiness is the Life of Life, and the Enjoyment of all our Good things. Enjoyment begins in Knowledge. Happy men if they Knew it, is a common exprobration, and in part true of all. There is none who hath not something more than Hope left in the bottom of Pandroa's box, at least so much as to maintain him in that state of Hoping, which every man should improve to his best advantage, and make the most of a little. On the contrary, Sentiat se mori, was a torture as like Hell as the wit of man could invent. Knowledge is the view of things, and Contemplation the review and gazing on them, bathing and soaking the Mind throughout with more piercing and fixed apprehensions. Thus a Covetous man enjoys his treasures, by counting and studying them: as he in Horace, Nummos contemplor in arca— Admiration is more than Contemplation, extending the Mind to the very utmost capacity, yea in some sort transporting it beyond itself, by wondering at that which it cannot comprehend. These beget Love, which is an Appetite of union. Knowledge presents the Object to the Soul, but Love resigns the Soul to the Object, embracing and mingling with it, and so sucks out all the sweetness that is in it. This heat of Love begets Joy and Delight, as a flame of Light flowing from it: and this Rejoicing in the Object is the most perfect Enjoyment thereof. True Happiness consists both in the true Taste of the Soul, and also in the truth of the Thing itself. An ingenious Poem, or pleasant Fable, made only to take the ear, raise quicker affections in the mind of the Reader, than the bare nakedness of more profitable Truth. There is indeed a truth, of Art in witty fictions, which is real matter of delight, yet it argues great vanity, to be more affected with the Embroidery of an artificial lie, then with the Plain work of better Instructions. There are other mere deceptions. The outward Senses deceiv the Fancy, and which is more strange, the Fancy can deceiv the very Senses, and operate on them as much as the Thing itself, not only as in a Dream, but when they are waking and most intent. He who sat in the empty Theatre, and seemed to see most wonderful Tragedies, was in a farther degree of vanity then common Spectators, who contemplated an Hercules. or Achilles, or a great Prince in the person of some mean fellow, whom they knew to be most unlike to them, but his Fancy was both Spectator and Actor, which is a double delusion. I do not think, as Avicenna, that Fancy can work miracles, or as Paracelsus, that it can create any thing: but though it cannot form a Being, it can frame a Phantasm, acting it within its own Theatre, and also delude the Senses by it, which is as much as it receiveth from them even of those things which we really see or hear: For the Thing itself remains without us where it was, and that which comes to the Fancy, is only a Show or Apparition thereof. Thus Fancy irritateth the Bodily Humours, and provoketh the Affections; and those Imaginary Objects of Joy, or Fear may as really affect the Mind, as if they were real. But the worst of all are Intellectual Errors, and false Judgements, for these seduce the Mind itself (which being rectified would correct the inferior Faculties) and betray us to vice and sin. As the Heathen worshipped almost all things eminently delectable or formidable, Pleasures, War, Diseases, Riches, Honour, Virtue, Princes, a Good and Bad Genius, God's Supernal and Infernal, and any thing rather than the true Deity, so we still commit moral Idolatry with the same things, by our falls opinions and adoration of them. Contemplation of any vain thing, as of a Beauty, or the like, doth strangely infect the soul, tainting and dying it with the Image of the Object. But above all, vain Admiration ravisheth most: I call that a vain Admiration which is not grounded upon Knowledge, but mere Ignorance, & such as would be abated by a right Understanding. As he who sees only what is presented on the Stage, is more affected with the Show, than they in the Tiring room, whose eyes are conscious to the dressing & personating of the Actors. Thus to admire nothing, was by the Philosophers (whose ambition was to know all things in their causes) made a chief part of true Happiness: whereas the Admiration of things truly admirable, is a farther degree of Happiness: when we rationally know by what may be known, that there is more excellency in the Object, than we do or can know, and therefore justly admire it. So we admire the Divine Glory, which is the highest enjoyment we can have of the Infinity thereof. All these are only Juggle and deceptions of the Mind, but vain Love bewitcheth and wholly possesseth it: and the Delight which it causeth is as falls and vain: for there can be no true Happiness in being deceived: nor doth the Pleasure extend further, or last longer than the Delusion. A Dream may satiate Imagination, but cannot fill the Belly: and when a man wakes he finds himself more hungry and unsatisfied. These Enchantments of the Mind dissolve in a moment at the presence of Truth, who as she is the Daughter of Time will at last arise like a bright Sun, and chase away all those vain shadows. In the mean time the more we are ravished with the sense of any falls Happiness, and thereby withdrawn from that which is true, we are so much the more truly Unhappy.   

II. Of the Degrees of Happiness.  
HAppiness is founded in Knowledge: and therefore only Knowing Creatures are capable thereof, and according to their several degrees of Knowledge, they are capable of several degrees of Happiness. There are many Worlds in one, and several Shows and Faces of the same things. The first and lowest is the gross Body of Heaven and Earth, which though to us it appear glorious and beautiful, is in itself dark and dull, and without apprehension. The Iron seems to embrace the Loadstone with great delight, and to be rapt with an amorous Ecstasy, so as Thales thought it animal, and yet that motion is as void of the least sense of pleasure, as the common inclination of Gravity to the Centre. The next is a World of Sense, which is a Theatre of Species and Emanations arising from the former, being purified and sublimated to the height of Sense, which by a conjunction with them, begets a lively and sprightful delight. The least Bee finds more pleasure in making and tasting a little Honey, than the Sun & all the self moving Planets in their perpetual Courses, & benign Influences, or the Plants in their most flourishing Vegetations. Another World is the Shop of Fancy, which is a faculty more spiritual than Sense, refining and composing the simple Species thereof into various forms and figures: and as it thus works within doors, so it also apprehends the Beauty and Composure of exterior objects: which is greater matter of delight then to view them at large. It hath also a power of Meditating & Admiring, which is an higher kind of enjoyment than Sense. Naturalists suppose Infects, and some such Animals to be wholly without Imagination; but certainly the more perfect enjoy it in a very notable degree. That Discourse whereof they seem to partake, is only the work of Fancy, and a collation of sensitive notions. Yet though Beasts excel Man in his outward Senses, he probably excels them all in Imagination: it being a faculty in the next degree to Reason, and much advanced by it. Hence we so far exceed them in all Mechanical Artifices: Nature hath furnished us with Hands, as fit Instruments for such Workmen, and so with a larger portion of this Ingenious faculty to direct and manage them. Certainly Man hath more acquaintance with the Graces, and doth not only enjoy much pleasure in the apprehension of Beauty, Harmony, & Elegancy; but also in the very prevarications thereof: we admire strange Deformities, and behold them with Mirth and Delight and are much affected with Humours and fooleries, which are as Satyrs or Monsters of the Mind▪ Therefore Nature hath bestowed on us Laughter, to express some extraordinary Affection, whereof no other Sensitive Souls are capable. This excellency of Fancy, though somewhat above the nature of Beasts, is yet below Reason and Judgement, for many men who have least thereof, excel in the other by a certain natural aptness and felicity. Beyond this Sphere of Fancy is the Intellectual Orb, or World of Intelligences, which is an Academy of Sciences, furnished with higher and more abstracted Notions, whereby the Mind discovers the very Idea and Module of Nature, and her wise Government by Causes and Effects, the Law of Reason and Policy, the being of Spirits, and Divinity itself. Out of this Intellectual World Beasts are wholly excluded. Language is the chief Instrument of a Rational Life, which they want. As in Speaking or Books they may hear and see what is Sensible, namely the Sound and Letters, but understand not what is signified by them, so though they hear the same Voice of Nature, and view the same Book of the World with us, yet they understand not the Intelligible, or Philosophical part thereof, which is a Scene of things as far above Sense as that is above Vegetation. Adam had a larger share of Paradise than the Brutes, though he fed like them on Herbs and Fruits: and joyed more in contemplating their Natures, and translating them into fit Names, than we now do in feasting on their Carcases. Man chiefly excels in these spiritual delights, not only by apprehending all other things, but also by reflecting on Himself. It is a pleasant thing to behold our face in a Glass, much more to see our own Soul, which is both Face, Mirror, and Ay. But the least sight of Divine Glory ravisheth the Soul with the greatest joy. Here the Mind having mounted the utmost Circle of Nature's Globe, taketh her flight, and passeth over into Infinity, and there enjoys not only the perfection of all created Good, but finds out another and better Nature, and a new World of Worlds: As God is the chiefest Good, so Man being capable of Knowing him, is also capable of the highest Happiness.   

III. Of Perfect Happiness.  
THE several degrees of Knowledge are capable of a proportionable Happiness and perfect Happiness must be perfectly adequate and proportionate to Knowledge: for whatsoever the Soul can apprehend, it may in some kind enjoy, and there cannot be perfect Happiness, without perfect Enjoyment. Beasts have no other end of living, but to live: put them into pleasant pastures, and leave them to themselves to eat and drink, and follow the motions of their own nature, they are Happy enough; because they know no better or greater thing to desire. When I hear the Nightingale singing in a Wood, though Poet's Fancy her to complain of I know not what injuries, I conceiv her then perched well-nigh on the top of her highest felicity, free from care and grief, and entertaining herself with her warbling notes. Surely these inferior Creaturus attain a nearer degree of their perfect Happiness then Man doth of his. A little satisfies a small stomach, whereas larger Bodies require more. The Soul of Man, though finite, hath some apprehension of Infinity: and therefore nothing less will satisfy it: the very negative Knowledge thereof doth forbid any finite thing to be the adequate Happiness of Man, whose vast and boundless Appetite exceedeth every thing which hath bounds and limits, and can swallow down the whole World at one draught: like the ut most Sphere, whose concavity comprehendeth all things, and the convexity thereof joineth to an endless immensity: though as Man cannot directly and affirmatively apprehend Infinity, so neither is he capable of an Infinite Enjoyment: yet the least defect or want of that Infinite Good which he naturally coveteth, being Infinite, doth more unsatisfy then any finite delight can content him: for so much as is wanting of requisite Happiness, is filled up with Vanity and Vexation. All men have not a distinct apprehension, and explicit desire of an Infinite Good, yet the same Instinct being naturally in all, the Soul is insensibly carried out unto it, and cannot finish the progress of her desire, till she have gained that which is beyond all apprehension, and all desire. Vulgar spirits tasting some drops of finite Goodness in the several Creatures, suppose that by an endless multiplication of them they shall at last attain that Infinite Good which is the utmost object of the Mind: and therefore never cease adding House to House, Land to Land, and World to World, and so think to piece up an Infinite Good with an endless variety of finite Good things: though the more they have, the more they explicitly desire, as drawing nearer toward an Infinite Good, which is that endless end to which they are implicitly tending. Others through their boundless Lusts, and vast Imagination's fancy to themselves some kind of Infinity, or at least a Centre of rest, in the finite Objects of their particular desires; thinking if they may accomplish some petty design, to which they are wholly devoted, that then they shall be perfectly Happy; and flattering themselves like the Young man in the Comedy, who boasted, if he might but enjoy his Mistress, Ipsam fortunam anteibo fortunis meis. Hence the Mind of Man while it is in the pursuit thereof, and hath any farther expectation whereon to feed, goes on cheerfully and with much delight, hunting after this shadow of fancied felicity: but having once arrived at the utmost Period, is soon confuted by its own Experience, and the vehemence of this vast Appetite suddenly languishes, and the Soul shrinks up, and pines away in shame and discontent. There is many a petty Miser, who takes more pleasure in multiplying a few pence, then if he had been born Heir of the whole Earth. There is more ravishing delight in wooing, and courting, and the Romances of Love before Enjoyment then after. Give a Pyrrhus the Empire of the whole world at once, and you undo him. The Game is more pleasing to such Humours, than both the Stakes without it. Hence also is that common and natural affectation of Novelty: because the Mind being unsatisfied with any thing it hath already, still coveteth more. New things please at first, but are afterward found to be as vain as the rest. But as no finite thing can fully satisfy the Mind of Man, so it is most evident that no multiplication of finites can make up an infinite: for all the Parts being finite and numerable, the whole must necessarily be finite also. Therefore it must be One Infinite Good, in the Enjoyment whereof the true Happiness of Man doth consist, and which as the Chief Good renders all those finite things Good by a subordination to itself, as the utmost End. This was the chief study of all the ancient Philosophers, to find out the Chief Good: and by their several opinions concerning it, they were distinguished into their several Sects. It is the Elixir of Life, the true Philosopher's stone, which infuses a Golden tincture into all inferior Metals, and cures all the diseases of the Soul, by reducing it to a right temper. Solomon hath discovered it to the World: a Work worthy of a King, not only of Israel, but of the whole Earth, being so profitable a Good to all Mankind. Great Wits bewail the loss of his Natural History, but make no use of his Ecclesiastes, wherein the discourseth of every Plant which grows in the Paradise of Man, from the lowest Hyssop to the tallest Cedar, and so leads us to the Tree of Life, placed in the midst of the Garden, I mean that Infinite and Universal Good, which is the Perfection of all the rest.   

IV. Of the Vanity of all Worldly things.  
VAnity of Vanities, saith the Preacher, Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity. We have here a Preacher, and his Text, containing a Doctrine sufficient to confute all the Heretics of this World, who place their Happiness in any Creature: for having strictly examined the Particulars, he casts up ●he Account, and finds the total Sum to be but a Cipher. Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity. Knowledge and Experience make a perfect Doctor, and both met together in him. If all men since the fall of Adam had consulted among themselves whom they should employ to seek the lost Adonis of their Happiness, they could not have found a fitter than Solomon, whom God and Man had prepared for it. Lo, saith he, I am come to great Estate, and have got more Wisdom than all that have been before me in jerusalem: yea my heart had great experience of Wisdom and Knowledge: and I gave my heart to know Wisdom: and to know madness and folly. The felicity of Augustus was purchased, but Solomon's hereditary. He was the Son of King David, and came to a great Estate in the early Spring of his Youth, assoon as he was capable of enjoying it. His Father left him a greater Treasure than any History can parallel: and his Empire extended itself from the border of Egypt to the River Euphrates, a morsel sufficient for any one man's mouth, if any thing might suffice. Thus were all things ready for this great work brought to his hand, and while he like the Halcyon was bringing it forth, the silent alm of undisturbed Peace seemed purposely to favour the Design. As his Materials, so his Wisdom and Skill of using them was not acquired by labour and long study, but given by special Inspiration. He was wiser than all the Kings and Philosophers in the world. Nor was he of a severe and Stoical temper, as Cat●, Antoninus, and such other wi●e men: but had a most critical palate and curious relish of all humane delights, and freely exercised it in tasting them. Whatsoever his eyes desired he kept it not from them, nor witheld his heart from any joy, for his heart rejoiced in all his labours, yea he laid hold on Madness and Folly, that so he might squeeze out all the juice and sweetness that is in them. He went so far as to try what was in the mad Humours and Follies of Jo●all men: only he was not enchanted with this Circean cup, but the Moli of his Wisdom remained with him: so that he was most fitly instructed to make both the Search and the Report. And least men should dream of any Golden Age before him, or any new Inventions, and Sophisms of Cookery, or Engines of Pleasure since his time, he prevents the Objection, and tells us, That which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is no new thing under the Sun. The Earth affords the same provisions, and Man is endued with the same Senses and Faculties to make use of them: and though some new thing may be added, it is of the same kind with the former; and there being such a Vanity in the whole frame of Nature, it must certainly be as vain as the rest. As for his own part he knew how to enjoy as much in one Age as any, and none can hasten more than he. Thus having ascended the highest Olympus of earthly felicity, and viewing all things, both before, and behind, and round about him, he proclaims to all below, who might suppose him to have attained the very Heaven of Happiness, that he found nothing but empty air. Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity. For weighing the Pains of Man's Life with the Pay, and his Miseries with his Pleasures, he professeth there is nothing to be got by the bargain: So that he praised the Dead more than the Living, and the Unborn than them both. Lastly, that all men might for ever despair of finding any such Happiness in this World, he averreth the Vanity thereof to be so great, and so far from being filled, that it cannot be fathomed. That which is crooked cannot be made strait, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. Wherefore not to believ him who hath made such a perfect Inquiry, is of all Vanities the greatest, and addeth Vexation to it, which he shall never want, who seeks that which cannot be found: whereas a sober acknowledgement of this Vanity may prevent the Vexation. Content is the Deputy of outward felicity, and supplies the place where its absent. The first step to true Happiness is to see the vanity of all worldly things: that so knowing where it is not, we may seek it where it is.   

V. Of the Goods of the Body.  
IT is the Humour of Pedants to extol things that are eminent above their just proportion, and to declaim inferior things into nothing: but Solomon like a sober and wise man, weighing all things in the balance of a right judgement, and first putting that Infinite Good which only can satisfy the Mind of man into one scale, and the whole World into the other, he finds it lighter than Vanity itself, as being infinitely preponderated, and bearing no weight with the other: but then weighing the World and the several particulars thereof by themselves, he discovers the just weight of Finite Good which is in them, and which by a subordination to that in-Finite Good from which they are all derived may be allowed to them. As it is said of the Stars, that they have no light in themselves, but derive their several lights from the Sun, and shine only by participation of the Solar light: or as the meanest members of the Body are in man the instruments of a Rational life, which in a carcase are Dead, and in beasts merely Sensual. Thus the very relics of Nature may be rightly enjoyed, as partaking of the Chief Good and in order to it, though none of them do now retain their first Perfection. And indeed it is folly and madness in any man to neglect the least and meanest Good which God and Nature have provided for him. We will begin with the Goods of the Body, as the lowest of all. The Body, though not at all allied to the Soul, yet is married to it, and brings some Portion along with it. It is reported of Apollonius Tyaneus that he had a familiar Spirit engaged in a Jewel: such is the Soul of man in the Body: by which conjunction he becomes a Little World, not only as a Map or Index, but as an Epitome of the whole: whereby he is made capable of enjoying all in himself, differing from the Angels in his Body, as from Beasts in his Soul: For Angelical Spirits enjoy no sensible pleasures, otherwise then by an intellectual speculation, their nature being far above them: Whereas man enjoys them by sense and experience in his Body and sensitive part, which is connatural unto them. Not that we may flatter our selus, and prefer our natures before the Angelical, or disparage our hope of a more glorious state when we shall be like unto the Angels, but only to assert our present nature and conjunct state, which is made up of the meanest parts of the Body as well as of the highest faculties of the Soul: and as Soul and Body do consist together, so may the delights of the one with the pleasures of the other. But no bodily good can possibly be the highest Happiness or Chief good of Man: For though the Body contain the Soul, yet it cannot fill it, no not the Body of the whole Universe. To prove Spiritual delights far greater and better then Corporeal, we need not the authority of a Solomon, we have the confession of a julian, though an Apostate from the true Happiness of the Soul; yet he professed the pleasures of the Body, far below a great Spirit. Apostates of all other men most strictly embrace this present world, and study to extract the greatest sweetness it can afford, their desires being greatly enlarged with the taste which they had of the Chief good, and they have reason to do so, for at the best they make but a bad bargain: but all fall not in the same manner, some fall forward with their faces toward the earth and wallow in the mire of sensual uncleanness, as Nicholas the Libertine and his beastly Sect: others of a more generous and sublime Spirit, by supine gazing on the Heavens from which they fell, and barking at the Stars which they left fixed in their Orbs, such were Lucian, julian, and the Devils. It seems Spiritual wickedness is most sublime and delightful, much more Spiritual virtues and graces, which are the proper perfections of the Soul. Averro and the rest of the Arabian Philosophers are ashamed of that sensual and beastly Paradise which their Mahomet provided for them, as most unworthy of the soul of Man, and far short of his true Happiness.   

VI Of Health.  
HEalth is the temperate Zone or habitable part of Man's Life. As sleep is the image of Death, so is sickness of Hell, being rightly termed a Dying Life, whereof Death many times is the sole Physician. Many Princes dwell in stately Palaces, whose souls are ill seated in Cadaverous bodies. Health is commonly the Peasant's prerogative which no riches can purchase of him: whereas if he could be bought out of it, he might sell it at the dearest rates: what would not a rich man give to another to undertake the pain of the Stone or Gout for him, could they be laid upon others as outward burdens and labours are? Health in Great men is a great advantage. Henry the fourth of France was bred hardly among the Peasants, which preserved his life, and prepared him for those great Actions, which he afterward performed. Cicero reporteth of one of the Scipio's, that he had equalled Africanus, if he had not been kept under by perpetual sickness▪ Besides, health is the very Paradise of all Sensual Pleasures in which they grow and flourish: yet Courtiers usually corrupt it by a licentious course of life, and so disable both Body and Mind, not only for the performing of Civil Actions, but also for the enjoying of Natural Pleasures which they so much affect. So unnatural is the vice of voluptuousness that it destroyeth Health, which is its own foundation. As Health consists in Temperament, so the best way to preserve it is Temperance. Diseases caused by emptiness may be more dangerous, but there is more danger in exceeding. Hence are most of our vulgar sicknesses, Fevers, Pests, Catarrhs, and Coughs, the Trumpeters of Death. Violence and excess may be good Physic, but are bad Diet, unless we dare venture on them, as Mithridates used Poison, to fortify our selus against casual extremities. But a sober and discreet mixture of both seems most conform to the various occasions of life. The Ecclesiastical Order was to fast the Eve before a Feast; but the Physical rule holds as well afterward till it be digested; and the best kind of fasting is to eat a little. Excess of Affections, especially Malignant, as Fear, Grief, Envy, Malice, and all Anxiety of mind, destroys the body more than that of Food: but delightful objects and pleasant studies are the minds Recreations. Keep both Body and Mind clean and fresh, freeing them from all burdensome and offensive things. But Tiberius his Aphorism, That every man is his own best Physician is worth all others, being most true as to the preservation of the ordinary state of Health, though not in extraordinary cases, or overgrown Diseases, which must be helped by the hand of Art; Experiments first founded the Art of Physic, and no Experience like that within a man's self: and Tiberius his life set a Probatum est to his Aphorism, for though he was generally most licentious and libidinous, yet he preserved himself in good health to a reasonable old age, living seventy and eight years. He was indeed of a strong constitution, but we find the same effect in men very crazy and more sober, as Hypocrates, Galen, and others, who first studied their own cases, and thence became most eminent Physicians: Though Health be very precious, yet it may be overvalued; some are so curious of it that they fear the least blast and shadow of Inconvenience, as he who imagined himself made all of Glass and was afraid lest every knock should break him; whereas indeed this tender niceness is rather a destroyer then a preserver of Health. Caesar by continual employment and hard usage overcame two constant Diseases, the Head● ache, and Falling-sickness; and many in our late Wars, who before were thought weak and infirm, being put upon Service and the necessity of suffering, have proved able and hardy beyond expectation. However health must be adventured as well as life, Pro salute publicae. Pompey said, Necesse est ut eam non ut vivam, when the Commonwealth was concerned. He who makes health his chief good and utmost end, lives only that he may live, and prolongs his time to no purpose.   

VII. Of Strength.  
STrength is the Issue Male of Health, and Beauty the Female; the conjunction of both is very rare and the perfection of Hero's. We will speak of them severally. There are two kinds of Strength, one of Acting, the other of Enduring. The former is the menial servant of a Man's self, and he who is not his own best Man, is his slaves slave, and a voluntary Cripple. There are many offices of life which cannot handsomely be performed by others, as necessary Actions, and all Exercises. The manner of the Turks to sit on Carpets shooting their Arrows, and have their slaves fetch them, is an unmanly Exercise. Some are so vainly idle, that they commit the very dressing & undressing of themselves to their servants, which is a womanish Fashion; there may be some state in it, but certainly no convenience. A small competency of Strength sufficeth for common Actions, and Agility serveth the turn better than Robust Force. Gross and fat bodies are more strong in their Centre, but have a less Circumference or Sphere of activity, being burdens to the earth and themselves: Light and nimble bodies, though of less Strength, have more▪ use and enjoyment of it. The want of a convenient proportion of ordinary Strength, renders the Body more infirm and defective than any extraordinary measure thereof can advance in happiness: for even in those things, whereof there can be no excess, and so a mediocrity cannot be the perfection, yet it is the Centre and hart of the whole. It may seem strange that Strength should be increased by sickness and distemper, which is an Infirmity, as in Fevers, Madness, Anger, yea sometimes by fear itself. But this Strength arising from a sudden conflux of spirits is not solid and permanent, consisting rather in a violent quickness then in a constant endeavour; and this extraordinary expense of spirits ends afterward in a greater weakness. Besides, in Man there may be another reason more strange than the former, which is, that the mind by doubting and disputing gives a check to the full & free delivery of Bodily Strength (whereas in such cases Reason is suspended) and the same power doth many times effect that by a nimble impulse, which it could never do by a dull contention. Prudent Caution is an hindrance in Action, yet in that it prevents the occasion it is better than Strength, the confidence whereof betrays us to Duels and Dangers. The other which is the Strength of Bearing is as necessary in the life of man as the former, yea in all bodily action there is some striving and suffering, especially if there be a want of natural ability. Lameness adds pain to weakness, and a crooked back is its own burden. A hardy carcase is a strong Brest-work or Fortification to the soul: Hardiness in the one being analogous to Patience in the other, yea the former facilitates the latter, and many times saves it the labour. No Bodily Suffering in this life can be extreme, for when it exceedeth, nature yieldeth and giveth up the Ghost, and as long as she affordeth strength it is baseness not to bear. He who inures his Body to Suffering beforehand, hath so much the less to endure afterward, so that it comes not upon him all at once. But Man's Happiness cannot consist in Bodily Strength, it being not seated in his Spiritual, but in his Corporeal part. Reason, as hath been showed, may hinder Strength by Caution and declination, or otherwise back it with a good Resolution, and wisely manage it with Discretion, but adds no sensible for●e to it: Nor doth the mind act its own body as an Angel doth an assumed carcase. Yet hath Nature armed man with such a proportion of Strength, by which, with the advantage of his Wit he is able to tame or subdue any Beast, at School-play, as we say, with Instruments and Engines, though not by downright Blows. Thus I esteem Archimedes a stronger man than Milo, for he by his Engines could perform far more than the other by his Arms: and so was Caesar a greater Soldier then either Hercules or Achilles, really effecting greater things by a wise conduct of his affairs then are fabled of the others: and perhaps the Monopoly of Gunpowder when it was first invented might have effected more than them all, and conquered the whole World. As for this strength of enduring, Man hath naturally less of it then most of Beasts, not only as he is more tenderly bred, and his Body mollified with warm clothing, but in his very constitution, being more infirm in his Infancy, and more decrepit in his Old Age.   

VIII. Of Beauty.  
STrength is a Tyrant, but Beauty a natural and lawful Prince, born to reign, as the Philosopher observeth. There is a kind of natural Magic in it which bewitcheth us we know not how; as ingenious Xenophon in the person of Critobulus elegantly expresseth it. The very first sight and presence of it attracteth the eyes of every beholder, like the sudden appearance of a Candle in a dark room. It is the most excellent Object of the most excellent Sense, the darling of Fancy, which tradeth in Images and Ideas within, and meeting with such curious pieces abroad entertaineth them with great delight. And if it were true, that the Soul is the Architect of its own Body (as certainly the Body is prepared and fitted for the Soul) it were a very good reason why it should so much delight in the beautiful composure of another's Body, which it intended in its own: as an Artist is much affected with any excellent Work of the same kind. This Venus of Beauty is the Mother of vulgar Love, and so also of that which they call Heroical: though the Graces attend her, and Virtue the true Beauty of the soul bear her company, yet she usually acts the chief part in the Play, but always the first: the very Picture of Philoclea first enamoured Pyrocles. By it, saith Siracides, Love is kindled as with a flame. It is the chief ingredient in Loves Philtrum, which so much enchanteth the minds of men, ravishing and transporting the soul, and putting it into a strange ecstasy of delight; and is indeed the chief of all sensual pleasures, the inmost Bower in Fool's Paradise, as Ausonius describeth it, Myrtrus amentes ubi lucus opacat Amantes. where they live together in the secret shade of wanton Vanity and pleasing Madness. Surely this most generous and glorious Affection was never intended by God and Nature for so mean an Object, nor for any created excellency, but for him who is the Beauty of all Beauties, to whom Solomon in his Canticles doth rightly apply it, and the blessed Spirits in Heaven perfectly exercise and enjoy it in their Beatifical Vision. But vain men having set their hearts upon an Earthly Beauty, Idolise it with a Divine Love; and we may observe them in their courting and dallying, still to run out into Deifying Compliments and Divine Adoration: which plainly shows that the natural Instinct and Inclination of Love ascends toward a Divinity, but being thus debased by Lust, is prodigally spent upon an inferior Object. Yet this created Beauty is a chief excellency of Nature, and a Beam of that Infinite Brightness. As the erect Posture of Man's Body, so his Face, which is the chief part thereof, being composed of greater variety of curious Lineaments, and fairer Colours, is more excellent than any Beasts, Generally all kind of Beauty is of great esteem. In building or furnishing of an House, the Show and Sight cost as much as Conveniency. In Apparel, Fashion and Comeliness are as dear as usefulness. Handsomeness in an Horse doth as much advance his price, as Goodness. In Civil conversation, Formosa facies muta commendatio est, bespeaking and gaining favour and good will, which is no small advantage in humane affairs, and certainly the greatest of worldly comforts. Absolom gained much upon the People by his Beauty. It preferred Alcibiades to the love and care of his Master Socrates. It endeareth Children to their own Parents, and is many times a sufficient Portion in Marriage. It prevails much by its own proper authority, but is an excellent setter off to great Fortunes, and true Virtues; as Varnish to Colours, or the refraction of Light upon Metals. But the vanity thereof doth sufficiently appear in itself, being but a mere Superficies of the Body, which is the far meaner part of Man, and not so much as skin deep, as some allow it, for turn the skin outward, and it will appear to be the Reverse of all Beauty, and a most horrid Spectacle of Blood and Rawness: So that indeed this beautiful Idol is not much more than the reflection of it from the Glass, which is but a mere Spectrum or Shadow. Either Beauty is no real excellency, or rather Fancy, which is the Judge thereof, is such a wanton Spirit, that it is not always constant to itself; for it is not only variously apprehended by several men, as it is said the Aethiopians paint the Devil white: but the same persons at several times variously judge of it. The Persians highly esteemed an Hawk-Nose, because their Cyrus was so shaped. Alexander's Courtiers wried their Necks like him, and the Roman Ladies affected the colour of Poppaea's Hair. The Irish do the like: and we alter the cut of our Heads and Beards almost every year, and I am persuaded, if it were as much in our power, we should have as many new fashions and changes of our Bodies as we have of our Garments and Attires. But whatsoever the true value of Beauty may be, surely the owner enjoyeth it only at the second hand, either from the Glass, as the Flower thereof, or from the favour of others, which is the best Fruit it yieldeth.   

IX. Of the Goods of Fortune.  
THE Gifts of Fortune are the Good things of the great Body of the World: and are of three sorts, Riches, Objects of Pleasure, and Titles of Honour: which one rightly terms the World's Trinity.  
Ambitiosus Honos, & Opens, & Foeda Voluptas,  
Haec tria pro trino Numine Mundus habet.  
These three make up the whole Inventory of Fortune, and are all summed up in a Crown, or the Royal State, which the Heathen called the fairest Gift that the Gods bestowed on mortal men. Besides it hath a peculiar Prerogative, which is, that Grandeur or Supremacy, which we commonly call Majesty, whereof no inferior condition is capable. Princes are in this sense more than men, Political Giants, like Briareus having an hundred hands, yea thousands, and millions of hands, with all which they act good or ill. Regum ingenia sunt fata temporum. We cannot well discourse of the goods of Fortune without this, which is the greatest of all, and because it is the summary of them, eminently including all in itself, we will particularly insist on it, not as a Civil Institution, though of the best kind, but as a Personal Felicity; which is so great and so much admired by other men, that the labour lies most on the other hand to demonstrate the Vanity thereof. The World hath always declaimed against usurping Tyrants, and Philosophers have as much cried down their happiness. They are Kings of a Bastard kind, which yet commonly afterward obtain a Legitimation. Certainly Tyranny, even in lawful Princes, is as great a misery to themselves as to the people. It is the happiness of Christ's Kingdom, That his people shall be willing in the day of his power. The love of the Subjects makes Sovereignty pleasant, without which it is like the Kingdom of Satan, a very Hell of Disorder and Discontent. All men admire a Crown, because they see the lustre, but feel not the weight of it; this seems lighter, because they never wore it, and that greater than it is, because they cannot wear it: we naturally admire that which we cannot attain as well as that which we cannot understand, looking upon it as Peculiar and Sacred. Therefore it is a very hard thing to give a clear demonstration of the Vanity of this opinion, which cannot be confuted by experience. The Spanish Page, who in a high distemper of Fancy imagined himself a great Emperor, and was maintained in that Humour by his Lord, had some kind of taste thereof. The Scripture expresseth the greatest Glory and Pomp of Princes in no better a Phrase then, Much Fancy: There are some more real tastes of Royalty, which any private man may have. Every Master of a Family is a King within doors. The best pedigree of lawful Monarchy is from it, and Princes still affect to be called Fathers of the Country. Though Families are subordinate to Kingdoms, yet it is true of Kingdoms as well as of them, Omne sub regno graviore regnum est: the greatest Potentates are not Omnipotent, but as much crossed in their wills as others, who as they have lesser Abilities, so they have lower Designs. Thus may private men Degustare Imperium, even that Empire which is without them, and over others, but certainly every man may be Rex Stoicus, a King in his own Microcosm: which he who knows how to rule well, may despise a Crown. But the most satisfactory Evidence is that which may be collected from Princes themselves, especially such who have had the experience of a Private life, and so can best judge of both. Such commonly prove the ablest and the wisest, enjoying and improving Royalty to the utmost. Sylla the Happy laid aside his Dictatorship, because he esteemed a Private life more Happy. Augustus was partly of the same mind, and deliberated about it, but not so confident. As Periander said of Tyranny, It was a hard thing to keep, and dangerous not to keep. Our common saying is very true, That the best Condition of life, is between a Constable and a Justice of Peace, if the Constable and the Justice would support such in that middle estate: but commonly men in Office take a pride and a delight in oppressing Private men: they think Justice but an ordinary and dull thing, Injustice is more eminent and extraordinary: so that many wise men, who would fain live quietly, are necessitated to accept of Authority, and part with some of their Happiness to secure the rest. Yet Dioclesian, though he judged it absolutely necessary to continue the Empire, voluntarily left it, and would never after reassume it, though he were highly threatened to it. In julius Caesar himself, who professed it his Chief Good to be Chief, Insultare omnium capitibus, and had rather be the best man in a Parish, as we say, than second in the City of Rome, yea, was not contented with the Thing, unless he might also have the Name of a King (which partly intimates the Vanity thereof) we shall find Venus and the Muses among his chiefest delights: and there is no Prince who hath been eminently addicted to either of them, but hath placed them among his greatest pleasures: Now the one being the natural pleasure of the Body, and the other of the Mind, a common Plebeian may enjoy both as fully as any of them. What shall we then say of Fiddling, and Fooling, and the vain Humours of weaker Princes? Surely a wise man would judge a King of Beggars as happy as some of those young Roman Emperors.   

X. Of Riches.  
MOney is the eldest Son and Heir of Fortune, Lord Paramount, and universal King in every particular Kingdom. The Image and Superscription of Caesar on his Coin is more powerful than Caesar himself. Witty men have many conceited disparagements of it, call it, The Excrement of Earth, Metal turned up Trump, and the like: but they speak of it in its Natural capacity, whereas they ought to consider it in its Politic, as Money, and not at Metal: & so it is rightly defined, the Measure of all commutable things. In this sense Petronius calls it, jovem in arca: and they who profess an absolute contempt of it, must also despise all external things, whereof it is the price and value: and without a competency whereof the outward Man cannot be maintained: for particular men having impropriated all the Good things of the World necessary for the life of Man, they will be left in a worse condition than Brute Beasts, who are either nourished by Men, or may Forage for themselves. Wherefore leaving such who have Bodies, and yet despise the means of preserving them, to feed on their airy notions, we will discourse of the several Estates and Revenues of others who too much admire them, and show what Happiness every Degree and Census of them may contribute to the life of Man. The first sort are such as have all their Estates in their own Hands, that is, live upon their daily labours, being slaves to every man who will hire them: which is a condition almost as servile as to be enslaved to one proper Master, the one being of Necessity, as the other of Compulsion. For this reason the jews generally refuse even Mechanical Trades, as bordering upon the same inconvenience, and are commonly either Merchants or Physicians. Yet this mean Condition hath a blessing in it, for as such are sure never to gain much, so they are sure never to want much, so long as Health and Strength last. Rich men need their Labours as much as they need their Riches. An able Body may well earn its own Living. The second sort is of them whose Revenues are sufficient to maintain them in a generous and free kind of life, or at least so as they may command Business, and need not be commanded by it, taking as much or as little thereof as they please; which renders it the best of Recreations, and takes off the Burden and wearisomeness of it. This sort of men, though not the richest, may live as happily as any, if they do not wrong themselves by covetous Desires, or too pressing Employments. The last are such as have an Excessive and Superfluous Estate, which as it is a great advantage of doing Liberal and Magnificent things, so it is a very great tentation, not only to Idleness, but also to Luxury and Prodigality. A great Estate, without great Abilities to manage it, cannot be improved to the height in the right use of it, but that the greatest part of the Water will run beside the Mill: on the one hand Vain Company, Parasitical Servants, French Cooks and Tailors, Gamesters, Usurers, and such Birds of prey will devour most of it: on the other hand Covetousness will rust it, and bury it like a hid Treasure or Talon in the ground. Of all three the middle is the safest, and Agars Dimensum the best, if a man can think so as he did. Yet the highest Degree of an inferior Rank doth not only excel in the same, but is more valuable in the true Account of Estates, than the lowest Degree of an higher Rank. As for example, A rich Yeoman if he turn Gentleman, may be a poor and mean Gentleman, and a rich Gentleman made a Lord, may be a poor and mean Lord, not only in the Estimate of Honour, for that is another consideration, but even in this Account of Riches, with relation to the Degree of Honour, for the Estate must always hold a proportion with the State and Port which a man bears. Again, the Rates of particular things are wisely to be considered, as well as the quality of Estates in general. The first consideration to be had in Expense, is of things Necessary, as of Food, Raiment, and the like. Diogenes wondered that a Statue should be sold for more than a bushel of Wheat. The second is of things Useful and Convenient. It is very ill Husbandry to want any cheap conveniencies, and it is far better laying out money upon small Wares of daily use, then upon costly Trifles. To want a good Book, because it is somewhat dear according to the rate of Printing, or not to have the best advice in a Case of Physic or Law, because it may cost a little more, is foolish; for such Intellectual things are worth nothing if they be not worth far more than they cost. The last consideration is of Ornament and Delight, as Jewels, Flowers, Pictures, and such like rarities of Nature or Art, which are also valuable in their kind, and are commodities fit for superfluous Estates. Rich men seem purposely to have enhanced the price of them, that so they might have occasion of laying out their great Riches for themselves, which otherwise they could never spend in an ordinary way. The Vulgar honour Great men for those things, and value them according to the price which is set upon them: but a Wise man, who considers their true and natural worth, need not envy them the Happiness of a fair Diamond, or strange Tulip, or Michael Angelo's Masterpiece. Or if these things be so valuable, why should we not as highly value such Ornaments of Nature as cannot be bought for money: Beauty is a richer Ornament then gorgeous Apparel, and discreet Elegancy then great Cost. When others presented Socrates with their several Gifts, poor Aeschines presented himself, and outvied them all with a Compliment. Credit and Reputation are the greatest Expenditors, Garbs and Fashions of Apparel, Sumptuous Entertainments, the Pomp of Festivals and Funerals, and the like, which are the Customs of the People, are more chargeable than the Customs and Imposts of Princes. The bravest Minds could be content with the jest, but they stand upon their Honour, and others make them pay for it. The strangest Humour is of the Covetous, who least need Money, and yet most affect it, and of Prodigals, who most need it, and lest regard it. The way between both, is so to spend, as a man may continue spending through the whole course of his Life, and leave to his to spend after him. The first is a Debt which he owes to Himself, the second to Posterity. But no Money can purchase true and perfect Happiness, because it trades only in the Market of things commutable, and cannot buy out the proper Goods either of Body or Mind. Crassus' counted him a Rich man who could maintain an Army with his own Revenues: and indeed he spoke the most of Riches, for he who hath an Estate to keep an Army, may have an Army to keep his Estate: yet we have a sad Instance of the contrary in the same man: for both he and his great Army, with his Son and Heir fell together, and left his great Estate to others. The Examples of such great Rich men in former times, may teach us to despise the poor Pedlars of our times, who spend all their lives in gaining some few Thousands, and when they have scraped together all they can, die Beggars in comparison of a Crassus, or a Seneca: and so are defeated of their chiefest ambition, which is to be said to die Rich.   

XI. Of Pleasures.  
MOney is the Pander of Pleasure, and Purveyor general for the Flesh: as he said to his Soul, Thou hast much Goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. We speak not now of Pleasures Spiritual, which Orpheus intendeth in that Metaphorical Sentence, Perpetual Drunkenness is the reward of Virtue: and our Wise man expresseth more soberly, A Good Conscience is a continual Feast: but of those Pleasures to which these Metaphors allude: not as they are the native Pleasures of the Body, but the outward Objects and Instruments thereof which the World affords, and the Body uses; the Divine Oracle tells us, There is nothing better for a man, then that he should eat, and drink, and make his Soul enjoy good in his labour. Pleasure is the Pay of Nature, which turns Work itself into Sport: Yet there are are some strange Spirits, who seek to put off their own Nature, and are displeased with the very Pleasures thereof, differing from other men, as though they were Creatures of another Species. Such were some of the ancient Philosophers, who affecting to be singular & supervulgar, and taking advantage of the common inclination to Excess in Pleasures, resolved upon the contrary Extreme, that so others being conscious to themselves of their own Infirmity, might admire them as more then Men. But it is a great and universal Error to admire things for their difficulty and rarity rather than value them according to their true worth: We are naturally so fond of this Humour, that if we do but hear of any strange thing, we love to enlarge it, and act it in Buskins. Difficulty seems to add the honour of a Miracle, which is Sacred and Religious: but such are the Miracles of Jugglers and Enchanters, whereas all God's Miracles are of great use and efficacy. There are difficult trifles and difficult vices. To starv a man's self is as sinful as it is difficult. It hath been the practice of Superstitious persons in all Ages to torture themselves like Baal's Priests: as though to destroy or wrong Nature, were to worship the God of Nature, Who will have Mercy, and not Sacrifice; Mercy to our selus, as well as to others. It is true, there is Spiritual Physic as well as Natural: but neither Feasting nor Fasting are a Christians constant Diet. Discreet Sobriety is the best use of Nature, not only most wholesome, but also most pleasant, Hunger is the best Sauce: for it sawceth the palate, as others do the Meat: and the reducing of our Stomach to our Diet, yields more sweetness and delight, than the fitting of our Diet to our Stomach. The first exhalations of Corporeal Spirits are always freshest and quickest: therefore we should never set our Pleasures on tilt, nor jade our Recreations. Too much Honey is not good. Surfeiting is ever nauseous and crapulous, and so a forfeiture of that Pleasure wherein it exceedeth. The best way of enjoying Pleasures, is fairly and soberly to entertain them when they offer themselves, not Gnathonically to hunt after them, or feed on them with longing desires which cannot be satisfied. Thus a sober man may enjoy more even of those outward Pleasures than all the mad Roman Emperors: and certainly they did overrun the purest part of Pleasure by cloying their Appetite, and dulling the Relish thereof, and therefore invented new prodigious Pleasures, as nothing satisfied with natural and ordinary. As a Bear is mad after Honey, so some men, by reason of their natural Constitution, or unnatural Lusts, are so madly set upon some particular Pleasures, that whensoever the Objects thereof are presented unto them, they cannot possibly forbear, prostituting Fame, and Fortune, Reason, Religion, and all to their foolish Fancies and vain Desires. The Vanity of all these worldly Pleasures appears in this, that if they be strong and quick, they are very short, and if they last longer, they are very dull: and the Griefs and Miseries to which we are all subject, are far greater in proportion then our Pleasure. A Fit of the Stone or Gout puts us into an Ecstasy of Pain, more acute and lasting then the greatest ravishments of any bodily Pleasures: nor was ever such an Instrument of Pleasure invented, as the Rack, the Cross, the Persian Boat, the Bull of Phalaris, were terrible and tormenting. Many Pleasures are very shameful, but all have something of Levity in them, which is expressed by our Laughing, Playing, Dallying, and the like relaxations of Body or Mind. This shows that we should only use them as Recreations, and not make them our constant Business, or Course of Life.   

XII. Of Honor.  
Honour moves in an higher Sphere than Pleasure, and commonly Retrograde to it: For Honour consists in Action, but Pleasure in Recreation. Honour is the price or value of any thing set upon it by God or Man. Every Creature is God's Coin, and he hath stamped upon it the valuation of that worth and excellency which is in it, according to that Classis in which it is ranked, and the particular Eminency of it in its own Kind. This is Honour in honour abili, true natural Honour, though not honoured by men, as Beauty is truly beautiful, though no Ey see it. The other is Man's Estimate or Indication thereof, which is Honour in honorante, and this is the Honour whereof we now speak, as one of the Goods of Fortune. Civil Honours are very necessary in a State, for thereby the State itself becomes more Honourable, & more compact within itself, by an orderly disposition of all the Members in their several places and degrees. The Romans made the best use of it of any State in the World. They divided themselves into three sorts, Nobles, Knights, and Commons, as their highest, middle, and lowest Ranks: and all of them were capable of most honourable Employments and Offices of State; so that they who were not born to Honour, might acquire it, and they who were might augment it; from their Birth they were styled Libertine, Plebeian, Patrician, and the like; from their Offices, Consular, Praetorian, Quaestorian, Senatorian, and the like: from their Actions, Triumphal, African, Asiatike, Father of the Country, and the like: and though Titles of Honour were not to be purchased for Money among them, yet in their Censing they had some consideration of men's Estates: For he who well husbandeth his private Estate doth thereby enrich the Commonwealth, and bears a greater share of the public Charge. Their Images or Arms were not Ensigns of the Family, but of the Person; and no man was permitted to set up his own Image, till he had ascended the Curule Chair, which was a Personal advancement. Continuation of a noble race for many ages is a great blessing of God upon it, and the Honour of the Ancestor, an Heirlome as due to the Posterity, as any Honorary Estate annexed unto it, yet certainly Personal Honour is the worthier, and the best foundation of the other; though that prevail far more in the favour and opinion of men; so that whereas New men by their most honourable performances can hardly defend themselves from contempt, Hereditary Nobility is as hardly▪ lost by the greatest vices; Though the Law and Princes who first bestowed it, revoke it for Treason or other forfeiture thereof, yet I know not how something still sticks in the Minds of men, and the Character of their ancient Nobility seems indelible: so Fatal is it to be born, or not to be born of Great Parents in the judgement of the world. The Case is the same with that between Protestants and Papists concerning Antiquity: the Papists deduce it through many Successions, but the Protestants derive it from the first Original. God hath made us all of one Blood, and We are also his Offspring, and descend from one common Ancestor. But it must be so as the World will have it, and wise men should not be too Philosophical herein; for it is Politically good and useful in the general, at least far better than a confused equality. The best Rule for all things of this nature, is neither greatly to affect them nor disdain them. The greatest Happiness of Honour is the favourable respect and inclination of others, which of all outward things, Honour and Beauty, (the Escutcheon of Nature) do most effectually procure; and the Good will of men is a very great Comfort, sweetening a man's whole Life, and entertaining him in all Companies; but the very same thing sufficiently demonstrates the Vanity thereof, that it is in the power of others, whose Humours are as inconstant as the Waves, and their Breath as vain as the Winds. The very Ensigns of Honour show what it is; the Trophies, Banners, Escutcheons Crests Pictures, Images, and the like. Vespasian was tired with a Triumph, the greatest solemnity and show of Honour that ever was instituted among men: and certainly it could not but weary a grave and wise man to be carried up and down the Streets to make a show to the People.   

XIII. Of the Goods of the Mind.  
THE Mind is the third and highest Region of Man, which includeth the other two within itself, and communicateth Heat and Life unto them. As it informeth its own Body, so it manageth and improveth all the Gifts of Fortune. Thales to show how easy a thing it was for a Philosopher to grow rich, foreseeing the fruitfulness of some Olive yards, bought them at the beginning of the year, and got a great sum of money by them. Solomon having a large Heart, employed and husbanded his large Estate as providently as any mean man doth his small Fortune. He was a great Merchant, trading into Egypt and Tyre, even as far as Ophyre, and thrived exceedingly by it: and he expended his great Riches in a most Glorious and Magnificent manner. Lucullus was famous for his Feasts and Entertainments. Petronius a Master of Pleasures inventing Laws and Orders even of Licentiousness. What Honour is, without Activity and Nobility of Spirit, these times of trial sufficiently discover. The Mind of one Man sufficeth for the Government of a whole Nation, yea of all the Nations in the World: which though it never happened to any, yet we have large Instances in the first four Monarches of the sufficiency of some Great Spirits. The Mind of man is capable of knowing all things: God hath set the World in his Heart, which is an Intellectual Globe, wherein all things subsist and move in Spiritual Images and Ideas, not only Individually and Physically, but also Universally and Metaphysically. Thus the whole World is Man's University: and there have been some such Monarches of Learning, as have been singularly excellent in almost all Arts and Sciences. Animus cujusque est quisque: The Mind is the Man. The Genius of a Wise man seems to differ almost as much from a Fools, as a Man doth from a Beast. It is true, all souls are equal in their Kind and Faculties▪ but certainly not in the degrees of their Powers and Virtues. In Heaven, where the Spirits of just men shall be made perfect, yet they shall all differ one from another in Glory, which is the perfection of their Grace. Homo homini quantum tum interest? and as the enjoiment of the Chief Good is the proper perfection of the Mind, so the Excellency or Baseness thereof is best discovered by the higher or lower moving thereof toward this perfection. Some men's Minds are set wholly upon drudging and moiling, which is a condition not much above Beasts. Others have a Humour of Gaming, others of Dallying and Sporting, of Eating and Drinking and making themselves Merry, such as think themselves no mean Fools, of making themselves Famous in the World, of Rising higher and higher, like seeled Doves they know not whither. Some of Learning much, and Practising little; some of Ruling others, and yet neglect themselves; others of Ruling and Governing themselves, and yet neglect their Chief Good, which is infinitely above themselves, setting up those inferior ends instead thereof. Like Barclays Heraleon, we have all some particular Madness and private Fancy. It is commonly said, that Men are twice Children, or rather the follies of Childhood grow up into our whole life in greater degrees & more maturity. The old Adage is very opposite, Children play with Nuts, and elder men with Oaths, than which no sport can be more foolish and dangerous. Thus do men's Ends and Aims discover their Principles. The White of the Ey and the White of the Mark are tied together with a direct Line. Every Creature in its several kind hath a natural Acme or Period of perfection to which it tends, and which it endeavours to attain with all the power and vigour it hath, only Man degenerates into lower and base Ends then that for which he was made, busying himself about some particular Design, and so goes on from one thing to another, neglecting that highest and chiefest Good, whereof he is capable, which is the greatest Error of Life, and brings upon him the curse of Cain, rendering him a Vagabond on the face of the Earth, and makes him wander up and down like a Beggar, knocking at every door, and crying out to every Creature, Who will show us any Good? Never thinking to gain this settled Estate of Universal and perfect Happiness, which may supply all his wants, and maintain him in a State of perfect Felicity; but rather chooses to live miserably upon the scraps of the Creatures, sharking and shifting as well as he may, to support this frail life, and satisfy the necessities thereof: and at last wishes he may die like a Beast, having lived like a Beast, and made no provision for an Eternal Life. The Jewel of Man's true Happiness is to be found in this Treasury of the Mind, yet not among the inferior and particular Goods thereof, but in the fruition of the Chief and Universal Good, without which all the rest are vain, and of no value.   

XIIII. Of Learning.  
THe first and lowest of the Goods of the Mind, is Learning, or Speculative Knowledge, that Pabulum Animae which never satiates, but is more increased by feeding, and not diminished by communicating. No sort of men who ever had any taste of Letters have distasted or despised them; Whether they have been Beggars or Kings; as Diogenes, and Alexander; Courtiers, or Scholars, as Aristippus and Plato; Soldiers, or Gownmen, as Caesar, and Cicero; Epicures or Stoikes, as Horace, and Brutus; Christians, or Heathens, as Paul and the Athenians. The fame of Learning is far less than the inward pleasure and delight thereof. Antisthenes' being asked what he gained by it, answered, That he could talk with himself, so that he needed not to go abroad and be beholding to others for exercise or delight. It is no small Happiness to live comfortably within doors: and to entertain ourselves with our own Thoughts, being never less alone than when we are alone. Intellectual Contemplation is more pleasant than Sight, and Generation of the Mind then that of the Body. The lowest and meanest part of Learning is, that which we commonly call Pedantical, consisting in the forms and Pedagogy of Art, as Grammar and all other Humane Institutions, though such be very useful in their kind, and may conduce much toward that knowledge which is Natural and Real, as being the Instruments and vehicles thereof: yet the Knowledge of the Things themselves being the End of them is far more excellent: and the more or less they contribute thereunto, they are so much the more or less considerable. The common Infirmity of this kind of Learning is to be more curious than needful. What a strange madness is it in our Grammaticasters' to trouble the world with their diversity of opinions concerning the right pronunciation of an jota, or the Orthography of a word, as whether we should write Foelix or Felix, rather than studying to be so? Not much unlike is the Humour of Critics, who study Cabalistical Interpretations of Classike Authors. The Fiction concerning the Grammarian is very witty who consulted Homer in Hell why he began his Ilias with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, and he answers him, because it came into his head to do so. Nor much better is our too great affectation of old and obsolete Languages: though something may be picked out of them: yet as there are some Mines which have some Grains of Gold in them, but so few that men think it not worth their labour to extract them: So in all those Studies, it is first to be considered whether the Profit will answer the Pains: certainly it is a great vanity to cry up that for the only Learning, which conduceth least to Practice, and the true Happiness of Man, only because it is rare and difficult. To know that which few know, better pleaseth and more advanceth Fame, then to know that which all should practise. This is that kind of Knowledge which puffeth up rather then edifieth: and you shall observe generally a strange tumour in the Professors thereof; like Courtiers and men of Ceremony, who being exactly curious in their Compliments and Puntilios, which others despise, and therefore neglect, think themselves the only Brave men. Next above this kind of Learning is History, or the Knowledge of former Times and Actions of men, which is very profitable, ripening and preparing the Mind for Business, by acquainting it with the greatest Affairs of the World: yet there is much Pedantry in the Study thereof, where men are most curious in the most inconsiderable passages and circumstances, and most affected with the antiquated pieces thereof, seeking to set together some scattered fragments and remains which are very uncertain and conjectural, & such as Time, the best of Critics, hath resigned to Dust and Oblivion.  
The most excellent Learning is the Study of Nature and the works of God, of Moral Virtue, and true Piety, and the like, which more immediately concern the Happiness of Man: yet in those also there may be as much Pedantry, and more dangerous than the former: when this Knowledge of Practical things terminates only in Speculation and Notion. There is nothing more hurtful to Man then such Pedantical Knowledge: it fills the Head with Conceits and Caprichio's, the Life with Fooleries and Formalities, the School with Sects and Opinions, the Church with Schism and Superstition. As Aristippus compared the Sophisters of his time to the meaner sort of Penelope's Suitors, who were entertained by her Maids, but never had the sight of herself: So they studied only such Arts and Sciences as are the Handmaids of Wisdom to dress and adorn her, but were not acquainted with this Mistress of Life. It is reported of a great and wise Nobleman of this Nation, who being entertained by the University, and brought to view the public Schools, the Logike-Schole, the Rhetorike-Schole, the Physike-Schole, the Divinity-Schole, and the rest; after he had seen them all, asked the Scholars whether they had one School more, namely a School of Discretion. Such wise men as Solomon, Xenophon, Caesar, and others, being also learned, have by their Wisdom directed Learning to the right end, and improved it to the height, gaining honour by it, and being themselves an honour to it. Bare Learning, though of the best kind, is but a Map of Happiness, and no real Felicity.   

XV. Of Wisdom.  
WIsdom or Prudence is the Art of Living. It is a cheap Caterer, a neat Cook, a wise Steward and Dispenser of all things. The first and fundamental part of Wisdom is a clear and solid Judgement, whereby a man, like a well-sented Hound, rightly pursues all the windings and turnings in the whole course of Business, and as it is said of Achitophel, speaks Oracles, foreseeing and foretelling the success of things by the strength of this sagacious faculty, which the poorblind Vulgar cannot discern: and such commonly were the Devil's Oracles: for he having a farther ken of things than men, saw them rising and coming on before them, and so foretold them. But because the Fortune of all Humane affairs is so brittle, that the least crack may endanger the whole fabric, and therefore none but God can certainly foreknow; there must be another subsidiary Art to second the former, which as a present and ready Wit to obviate or advance sudden Accidents: for as there is no Business so secure but hath some flaws in it, so there is scarcely any so desperate, but hath some opportunity of recovery, even to the last, as it is said of eternal Salvation, Inter pontem, & fontem, if a man have the grace to lay hold on it. Caesar herein excelled all men: as Lucan saith of him, 
— Semper feliciter usus.  
Praecipiti cursu bellorum, & tempore rapto▪   
He who is quick in Action, had need be quick of Apprehension: and he who is sure of the latter, may more safely venture on the former; both together work Miracles. Thus Caesar effected his great Designs: he seldom lost any opportunity, but was sure to clap up a good bargain for himself whensoever it was offered, which is the most thriving way in the world. Craft is of a bastard kind and supposititious to Wisdom. Though Stratagems may be useful in War, where all depends upon sudden action, and they on whom they are practised are Enemies beforehand, and so more lawful: yet even in that, Scipio gained more by the reputation of his Justice and Fidelity, than Hannibal by all his Cunning: Certainly he was more to be honoured and better beloved. But in all Civil and Domestic affairs, fair and square dealing, joined with good discretion, is generally as effectual, and always more comfortable. The next part is Action and Execution. It is an universal Law imposed upon all men, That in the sweat of our face, we must earn our Bread. He who shuns Labour runs upon Inconvenience, which is far more troublesome, and so the Burden returns upon him with greater Pressure. Many men of large Abilities relying wholly upon their Wit, and neglecting the use of ordinary means, suffer others less able, but more active and industrious, to go beyond them. The way to dispatch much, is to be always doing, to keep beforehand with Business, and rid it off our hands as fast as it comes on, which makes it go away merrily. Order and Method are good helps, but not to be too precisely observed, especially such as consist in Imaginary Lines and Figures; as to defer to begin a business till the beginning of a Day, a Week, or a Year; whereas perhaps the end of the time precedent may be as good an Opportunity, and so much the better, because it is sooner. Lastly there are certain Ceremonies and Forms which must neither be affected nor neglected. To be of a sober and grave carriage, to use a civil respect toward the Person, but yet retain the thing, yielding in Circumstances, that we may better hold the Substance. We must live according to Fashion and Custom as far as lawfully we may. To salute, to visit, to court, and such like civil Compliments are very commendable. It is the unhappiness of some Learned and Wise men, who because they see through the vanity of these things, do not only despise them, but declaim against the World for them, so long, till the World exclaim on them. Though Wisdom be the most curious Artifice of the Mind, effecting those things which Poets imagine, and Historians relate, yet it is also vain and uncertain. The wisest man knows not always how to level his Ordnance aright, by reason of the inconstant waving of the whole sea of Business; and all great enterprises and dealings in the World are like Cranes, or such other mighty Engines, which if they be well managed, perform Wonders; but if the foot once slip, or the Engine fail, it may knock out his brains who uses it. But the worst and greatest opposition is from the wickedness of men. The whole World lies in sin, which a Good man cannot forbear to oppose, though it be most contrary to all rules of Policy, and may prove the certain ruin of himself. Many a man against whom the World hath nothing to say, but in the matter of his God, hath been undone only by his Piety. Machiavelli hath truly observed, that the way of Christian Religion, if strictly pursued, is directly contrary to the way of Policy. As our Saviour said of himself, so may all his Servants say likewise. Their Kingdom is not of this world: The Jews have a Proverb much to the same purpose concerning such great dealers in the world. That a greater Huckster cannot be innocent: which makes me wonder at those ancient Worthies, joseph, Moses, Daniel, and the rest, how they could govern great Empires, & yet continue so strictly Honest & Religious: but I consider that they were assisted by an extraordiself Spirit, and sometimes God himnary was fain to help them out with a Miracle. But to fear God and keep his Commandments, is the only Wisdom, and will at last, when the Accounts of the whole World shall be cast up, be found to be the best Preferment, and highest Happiness.   

XVI. Of Philosophy.  
SOlomon saith, He who ruleth his own Spirit, is better than he who taketh a City: Yea it is no small advantage in Civil affairs for a man to have the command of himself upon all occasions, standing upon the shore of a firm Mind, and beholding others tossed on the Sea of their own Passions, and so suffering them like great Whales to beat themselves till they become tame and tractable. The greatest Conquerors have been conquered by their Lusts, which we may truly style, as Diogenes doth Kings Concubines, Regum Reginas. The end of true Philosophy is to rectify the Soul: The strange effect thereof in Polemon may seem a kind of Theological Conversion; who coming into the School of Xenocrates with his drunken company crowned with Garlands, purposely to outface him and his Philosophy; Xenocrates going on with his Lecture of Temperance, pressed it so far, and wrought so much upon him, that he immediately abandoned his former course of Life, and became his Disciple, succeeding him in the same School, and proved the most strict of the whole Sect. But though Conversion to God, from whom Man is wholly alienated, cannot be wrought without Divine Grace, yet as there are Remainders of Bodily Excellence, so also some seeds and Principles of Moral Virtue, which may be advantaged by a good Constitution of Body, and greatly improved by Education and Instruction: In this the Philosophers went too far, that they attributed to Man a full liberty and power of governing himself and all his affairs by the absolute Sovereignty of his own Spirit; and indeed the Poets seem better Divines in their Expressions to this purpose then the Philosophers, beginning their Poems with A jove principium, or the invocation of a Deity: and ascribing the acts of their greatest Hero's to some Tutelar God. We may, yea we ought to exercise and improve any power we have in ourselves, but we must always depend upon God for his blessing and assistance herein, as well as for the obtaining his supernatural Grace. The Spirit of a Man is very Malleable, if it be carefully and wisely handled. The first and most immediate Issues of the Mind are our Thoughts, being as it were the Animal Spirits thereof, whereby it acts all its Business, or like Leucippus his Atoms, the Seeds of the Spiritual World: which while they float in a vast Inanity are lost, and come to nothing, but being fixed and embodied, prove most beautiful and excellent Forms. He who intendeth what he doth, is most like to do what he intendeth: Yet we must not be so intent upon any thing, as to lose the command of our selus. Delightful Studies are like strong Wines drunk in with pleasure, but after fill the head with a throng of unruly Spirits, which distemper and intoxicate it. In such cases it is good to entertain some other Studies as pleasing, and so pass from one to another, till the Mind be lulled asleep. Some by the help of a Game at Chess, which is a most studious and solicitous Sport, have escaped the Tyranny of their serious Anxieties. As we must thus manage our Minds, so we must govern them by a right Judgement and pure Reason, abstracted from all Fancies and Opinions. Some are wholly led by Traditions, and the Authority of others, or by their own Education and Custom, which is a slavery of the Mind worse than that of the Body. Some on the other side do so much affect liberty of Spirit, that they conceive a general prejudice against all common Truths, because they are backed by such common advantages, though they are not grounded upon them. But a clear and free Spirit seeketh Truth itself, and entertaineth it wheresoever he findeth it, which is the right temper of a true Philosopher. The truest Philosophy, and that which distinguishes it from Sophistry, is to deduce it from Speculation to Action: and instead of Disputing to prove it by Exercise and Example. There is commonly a great distance, and in some a kind of contrariety between Theory and Practice: for that Good which engages the Will and the whole Man to Practice, is not simple Right, but rather Profit; not Duty but Benefit. Thus though the Mind judge a thing to be Just and Honest, and so fit to be done in general, but withal judgeth it Unprofitable, and so not Convenient for him to do, his Practical Judgement opposeth and overcometh his Speculative. He seeth better and followeth worse, that is, worse in point of Right, but not worse as he deemeth, in point of Profit. Cicero like a true Philosopher, in his excellent Book of Offices, harps upon the right string, proving Honesty to be the greatest Utility, yea one and the same thing; and so indeed they are in themselves, but the Mind of Man apprehends them under several Notions: The fallacy consists in this, that we look only upon the particular present Good, though far less, and do not consider the more universal and greater Good to which it ought to be subordinate, and being opposed, becomes Evil, for so it is the loss of a greater Good than itself. A Temperate man looking upon the Wine as it is red in the Glass, is by his Appetite incited to drink thereof as well as a Drunkard, and knows there is a natural Good and Pleasantness in it: but when he wisely considers the whole state of his Body and Mind, and thereupon finds it will do him more Hurt then Good, he most willingly abstains from it as Evil. So a man who hath a Member gangraenated, as he looks upon it particularly, is loath to lose it with so much pain, but considering that it is better for him to part with it, then that the whole Body should perish, he as willingly abdicates it, as he would pull out an arrow sticking in his side. Thus if in all our actions we would seriously reflect upon the whole Nature of Man, and of the universe, and upon God the Creator of all, we should clearly understand that this great King and Governor of all hath prescribed such Common Laws for the safety of the whole Empire, and the true Good of every Subject, that though Justice may seem contrary to some particular and lesser Good, yet it is most consonant to our Chief Good and true Happiness, to which the others must be reduced. And thus we may gain the Practical Judgement of a right Philosopher: but yet in the Executive part we shall meet with many difficulties through humane frailty and natural impediments, which must be overcome by constant Exercise. Acts of Virtue confirm Habits, and Habits facilitate Acts. Virtus docetur arte, vita discitur. There are so many Errors and Lusts within the Soul, and such Temptations without, that this Summus Philosophus is but an Idea: and if there were any such, yet without true Piety he were but a painted Image.   

XVII. Of the Sceptikes and Cynikes.  
THere is scarcely any Humour of Men or Manner of Living, that hath any shadow of Happiness, which the Philosophers have not refined and dressed up in its best Attire, and so presented it to the World for the Chief Good: only Money, that common Idol of other men, was never professedly set up by any Philosopher: as Luther said of himself, that he had been tempered to all sins except Covetousness. The strangest kind of Philosophy, or rather the contradiction of all Philosophy, is Scepticism, which sprang up after all the rest, out of their Differences and Disputes. In all Ages when Scepticism abounds it is a most certain Symptom of the declination of true Philosophy, and a prognostike of a general decay thereof ensuing, which we may justly suspect in these times, wherein plain and solid Truth is every where arraigned, and men affecting the name of a Great Wit and Liberty of Spirit, leave the beaten path of true Learning and Wisdom and wander at large in the Wilderness of their own Imaginations: which at first much please and delight them, but afterward prove vain and unsatisfactory: and then they grow malcontent, and quarrel with all Learning, Knowledge, Reason, and Religion, like distracted men, who by too strong an intention of their Imagination have hurt their Cranium; so these by too much nicety and subtlety of Wit strain their Criterion. But the most dangerous is Practical Scepticism, which depends upon the other; and yet the other many times proceedeth from it. Men of loose and vicious lives, indulgent to their own Genius, cannot endure to be controlled neither by others, nor by their own Judgements: and therefore affect a Licentiousness in Thinking as well as in Acting. Others who are Dogmatic enough in Opinion prove sceptical in Practice, having a Form of Knowledge, but denying the Power thereof: yea many who have proceeded very far in the Practice thereof, being at last confuted by adverse Fortune, renounce Truth, and Virtue, and Religion, and yield up all to her: as Brutus said when he came to die, O Virtus, colui te ut rem, at tu nomen inane es! Socrates indeed professed, that he knew only this, that he knew nothing: which was a modest complaint arising from a thirsting desire of knowing more, not an abandoning of that he had already: for he was a constant Teacher and Instructor of others, and most clear and positive in all his Instructions, which is farthest from Scepticism: yea he was so contrary to it, that he affirmed it to be Madness and Wickedness to inquire of the Gods themselves concerning those things which men by their own reason and understanding might comprehend, as it is not to inquire of them concerning future Contingencies, which no Humane Reason can certainly foreknow. That Speech of Socrates was rather in opposition to the Sophisters, who know least, and yet were most peremptory in their opinions, and imposed them on others. Confidence without Reason, or taking Truth upon trust is a great impediment to sound Knowledge: but to despair of knowing any thing, and so to sit down in perpetual distrust, is an absolute bar to all Knowledge. Sceptikes place the Happiness of the Mind in a Tranquillity or Indifferency to all Opinions. There is undoubtedly one Truth, but they say there is no Reason which hath not a contrary Reason, so that Man cannot certainly know it. To what end then is Reason bestowed upon Man, if he can only hunt after Truth, and never find it out? He who despaireth to find it, looseth it, as well as he who mistakes it. A man in a Journey meeting with many several ways, and not knowing which to take, must inquire, and judge, and satisfy himself as well as he may, and so proceed: for should he stand still and spend the whole day in doubting and musing, he should certainly run into the same inconvenience which he seeks to avoid: whereas by pursuing the most likely way, he may more probably accomplish his intended Journey. If the danger of Erring, to which all Humane Nature is subject, were a sufficient excuse, not only Knowledge, but also all Action should cease. Judge's should not judge, Teachers should not teach, Professors of Physic or any other Art should not practise. Men should doubt of acting or not acting any thing, living, or not living, & so to avoid the Waves of uncertainty, sink into the Sea of confusion. Sceptikes are commonly in the School captious, in Life Satirists, in the State Neutral, in Religion Scoffers and Despisers, which are all as destructive Errors to Humane society, as can arise from any Dogmatical opinions. They generally incline to contradiction and are vehement in opposition, and yet know not but that their contrary Reason may be as weak as the other; And thus to presume that their own Negative Arguments are right and true is as much Dogmatical as any positive Affirmation, which shows the falseness and perversity of this Humour, which if it were true to itself the professors thereof should suspend all Reason whereby they act as Men, and only sit still and look about them like Beasts. As the Sceptikes were opposite to all Philosophy, so were the Cynikes to all Humanity: for considering the certain Miseries and uncertain Comforts of the Life of Man, they judged it best to contract themselves and all their affairs into as narrow a compass as they could, discharging themselves of whatsoever was more than necessary. Diogenes seeing a Boy drink out of his Hand, threw away his Dish: and Crates wished that the Stones of the River were Bread, as the Water is Drink, that so he might be furnished with a certain Provision by Nature. Hence they despised both the Flattery and Fury of Fortune, harding their Minds and Bodies against her, by lying in the Snow in Winter, and in the hot Sands in Summer, begging of Statues, and provoking common Whores to scold with them. Though Scepticism may seem Modesty, & Cynicism Humility, and Poverty of spirit as well as of all outward things, yet these Humours puff up the Mind with a conceit of Liberty & Greatness as much as any. Diogenes when he stood in the Market to be sold for a slave, and others cried out, Who will buy a good Slave? cried out as fast, Who will buy a good Master? and his behaviour toward Alexander was such, that it made him wish himself Diogenes if he were not Alexander. No mean condition could suffice him, nor could he like Parmenio, divide Empires, but resolved to conquer the World either by subduing, or by despising it. But this cannot be the true Happiness of Man, for though preparation and obstinacy are great advantages in suffering, whereby the very Boys of Sparta turned torments into sport and exercise, yet he is truly wise, who can both endure Evil, and enjoy Good, which is a temper most suitable to the whole State of Man: and the one without the other but an half part of Wisdom joined with as much Folly, for it order but one half of the Life of Man, and destroys the other. This strange and uncouth Sect had another Humour, far worse than the former, to despise & deride all others: which plainly discovers the vanity and petulancy thereof. Some have so great a Felicity of wit, that they make wit their greatest Felicity, jesting themselves out of all that is earnest, and will not suffer any solid Truth to fix upon them; but like fools, make a sport of every thing. Others think to jeer men out of their follies, and reform them by abusing them: Such Satirical scoffs and quips are like Squibs and Crackers, which do harm in Festivals, and no good in Fights: embittering and provoking ingen●ous spirits, and marring the best Reproofs, turning Physic into Poison. To make a sport of other men's Infirmities, is as impious and inhuman, as to laugh at their miseries. Heraclitus was far more charitable herein then Democritus: yet such is the natural pravity and malignancy of Men, that they delight almost as much in speaking▪ and hearing ill of others, as in their own praises; whereas the nature of the Tongue is not to wound, but to supple and heal. But the worst of this sort, and indeed rather a Devil then a Man, was Timon the Athenian, who hated all Mankind. It may be said of such Misanthropis, as it was of that conceited Misogynus, whose Mistress was Nullae, that it was like to prove a happy Match; for he loved Nulla, and Nullae loved him. They who hate all, deserv to be hated of all; which is a condition so far from Happiness, that no Humane thing can be more contrary unto it.   

XVIII. Of the Cyreniakes and Epicureans.  
THE Cyreniakes were most contrary to the Cynikes, as may appear by the discourse which passed between the two grand Masters of the Sects. Aristippus told Diogenes, That if he knew how to live at Court, he should not need to eat Herbs, and Diogenes answered him again, That if he knew how to eat Herbs, he should not need to live at Court. These Cyreniakes did not profess any state of universal Happiness, but pieced and patched it up with particular acts of Pleasure, chiefly Corporeal. Their main Argument which they use to defend this sensual Philosophy, is a sufficient Confutation thereof. They say that Man, while he is yet a Child, and not deluded with false opinions, doth naturally delight in Bodily Pleasure, and is offended with the least Pain, which only proveth it a Childish Felicity, and not far from Brutish, an Infant little differing from a Beast, being strong in Sense, and weak in Reason: but to make any Corporeal thing the Chief Good of a Rational Soul, is most Irrational. This sensual Lust or Love of Pleasure is always accompanied with a gross self-love, or rather proceedeth from it: which the Cyreniakes did openly profess and avow, making the whole world their Circumference, and themselves the Centre. Aristippus went so far, as to cast off Natural Affection to his Children, who are the next to a man's Self, yea as Limbs and Parts of the Parent: when he abdicated his Son, he approved it to be as just and natural, as to cut off his Hair, or pair his Nails when they grow offensive. Theodorus was so infamous for these gross opinions, that he was commonly called, The Atheist, and again Ironically, a God: for indeed he who denieth God, is his own God, making himself his utmost end, which is to Deify himself. Aristippus is the Patron of voluptuous Courtiers, and merry Companions; though he had fewest successors in the School, he hath most followers in the World. This Genial kind of Happiness consisteth in easy and delightful Studies, pleasant Discourses, amorous Fancies, Feast, Maskings, Revellings, and all kind of Courtship and Joviality, All which ravish weaker Minds, who when they enter into Prince's Courts, think them the only Heaven upon Earth, and their pomp and pleasure the very Life of the Gods, as the Cynic fitly styled them, Miracula Stultorum. men's spirits are no where better discovered then in a Court. Vain men having once tasted of the delights thereof, can hardly ever after endure to live privately, whereas a sober man will love a private life better than ever he did before. That which is most to be lamented, is the loss of many a Brave and Gallant man through this Humour of Geniality. How sad a thing is it to see the companions of an Ulysses charmed by this Circe, and transformed into Beasts, men like Aristippus, of great Wit and Learning, or as Petronius, Pares negotiis, fit for Business, and of excellent Abilities, to make no other use of them, then to trifle away their time more pleasantly, and ruin themselves more wittily, as strong Must resolving wholly into Spume and Vapour? All Ages are full of such Examples, but never did any man fool away a great Spirit, and a greater Fortune, like Mark Anthony; who was so far bewitched with his Cleopatra, that in the heat of the Battle of Actium, when the Empire of the World, his life, and all lay at stake, he fled from Augustus to pursue her; whereas if he had fled from her, he might very probably have pursued Augustus. The Epicureans far excel the Cyreniakes: for though they make Pleasure their Chief Good, yet they refine it from the dross and dregs, and exalt it from the particular acts and motions thereof, to a constant state of universal Delight: gratifying the Mind with all pleasing things, and defending it from grief and perturbation, in the midst of external pains: which opinion, if rightly understood, holds forth as high an Happiness as this World can afford, marshalling the several sorts of Pleasures according to their several natures and degrees, and making the Pleasure of Virtue to be Chief: for the enjoying whereof we should cheerfully endure any inferior pains or miseries. Yet they placed not this Happiness in the goodness of Virtue, but in the Pleasure thereof, But the Chief Good, and the Chief Happiness differ only in the Notion, and not in the Thing: For this Pleasure of Virtue cannot be had or enjoied without the Love of Virtue, from which it doth arise: To do a virtuous action without Love and Delight, is no Virtue; and to do it with the greatest Delight, is the greatest Virtue: and thus Epicurus well expresseth himself; That Pleasure may be separated from all other things, but not from Virtue: for all other things must be subordinate to Virtue, orherwise there is no true Pleasure in them. But as Cicero observeth, the Epicurean Opinion was very sublime and Philosophical, had their Practice been answerable unto it. Horace plainly confesseth himself — Epicuri de grege porcum. Those outward Pleasures, though admitted only as subservient to Virtue, so prevailed against it, that leaving the Mistress, they fell in love with the Maid, and instead of making Virtue the Chief Pleasure, made Pleasure the Chief Virtue. Thus was this most excellent Opinion, which dressed up Virtue in her fairest habit, and presented her most lovely aspect to the Minds of men vitiated by a corrupt Practice. Epicurus is the Institutor of a Private and Sedentary Life, prescribing to dwell in a Garden of Pleasure, enjoying the purest delights of Nature, and entertaining our selus with most beautiful Contemplations, or good Society, free from all cares and troubles. Pomponius Atticus was a most exact man in this kind of Life, and far more happy than all the great Conquerors of his time, who troubled the World and themselves with their vast Designs, and great Enterprises. This Epicurus thought to be the Happiness of God; and did not only separate him from the care of Men, but also Men from the care of God: esteeming all Religion as Superstition, or the impertinent curiosity of a fearful Mind. Yea, he seems to separate us from the mutual care of one another, by withdrawing us from all public affairs, which must maintain every private State: and therefore we ought to share in the Burden as well as in the Benefit; and when it becomes our Duty, is also part of our Happiness.   

XIX. Of the Stoikes and Peripatetikes.  
THE Epicureans favoured those Affections which entertain Pleasure, and mortified those which induce Pain, but the Stoikes considering the great passion and perturbation which both the one and the other cause in the soul, renounced them all, and retired to the highest and purest region of Man, which is his Mind: as the Poet doth excellently describe it in his 6. Aeneid, 
Igneus est ollis vigour & coelestis origo  
Seminibus: quantum non noxia corpora tardant,  
Terrenique hebetant artus, moribundaque membra:  
Hinc metuunt, gaudentque, dolent, cupiuntque, nec auras  
Respiciunt clausae tenebris, & carcere caeco.   
Comparing the Soul and Body of Man to Heaven and Earth. The Mind, which he calls a Heavenly seed, is pure and Ethereal, enjoying perpetual peace in all its motions, like the Heavenly Orbs. But the Body, like the Earth, of which it is made, is dull and heavy, and the Affections, as the Air or middle Region between both, by Vapours ascending from the Earthly members, fill the Soul with Clouds and Tempests, which darken and imprison the Heavenly Light. Now the Stoikes would have us live above these Clouds, like Angels and Spirits: but we can no more live in this World without Affections, then without Bodies: nor may we affect a Separate state in this Life. The Rational and Sensitive parts of Man are not two distinct Persons, as an Horse and his Rider; but rather like the Poetical ficton of the Centaur, who was both Horse and Rider in one, so that the one being wounded, the other feels it, and sympathizes with it. Thus the Mind rules the Fancy and Affections, and they excite or damp the Corporeal spirits, and cause fluxes and refluxes of them: and so likewise the Body by the Humours thereof irritates the Fancy and Affections, and they tempt and solicit the Mind: but as the Inferior part cannot compel the Superior, so the Superior may not abdicate or sequester the Inferior. Wherefore it may be justly admired how the Stoikes, who made it their Chief End to live according to the Nature of the Universe, should not allow Man to live according to the Universality of his own Nature, in the full latitude and extent thereof. It is an high exprobration of God and Nature, to think that these Affections were placed in us, only to be opposed and trampled on, as evil: whereas indeed they are of greatest use, being the Wings of the Soul, and quickest Inciters of Action. What a dull thing were Generation and Nutrition, if there were no Concupiscence? What comfort in educating Children without Natural Affection? What spur to mutual Opitulation, if there were no pity? So that to deprive Man of his Affections which mediate between the Soul▪ and Body, is to murder himself; to forbid natural Affection, is to ruin whole Families: to deny Pity, is to wrong all Mankind: which last is the most bloody and barbarous Sentence in all the Stoical Philosophy: for though they allow some other Faculties in the Rational part, analagous' to those Sensitive Affections which apprehend Good (and undoubtedly the Angels have some such Powers of exercising their Love and Hate, Joy and Grief, and the like) yet they wholly exclude Pity, as well as Fear and Grief, from a wise man, because these pierce and wound the Soul; though being rightly exercised, they may be as instrumental to Reason, and produce as happy effects as the other. But these and such like are Philosophical Conceits and Braveries, like the Poetical labours of Hercules, as much exceeding the condition of the Soul, as the other the strength of the Body: and their own Practice commonly confuted their Opinion. Dionysius, one of that Sect, being vexed with a very sore pain in his eyes, was forced to confess that Pain is no indifferent thing. Antigonus caused a servant to step in suddenly, and tell Perseus, the Scholar of Zeno, that the Enemies had plundered his house, whereupon perceiving him very much troubled, he convinced him that Riches were no such indifferent thing as he professed. To take away Affections is unnatural, but not to manage them rightly, is irrational, and so against the Nature of Man, whose Reason is his Guide and Governor, instead of all those Natural Instincts in Brute Beasts, which move and limit their Affections; and therefore when Man neglects to rule them by Reason, they hurry him away violently beyond the fury and lust of Beasts. We should never be wholly acted and possessed by them, as a Sea is universally troubled with a Tempest: but keep them always in our own hand and power, as Ulysses did the Winds in a Bottle, letting them out more or less, as he pleased. There are three several ways of governing them. First, by the Light of Understanding and right Reason, to dissolve and dissipate the Cloud of Passion. Secondly, by keeping under the Body (the Humours and Vapours whereof do feed and nourish our Affections) to tame them. Thirdly by committing them among themselves, and tempeting one with another, to break them. The Peripatetikes, who were more accurate and judicious in the study of Nature than the Stoikes, or any other Sect of Philosophers, allow Man all things whatsoever which do belong to his Nature, to make up his perfect Happiness; not only the exercise of his Affections, but all other good things where of he is capable from the highest to the lowest. Both Stoiker and Peripatetikes agree the Chief Happiness of Man to be Virtue, but the Stoikes place it in the Habit of Virtue, and the Peripatetikes in the Act▪ and yet the Stoikes were generally greater Practisers and Actors of Virtue than the Peripatetikes. But these two Opinions may be thus reconciled. The Stoikes intend such an Habit of Virtue which produceth the Acts thereof, and the Peripatetikes such Acts of Virtue as flow from the Habit thereof: and so the Habitual Felicity of the Soul consisteth in the Habit of Virtue, and the Actual Felicity in virtuous Actions. The Foundation is the Habit, but the Act or Exercise is the Perfection. A virtuous Intention or Endeavor is some kind of Exercise of the Habit, and instead of the Act, but not so noble and illustrious, because it wanteth an outward existence. Aristotle's Happy man is an Hero or Hercules, made up of all Humane Excellencies. His Zodiac of Virtues reacheth from Head to Feet, from Magnanimity to Urbanity. Both which, though some severer Christians have arraigned as vicious, and exceeding the just proportion of Virtue in both extremes, yet certainly in a sober sense may well be allowed. True Magnanimity is not opposed to Humility, but to Baseness and Meanness of Spirit, yea it consenteth with Humility against Pride. Africanus, the most perfect example of all Aristotle's Virtues, is famous for both. His Magnanimity was so great, that his very stately deportment and outward presence, as Livy reporteth of him, drew many out of the Country round about to behold him, and his Greatness of Spirit was sufficiently testified by his Great Actions: and yet his Humility was as great, both in his private conversation, and also in his most willing submission to the Commonwealth; so that he waived all those fair advantages he had of making himself as absolute as Caesar: and by a voluntary recess, yielded to the injuries and ingratitude of the People, rather than he would make any commotion in the State. Nor is Urbanity an enemy or Gravity, but to Rusticity, and opposeth Levity as much as it. Socrates, Cato Major, and other sober men have been very pleasant and facetious. Xenophon was very virtuous, and no less elegant. I do not affect to defame Philosophy, nor by depressing it, to exalt Christianity: but rather suck out of every Flower whatsoever may make an Ingredient of this Universal Happiness of Man. The chief thing wanting in all those Philosophers is true Piety, which is the same proportionably toward God, as Virtue is toward Man, and therefore if there be any Happiness in Virtue, it cannot be perfect, nor indeed true, without Piety.   

XX. Of the Platonikes, and of Socrates.  
ARistotle is called the Philosopher, and Plato the Divine. Aristotle was a man of the sharpest Reason among all the Philosophers; but he relied so much on Reason, that he both neglected Sense, and sensible Experiments, and denied Faith and Divine Mysteries. His Rational discourses and Metaphysical notions are most probable, and exactly Philosophical: but his Empirical observations very uncertain, and unworthy so great a Philosopher: and his opinions concerning matters of Faith, as the Creation of the World, and dissolution thereof, most false and absurd. As Physicians and Chemical Philosophers have exceeded him in the former, so the Platonikes and Theologists in the latter. Plato having travailed into Egypt, was there by the Priests instructed in their Mystical Divinity, which the Egyptians most probably received from joseph, and the Hebrews, corrupting it with their own Idolatry and Traditions. But he as a Philosopher endeavoured to refine it with the Grecian Theology, which he had learned from his Master Socrates, and his own Speculations. We may find in him some fragments, and little Airs of the most profound Mysteries in Divinity, but so broken and imperfect▪ that they are rather matter of admiration to us Christians to read them in a Heathen, than any clear information or evidence of the Truth. He attributes much to the authority of the Ancients, as better and wiser than Posterity, but propounds no Word of Divine Truth on which to ground a Belief. Yet he happily hit upon the true End and Chief Happiness of Man, which is to be made like unto God by a conjunction of the Mind with him, erecting Piety above Virtues and so leads us into another World, acquainting us familiarly with God, and Angels, and spiritual Ideas, by abstracting the Soul from those inferior and Corporeal things, and advancing it to the Contemplation of the first Cause, and Creator of all things: which is a most beautiful and glorious Vision, and a great advantage to true Piety and Religion. Yet notwithstanding these high speculations, he seems to fall short in the Practice of Divinity. I do not speak of his own exemplary Practice, but of his Practical documents, and rules concerning true Piety and the power of Godliness. As Aristotle in his Natural Philosophy, so he in his Divinity are generally more Notional than Practical. Of the Philosophers who either preceded or succeeded, Socrates was certainly the ablest and wisest, and himself the most perfect Example of his own Doctrine, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and others before him are dark and obscure, full of Imaginary Fancies and Cabalistical conceits. The seven Wise men may be all summed up in one Socrates. Plato, Aristotle, and all who followed him are more notional and Sophistical: nor could any of his own Scholars exactly follow him, but presently degenerated into vain Opinions, and a more licentious Life: nor do we read of any distinct Sect of Socratikes, but rather all succeeding Philosophy, and the several sorts thereof, were Branches growing up out of this Root. Plato followed him in Divinity, seeking to improve it with Mystical traditions, Xenophon was most like him in Civil conversation, but more Glorious and Active. The Peripatetikes followed his Study of Nature: but are more subtle and Sophistical. The Stoikes chose his study of Virtue and professing to live according to the Universal Nature: but stretched it to a strange severity and most unnatural Inhumanity. The Cyreniakes and Epicureans pretended to his pure delights and freer use of Pleasures: but defiled them with gross voluptuousness. The Cynikes emulated his contempt of all unnecessary things, and that excellent sentence, That he who needeth least, is most like God, but became Brutish and Nasty. The Sceptikes his opposing the presumptuous confidence of the Sophisters, pursuing it so far that they overthrew all his foundations of Truth and Knowledge. He had a very clear and right Understanding of all the Affairs of Life from the meanest and most Mechanical, to the highest and most Intellectual, and made it his Business to edify others, that every man with whom he conversed might be bettered by his company: which is a most Noble and Divine employment. Observe his discourses in the Streets with Strangers and Passengers, in the Shops with Artificers, in his House with his Family, in his Meetings and Symposiums with merry Company, in his Conferences with his Scholars, and in public Assemblies with the Citizens; and you shall find in them all most apposite and solid Instructions concerning all occasions of Life, Private, Domestical, Civil, Military, Natural, and Divine, in a free and familiar way of arguing by mutual Conference, and a rational Induction through undeniable concessions, without any cunning Sophistry or flourishing Rhetoric, and yet more persuasive and effectual then either. He was absolutely the best Master of Life among all Heathen. Horace a good Critike, though herein he prefer Homer, and the Poets before Chrysippus, and Crantor, and such other curious disputers; yet instructs his Poet to borrow Matter from Socratical Philosophy. Rem tibi Socraticae possnnt ostendere chartae. But the most strange and wonderful thing in him was his familiar conversing with a God, or Daemon, who, as he professeth, ever certainly advised in all doubtful affairs. It hath been a known Policy in many Great men to make their Laws and Counsels seem Oraculous, by pretending that a Deity dictated unto them: So did Numa, Sertorius, Mahomet, and others: but none of them so credibly true as this. Probably God might inspire him with an extraordinary Spirit of Natural Wisdom, & perhaps with a Spirit of Divination in this way of Counsel and Advice concerning future and contingent things: as he did revele higher and more divine things to Balaam, and the Sibyls: yet I dare not with Erasmus almost Canonize him for a Saint, nor with Socinians be confident of his Salvation. Xenophon in his Apology for him tells us how he worshipped the same Gods which the City worshipped, and taught him to sacrifice to their false Gods. As the Oracle of Apollo did him the honour to pronounce him the Wisest of men, so he requited it by acknowledging him a God, and accepting his Testimonial. Though probably, as we may guests by Plato's discourses, he esteemed those inferior Gods as Daemons and Spirits of a more Divine nature then Men, yet this doth not excuse him of Idolatry, nor can such worshipping of Angels or Spirits be allowed in any true Divinity. And though he were most free from Vulgar or Philosophical pride, yet there are strong arguments of suspicion, that he was guilty of that spiritual pride which most opposeth Salvation. In his Life, and at his Death he judged himself the best of Men, and expresseth little or no confession of Sin, or any thing like Christian Humility. Without which there can be no true conversion to God nor Communion with him, and without Divine Communion the Soul cannot attain her true and perfect Happiness.    

The Second Book Of the True HAPPINESS Of MAN.  

I. of Religion.  
WE have now travailed over the Terrestrial Globe, and shall proceed to describe the Celestial; not as Astronomers, who delineate it by Epicycles and Eccentrikes, and such like Imaginary things, nor as Poets, who fill it with Giants and Beasts, and Fabulous Monsters: but as it is in itself, and may be best discovered by its own Light. Religion is the Law of the Supreme King, commanding and directing that Duty and Worship which we owe unto him, and rewarding us with that Happiness which we may enjoy in him, both which consist together in the conjunction of the Mind and Will of Man with the Mind and Will of God. As the highest Knowledge of God which the Heathen attained, was dark and doubtful, so was their service weak and saint. The Athenians inscribed their Altar, To the unknown God, and their Worship was as vain and ignorant. Whom therefore, saith the Apostle, ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you: Where he plainly showeth the difference between Heathenish Worship of God and true Religion. They had some glimmering apprehensions of God, If haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: but they abused it with their Idolatry, and corrupted it with their Lives, being so taught by their Priests and Poets, who made Gods of Men, and Men of Gods, attributing Divine Virtues to their Hero's, and Humane Vices to their Deities. Yea the Philosophers, who justly condemn them for this double Impiety, yet fall short of the Glory of God, gazing on him at a great distance, and retaining this Knowledge as a Secret or Mystery in Nature, being indeed afraid of the People, who were prepossessed with their own Idolatry, which was the Religion of the Stat●, and therefore might not be contradicted or disputed. And it is observable of all such national Religions, that they may be more safely abused then denied. The Poets were allowed to corrupt their Divinity with their Fables, rather than the Philosophers to reduce it to Truth. Socrates himself so far complied with this Policy of State, that he prescribed to worship God according to the manner of the Country, subjecting the rule of God's worship to the Laws and Customs of Men: which shows the weakness of the highest Philosophy in the practical part of Religion, which is the life and strength thereof; Whereas the Apostle directly encounters the Athenian Idolatry, and plainly preaches unto the People the Doctrine of the true Deity, of Creation, Providence, Sin, Redemption, Repentance, Resurrection, and the last Judgement. All false Religions are most Cabalistical and reserved, thereby seeking to gain the reputation of Sacred, and are satisfied with a vain Admiration, and blind Devotion: but true Religion freely and clearly reveals itself to the world, not concealing the most difficult points, and Mysterious parts thereof: though sublime Truths be most offensive to weak Minds. Immanis verit as proxima est mendacio, that is, in their apprehensions who cannot well undestand it, yet being sure of itself, and like a great Light, impossible to be hid, it shines forth in its own beams, and fears not to appear as it is, however men may entertain it. The Jews and Christians had commonly a more familiar knowledge of the highest points in Divinity, than the greatest Philosophers, and though all do not express the power & efficacy thereof, yet some Holy men have exceedingly transcended the best of Heathenish Devotion. But nothing more discovers their weak Knowledge of true Piety, than their ignorance of the true nature of Sin, which is the contrary, or privation thereof. They speak of it generally under the notion of Vice, as it is a depravation of Nature, and common Enemy to Mankind, but rise not to the Infinite aggravation thereof, which is the transgression of the Royal Law of an Infinite God, and a direct opposition of the Creature to the Creator, wherein the very Sinfulness thereof doth consist: as David clearly saw and confessed, Against thee, thee only have I sinned. So likewise all their Doctrine of Moral Virtue, whereof they so much boast, tendeth to their own Praise and Merit, the Good of others, and the perfection of the Universe, rather than the Glory of God, which is the only Religious and Supreme End, infusing Holiness into all inferior actions, by subordinating them to itself. True Religion consists in a true Belief, and true Love of God. There is in all men some kind of Belief of God, but being conscious to themselves, they fly from him as their greatest Contrary; as it is said of the Devils, They believ and tremble. This terror and trembling puts Atheists upon a strife, and endeavour within themselves to cast off their Belief, which yet they can never do, but that at some time or other it will recoil upon them with greater trouble and horror of Mind. It makes the Superstitious to fear and worship God as a severe Master in a base and servile manner, with the drudgery of Duties, especially such as are most rigorous and cruel. It makes Hypocrites to bribe their Own Consciences, and flatter God with a show of Holiness, which is rather a worshipping of Men then God. Thus Poets frame a Religion according to their own Fancy; and Philosophers according to their imperfect Reason; and Statesmen shape it according to Policy and Reason of State; and the Religious dress it up in several forms and fashions according to Tradition, and their own Humours; and naturally every man propounds to himself such a Religion as will serve his own turn, and whereby he may be sure to be saved: yea some are so uncharitable to exclude all others which are not exactly of their size. But the sum and substance of true Religion is contained in that great Commandment, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy Hart, with all thy Soul, and with all thy Might: This Love unites the Soul to God, with infinite Joy and Delight in him, which is the highest enjoyment of the Chief Good, and the perfect Happiness of Man.   

II. Of Faith.  
REason is most properly exercised in things of Nature, and Faith in matters of Religion; it being the Echo of Divine Authority, yet not merely as an Echo, which reporteth the sound without any sense of Hearing; nor the Echo of a Parasitical assentation, Ais aio, negas nego, which is a Flattery furthest from Belief; nor the vulgar Implicit Faith depending upon the Authority of men; but an Intellectual assent, and a Voluntary consent to that which is reveled by God. Our Great Wits set up Reason instead of Faith, and the light of Nature against Divine Light, which is at once to deprive man of his highest Faculty, and God of his greatest Grace. As if because a Dog usually hunts by Sent, we should deny that he can see by Sight. Faith in general is as natural to a Man as Reason, and he may aswell know by Believing as by Discoursing: yea, it is a more clear and certain knowledge of the very Objects of Reason then Reason itself, by relying on a Divine Authority. Through saith, faith the Apostle, we understand that the Worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear: which yet may be comprehended by the strength of natural Reason, for he saith elsewhere. That the invisible things of God from the Creation of the World are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead: but the same Word which created the World, creates a Belief in a spiritual Understanding. Belief is in this life in stead of Intuition, & shall at last be resolved into it. Naturalists admire Socrates, and cry him up for an high Instance of the sufficiency of natural Light to instruct a man in the way of true Virtue and Piety, and they willingly admit of those Inspirations of a God or Daemon whereof he speaketh, and yet will not allow the like to Christians in the ordinary way of a spiritual Belief. Faith and Reason, like Antipodes, seem contrary, but both meet in their Centre, Truth. Right Reason leads us to Faith, but leavs us there, and resigns us up to it. If God were not omnipotent he could not justly not reasonably command us to believ whatsoever he saith, but being such, it is most irrational not to believ him: for this were to confine the Infinite Creator of all things within the Finite Circle of this World and the Sphere of Nature, which is the utmost extent of the Ken of Reason. Surely this whole Universe is but a small portion of his power & workmanship, who is able to create new Worlds, and a new Nature of things: but this is the most natural corruption of the Mind of Man, to exalt itself against the Glory of God, by setting up Natural Light against Faith, as Works against Grace, and so confine God within our Compass, as Conjurers deal with Spirits, Certainly Adam in his primitive state was generally capable of believing any Divine Revelations which were or might be presented unto him. That very Commandment concerning the forbidden fruit was a Statute specially enacted and published by God, and no part of the Common Law written in his hart: and his first sin was Infidelity, since which we are all naturally most prone to it, and the Saving Grace or Remedy is Faith: Adam's Faith was a work whereby he was to be justified, and the chief part of his obedience, and such a Faith was also in Christ the second Adam believing in God concerning those things which as Man he could not foreknow. But this Kind differs much from Evangelicall Faith, which doth not justify as a work, but as an Instrumental Mean, whereby we apply unto our selus the Merits of another. Yet though there be remaining in Man's Nature Faith aswell as Reason, there is no saving Faith left in him but only such a malignant Faith as is in the Devils, for as the Natural man cannot know the things of God by a Practical Knowledge, producing Love and Obedience, unless he be first taught of God, so neither can he so know Christ nor believ in him, unless it be given to him to believ. This is Life Eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and jesus Christ him whom thou hast sent. God is said to confound the wisdom of the Wise by the Gospel of Faith, which declareth unto them, that without believing they cannot be saved, and yet without a supernatural Grace they cannot believ. Thus being confounded in themselves, and not knowing how to escape, they break through all, and will not allow others that Faith which they have not themselves though they cannot deny that it is possible for God to do that which is believed nor is it improbable that he should make them believ it for whom he hath prepared it. As God is the chief Good and perfect Happiness of the soul, so by Faith, which is the highest Knowledge we have in this world, the Soul enjoys him, and by him the most excellent Gifts and Graces whereof it is capable.   

III. Of the Scriptures.  
THe Scripture of Word of God in Paradise was the Moral Law written in Man's heart, and the revelation of extraordinary commands. After the fall God immediately preached to Adam, & while the Church was confined within Families lie taught them by Visions and Revelations; but when he began to found the national Church of the Jews, he delivered unto them written Laws and the Examples of former times, from the very first Creation, and so proceeded by Prophetical revelation to the End of the World, and then was the Scripture finished and sealed up by the last of the Apostles, as a perfect Institution, or Pandect of all things requisite to be known or believed for the salvation of Man. The First Evidence of the Divinity of the Scripture, is that of all other Books in the world, it most clearly and familiarly discovers unto us the God of Nature in a most glorious and worthy manner. The Second this, that the Moral Law, and the sum of all Duties toward God and Man are in it most perfectly declared. Though since the fall there may still remain in the Mind of Man some scattered fragments and obscure characters thereof, yet they are so much defaced and disordered, that they cannot be plainly read, nor otherwise restored then by setting forth the second Edition by the same Author, according to the first Original: without which we might have spent our whole Lives, as the Philosophers did, in doubting and disputing, while we should be practising and obeying. The Third, that it fully describeth the whole History of the world from the first Creation to the Dissolution thereof; joining with those Precepts of the Law the Examples and Monuments of all Ages. The Last, that the Divine Sentence, Nosse teipsum, of which juvenal saith, Coelo descendit, is not only prescribed herein, but also performed by this clear Mirror, whereby the Face of the Soul and the Secrets of the Hart are made manifest; and therefore we ought to confess that God is in it of a truth. These Arguments which are natural and rational Demonstrations may be some persuasion to believ these supernatural Truths with which they are accompanied. As a man whom we know to be grave and true in all his other Discourses, is the more credited in relating things strange and wonderful: or as Socrates said of the writings of Heraclitus, What he understood was very good, and so he did believ that to be which he understood not. And in the matters of Faith which the Scriptures revele unto us there is no Unreasonableness, though they are above Reason, nor Inconsistency among themselves, yea the wholly Symmetry and Analogy of Faith is more glorious and beautiful than the very Law of Nature and Reason itself. This blessed Harmony and just Proportion is the surest Index of all the parts, and the best Interpreter of the most doubtful points: the neglect whereof hath introduced all Errors and Heresies in the Church, which are no other than the Monstrous Mutilations, Excrescences, or Distortions of the particular Members of the Body of Faith not corresponding to the Whole, commonly occasioned by wresting the Text, or too curious criticising upon it. Though that which is picked out of it sometimes may be true in itself, yet if it be beyond the scope and meaning, it is a belying of the Holy Spirit, making him speak that which he never intended: and this emboldens to do the like another time, for the maintaining of such Opinions as are neither true in this Text, nor in the Thing. This is the dangerous Humour of our Age, wherein men hunting after new Notions and sublime Mysteries, gather up all these Allegorical and Sophistical Expositions which Calvin and other sound Textuaries have with great Judgement rejected, and so patch up a new kind of Divinity with these Cento's of Scripture and their own specious Conceptions and strange Fancies. As for the Style of Scripture, it is very admirable, though by reason of the Idioms of the Times and Languages wherein it was wrote it may now seem to us uncouth and strange; yet, if we rightly attend it, we shall find in it a wonderful mixture of Simplicity and Majesty, Perspicuity and Mystery, being sometimes dark and cloudy, and sometimes again thundering and lightning, and shooting flashes of sacred fire into the hart of the Reader, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the Soul and Spirit, and of the Joints and Marrow. The very first verse of the Divine Evangelist; which by superstitious persons is used as a Charm or Exorcism, proved an holy spell to Francis junius, metamorphosing him from an Atheist to a Christian. I cannot but wonder how Politian, or any judicious Critik, could so far undervalue the Scripture, as to disparage and despise it. Certainly, though it express not so much elegancy as to humour vain minds, yet it hath sufficient to defend itself from contempt, and is most apt and genuine for the Divine matter which it expresseth: we may justly suspect they never faithfully studied it, nor well relished the matter and scope thereof; and then no wonder if they contemn it, as many Wise men do their Tully and Virgil, because they were never well versed in them, nor rightly understand their Art and Intention. But a true Believer, who apprehends the true Sense and Savour of the Scriptures, looks upon them as God's Great Charter to Man, and the Evidences of all his Happiness.   

IV. Of God.  
IN the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth. God who made the World, and no Ay saw him, and who only can dissolve it, and best knows how and when he will do it, hath most evidently set it forth in his Word: whereas the Philosophers speak doubtfully of it, and are strangely perplexed and troubled about it. Divine Knowledge proceeds from Causes to Effects, and begins with God the first Cause of all things: but they according to the way of Humane Reason proceed from Effects to Causes, and so travailing to the utmost end of Nature's Firm Land, find out those first created Principles of Matter, and Atoms which are but the Dust of Matter, and a Chaos or Heap of all things, and discovering nothing beyond these but a Vast Ocean and Gulf of Infinity, rather turn back into the bosom of Nature, and ascribe this self-creating power, which is infinite and eternal, to those lowest and meanest things, then to an infinite and eternal Creator, though God seemeth purposely so to have ordered the Course of Nature that the most perfect things should be constituted of things less perfect, that thereby we might be led on to the acknowledgement of him: for if the Superior Natures, as Angels and Men, had produced the inferior, we might more reasonably have supposed them to be the first Causes of themselves and others: but to deify Matter, or Atoms, and make them our Creators, is most irrational. Though Philosophy seems to doubt it, yet all Religions and all Nations have confessed an Eternal Creator. Every Creature is a Letter of his Name, and the beautiful Fabric of the whole World plainly spells a Deity: and as the Creatures prove a Creator, so also they prove both what he is not, that is, not like them, finite and vain; and in some sort what he is, that is, the infinite perfection of all these excellencies which are in them, and infinitely more in himself then them all. Thus David argues. He that planted the Ear shall he not hear, and he that framed the Ey shall not he see, He that teacheth Man Knowledge shall not he know? That is God in his own Divine and Infinite manner doth see, and hear, and understand all things, as we do in our finite and imperfect manner: the Excellency thereof must be attributed to him, but the Imperfection must be removed from him. So he is said to be angry at sin, that is, he is a perfect enemy to all Sin; but Passion and Offence, which is an Infirmity in us, may not be conceived of him. Thus God himself vouchsafeth to condescend to our capacities, interpreting and translating himself into our Language by Anthropopathies and Anthropomorphies, and the like. If we might only speak properly of him, it were impossible for us to express or apprehend him: for nothing can be univocally predicated of God, and the Creature, there being an infinite disproportion between them. So God is infinitely Good not by any multiplication of degrees above us which do not alter the Species of Goodness, but in another kind of Infinite Goodness, for no multiplication of degrees can arise to an Infinity. As our Saviour said. There is none Good but God▪ that is, as he is Good; so we may also say, There is none but God, that is, as he is whose Name is jam. Again, our Notions of Essence and Goodness being Finite, the expressions thereof cannot perfectly declare him who is Infinite, and therefore are not properly predicated of him: but those and the like highest Titles of Nature, as Substance, Spirit, Act, must be understood of him infinitely otherwise then of us: for, To whom shall we liken God, or what likeness shall we compare unto him? He is that Rule of Goodness, that General and Metaphysical Good whereof we speak at large, and therefore Abstracts do better express him, than Concretes and Adjectives. He is Being, Bonity, Power, Wisdom, justice, Mercy itself, and so it is said, God is Love, not properly, but potentially and infinitely, and as he is One, because he is Infinite, so also because he is Infinite all these must necessarily be One in him, yea One with himself: for an Infinite cannot consist of Parts, which cannot be all Infinite, because they are many, and if they be Finite, cannot make up one Infinite. Therefore the highest conception we can have of God is, that he is One Infinite Perfection in himself, which is eminently and virtually all Perfections of the Creatures: and the most perfect knowledge we have of him is, that we cannot perfectly know him, because we do know him to be thus infinitely perfect: yet is this knowledge sufficient to make us perfectly happy in the enjoiment of him, whom we know to be virtually and effectually all Finite Good, and Infinitely Good in himself. Let us therefore look round about the whole frame of Nature, and view all the parts thereof, considering all their Excellencies as so many Rays of Divine Glory, whereof he is the Sun from which they proceed, and on whom they depend, comprehending all in himself as their first Cause, in whom they were potentially before they were created. Then let us ascend above the highest Heavens, and the whole Compass of Nature, which cannot contain him, and go forth out of this World into that vast and boundless Temple of Immensity and Eternity which he inhabiteth, and at once universally possesseth, and so return into the bosom of that Infinity out of which we have proceeded. Let us consider the possible effects of an unlimited Power, and we shall find Worlds very cheap with him, who made this great Globe out of nothing. Let us contemplate that Infinite Goodness which exceedeth all Covetousness, and that Glory which surpasseth all Ambition, and ground all upon the real foundation of Being itself, and so fill and overwhelm our selus in this Ocean of endless Perfection. From this height of Contemplation let us look back again upon the World, which will appear to us but as a shadow of his Being, a Molehill full of busy Ants, or a show of self-moving Puppets, acting their parts upon a Stage set up for that purpose, which must be taken down when the Play is done. This is true Liberty and Greatness of Mind, full of truth and delight, and worthy our selus whom God hath made capable thereof. They who travail over divers Countries, thereby greatly enlarge their Spirits, and reflect upon that corner of the Earth in which they were born with other Eyes then when they set forth; The fancy of Lucian, who placeth Charon on the top of an high hill viewing all the affairs of living men, and looking on their greatest Cities as little Birds nests, is very pleasant. Socrates by making himself a Citizen of the Universe, became an Universal Freeman. But all those Contemplations are still bounded within the Circle of a finite Nature. Let us escape out of this Prison of the World, and enfranchise our Souls by restoring them to their native and perfect Liberty. Let us realize and eternize all things by enjoying them in him who is All in All, which is such an Ingredient in all our Good things, as doth not only Sanctify, but Deify them, and without which they are as vain and nothing in the Enjoyment, as they are in their own Being without him. Thus the Soul being united to God by that Union, partakes of his Unity and Universality, resting on him as in its Centre, and enjoying all the Creatures as so many Lines Streaming from him, and again reflecting unto him, having no other Inclination, Motion, nor End, but only God himself, in whom it dwells and abides for ever   

V. Of Christ.  
IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. The same Word was also made Flesh; and so the Founder of the First World became the foundation of the second; which is a World of Mysteries and of Faith, as the first was a World chiefly of Nature and Reason. Now these being two several Worlds or Natures of things, it is as irrational to measure matters of Faith by Reason, as it is to weigh the Air, or measure a Spirit. It begins with the great Mystery of Mysteries, the Trinity, and so proceeding to the Incarnation of the Son of God, end● in our Mystical Union with Christ and God. The Deity of the Creator may be plainly proved by the Creation, which is the Work and Effect thereof, but Divines say that the Works of the Trinity out of themselves are undivided, and so nothing in Nature can lead us to that distinction of Persons in the Godhead, nor demonstrate it to us. Yet there is nothing in this great Mystery contrary to Reason, though it be far above it: for they are not three Infinites, not three and one in the same consideration, but three in one, that is, three Persons in one Nature. The Nature and Unity of God are both Infinitely divers from ours, & therefore unless Finite Reason should limit Infinity, it must acknowledge that it may be so, and Faith believeth that it is so: but neither Reason nor Faith can possibly comprehend how it is so, because it is infinitely and incomprehensibly so. The Incarnation of the Son of God is a Mystery almost as wonderful as the former, and evidently setteth forth the Mystery of the other: for God the Son only is incarnate, and not God the Father, nor God the Holy Ghost, though they all equally partake of the same Divine Nature which is incarnate. Besides there are two Natures infinitely divers united in one Person. Therefore Arrians and Socinians who deny the Divinity of Christ, do also deny the Trinity, which is the ground thereof. This Mystery is so far above all natural Reason, that it cannot possibly be comprehended by it, and therefore most improbable to be the Invention or Conception thereof: for certainly Reason would rather have produced something like itself, or at least that which it might in some sort comprehend, as all false Religions have done. The sinfulness of all men doth evidently demonstrate the necessity of a Saviour, and the nature of sin, being a transgression of the Divine Law of the Creator, binding the Creature to perfect and perpetual obedience, shows the necessity of a Divine Saviour. There is no other Name under Heaven given among men whereby we may be saved, nor hath any Religion or Philosophy offered to the World any other probable way of Man's Salvation: and yet the Mind of Man is naturally so far from Saving Faith, that it hardly entertains an Historical Faith of Christ's Divinity and Incarnation. Men have stretched their Reason and Fancy to the utmost to find out any other way of Salvation, rather than accept of this which is most Glorious and Divine. Philosophers seem to weigh our Virtues with our Vices, and according to the preponderation of either, denominate us Good or Bad, and so deliver, us up to Reward or Punishment, Whereas Man being bound to perfect obedience to the very utmost capacity of his Nature, the least Sin attaints the Soul, as one Act of Treason makes a Traitor. The Poet's Fancy a Purgatory in another world wherein all are to be cleansed and purified, as Virgil describes it, 
Ergo exercentur panis, veterumque malorum  
Supplicia expendunt: aliae panduntur inanes  
Suspensae ad ventos: aliis sub gurgite vasto  
Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igne.  
Quisque suos patimur Manes—  But though we should admit of such a washing away the Filth of sin, yet this is no abolition of the Gild. Imprisonment is no payment, and punishment no satisfaction, but the perpetual Vengeance of an unsatisfied Justice; and can no more restore a past defect, then make that which is done to be undone. julian the Apostate in despite of Christ set up a Poetical Saviour, Aesculapius the God of Physic, who coming down in the beams of the Sun his father should purge the World from Sin and Evil. But this is a Creed of his own making, and believed by none but himself. Heathenish Religion taught the purging away of sin by the blood of Bulls and Goats; which shows the common opinion of the World, that there should be some bloody Sacrifice for sin. But certainly if a man's own sufferings cannot expiate Sin, much less the Suffering of Brute Creatures Mahomet and others have pretended to be Saviors of the World, but none knows how, nor doth all their Doctrine hold forth any probable Colour or Shadow of effecting it: whereas the Incarnation of that Son of God who took upon him the Humanity, to that very end that he might satisfy for Man, and so was no otherwise obliged to obedience, and by his Divinity infuseth an Infinite Virtue into all his merits, and is able to regenerate aswell as redeem, doth most perfectly suit with our necessities, and fully supply them. His own Doctrine, Life, and Death are the best Arguments of his Divinity, yet doth he not want other testimonies, The Sacrifices of the Patriarches and the Jewish Types, did prefigure him. The Prophets were his Harbingers to bespeak places and seasons for him. The Martyrs his Heralds to proclaim him to the World, dying in that Belief which the nature of Man so much opposeth; and the whole World either hath or shall both persecute and embrace it. The third great Mystery is our Union with God and Christ, who hath prayed, that we might be one as he and his Father are one; not Essentially, nor Personally, but Spiritually, so as no other Creature is united to God. For Man being made last of all the Creatures, as the sum and Epitome of the rest, Christ by taking upon him the Humane Nature, invested himself with the whole World; and though he hath purchased all the inferior Creatures for the use of Man, and the Elect Angels as ministering Spirits may partake of a Confirmation in their good estate, yet the Conjugal Union is contracted between God and Mankind in a more special and immediate manner. Nor is this a Natural Union, such as was that between Adam and all his Posterity, whereby sin is derived to them, but Spiritual by a more particular & personal application, Christ apprehending us by his Spirit, and we him by Faith. Now as the Union of God and the Soul is that wherein our Happiness consists, so this being the highest & nearest Union, advances Man to a further degree thereof then any other Creature whatsoever. And this is the highest Evidence of the Mediatorship of Jesus Christ. For God being Infinite, and the whole World Finite, and so Infinitely below him, though after he had perfected the first Creation, he rested from his Works, yet he rested not in them as in his Son, whom he begat from all Eternity, & in whom he only rests satisfied, and declared from Heaven that he is well pleased. And though he pronounced them very good, that is, in their kind, yet in respect of himself, who only is truly and Infinitely Good, they are all as Vain and Null. But Jesus Christ thus Espousing the Creation, and Endowing it with his Infinity, gathers up all in himself, & so presents both together as an Object Infinite and adequate to his Father. Let us therefore entertain this blessed Saviour with the full embraces of our Soul, and think no other thing worthy our affections who have such a glorious Object presented unto us. When we read the Histories of mighty Kings, and the great Captains of the World, our Minds are filled with honourable thoughts of them, and we applaud them with great delight. The very Romances of Heroic Love work strangely upon our Fancies, and we are ready with the Tyrant to wish over selves a part in them; whereas here we have the only Son of God, the King of Glory, the mighty Conqueror of Principalities and Powers, yea of Death, and Hell, and Sin, triumphing over all the strength of Evil, the chiefest among ten thousand, yea fairer than the Children of men, The brightness of his Father's Glory, and express Image of his Person, who having set his hart on the most wretched and deformed Soul of Man, left his Father's Court, laid aside his Royal Robes, taking upon him, not the Disguise, but the Form of a servant, living in the meanest, and laying down his life in the basest and most cruel manner, for her sake, whose Love was less than her Desert, and Enmity against him greater than her Misery, Espousing her to himself, and at once infusing both Love, and Beauty, putting his own Crown upon her Head, and so bringing her home to his Father's House to live with himself in eternal Bliss. This is the high Prerogative of Divine Love, to love the Unlovely, and make them Lovely; to purchase the Poor, and make them Rich; to affect the Unwilling, and make them Willing; to pity the Miserable, and make them Happy; O my Lord, and my God thou Beauty of all Beauties, and Perfection of all Perfections! The God of Love, yea Love itself! Teach me the Law of Divine Love, and inflame me with this Celestial flame, inspire me with thine own Spirit, and let me live in thy Life, rejoicing in the pure fountain of thy joy, and resting in the Bosom of thy eternal Rest.   

VI Of the Spirit.  
WE enjoy God only in Christ, and Christ only by the Spirit. As the Spirit of God in the first Creation moved upon the face of the waters, and brought forth the perfect Beau●● thereof out of a Chaos of confusion, and the same Spirit form Christ himself in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, so he bringeth forth Grace out of the Chaos of sin, and formeth Christ in us, regenerating us unto eternal Life. Though the Spirit be a sure witness of its own work where it is, yet it is a most easy thing to mistake the spirit of Satan or our own spirit for it, where it is not, Socinians and men of Reason esteem Faith only to be Fancy, and Enthusiasts set up Fancy in stead of Faith, as the Poet well expresseth it. Aut Deus, aut sua cuique Deus sit dira cupido. There is a Spiritual Drunkenness and Madness, which in some is so strong and prevalent, that it ends in a natural Madness, and distemper of the brain, which is hurt and tainted with the vehement impression of these Imaginations as much as with the Fancies of Carnal Love, or Pride, or any other violent affections which commonly distract men, Be not drunk with Wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, saith the Apostle, showing, that in Wine, and in all the spirits of Creatures there may be excess and inebriatiation, only the Spirit of God doth fill and satisfy the Soul with Spiritual Grace, which yet some who would seem more Spiritual than others lest regard, and rather affect extraordinary and miraculous Gifts which have ceased long since: having been chiefly exercised in three extraordinary seasons and upon extraordina-occasions; by Moses who delivered the Law to the jews; by Elias and Elisha who restored the Law which they had made void; and lastly by Christ and his Apostles who preached the Gospel, with the last of whom they seem to have expired: for soon after when the ceasing of the Heathenish Oracles was objected by the Christians against julian the Apostate, he retotred upon them the ceasing of their Prophecies. Some suppose that these extraordinary Gifts shall be restored unto the Church when she shall be fully recovered out of the Antichristian Eclipse, but why might we not rather expect to have found them in our first Reformers. Luther was a man of an extraordinary Faith, and yet wrought no Miracles. The Anabaptists at the same time affected them, and pretended to them, but were found Vain and Fanatike. Though some of them were mere Impostors, yet others verily believed that they were divinely inspired. The Miracles of Saints and Martyrs since the Apostolical times seem rather Legends and Fables then credible Stories. The confident persuasions of a strong, Faith may seem somewhat like a Prophecy, though far different from it, and of another kind: and so the Judgements of some wise men have been taken for Predictions; whereas Prophecy is not so much the confirmation of a man's own Spirit in the ordinary way of believing or judging, as an extraordinary revelation of Future things immediately and expressly by God, perhaps in a rapture or ecstasy, when he who uttereth it, lest understandeth it. Also there may be a power of casting out Devils by Prayer and Fasting; which is not now to be performed as formerly by any special Gift, with a word of command certainly effecting it; but in the ordinary way of Prayer, which God is pleased to honour with an equal effect. There are also Miracles of Providence as we may so call them, whereby God is pleased to deliver his Church out of her greatest straits in an extraordinary manner, and by unexpected means, as he did formerly by Signs and Wonders, and Miracles of Nature. Such was the recovery of Germany by the same hand which first betrayed the Protestant Cause: Maurice Duke of Saxony after all his Successes and Preferment, strangely revolting from Charles the fifth to the contrary party: the defeating of the Spanish Aramado, as Drake termed it, with Squibs; the discovery of the Gunpowder Treason by a Letter, or whatsoever other Indicium there was of it: yea the preservation of Christian Religion in all Ages, maugre all Persecutions and Heresies, and the restoring of it in these latter days without a Miracle, is none of the least Miracles. Certainly the clear revelation of the Mysteries of Faith, and the manifestation of the Graces of God's Spirit in the Hearts and Lives of men are evident testimonies that God hath not forsaken his Church; the least dram of true Grace being more valuable than all Miraculous Gifts whatsoever, and the principal end thereof. As for Enthusiasms and Revelations they were of use in former times, and very necessary before Scripture was finished, being either Scripture, or instead of Scripture; but since St. john's time, who wrote the last Book of Scripture in the Isle of Pathmos under Domitian, they seem also to have ceased: for if this were true they ought to be believed equally with Scripture, being the immediate and infallible Word of God as well as it, which is now the only rule and measure of Faith, sufficient to make the man of God perfect. But all those Fancies are not so dangerous as other Spiritual Errors in the Foundation and Essentials of Faith, to which such Spirits are very prone, striving to ascend above Truth as much as others fall short of it. Thus by exalting the free Grace and Spirit of God they destroy the Moral Law, and with the Penalty take away the Precept or Commanding power; though the Law be as obligatory in itself and prevalent over the Conscience of a Good man without it as with it, and most perfectly consistent with Grace, which enableth us to perform what the Law commandeth. Others trample on the very Ordinances and Duties of the Gospel, presuming to find a nearer way to Heaven then God hath appointed. There are new fashions and dresses of Religion very pleasing and popular, as all Novelties are, especially such as seem more sublime and Spiritual. But the old Orthodox Truth, is the best, and still prevaileth at last. There is no Doctrine in the world which hath been so curiously scanned and throughly sifted in every Point and Puntilio thereof, as Christianity: the greatest Scepticisms, and most subtle Criticisms and niceties of Wit have been exercised about it, and the whole Body thereof like the Body of our Saviour hanging upon the Cross, vexed and tortured in every joint, and yet it continues whole and entire; though there may be some prints of the Nails and Spears of Heretics remaining upon it, yet not a bone thereof may be broken, which plainly proves it to be Spiritual & Divine, preserved only by the Author of it. Paracelsus threatened that he would deal with the Pope & Luther as he had done with Galen and Aristotle, and probably if he had undertaken it we should have had some such Mercurial Theology from him as is now vented in our times. The difference seems not much unlike. Sound Divines, like Galenists administer solid and substantial Truth, whereas our Paracelsian Preachers deal in Quintessences and Spirits, and the like Chemistry of Divinity, and clothe them with strange words and Mystical expressions. Divinity hath found the same usage in these times with all other Arts and Sciences, and the same Humour of this fantastic Age runs through all. Men think to advance Learning by fine Conceits and strong Lines, as they call them▪ which have enervated the solid part thereof: so do these emasculate Religion by their vain Opinions and acquaint Expressions. There is no greater Bane of true Piety than Error on the right hand, and sublime Heresy; especially when it grows Popular and is generally received. Yet Truth is no less Truth though all the World should be in an Error. One Athanasius may stand to his Creed in the midst of an Arrian Empire. As a man who sees the Sun shine, though all others should say the contrary, is no whit less assured of it, because he sees it. Indeed we can hardly guests at things which are before us, how much less can we find out Spiritual and Divine Truth, or practice what we know? Let us therefore pray to God for his Spirit, who first reveled it to the world, and who only can lead us into all Truth, and into all Grace, which is our true Happiness.   

VII. Of a Christian Life.  
THe great work of the Spirit of God in our Hearts is the new Creature, and the effect thereof new Life. Christian Life is the Enjoiment of all things, for enjoying Christ, who is Heir of all things, and hath purchased all with his blood, we enjoy all things by a new and better Title, and in a more excellent and Spiritual manner, as the Fruits of his Redemption, and Gifts of his Love. It is generally affimed by Divines, that true Grace chiefly respects God's Glory, and our own Happiness in a subsequent and inferior manner, so that we should be willing to suffer even the pains of Hell itself for the Glory of God; which is a fine Notion and an high Expression: but if rightly considered, we shall find no such distinction in the Thing itself. Indeed if we take Happiness for a releaf from Pains, or a Paradise of Pleasure, or any other thing then the very enjoiment of God and Christ, it is a true Sentence: but the highest Happiness of the Soul being that very enjoiment, the one cannot be separated nor really distinguished from the other. He who truly loves the Person of another, without any collateral respects, loves to love it, and this Love being most true and pure is also must lovely and delightful. Thus doth Divine Love pay itself, and as Virtue, so much more Grace, is its own Reward. This is that blessed Communion and Copartnership of profit and advantage which God affordeth us with himself, which is no equalling of our selus with him, but consists in the very subordination of our selus to him. To glorify him is our highest Glory, to bless him our truest Blessedness: his Will and our Good do most perfectly and entirely concentre. To divide these, is to cut in sunder the very intrinsical bond of our Union with him: and the contrary apprehension is the greatest deceit and highest prejudice that can be against the service of God: for it keeps the Soul at a perpetual distance, and frights it out of the way of Piety: whereas the right understanding hereof engages it most fully and freely, with the mutual embraces of Duty and Benefit. As true Philosophy resolus Honesty into Utility, so doth true Divinity resolve▪ Grace into Glory. While the Soul remains corrupt and contrary to God, it cannot enjoy him nor any Happiness in him, but a new Nature begets new Principles and new Enjoiments: and it being the highest perfection of our Nature to be conformable to God and united to him, is also our highest Happinness: for the perfection of every Nature affordeth the greatest and truest Pleasure. Now what can we rationally desire more then to be most Happy? why then should we not rather desire a right constitution of Soul which produceth true Happiness, than the false Happiness of a corrupt Mind? Sin is as much against every man's general and implicit Intention, which is to be Happy, as it is against God's express Command, which is that we should be Holy. Nor doth the Command of God and his absolute Sovereignty over us diminish the freest Liberty of a rectified Soul. Perfectum imperium cum perfecta libertate consistit. God is Good, and doth Good, and commands nothing but Good: which is but like the Latin Compliment, jubeo te valere, I bid you farewell. By Conversion the Unwilling Will is made a Willing Will, and to such the Command of God sounds only thus, Do what you will. A wicked man saith, Quod libet licet, but a Godly man inverts it, Quod licet libet. Thus most connaturally and harmoniously hath the great Creator and Governor of the World subordinated all to himself without the least discord or offence. It is sin which hath wrought all confusion and malignity in our Nature, and all the mischief in the World. As our Being is founded in our dependence on God, so is our Well-being in our subordination to him, and it is impossible it should be otherwise. The perfection of his Nature is to be perfectly supreme, and the perfection of our Nature is to be perfectly subordinate and subject to him, whose Service is perfect Freedom. Thus we enjoy all things in him as they are eminently in himself, and as he giveth us all things richly to enjoy. As a Woman married to a Rich man enjoieth him and all his estate, though she useth no more thereof than what is fit for her, which is the right enjoyment of all. God maketh all things work together for the best to them that love him, and so they enjoy the best of all; aswell of that which he giveth, as of that which he denieth. Adam should have enjoied the forbidden fruit by forbearing, and not by eating: as Sin is a Privation of Good, so the only enjoiment thereof is Privative, or Relative to Grace, which is the Contrary thereof: and as it is Duty to omit things which are to be omitted, so it a kind of Enjoiment not to use things which are not to be used. It is the great Error of Men, that they cannot understand this kind of Enjoiment aswell as the other, but are taken with every bait of Pleasure, and led captive by the Devil at his will: finding some sinful Delight in sinful Pleasures, as a corrupt Stomach longeth for corrupt Food, and abhorreth that which is better and more wholesome. But unless the Devil could turn the Tables of the World, and put God and his party to the losing side, it is most impossible that there should be any true Happiness in any other thing▪ or in any other way then as he hath appointed and prescribed. Nor can it be reasonably imagined that God should suffer his friends to lose by him, or his Enemies to shark any thing from him who is Lord of all. If Intemperance could afford more pleasure than Temperance, Heliogabalus should have been more happy than Adam in Paradise: yea if there were the least real delight in Sin there could be no perfect Hell, where men shall most perfectly Sin, and most perfectly be tormented with their Sins, which are the prepared fuel thereof, & though now they neither glow or burn, shall then consume them with unquenchable fire. Wicked men, like Prodigals, live riotously and run in debt for it; but the time will come when they must repay both Principal and Interest, and so shall gain nothing by all their Voluptuousness. Sardanapalus his Account was not rightly cast up. Haec habui quae edi— for he lost more by what he spent, then by what he left. We will now descend to the Particulars of this Universal Enjoiment of a Christian Life.   

VIII. Of Nature.  
THe first part of a Christian Life is the Enjoyment of Nature, and of the Works of God, wherein a Christian far excelleth the wisest Philosopher, and moves above him in his own Sphere. Vulgar Minds view the face of Nature, as a Brute Beast doth a Picture, regarding only the Surface and Show rudely and at large. The Philosopher, as an Artist, contemplates the curious Workmanship thereof, observing with much pleasure and delight the proper Colours, and comely Features and Shadows, and the whole Composure of the beautiful Image; as the Painter answered him who wondered at his gazing on an excellent Piece. O, said he, if you had mine eyes you would be affected with it as I am▪ But a Christian looks upon Nature, as a Lover doth on the Picture of his Beloved, delighting more in the Resemblance then in the Table. Thus David rightly enjoyed Nature in his pious Contemplations thereof. So he begins his excellent Hymn of the Creation of the World. Bless the Lord O my soul! O Lord my God thou art very great! Thou art clothed with Honour and Majesty! Thou coverest thyself with Light as with a Garment! etc. and he concludes in the same manner, I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live, I will sing praises unto the Lord while I have a being, my meditation of him shall be sweet, I will be glad in the Lord. So when he reflects upon the little World, Himself. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are thy works, and that my Soul knoweth right well. So comparing both together. When I consider the Heavens, the work of thy fingers, the Moon and Stars which thou hast ordained, what is Man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son of Man that thou visitest him? etc. Naturalists are much affected with the Sucly of Nature, and Poets express a fluent and sweet delight in describing her, but there is more Life and Spirit and Angelical Speculation in one of David's Psalms then in all their writings; this Spiritual use thereof being more sublime and divine then any natural contemplations: as the Cardinal plainly confessed, when he found a Countryman meditating on a Toad, and blessing God who made him a Man. As Adam was created in a state of Perfection, so he had a great advantage of us in other respects, being created in the perfect maturity of Understanding, and rising up suddenly from the Earth out of which he was taken, whereby he had a quicker and fresher view of the World than we whose Minds are dulled through Custom and Use, and the edge of our apprehensions much rebated thereby. Let us therefore make trial whither the Imagination of such an advantage may not somewhat excite and sharpen our understanding. Let a man suppose himself made, as David speaks Metaphorically, in the lowest parts of the Earth, in an adult State of Body and Mind: Surely if he could well discern it, he would judge it to be the common dunghill of the World, and would wonder to find any Metals or Jewels hid in the rubbish thereof. And then coming nearer the Surface, and meeting with heaps of rotten Carcases, and a few noisome Living Creatures, he would deem it a very Grave and Hell of all things; and could never expect that it should produce any thing but filth and corruption. But then lifting up his head above the Ground, and seeing it covered with the curious Tapestry of Herbs and Flowers, spread for him as a Prince to tread on, painted with the variety of all pleasant Colors, and perfumed with most fragrant Odours, and enriched with many secret and excellent Virtues; then beholding the Armies of standing Corn, and Forests of goodly Trees crowned with innumerable Leavs and Fruits; and perceiving the several kinds of Beasts and Birds, like so many Automata or self-moving Engines, stirring up and down about him in their several Postures and Motions, he must needs stand amazed at so strange a sight, and praise the fruitfulness of the womb which bore them. But looking back upon the deep and wide Sea which threatens the shore with his insulting waves, he would fear lest that roaring Monster should step in among them, and swallow up all in his devouring Jaws; till he perceiv how when he is swollen to the height of his pride and fury, he begins to retreat and fall back into his native den, without doing the least hurt, and fetches off the tall ships, carrying them away upon his Back, and furnishes all the Aqueducts of the Earth with fresh Springs and Streams, ministering drink to the whole Family. Again, considering the pure Air which he scarcely felt or perceived, and yet is so far from Inanity that it fills up all the Chinks and Crannies of the World, fanning the Earth with the Wings of Wind, and driving the great Ships to and fro with various Gales of Breath, sometimes causing a quiet Calm and universal peace among the Elements, and suddenly muffling the face of Heaven with black Clouds, and rousing up the sleepy Ocean, tossing and tumbling it over and over, and tearing the Bowels of the Earth, making the Sturdy Mountains to tremble, and the Rocks cleav in sunder, is again as suddenly pacified he knows not how nor by whose persuasion; how it carrieth about the Limbikes of the Clouds which distil down fruitful showers, and drop fatness on the Earth, and in a moment convey all the Gifts and Blessings of Heaven to it. Lastly, contemplating those vast Orbs or Worlds of Light in their swift Motions and perpetual Courses, which never fail one minute of their appointed Time, nor wander an inch out of their constant Way, blessing the Earth with their very smiles, and illuminating it with their Glorious Light; he must necessarily acknowledge and adore the great Creator, who hath founded this stately Globe, and doth manage the Universal Empire of Nature by Secret Laws and inward Principles. And though he cannot discern him by outward Sight, yet his Understanding will as easily discover him, as it doth an invisible Spirit in a living Body. Besides, as a Christian he tastes the blood of his Saviour in all things, which renders those relics and fragments of nature more sweet to him then all the first Paradise of perfection was to Adam.   

IX. Of Providence.  
A Theists, though partly convinced by Nature, draw their chief arguments against a Deity from Providence and the present state of things: whereas indeed this is the greater argument against them, and such as fortifies the other: for had Nature still flowed in a constant Stream of Causes and Effects, she might more probably have been supposed to be the only Fountain of all things: but when we see Nature, which always intendeth the Best, not able to fulfil her own Laws, nor effect her Intentions, and so fall short of that end which she prescribes to herself, we may plainly perceiv that there is a higher Power which overrules her; for the Creature was made subject to Vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope. Again, she being thus lapsed and diseased might easily decay and perish, if the same Power did not still preserv and continue her in all her Species, though individuals die daily. How little excess of drought or heat destroys the hopes of the whole Year. A pestilential Air may infect the whole world, and an Age of successive Famines and Pests might prove an universal destruction of all Living Creatures. But he left not himself without witness, in that he doth good, giving us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, and filling our hearts with food and gladness. Let a man seriously consider how Strangely his own Life is preserved; how many several Ingredients are requisite to patch it up; how many sorts of Materials are necessary to build an House; how many Utensiles to furnish it; how many kinds of Creatures are spent in feeding him, and almost as many in clothing him, besides all other occasional Instruments of Life: and he may justly wonder at the daily provision which God hath made for him▪ Let him also consider how many possible Deaths lurk in his own bowels, and the innumerable hosts of external Dangers which beleaguer him on every side; how many invisible Arrows fly about his ears continually, and yet how few have hit him, and none hitherto mortally wounded him; and he shall find the meditation of those things, which now he so much neglects, strangely affect him. Vives reports of a jew, that having gone over a deep river on a narrow plank in a dark night, and coming the next day to see what danger he had escaped, fell down dead with astonishment. The common sort of men walk in the dark, and so regard not these things, but like adventurous Soldiers are hardened with past success, though their fellows fall daily on every side. Stoikes satisfy themselves with their Opinion of a Fatal Necessity, so the Turks say, their Destinies are written on their foreheads, which is a desperate Humour, but no Security: and upon such a conceit to neglect the means of our own preservation, adds Gild to Misery, and deprives us of no small comfort in suffering, that we were not wanting to our selus for the prevention of it. But as it is the Destiny of such men to perish, so it is their Destiny to perish by their own folly, which is a double Evil: And so Zeno the Stoic could answer his servant when he would have excused his fault, by pleading that it was his Fate: he telling him, that it was his Fate also to be beaten. Politicians think to build above Providence, and to set their Mountain so sure that it cannot be moved: but how easily are the greatest designs and wisest counsels overturned by the least and most unexpected accidents? julius Caesar was a man of the largest abilities, and no less performance. He so far prosecuted all natural means, as if no man had more disinherited his Fortune, and yet so much relied on his Fortune, as if he had needed no other means: when he was in that extremity wherein he could make no use of his Wit or Strength, he boasts of it, and trusts to it alone: Caesarem vehis & Fortunam ejus. He so often succeeded well in such cases, that he kept an Ephemeris thereof. God who had ordained him to be the Founder of the Roman Empire did strangely excite and support his Spirit: and though it cannot be presumed that he had any knowledge of Divine Revelations and Prophecies concerning himself, yet he seems to have had some kind of Belief of the thing, I mean an extraordinary Confidence and Assurance of success. We shall find him as great an Instance of Divine Providence both in his Rise and Fall, as ever was in the World. We will begin with his Civil War, and recite only his own observations. First he had the good hap to deal with an Army without a General, and then with a General without an Army: both which met together might probably have matched him. He was so put to it by Petreius and Afranius at Ilerda in Spain, that it was reported at Rome they had ended the War; which might have been made good if Pompey had come to their aid through Mauritania, as was expected. Again, before the great Battle of Pharsalia, when he was assaulted in his trenches, he was so far worsted, that he plainly confessed he had been conquered, if Pompey then had known how to conquer. Lastly, in the Battle of Munda he was put to fight for his safety, as at other times for Honour: Labienus only by wheeling about with his Horse for advantage was apprehended by the rest to fly, and so resigned the Victory to him: so small a matter doth many times turn the Die of War over and over, and determine the greatest affairs of the World: and the most secret conspiracies many times leak and run out at the least hole. Caesar escaped a most imminent danger of being murdered at supper in the Egyptian Court, if the Conspirators had then attempted it: and afterward when they were fully prepared for the action, his Barber, who had no other direction than the strange Instinct of a natural fearfulness, was thereby put upon the search, and discovered the Treason: which was as weak a Guard to his Person, as the Geese to the Capitol, yet both proved effectual. But when God had determined to ruin him, we shall see how no advantages, no warning could preserv him. He always held Brutus and Cassius in suspect, and professed some fear of those pale lean fellows. The Conspirators were many, the business long in agitation, the danger foretold by Spurinna, his wife dreamed of it, and had almost stayed him, He had a Paper of the whole Plot delivered into his hands as he was going to the Senate, and had begun to read it; the Conspirators themselves were daunted, and thought they had been betrayed, yet all this could not preserv him from being slain in the midst of the Senate, and made a sacrifice to Pompey's Image. Now let all the great Captains and Counsellors of the World learn to acknowledge an overruling Providence, and submit all their Power and Policy to the Beck of a Divine Will. A Christian enjoys Providence by referring himself to God's Protection, and so walks constantly in a straight way in the midst of all changes and vicissitudes with aequanimity of Spirit, being most assured, that though he cannot well understand the Particulars, yet the Sum of all shall be God's Glory and his own Good, which is that Happiness to which he is tending.   

X. Of Prosperity.  
PRosperity and Adversity are the different Issues of the same Parent, being the several dispensations of Providence: and as they have the same Root, so they yield the same Golden Fruit of Happiness. I have learned, saith the Apostle, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content, Both may be enjoied with Content, but learning and skill to do it are requisite. Men think it an easy thing to be happy in Prosperity, accounting that the only Happiness; though they know not how to enjoy it. As if a Mariner sailing with wind and tide he knows not whither, should think he is making a very good Voyage. There is a silent and still stream of Fortune, wherein some men swim down quietly from the spring of their Birth to the common Ocean of Death, so that they do not much remember the days of their Life, because God answereth them in the joy of their hart. This is that kind of Prosperity so much commended by Philosophers and Poets: Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, etc. A pretty kind of idle Felicity, a Pastime, or sweet Sleep, stealing away our Time with the soft hand of ease and rest, and at last shutting it up like a fair Day in the common Darkness of Death with others. There is also a strong Gale of success carrying on the Designs of some Great Men, who adventure themselves and all their fortunes on the Ocean of the World, in such a constant course of Prosperity, that they never meet with any cross winds. Many of the Grecian and Roman Captains proved always victorious, and were never beaten by any. Many rich men thrive perpetually, and never suffer any considerable loss: yet this is no other than a busy Dream, or a Play well acted: as Augustus the most fortunate Prince intimated, who when he was going off the Stage, took his leave of his friends like an Actor, Valete, et Plaudite. The right way of enjoying Prosperity is rightly to understand it, and the true worth and nature of it. The Covetous and Querulous, like sick men, are never satisfied, but undervalue all the Good things which they possess, and because they have not what they would, neglect to enjoy what they have. On the contrary, Prodigals and Parasites, like Children, Idolise every trifle; which overweening Opinion as much hinders true enjoiment as the diminishing Humour and Discontent of others, and ends in the same Insatisfaction wherein the other begins. A Christian looking upon all his Prosperity as the effect of God's Providence, enjoies it in another manner than any worldly man. The ancient Hebrews seem to have had a most familiar knowledge of God's Providence. When Isaac asked the supposititious Esau concerning his Venison. How is it that thou hast found it so quickly my Son? He answered, Because the Lord thy God brought it to me. Though he lied in the thing, yet the Phrase discovers what apprehensions they had of the most common mercies, which also Isaac elegantly expresseth, speaking of the pleasant sent of his Garments, See! the smell of my Son, is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed. When we thus look upon God as the Father of Lights, the author and giver of every good and perfect Gift, we see him as easily begetting and multiplying Mercies as the Sun doth Beams; This takes away all Anxiety and Fear of loss or want, which doth more diminish the Comfort of them then that Care and Labour which they cost in purchasing. Again, as Gods chief intention in bestowing his Gifts, is to allure and bring us home to himself, so a Christian accepts them upon the same terms, as the Pledges of his love and Favor. A Penny, which is the Earnest of some great Bargain is another manner of thing then an ordinary Penny, being given and received under another notion: and this is the right way to improve and sublimate Prosperity to the hight more than any Ambitious Humour or vain Sensuality can do; eating and drinking with a merry hart, for God accepteth our works, and so we may well accept his Gifts. But though outward Prosperity be a Jewel in the Treasury of God's Mercy, yet it is not the White Stone of his Justice. The very Heathen, who were most affected with sensible Divinity, knew how to distinguish between the Cause and the Success. They who insist on this argument commonly want a better, and will not stand to it themselves when they are worsted. Decision by the Sword, even in a lawful War is like waging battle in a Writ of Right, which the purer light of Christianity hath antiquated, as very uncertain and unwarrantable. Success is the Blessing of God upon a Good Cause, and his Curse upon a Bad. It is at most but a concurrent witness, which signifies nothing of itself, the Justice of the thing is its own best proof. God hath not promised that his Church and People shall not suffer; but that though they suffer they shall not perish, like the bush which burned but was not consumed: and that in the day wherein he hath appointed to judge the world they shall prevail and triumph for ever over all Injustice and Oppression. But to improve Success to the use of all advantages, which it puts into our hands, though otherwise irregular and unlawful, and to justify it by God's Providence giving us such an opportunity, is as if a man should plead that he may do any evil which is in his power, and justify it by this, that God hath given him the power and opportunity of doing it; and so make God's Providence patronise his Lusts, and turn his Grace into wantonness. Though Adversity be a necessary preparation for Heaven, by reason of our corruption, which is best mortified by it, yet Prosperity in itself is as fair and ready a way, and the beginning thereof to the Godly. He is certainly a most Happy man who can so enjoy it, as to profit as much by it as by Adversity. Judgements drive, but Mercy leads to repentance. This is an excellent temper of Spirit, most pleasing to God, and comfortable to our selus, but very rarely to be found in any.   

XI. Of Adversity.  
THere is such a various mixture of Prosperity and Adversity in the Life of man, that he who knows not how to enjoy both, can never live happily in either. 
Nemo confidat nimium secundis;  
Nemo desperet meliora lapsis.  Many men's spirits are like tender and delicate Bodies, which have a Most quick and exact sense of Pleasure, but a little Pain kills them: like Flies, very brisk and busy in the Summer of Prosperity, but when the Winter of Adversity overtakes them, dead in the nest. Man is born to misery, and Christians have commonly a double Portion of it, and of all Christians the best and strongest are usually exercised with the greatest Afflictions, or made such thereby. If therefore there were no Enjoiment nor Fruit of suffering, they should then be indeed of all men most miserable: but as it is Gods usual way of dealing with his Children, so his Promises and Benedictions run generally that way. Though Affliction hath no natural Good in itself, yet it produceth much Moral Good; yea it commendeth the natural Good, and correcteth the Moral evil which is in Prosperity: for Prosperity is as Diet, but Adversity as Physic, which recovereth from Surfeits, and reduceth to a right taste. Though Prosperity be more honourable in itself, yet the Virtues of Adversity are more honourable then of Prosperity. The highest Romances of Worldly Glory are always founded in the deepest Sufferings. 
— O nunquam tranquilla exordia fatis  
Heroum eximiis, nec denique naufraga Virtus!  And those real Conquerors are most famous who have encountered the greatest Adversaries. Adversity overcome is the highest Glory, and well undergone the greatest Virtue. The Poets feign of Hercules, not only that he slew Tyrants and Monsters, but also that he bore the whole weight of Heaven on his shoulders; showing thereby, that Virtue is as well exercised in Bearing as in Acting. Have you not heard, saith james, of the Patience of job, as of a most famous and memorable thing: and it is indeed very admirable to contemplate him assaulted by Satan, and overcoming only by enduring. Satan had challenged job before God, that he would make him curse him to his face: and God permits him to try him, and torture him to the utmost, only sparing his Life, which was no advantage, but a lengthening of his fuffering: yet job armed with nothing but Patience, like a Rock in the midst of the waves, repels all his assaults: standing so firm, that he cannot force him to a complaint, which is the most natural Infirmity of men in such a condition; nor extort one foolish word from him. In all this job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly: yea, instead of Cursing he falls to Blessing. The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the Name of the Lord: which was a far greater torment to Satan then all his could be to job. julius Caesar when he had almost lost the field at Munda, was ready to have killed himself: so great a Conqueror knew not how to conquer Adversity: and yet no man is totally vanquished by it, till he yield to it. Quicquid erit superanda omnis Fortuna ferendo est. Though we lose all, we may still possess our souls in Patience. This is our last Reserv, and that strong Hold whereunto he who is beaten out of the Field may always retire, and cannot be forced out of it but by surrendering it. The common sort of men in Adversity are like Children when they are whipped; either wholly surprised with Grief and Horror, never striving to keep it from the Hart, but give up all presently; betraying themselves by an utter despondency of Spirit, and neglect of all Remedies or Cordials; and so lie whining under the power of their Adversary, bemoaning and pitying themselves to no purpose: which is a most evident Sign of an absolute conquest, and sinks the Soul wholly under water; whereas Patience keeps up the Head: yea many conspire with their miseries, and are, as Quintilian expresseth it, Ambitiosi in malis, augmenting and aggravating them as much as they can; as though they found some Pleasure in Grieving, and some Music in their mournful Ditties: Or else Sturdily and Sullenly bear their Afflictions with a settled obstinacy of Mind, like strong Bodies, on whom no Physic can work when they most need it, and so their Disease proves incurable. This is to outbrave God and Nature, and rather to fly and shun the sense of Affliction, then to conquer it. Men of Pleasure seek to divert it by inordinate and unseasonable Mirth, Gaming, Drinking, and Surfeiting on the remainders of the Feast of Prosperity, which is to abuse both: Politicians strive by all means to make an Escape and get out of Adversity, turning and winding every way, like an Eel, as long as there is any Life; but care not to profit by it, or perhaps grow wiser, but not better. Philosophers fortify against it by the strength of natural Reason: as he said concerning the death of his Son, Scio me genuisse mortalem; accounting it a gallant thing to be no more affected with the death of a Man then the breaking of a Pitcher. Only a Christian Fruitur malis, which is indeed a most admirable Enjoiment. Angels excel in strength, Doing the will of God, but Christians in Suffering: and a patient enduring of necessary evils, is next to a voluntary Martyrdom. A Christian heareth the Rod and who hath appointed it, which teaches him to suffer, and sweetens his suffering more than all the Arts and shifts of worldly men whereby they fence against it. He hath a most acute sense of the Pain, as feeling the anger of a God in it, and yet bears it patiently as the hand of his Father, who chasteneth every Son whom he loveth, punishing for Sin, that so he may punish from Sin: and so enjoieth the Love of God and more comfort in all his Evils, then worldly men do in all their Good things.   

XII. Of Death.  
DEath in itself, as it is a cessation of Life, is an indifferent or middle thing between Good and Evil, and parallel with not being Born. In the Ages which have preceded we did not live, and in the succeeding we shall not live; the first is a negative Death, the second a privative. Therefore we may as reasonably griev that we were born no sooner, as that we shall live no longer. Our very Life is a continual Death: for that which is passed is dead already: Quicquid retro est mors habet, and when Death at last shall shut up all and put a full period to the Whole, it shall do no more than what every moment doth to the several Parts. The last Sand in the Glass runs out in the same manner as the first. Therefore Death should not seem so strange and monstrous being thus familiarly conversant with us every moment. The difference between this Mortal Life and Immortality is like that between a Lease for years and an Estate in Fee Simple: both go hand in hand together, and equally spend the same minutes of Time; but the one still runs on, whereas the other stops in a certain period. Immortality looseth nothing by spending, being renewed as fast as it decayeth, and continueth still the same Term; which the other doth not, but is diminished by every moment. Fools flatter themselves, and suppose a kind of Immortality in the present Instant of Life; because it sufficeth for the present, aswell as Immortality itself: and they hope still to continue one year or day, or moment longer. Thus the momentany and uncertain condition of Life, which should most mortify, is by vain men abused to the contrary. Consider Death in relation to the Evil things of this Life, and so it is a Release from them all, and no part of them: Diseases, Pains, Griefs, and all those sad groans and ugly faces which are put upon Death belong to Life which many times exerciseth more cruelty and tyranny than Death. Racking is a greater pain then Beheading, yet not so deadly. Assoon as Death enters upon the Stage the Tragedy is done. In relation to the Good things of Life it is a total deprivation of them, and the Grave of all our worldly affairs aswel as of our selus; yea as to our share and interest therein, a dissolution of all this World. The Tyrant's wish, That the whole Earth might perish with him, took effect in himself: Death laugheth at all the Actions of mortal men, and stepping in when he pleaseth, dasheth all in pieces. Death stops the mighty Conqueror in the full Career of his Victories, and bids him quit the field. Death deposeth all Kings, and reduceth them to the common equality of their originals. Death sweeps down the great Politician, and the curious Cobweb of his high Designs. Death silences the learned Clerk, and makes the Poet cease in the midst of his work, like the Poetical Swan, 
— Qui fixus arundine carmen  
Mille modis querulum quod caeperat interrumpit.  Death is the best Comment upon Life: set him by the most beautiful Mistress, and he will convert our deifying fancies into dust and rottenness: as Caligula used to say of his. Tam bona cervix simulac jussero demetur. Place him on the Table among our dishes (as the Ancients used to do at their Feasts) & he will turn all into worms meat: Nothing can stand before him, but all vanish and disappear at his affrighting presence. Honour, which of all worldly things only seems to survive, passeth away with our Breath into the empty Air; as Boethius wittily descanteth.  
Vbi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii jacent?  
Quid Brutus, aut rigidus Cato?  
Signat superstes fama tenuis parvulis  
Inane nomen literis.  
Sed quid decora novimꝰ vocabula?  
Num scire consumptes datur?  
jacetis ergo prorsus ignorabiles!  
Nec fama notos efficit:  
Quod si putatis longius vitam trahi  
Mortalis aura nominis:  
Cum sera vobis rapiet hoc etiam dies,  
jam vos secunda mors manet.  
Where now is just Fabricius? Brutus where?  
Or Cato the severe?  
In a few Letters their surviving Fame  
Presents an empty Name.  
But can those Titles which we read or hear  
Make Dead men to appear?  
In dark oblivion ye all lie down!  
Nor are your Persons known:  
Or if you t●ink your Life by others Breath  
May be redeemed from Death:  
Time which this Life shall also from you take,  
A second death will make.  
The arguments which the World commonly draws from Death are very strange. Epicures say, Let us eat and drink for to morrow we shall die. Certainly Death is the worst Master of Revels. The Covetous will live Poor, that he may die Rich: whereas indeed none die Rich, but the richest depart as poor and naked out of this world as any, leaving all their wealth to others. Glorious men die daringly, that so they may be famous after Death: yet all their Fame is but as a stately Monument set over their Graves. Miserable men invoke Death and fly to it as their only Remedy: but they are the worst Physicians who cure by killing. These and the like are false enjoiments of Death, and to no good end. The reference it hath to another World, as it is a parting Line between Life and Eternity, doth best instruct us rightly to enjoy it. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, saith the Wiseman, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the Grave whither thou goest. He makes Death an incitement to Work, not an invitation to Play: and the chief Work and Business of our Life is to gain eternal Life. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. All other Works, all Arts and Sciences, and the vast Projects and famous Enterprises which fill the History of the World, end in the Grave, In that very day his thoughts perish: those only are our Stock and Provision for another World. Thus a Christian enjoys Death by being familiarly acquainted with him, and taking him by the hand, goes along with him in all his steps and motions, dying daily to the World, and living to God and Heaven: and when Death at last summons him to depart, he willingly resigns up all as things which no longer concern him. He looks upon Heaven as a Kingdom in Reversion after his own Life, and loses nothing in the mean time by staying for it: while he lives he increases his future Glory, and when he dies he goes to possess it. Men of this world, whose hope is only in this Life, put Death far from them, though it be most natural and nigh unto them, and the most certain of all future things: and when Death appears and stairs them in the face, they behold him as a most strange and horrid thing; either dying away through fear and astonishment, as Nabal did; or enraged, like a wild Bull in a net, as the famous Duke of Byron; or with judas desperately plunge themselves into Hell; like Empedocles, who cast himself quick into Mount Aetna. The best of them look upon Death as an indifferent thing, as Martial concludes his Happy Life. Summum nec metuas diem, nec optes. But to me, saith the Apostle to live is Christ, and to die is Gain: which is the best and truest enjoiment both of Life and Death.   

XIII. Of Sin.  
SIn is the Death of Souls, the Father of Perdition, which like the Cici or Worm in jonas Gourd, corrupted the world almost assoon as it was made. The Mystery of Iniquity is almost as wonderful as the Mystery of Grace and Godliness; that it should be so exceeding sinful, and that being such it could possibly enter into the World, when it was so perfectly constituted, that there was no cleft or cranny in it, by which Sin might creep forth & enter into it, until it made way for itself. Before Adam by fatal experience acquired the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Sin might seem an incredible thing: for how could it be imagined that a reasonable Creature, of perfect understanding and exact integrity, made only to serve and obey his Creator, and conscious that all his Happiness consisted therein, should rebel against him, and at once plunge himself and all his Posterity into everlasting Misery? As there was no reason for Sin, so neither was there any root or ground out of which it should spring, only a bare Possibility of doing that which was most unreasonable and unnatural. God made Man upright, but they have sought out many inventions, he was fain to seek out and invent the way of undoing himself, and to create Sin, which God had not made. But that which is most wonderful in Sin, and which hath puzzled the most profound Doctors, is the consideration of God's Permission and Providence; how and why he should suffer such an Enemy to himself and all his Creatures, to invade the World and ruin the whole Creation. It is certainly the greatest quarrel and highest blasphemy which the Devils and damned have against God, that he should make them to damn them, and it is the strongest argument in the corrupt minds of the sinners of this World who have not yet felt the Hell of Sin, that it is no such great matter as Divines would persuade them: thinking, that because God doth permit it, therefore he will also tolerate it. This is the strange and prodigious birth of Sin, and the Nature of it is answerable thereunto: for it is no less than the doing of that which we ought not to do, or the not doing of that which we ought to do, and what we ought not to do is in the very next degree to what we cannot do. chaste joseph puts the one for the other. How can I do this wickedness and sin against God? making moral Entity and Bonity as convertible as Natural, and God's Interdiction as restraining as his Interposition. This Monster assoon as it is born is so strong and adult in mischief, that it destroyeth the Womb that bore it, and infecteth the whole Sphere of its activity: though acts of Sin make it grow, yet the first birth thereof makes it a complete Body, and merits an universal and eternal punishment. It hath blasted the whole inferior world and laid the foundations of Hell itself: hence are all the Evils in Nature, all the disorders in Humane society, and villainies of Men. The Story of the Italian, who first made his Enemy deny God, and then Stabbed him, and so at once murdered both Body and Soul, declares the perfect malignity thereof: and should the dire imprecations of revengeful Spirits be always executed on others, we should create Devils and Hells enough to destroy all Mankind. But all this is the least and lowest Evil in it; the perfection thereof consists in the contrariety and enmity against God. It is called a Law of Sin, as being directly opposite to the Law of God: for what God saith, Thou shalt do, Sin saith, Thou shalt not do, and what he saith, Thou shalt not do, Sin saith, Thou shalt do; and so inverts the whole Decalogue, and the very Law of Nature, robing God of his Creature, and setting it up against him, and in his throne. No created Majesty can endure a Consort, much less Divine, which is most absolutely and infinitely Supreme. It is true, Sin can never effect what it intends, and therefore wicked men think it is nothing, because it cannot hurt and wrong God: but a declared intent is Treason, even among men, much more by the Law of God, who is chieifly served or disserved by our Spirits and Wills: yea this shows the most perfect malice of Sin, that it fights against a Majesty which cannot be wronged; and breeds a more haughty disdain and just revenge in him whom it opposeth, to be defied by so base and Enemy. Men may say, they do not intend to hurt God; yet they do transgress and offend his Law, which is to offend himself, though the intention may be to do God good service. If therefore there be any such difference in Nature, as Good and Evil; if there be any Monster or Mischief in the World, Sin is really the worst of Evils, being most contrary to the Chief Good: and in this relation it is infinitely evil, though as it is a finite act it cannot be really and properly infinite, for than it should be an Enemy equal to God: but it comes as near to infinite as possibly it can: and if the Soul were infinite it would Sin infinitely, as being eternal it will sin eternally: yea it is as it were infinite to us, for we cannot measure nor comprehend the utmost extent of the sinfulness thereof, no more than we can number the particular acts. Let us therefore stand amazed at the sight of this Hydra, this kill and never dying Serpent, devouring all Good, and propagating all Evil. Now what enjoiment can there be of such a perfect Evil. Certainly next to the Grace of God a Christian reaps the greatest Happiness from it; yea Grace itself, which delivereth from Sin, cannot be enjoied without the enjoiment of Sin from which it delivereth: and the more horrid and hellish Sin is, the more doth the Love of God appear in delivering us from it, and in preserving the little spark of his Grace in the midst of an Ocean of corruption. There is no such Antipathy in Nature, as between Holiness and Unholiness, the contrariety of Vice and Virtue is far short of it: Grace is the highest perfection of the Soul, and Sin the greatest imperfection. As sin is the occasion of our greatest Good and highest Preferment, so it is also of God's greatest Glory, and therein we should rejoice. There is more joy in Heaven over one Sinner that repenteth, then over ninety and nine Just persons who need no repentance. Thus the more we hate it, the more we enjoy it, and our greatest abhorrency doth most excite this affection of holy Joy: and this is the high privilege of a Christian, to enjoy that which is most contrary unto him, not only by forbearing it, but also by God's forgiving and recovering out of it to a state of higher Perfection and Happiness.   

XIIII. of the Restauration of the Soul.  
THe Restauration of the Soul is the Conversion of it from Sin to God, as the Corruption thereof was a defection from God to Sin. This is a greater and more glorious work then the first Creation, and the utmost Design of God in making the World. As in an ingenious Poem, which is the Creature of Fancy, the chief excellency is the Plot, and the excellency of the Plot is the strange difficulty and intricacy of the Epitasis, or troublesome state of the Business, which is afterward beyond all expectation cleared up, and resolved into an happy Catastrophe: whereas if it should be carried on in a constant course of Prosperity, it would seem very flat and dull without art or wit. Thus God having made all things for himself, and the manifestation of of his own Glory, as the wisest end which he could propound to himself, was not satisfied with the first work of Creation, though exceeding good and perfect in its kind: but assoon as it was finished, suffered Sin to enter upon the Stage, bringing Death and Hell along with it, and so to confound and destroy all. This was the Dignus vindice nodus, such as all the Wit of Men and Angels could not untie, till God himself came down from Heaven, and resolved it into this more glorious work of Redemption; which is an uncreating of Sin, and a creating of Grace: God cannot make Factum infectum, but by pardoning Sin he makes it Quasi infectum: Sin remitted is as though it had never been committed. Thus Justice itself justifies the unjust, and being overcome it triumphs. Justice and Mercy could not meet together in any other way, and there is no other Instance in the whole History of the World of any act of God which doth so perfectly exercise all his Attributes, & manifest all his Glory, and consequently fulfil the end of Creation. As God justifies the Ungodly, so he makes him Godly, which is the other part of this great work, and no less wonderful than the former. If the entrance of Sin into the World be so stupendious, the expulsion thereof is much more. The Peripatetikes suppose the Soul of Man to be like a plain Table, or as we say, a blank Paper, on which Good or Evil may be imprinted, and so equally indifferent to both. But other Heathens have confessed the contrary, Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur— and all Christianity is against it. If their Opinion were true, probably some one man among so many millions might have lived pure from Sin, perhaps through the whole course of his life, or for a year, or day, or hour; or at least might perform some one action perfectly good, which none ever did. Therefore the Platonikes, say the Soul is like a Chariot drawn with two Horses, whereof one is fair and generous, the other deformed and resty. The first is the Rational part, the second the Sensual: some Platonical Divines call them Flesh and Spirit; but it is most evident that not only the inferior faculties, but also the superior are corrupted; otherwise the inferior could not draw them away; they being able of themselves to put forth their own acts pure and incorrupt; the Mind is free and cannot sin but from itself, though it may be tempted and urged by others. On the contrary, sometimes the Mind urges the inferior faculties to sin beyond the common bounds of their nature, and the utmost desires of Beasts: besides, there are many rational and spiritual Sins wherein the inferior Faculties have no share. The Pelagians seem to grant a mixture of both principles of Good and Evil in every Faculty, and that by our own endeavours the Good Principle may be so exercised and excited, that it may prevail against the other: but then why might it not proceed so far, as wholly to extinguish the other? for by prevailing in part, it gains some farther degree of strength, and the other looseth as much; and a greater strength of Good may more probably prevail against a lesser strength of Evil, than a lesser strength of Good could against a greater strength of Evil; or if the Good can never overcome the evil, than every act flowing from both, will be mixed and imperfect, and can merit nothing but the just indignation of a pure and perfect God, and so leave us in the same state of misery in which it found us. The Semipelagians therefore, who have spun out this thread to the utmost fineness which it will bear without breaking, say, there is indeed left in Man a free will to Good, but such as cannot act the Good it would without a Divine assistance; yet the Will of Man freely inclining itself to Good, inclines God to assist him with his Grace: and that God eternally foreseeing this Good inclination, did therefore, and not otherwise, pre-ordain such to Grace and Salvation; So that God doth not turn the Will, which they say is contrary to the freedom thereof, but concur with it in promoting it. Thus they think they have fairly decided this great Controversy, by parting the stakes between God's Grace and Man's Will: but they err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God, subordinating the will of God to the will of Man, rather than the will of Man to the will of God, and make this greatest work of Redemption lesser than that the Creation, which proceeded from nothing. Though it may be a problematical Question in Divinity, whether one sin doth naturally of itself destroy all Grace, yet it is most true, that the eating of the forbidden fruit was such a Critical and Fatal sin which did incur the sentence of Death, by which this Spiritual Death of Grace is chiefly intended, and so judicially produced the same effect; for as one sin may be punished with another, so may it be punished with all Sin, by virtue of such a precedent Compact: and thus is that Original Sin imputed and derived unto us, not only by natural propagation: for then all other sins of Parents should descend upon their Children in the same manner: but as that Command was a trial of Man's universal obedience, so the breach thereof was an universal sin, and the punishment equal unto it. Yet the will of Man remains free in its own nature, else it should not freely sin, and so not sin at all; nor doth necessity take away freedom; for God doth most necessarily, and yet most freely will his own Glory; and the will of man doth necessarily and freely will Good, real or apparent: yea in the very act of willing it is necessarily determined to one particular object, and yet doth than will most freely, that is, not as Beasts, through Appetite and Instinct, but with a Rational Election. The will of man is free according to the Law of Nature, and by that very Law it is impossible that it should be so free as not to be subordinate to God, and manageable by his supernatural and infinite power, in such a supernatural and infinite manner as doth not destroy the will itself, not the freedom of it, which is of the nature thereof: for if God should not govern the will of Men and Angels, as well as all other things, he should not rule and order the highest acts of his noblest Creatures; nor can there be any Pre-vision in God, without this Pre-ordination. Providence in the Word signifieth Foreseeing, but in the Thing Fore-ordaining, because God by foreseeing doth fore-ordain; and so that distinction whereon they so much depend falls to the ground, which Tully ingenuously confesseth, and therefore denying Fate, denyeth also Oracles and Divine Prescience; and Bradwardine disputeth it affirmatively thus; He who made this World, and all things therein did certainly foresee what he made, and it being eternally true, that whatsoever hath been, is, or shall be in the World, should be before it was, God who is omniscient, must certainly foreknow it; now this certain foreknowledge in God could not be grounded on the things themselves which should be, for the World had yet no being, but was a mere Nothing; and Nothing could not be the Cause nor Object of God's foreknowledge of things which should be, but God himself, or as the Platonikes and Schoolmen speak, the Idea in the Mind of God, which is in himself, and of himself; and according to which the thing was produced, in that manner as he had ordained; otherwise the foresight of God could not be infallible, nor any foresight at all; and therefore only God can certainly foreknow, because he only can certainly pre-ordain; and there can be no exemption of the Will of Man more than of the actions of any other Creature. The vast consequences thereof, and that grand objection concerning sin, Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his Will? are resolved by the great Apostle so fully, that if all the Cavils of men against this Truth were now presented unto him, he could not answer them more directly than he doth; nor is it possible for any mortal man to satisfy him whom the Spirit of God Speaking so expressly in that place doth not satisfy. As one saith, At the day of Judgement we shall fully understand his 9 Chap. to the Romans: This being the great and general Case between God and Sinners, is reserved for that great and general Assizes; That God may be justified in his sayings, and might overcome when he is judged. And the more proud men do now exalt themselves against this Truth, the more should a Christian admire and enjoy the wonderful work of his Conversion, which as it is supernatural, so it is incomprehensible, and say of his new Birth, as David said of his natural Birth, Fearfully and wonderfully am I made.   

XV. Of Graces.  
AS Being is the foundation of wellbeing, so is wellbeing the Perfection of Being. Christ said of judas, It had been good for that man if he had not been born. Contrarily, Spiritual Regeneration and the new Birth is better than the Natural. Being of itself is morally neither Good nor Evil, out capable or either. Thus Grace, though Accidental, is more valuable than the Substance of the Soul. Grace is that which the Scripture calleth A Good and Honest Hart, that is, Ingenuity or Goodness toward God; As the word Piety generally signifieth a good disposition toward all Relations. So the Poet calleth his Aeneas Pious, as well for his officious dutifulness toward his Father Anchises, as for his religious devotion toward his goods. The contrary hereof is either a direct malignity, or Hypocritical and double dealing with God. This Ingenuity consists in Spiritual Discretion, or Ingenium, and a towardly Disposition, or Indoles of the Soul. Discretion, or a right discerning between things that differ, is the genuine sense of divine Goodness, and the sinfulness of Sin; whereby the Mind clearly beholds the Beauty of the one, and the Deformity of the other, and is so satisfied and filled with this Light, that there is no reserv of any contrary opinion, or secret subtlety of a corrupt wit, lurking in any corner, which may prevail against it, and seduce the Soul from God. Good Disposition is the bias or inclination of the Soul toward God, and aversion from Sin, a rising from an inward Sympathy with the one, and Antipathy against the other. These two beget a Christian Nobility and Gallantry of Spirit — in coctum generoso pectus honesto. The Mind thus settled and fortified within itself, is able to encounter all the proud Fancies and vain Imaginations of men, whereby they exalt themselves against Heaven; to despise the greatest prosperity of the most glorious Sinners, to nauseate the Circean Cup of their sweetest pleasures, and scorn the witty impieties of a Lucian, or a julian, and the whole Stage of profane Scoffers; to pass through the Labyrinth of a thousand Errors, and keep the straight path of Truth, though covered all over with the thorny arguments of the acutest Sophistry, or possessed with Lions and Dragons of persecution. Hence proceeds an inward Joy and sweet Delight in God and all Goodness, as naturally pleasing to the new Nature of a rectified Soul. David is a most famous example of this happy temper of Mind, and therefore styled A Man after Gods own Hart, judging as he ●udgeth, loving what he loveth, and hating that which he hateth: and when he had sinned against this Ingenuity by those presumptuous sins of Murder and Adultery in the matter of Vriah, which checked this honourable title with the Rein of a sad exception, in his Penitential Psalm he prays for the restoring of this right and free spirit. Paul, the greatest Conqueror that ever was in the world, was eminently acted by this Spirit, being the most profound and powerful Preacher of the Gospel of Grace, and the highest Example thereof in himself. And though this spirit of Grace were not perfect in them, much less in common Christians, yet it is that true Genius thereof in all, striving and prevailing against the evil spirit of Corruption in them; and being the very Characteristical note of true Conversion, and that which Divines call Sincerity. Of all particular Graces, the first and fundamental is Faith in Christ, because this unites the Soul to him who is the Fountain of this new Life, sucking from him a Divine influence, and deriving it to all other Graces, and so mingling itself with them, resigns all back again to Christ, not as works or merits, but as his Gifts and Graces, by him to be presented to God. This Evangelicall Faith doth more perfectly unite the Soul to Christ and God by him, than all the inherent Grace of Adam; and this union of Faith is perfected in a more high and spiritual Love, which also flows from it; for as we are now more beholding to God, so we are more obliged to love him, and God also loves most where he gives most. This Love begets Obedience, Love being the most serviceable and active Affection of the Soul, and not only binds us to the Command, but engages us of itself to become like to him whom we do love: nor can there be any mutual delight between God and the Soul without likeness. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Glory being Grace perfected, where there is no Grace, there can be no Glory. As Christ, though he suffered for sin, yet would not endure the least stain thereof in himself, so though a Christian by his suffering is freed from the curse of Sin, yet is he no less an enemy to all Sin. And as the Grace of God doth not restrain him from commanding, by which he worketh Grace in us, so neither should it hinder us from using the means by which it is conveied to us. This obedience of a Christian, though very weak and imperfect in itself, yet being performed in the Strength of Christ, is more acceptable to God than all the perfect obedience of Adam. There is no condition which hath not a Grace fit for it, whereby it may be sweetened and sanctified, which is the happy Enjoiment thereof, a Heaven within, though there be a Hell without. In the world, saith Christ, ye shall have tribulation, in me ye shall have peace. Grace is a Panoply against all troubles, and a Paradise of all Pleasures.   

XVI. Of Duties.  
DUties are the Exercise of Graces, or the Souls Gymnasium, the ordinary way wherein God hath appointed to meet us and converse with us, and so instead of all those extraordinary manifestations of his presence in former times. As in our Natural and Civil life he hath ordained several Callings and Employments for the well spending of our time, and advancing our temporal Estates, so also in the Spiritual life he hath instituted certain Ordinances and Duties for the acting and improving of our Graces. They who live without a Calling and some constant Business, wander up and down in the Wilderness of Vanity and Vice, & such as despise or neglect Duties, prove as extravagant and licentious in Religion. There is a double Error concerning them. Some are very strict and sedulous in Duties, but rest in the work done, and count them by their Beads, or measure them by their Hourglass, rather than weigh them in the Balance of the Sanctuary; not regarding how and with what Spirit they perform them: whereas the very Heathens esteemed it no Litation, if there were any notable defect in the entrails; but sacrificed again, taking that for none, yea worse than none, as being omnious and unlucky. Others speak so much of the Spirit and inward part of the Duty, that they wholly neglect the Body thereof: but there is a great difference between a Body and a Carcase. Outward worship without Spirit and Truth is a dead Carcase, but with it is a living Body. They pretend to the Spirit, and wait for the impulses and motions thereof, but neglect the ways and means which the Spirit hath prescribed in his Word, and if we strictly observe them, we shall find such generally to be as formally Spiritual; as others are formal in Duties; full of words and notions, and placing all religion in them God hath purposely ordained solemn and set Duties to restrain our wand'ring Spirits, and bind them to his service, which otherwise through the manifold diversions of worldly occasions, or this vain pretention of waiting upon the Spirit, we should wholly neglect. David was a most holy and spiritual man, and his Psalms as full of spiritual life and vigour as any part of the Old Testament, yet we may observe in them; how commonly he begins heavily and with much diffidence, & so quickening by degrees, concludes with much assurance of Faith and Spiritual Joy. Therefore Duties are not to be deferred, because we are dull and indisposed, but so much rather to be practised; that thereby we may gather heat and life: and we have no warrant otherwise to expect the Spirit of God then in his own way. Our Spirits are like Instruments of Music which must be often tuned, or like Watches which must be wound up daily. The morning and evening sacrifices under the Law seem to typify to us under the Gospel the spiritual offering up of Christ at the beginning and end of the day. Duties are the Diet of the Soul, and it is best to make constant and set meals of them; though as our natural food, they may be iterated or deferred upon special occasions: but to omit them for any long time is dangerous, and wholly to neglect them, deadly. Christian Duties, whereof we now speak, are either such as God hath prescribed in the way of natural worship which we owe unto him; as to pray, preach, meditate, confer, and the like, and in these there is nothing ceremonial or servile, more than in the Worship itself which is exercised by them: or such as are specially and extraordinarily instituted by God; as the Sacraments: and being such, may not be rejected, unless we should plainly resist God: or else such as are mixed of both, and so partake of the nature and reason of both, as moral Duties circumstantiated by Divine Institution. As for those proud and foolish Spirits, who say they are above Ordinances and Duties, they may aswell say they are above all Religion and God himself. The right enjoiment of Duties is first to attend them as our main business, without which we do not use them, much less enjoy them. Marry was as much busied in hearing Christ, as Martha was about his entertainment. The Heathen Priests began with, Hoc age: they thought it a very irreligious thing to be remiss and vain, though in a vain Religion. When a Coal fell upon the hand of him who held the Censer, while Alexander was sacrificing, he rather suffered it to be burnt, then stir it. To Attention we must join Intention of Spirit: as we must love God, so also we must serve him, withal our heart, withal our Soul, and with all our might. Good intervenient thoughts may be generally good, but are very sinful in this particular circumstance; Again we must mingle every Duty as well as Hearing with Faith, beginning, proceeding, and ending all in Christ, who is the great and universal Ordinance of God. As our Spirit doth animate the Duty on our part, so doth the Spirit of God on his part. This communion of our Spirits with the Spirit of God in the Duty, is the happy enjoiment thereof, which renders it as spiritual as immediate influxes of the Spirit in any extraordinary way. Hence proceeds Joy and Delight: men of action naturally delight in Business, chiefly such as they find profitable to them. As profit begets delight, so delight begets profit. Be not slothful in Business, fervent in Spirit, serving the Lord. God doth not impose Duties upon us as tasks and burdens, as a Master exerciseth his Servant; but as a Teacher his Scholar, for his instruction and education. They are the Pedagogy of Heaven, preparing us for it: this apprehension of them takes off all the drudgery and servility from them, and renders them our reasonable and willing service, most profitable to our selus, and acceptable unto God.   

XVII. Of Conscience.  
COnscience is the greatest obligation to Duty; the supreme Dictator, and chief Magistrate in the Soul, and not only as a Magistrate externally imposing Laws and Commands, but rather as a Genius or Daemon within us, speaking Oracles, and exercising a Divine authority over us; which must be exactly satisfied in every point with a direct and active obedience: and in this respect it hath some kind of coordinate power and authority with God himself: for as Conscience without Divine authority will not justify an action, so God will not accept it without the concurrent authority of Conscience: there must be as it were mutual Indentures between both parties: God first indites and seals the deed, and Conscience must also seal the Counterpart: without the one our service is unlawful, and without the other unreasonable. This double authority being requisite to every action, any contrariety or diversity between them, puts the Soul into a strange confusion: for whether we do follow an erring Conscience we sin, or whether we do not we sin, and when the Conscience doubts and hangs in suspense between two contrary opinions, not knowing which way to take, like Pentheus, who thought he saw Et solem geminum, & geminus se ostendere Thebas. it sins whether it goes one way or other, or neither, if the case be such, as the thing ought to be done, or not done. This miserable condition in which the Soul is thus entangled proceeds from the natural corruption thereof, which is a difformity from the Mind of God, and that Divine authority, as a right Judgement is a conformity thereunto: yet men secretly charge it upon God as a severe exactor of that which is beyond their understanding, and think very hardly of him, that they should be involved in this Labyrinth of Error, and put into such a necessity of sinning; though this proceed not from any darkness of Truth, which is a most pure and clear Light, but the blindness which is in their Minds. To avoid this, Naturalists and Socinians suppose him a good easy and indulgent God, content with any thing, and well liking to be served with their good meaning, subordinating the authority of God to Conscience, rather than the authority of Conscience to God: and so to deify their corrupt Reason, debase & dishonour the Deity. Others who are not so impudent as to expect a toleration for their Consciences from God, yet exact it from men. It is true, no humane authority can force the Conscience, which to imagine is as ridiculous as that there should be a Law made against thinking: but if it may not restrain words and actions, which are things overt, and belong to the outward man, it is an ordinance of God to no purpose, for where there is no Law, every man may act according to his own Conscience, and if he may do so where there is a Law, the Law is vain, and of no force or authority. This is another difficulty of Conscience, when the public and authoritative Judgement, and the private differ, but more easily resolved then the former. If the thing be unlawful, it is better to obey God then Man; yet God who hath commanded us to be active in such cases, hath also commanded us to be passive in suffering; which is the only lawful escape he hath reserved for such as are under lawful authority: and which neither destroyeth the public authority, nor our private Conscience. But proud and furious Spirits, impatient of suffering, and despising this low and humble way of passive obedience, whereof Christ himself, & all his Apostles have given us both the precept and the example, will rather confound all Laws and Bonds of Humane Society, then be crossed in their own wills. A right Conscience will preserv itself in a right way, and by right means, both in doing and suffering, otherwise Martyrdom itself should be only Patience perforce, and the height of Christian Grace inferior to Heathenish Virtue▪ As Religion is a chief Bond of Humane Society, and indeed the very Spirit and Soul thereof, which governeth the inward man; so the differences and dissensions about it have always proved dangerous, and sometimes fatal to the State: and therefore may be no more to lerated then civil Seditions: What confusion and mischief did the Arrian Heresy work in the Roman Empire: the different expositions of the Mahometan Law serve to foment the wars between the Turks and Persians: So doth the Popish and Protestant Doctrine among Christians; and the Lutheran and calvinistical, Arminian and Antiarminian among Protestants. The most strange and prodigious villainies which were ever acted among men have been commonly the effects of an erring Conscience. Such was Agamemnon's sacrificing his Daughter, whereof Lucretius doth so much complain; Orestes his killing of his mother, being persuaded to it, as Euripides relateth, by the oracle of Apollo. The Vespers, Massacres, Powderplots of false and furious Zelots, the most impious Parricides, Rebellions, and Treasons of anabaptistical Spirits have been the Dictates of their fanatike Consciences. An evil Conscience is the greatest Tyrant; a man's own evil Spirit, or the Devil within him, possessing and engaging the whole man, and disturbing the world. Yet because of the Errors in Conscience, and much mischief proceeding from them, to abdicate Conscience itself is a most desperate and profane Humour, destroying all sense of Good or Evil, and confounding Heaven with Hell, whereas a good and right Conscience is like the Holy Spirit, our best Director and Comforter, As we cannot serve God without it, so neither can we enjoy any actual Happiness in him without the testimony thereof; his Spirit bearing witness with our Spirit that we are his Children. This is both the Basis and Acme of the Soul, the foundation and perfection of a Christian life, being indeed the most royal and generous thing in Man. Horace his description thereof is, as Calvin observeth, too high for a Heathen; but true of a David, and a right Christian. 

justum, & tenacem propositi virum,  
Non civium ardor prava jubentium,  
Non vultus instantis tyranni  
Mente quatit solida; neque Auster  
Dux inquietae turbidus Adriae,  
Nec fulminantis magna jovis manus,  
Si fractus illabatur orbis,  
Impavidum ferient ruinae.   

The Just man's judgement and resolved Will  
No fury Popular injoining ill,  
No urging Tyrant's face  
Shakes settled on a solid Base.  
Not the Souths Stormy breath which doth command  
Rough Adria; nor great Ioves thundering hand:  
Though the cracked Globe should fall,  
He fearless bears the breach of all.     

XVIII. Of the last judgement.  
Conscience is the supreme Judge within a man, but very erroneous in matter of Right, though seldom erring in matter of Fact: nor is it always rectified by the Judgement of others, whereof their Consciences are also Dictator's: yea the very Providence of God in this world, which men look upon as his Judgement at present, supposing him always to favour the Victorious, is so various, & many times so contrary, that many times a Cato may justly prefer the other side. But certainly there is such a thing in nature as Justice, though she have long since left the earth; and the judge of all the earth must do right, and doth immediately pass sentence upon every evil act assoon as it is committed, though it be not speedily executed. The greater the present confusion of all things is, the greater is the certainty of the last Judgement. God never made a world to no purpose, and Rational Creatures, which are his chief Subjects, only to rebel against him. The Heathen were so perplexed with the consideration hereof, having no certain knowledge of this last Judgement, that sometimes they thought there was no God, Esse deos credamne?— denying the very Creed of Nature, and surrendering the belief of a Deity to their doubting of his Providence, it seeming more credible to them that there is no God, then that he should be unjust. Sometimes they thought God did not regard these inferior things, but only made a sport and pastime of them. Ludit in humanis divina potentia rebus. Sometimes they thought one God favoured one side, and another the other. 
Mulciber in Trojam, pro Troja stabat Apollo;  
Saepe prement Deo fert Deus alter opem.  The Manichees went so far in this Opinion as to set up an universal and standing Pair of contrary Gods, whereof one is the Author of Good, and the other of Evil: which is the natural Idolatry of many barbarous Nations. The Mysteries of Providence have puzzled the whole world: and indeed it is so strange an Administration, that there seems to be left no more than what is merely necessary for the preservation of the world. Assoon as any Family or State grows up to a maturity, they have their period, and are thrown down again: and when any man becomes strictly honest and religious, he can hardly be suffered to breath, nor enjoy a common being among men. Aristides the Just, and Socrates who lived as he taught, could not be endured in the most learned City of the world. Even among Christians the power and life of that Religion which is generally professed, is most opposed; whereas they who have been most forward in any false Religion have been always most honoured. Certainly there is another manner of account to be taken of these things, or else we must suppose God to be a most indiscreet Phaeton & unwise Governor of the World, which is very irreligious and irrational. God can no more rest in this confusion of all things, than he could in the first Chaos; but will a● last bring forth the perfect module of his Providence and Justice, and the cerrain expectation thereof is that which doth easily absolv him, and answer all objections: for than shall this Face of Providence which now toward us seems monstrous and deformed, as it shall look toward God, appear most beautiful, not only in the principal lineaments thereof, but in every hair of the least circumstance: then shall every thing attain that perfection for which it was ordained and designed by him, and be set in its right place and order, never to be removed or disordered any more. The first Creation was but an Embryo of this other world of perfection, which shall be then completed: and so shall ensue that eternal Sabbath, wherein God shall rest and reign for ever. The chief materials of this new World are Angels and Men, the everlasting Monuments of his Mercy and Justice, who are now in a continual progress toward the most contrary terms of extreme Happiness and Misery. Then shall Truth and Error, Good and Evil, be as clearly distinguished and discerned by all, as now the Eye doth judge of Colours, Black and White, Light and Darkness, and every one receive according to his Deeds: so that there shall not be one farthing got or lost by all this forbearance. Though Hell hath most of men, yet Heaven had the first, who died a Martyr: and God will have some of both sorts in all Ages and Parts of the World to fill both places. As for wicked men, juvenal tells us, Quocunque invenias populo, quocunque sub axe. Though he thought a Brutus or a Cato could hardly be found in any corner of the earth: but Christ tells us that better than they shall come from the East, and West, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and jacob in the Kingdom of God: and they in Heaven sing unto him. Thou hast redeemed us unto God out of every Kindred, and Tong, and People, and Nation; As when any man hath filled up the measure of his Sin or Grace he is taken out of this world; so when the whole number of Sinners and Saints shall be accomplished, then shall the World itself cease and be resolved into this perfect Kingdom. Christ shall have his mystical Body made of all his Saints, as so many members of several proportions; and the Devil shall have his made up of sinners of all sorts and Sizes; and God shall be perfectly glorified in both. God made the first world in order, measure, and weight, much more this second world, which must be most perfect and perpetual. The perfection of this perfection, and that wherein God is most glorified, is the salvation of Man: therefore as the first man that died was saved, so the dead in Christ shall rise first: though there shall be more of the damned, which is also to set forth the singular and extraordinary Grace of God toward the blessed, yet there is greater manifestation of God's Glory in them that are saved then in the other. Justice is equally balanced by rewarding the good, and punishing the bad: but the saving of one Sinner, which is an act of free Grace and Bounty, far exceeds both: and damnation, which is but a due punishment, holds no proportion with it. There is more merit in the blood of Christ, by which we are saved, then demerit in the Devils and all the damned. A Christian enjoys this day of Judgement by a constant and joyful expectation thereof, which is so terrible unto others: and as God will then reduce all the confusions of this world into a state of perfection, so shall all the reproaches and sufferings of the Saints end in eternal Glory and Blessedness.   

XIX. Of Hell.  
HEll is the Executioner of God's last Judgement against Sinners, the Nadir of the new World, as Heaven is the Zenith Paul the 3d d on his death bed, said, he should shortly be resolved of three things whereof he had ever much doubted; Whether there were a God, an Immortality, and a Hell, or no: and indeed we can hardly deny the last, unless we also deny the first. God who is the great Judge will not only pass sentence, which is but an Idea of Justice, but also execute it upon the damned, which is the life and existence thereof. Therefore every Religion hath instituted some kind of Heaven and Hell, places of reward and punishment suitable to itself: and the more pure and spiritual the Religion is, the more exact are the Heaven and Hell belonging to it: for as it deals with God himself, so it doth with his Justice and Mercy. The Barbarous Nations suppose that after Death they shall be transported beyond I know not what Mountains, and there receiv some childish rewards. The Poets have their Elysium and Tartarus, and have furnished them with several kinds of Pleasures and Pains. The Turks fancy a Paradise of all carnal Delights, and a place of corporeal Torments, very gross and sensual, nearer Poetry than Christianity. The Papists acknowledge a true Heaven and Hell; but as they deal with all other parts of Religion, so to these they add some, Suburbs, certain Limbo's and Purgatories of their own invention. But the Scriptures set forth the true Heaven and the true Hell, in a most perfect manner, becommig the Mercy and Justice of an Infinite God, and befitting the Spiritual nature of the Creatures capable thereof. Wicked men persuade themselves that God who made them will not damn them, or at most that they shall only suffer to the purging away of their Sin: and then afterward— Vbi mille rotam volvere per annos, as Origen held even of the Devils, they shall be released: because their Sins cannot hurt God, therefore they think God will not hurt them. Thou thoughtest, saith God, I was altogether such a one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thine Eyes. He is so far from any such blind and dull negligence, that he will bring forth all their sins, and set every one of them in order, attired with all their Circumstances, and exactly proportion punishments to them by a most just and equal compensation. He who would suffer none to escape in this life whom he had cursed with a temporal Curse, but most severely punished the foolish pity of Saul, in sparing Agag; and Achan for reserving only a wedge of Gold and a Babylonish Garment of the spoil of that execrated City; who drowned the old World with a Deluge, and saved only eight Persons in the Ark, will certainly in a most exact manner execute his great Anathema and final doom against Sinners, whereof those former examples seem to be but the types, and the evidences of his severe wrath; the perfection whereof is reserved for Hell. These things are no Monkery, nor Christian Poetry, no Bruta fulmina, but most certain truths grounded on Reason and Scripture. God is not slack, as men count slackness, nor rigid as they count rigour: but as he perfectly hates Sin, so he will perfectly punish it; and go to the very utmost Apex and Puntilio of Justice, that so his Justice may be manifested to the utmost. Hell is the privation of all Good things, depriving the irreligious Cardinal at once both of his part in Paris, and of his part in Paradise. There the voluptuous Dives hath not the least drop of water to cool the tip of his tongue, but is exprobrated and tormented aswell with the remembrance of the good things which he formerly enjoied, as of the evil thing he suffers. But Heaven itself is that which doth infinitely provoke the envy of the Devils and the Damned; making the great Tyrants and cruel Persecuters of the world to gnash their teeth, when they behold a poor Lazarus, whom they disdained to diet with their dogs, advanced to so high a Glory, and trampling on their captive necks. Hence they conceiv as much torment, as they see the Saints enjoy of bliss: for this is the nature of perfect Envy, to be as much vexed in itself, as it apprehendeth Happiness in another. Coelum est altera Gehenna damnatorum. The sensible sufferings of Hell are the other part thereof, the Tunica molesta, which covers the whole Man all over with pain and misery. The pains of the Body are set out by the terrible violence of Fire and Sulphur, which are put for the whole power of Nature, armed with all its weapons and engines, and sharpened to the quickest activity it hath, yea beyond the present condition thereof, as the Body itself shall be then fortified, only to endure those torments which now would consume it in a moment: Yea, through this Hellish discord and distemper it shall become a most perfect engine of its own Misery, more than all the external impressions of Sicilian or Turkish tortures, the tedious Tragedy of Raviliac, or the horrible Disease of a dying Antiochus. But the Soul, which is the chief Sinner, shall be chief Mourner at its own Funeral. God who made it, and knows how to punish it, shall cause his wrath to pierce into the very Inwards and Vitals of it, which no other Creature can reach. His dreadful Ey shall shoot beams of Vengeance through and through the damned Spirits. Every wicked man carrieth about him his own Hell, and layeth up barrels of Gunpowder against that time: which when the breath of the Lord like a flame of fire shall once have kindled, will blow him up, and fill the Soul and all the faculties thereof with an universal conflagration. Sin is the fuel of this fire which shall never fail: for neither shall the Gild thereof be purged away by Suffering, nor the Power be suppressed by Punishing, but they shall for ever rage and blaspheme his name through the sense of their pain and anguish, and for ever be punished for it. Thus shall God to the utmost fight against the damned, and they against him to all Eternity. There shall be no discharge in that was. This Wheel of Eternity is that on which the Soul shall be perfectly broken; that Abyss which renders the pit of Hell bottomless, and the continual sense thereof is the most bitter Ingredient in every moment of suffering, making the Soul endure all at once, through the constant expectation of a succeeding perpetuity. Eternity begets that Monster, Despair, which like a Medusa's head, astonisheth with its very aspect, and strangles Hope, which is the breath of the Soul: as it is said, Dum spiro spero, so it may be inverted, Dum spero spiro. Other miseries may wound the Spirit, but Despair kills it dead. Now a Christian enjoys Hell in a contrary manner, as the damned are tormented with the sight of Heaven. Gehenna est alterum Coelum beatornm. The miseries of this Life commend Heaven unto us, much more the torments of Hell. Deliverance from great dangers affect the Soul far more than perpetual security. When a man shall consider with himself, that he was in the same condemnation with others, and yet is pardoned and preferred while they are executed, it will make him hug himself, and fill his Soul with the sense of a double delight, conceiving as much joy in his deliverance, as there is torment in others suffering. 
Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis  
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem.  It is at present a natural delight, but not without some tincture of cruelty to behold the Tragedy of others: but when the Justice of God hath once past sentence upon the damned, as they shall for ever depart from him, so shall they also depart from us: and then all Humane Relations, the grounds of Pity shall cease, and be swallowed up in the Love of God; so that we shall aswell rejoice in his Justice, and their Punishment, as God himself, who hath said, He will laugh at their destruction. Let the Saints be joyful in Glory, let them sing upon their beds: Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two edged sword in their Hand; To execute vengeance upon the Heathen, and punishments upon the People; To bind their Kings with Chains, and their Nobles with fetters of iron; To execute upon them the judgement written. This honour have all his Saints.   

XVII. Of Heaven.  
HEaven is the contrary of Hell, but far more glorious than Hell is miserable. It is not only a paradise, or reduction of Man to his primitive state of perfection, but an higher exaltation of his nature, as far above it in Glory, as it is in situation. Though Man was created perfect according to that state in which he was then made, yet he was capable of an higher perfection; and that capacity was not imperfection, but the foundation of this greater perfection; not a want of any thing which he then ought to have, but only an absence of that which he might afterward have. As a Child in the womb is a perfect Child, and of a more excellent nature than the Foetus of any Beast, though it be not perfect in all the degrees and operations of Man; so is Man in the womb of this World: or as the Apostle expresseth it by a Grain or Seed, which is a perfect Grain, but not a perfect Ear of Corn, though it be the Seed thereof. As Redemption was the End of Creation, so is Glorification the End of Humane Perfection. The Body shall be changed in qualities, but not in substance, for it must still continue the same, and not be transubstantiated. It shall be cleansed and purified, not only from all natural imperfections, as Pains, and Diseases, and all Distempers, or Deformities; but also be stripped of all those natural Virtues, which are inferior perfections, serving to supply the present necessities thereof, as Eating, Drinking, Matrimony, and the like. For as in the natural state Augmentation ceaseth, when a man hath attained his Acme, so shall Nutrition and Generation, when he shall thus be perfected in himself, and in his whole Species. Then also all the objects of these inferior delights shall cease. As it is the sumptuous excellency of a great feast to want all grosser meats, being furnished with more curious dainties; so it is the super-excellency of Heaven to want them all. The Crowns and Sceptres of the most glorious Princes, their rich Treasures, their Pomp's, and Triumphs, and Royal State, and all the Glory of the world, and the Delights of the sons of men are so much inferior and heterogeneal to Heaven, that they cannot mingle with the pure nature thereof: and so far from adding the least moment to that weight of Glory, that like the dust of the Balance, they would rather defile it: which shows the perfect Vanity of all those worldly things whereof we formerly discoursed, though in this Life they are the Handmaids of Happiness, to do the drudgery thereof, yet must they then, when there shall be no more use of them, turned out of their service. Surely Mahomet's Heaven is very mean and base which is made up of the dross and refuse of the true Heaven of Christians. The Body being thus stripped of all those Husks, shall be endued with all Glorious qualities, and perfectly fitted to serve and attend the Soul, which now is forced to drudge for the Body, and lay in Provision for it, as the Wise man saith, All labour is for his mouth, and yet the Appetite is not satisfied: but then the main and only Business shall be Spiritual; and therefore the Apostle calls it a Spiritual Body, not a Spirit, but advanced to the nearest likeness whereof it is capable, and made as fit an Instrument for the Spirit as may be. Probably it shall be purified and sublimated to the perfection of the Celestial matter, which is the purest part o● the whole Body of the world, and the Country or Region wherein Man shall live for ever: and therefore as now living on the Earth his Body is suitable and connatural to it, so when he shall be taken up to Heaven it shall be refined to the temper thereof: and shall need none of Mahomet's Lodestones to lift it up, but like the Stars in their Orbs move in the highest Heaven of Heavens most freely and naturally. Thus the Apostle speaking of the resurrection of the Body seems to argue, Flesh and Blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, neither can Corruption inherit Incorruption: and again, The first Man was of the Earth Earthly, the second Man is the Lord from Heaven; as we have born the Image of the Earthly, so we shall also bear the Image of the Heavenly. This is the highest perfection whereof the Body is capable, and was reserved for Christ the second Adam, and his glorified members: as the Apostle doth also infer. Howbeit that was not first which was Spiritual, but that which was Natural, and afterward that which was Spiritual. As God is the Light of that place, so the Soul is the Ay which shall see him, and immediately enjoy him: and as the Body, so the Soul much more shall then be discharged of all Imperfections, as Errors, Lusts, and the like: Reason and Discourse, yea, Faith itself shall then be resolved into Vision; Desire into Joy, and Hope into Fruition. Not only all Sin shall be excluded out of Heaven, but also many inferior Graces, which now serve to bring us thither. The Soul shall then attain an higher perfection than it hath or can have in this world: God saith, No man can see him and live, that is, no living Man can possibly see him, though the common jews did interp●●●●therwise, as appears by the Story of Manoah, yet Moses who saw as much of God as man could do, did not therefore die. But he saw only his Backparts, or Attributes, which are but the demonstrations of his Nature: in Heaven we shall behold him face to face, and know him as we are known; according to the utmost capacity of finite Creatures: and thus the Soul shall be wholly filled with the sight of God, as the Ey is filled with Light, possessing and enjoying it in itself, and changed by it into the same Glory. Then shall we also love God as we are loved of him; yea, as he loves himself according to our finite capacity; and so accordingly partake of the same Happiness which he enjoieth in himself: which is a most wonderful and inconceivable Blessedness; and therefore sensual and carnal men who are only acquainted with the Creatures, wholly neglect it, as bein● 〈◊〉 for fools to understand, and would be better pleased, and more taken with a Poetical Elysium, or Circean Paradise. But a true Christian may satisfy himself with this, that though he cannot comprehend this future Blessedness fully and particularly, yet in general he belieus it to be the highest and purest Happiness whereof he is capable. Every Vessel of Mercy, as a Vessel, shall be made only to hold Mercy, and be wholly filled with it; Yet shall not all the Saints be equal in Glory, but differ therein, as in Grace: for though all the Spirits of Just men shall be then made perfect, yet they shall be proportionably perfected in Glory according to their degrees of Grace, by an Arithmetical, not by a Geometrical proportion: as in the Parable of the Talents, He who gained two Talents, was made Ruler over two Cities in his Lord's Kingdom: and he who gained five Talents was made Ruler over five Cities. There is no proportion between 〈◊〉 and Cities, yet there is a proportion between Two and Two, and between Five and Five. Thus shall we be recompensed according to our works, though not for our works: and this may be as great and quick an incitation to working, as the proud opinion of merit, attaining the same effect, and ending in the same reward of Blessedness. And though there cannot properly be any merit in the Creature, but only a performance of Covenants; yet the obedience of Angels, through that Grace which was first implanted in their Nature, and never forfeited, is far short of this free Grace of God in Christ▪ which as it is a manifestation of the greater Love of God to Man, and the ground of his greater Delight in him, so it begets in us proportionably a greater Love toward him, and a greater Delight in him, wherein the chief Happpiness of the Creature doth consist ●nd thus the Soul of Man ●●nds the highest perfection of Glory, and the very Heaven of Heaven, through free Grace enjoying Christ as the fountain of all Happiness, and God himself as the Ocean thereof. As Heaven in the separation from all worldly things doth most plainly manifest the Vanity thereof, so in itself, and in its own nature it is the most perfect, universal, and eternal Blessedness; and the preparation for it, and expectiation of it, the only true Happiness of Man in this Life.  
FINIS.    

Errata.  
PAg. 2. lin. 1. Read Pandora's. p. 6. l. 23. r. highest Sense. p. 29. l. 5. ● Nicolas. p. 34. l. 12. r. publica. p. 40. l. 12▪ 13. r. ingenuous. p. 42, 1. 6 r. Myrteus. p. 47. l. 9 r. kind of regality. p. 53. l. 6. r. as Metal. p. 75. l. 4. r. apposite. p. 89. l. 6. r. great. l. 14, 15. r. himself. p. 107. l. 16, 18. r. Nulla. p. 132 l. 2. r. Sibylls. p. 147. l. 8. r. Christ whom. p. 150. l. 7. r. Nosce. p. 152. l. 6. r. the Text. p. 167. l. 6. r. poenis. p. 175. l. 17. r. inebriation. p. 176. l. 13. r. retorted p. 189. l. 2. r so it is. p. 201. l. 23, 24. r. by telling. p. 209. l. 18 r. in the story. p. 224. l. 23. r. consumptos. p. 255. l. 20. r. ominous. p. 262. l. 16. r. geminas. p. 270. l. 14. r. that a Cato. p. 278. l. 8. r. Immortality of the Soul.