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Consider that all things else are satisfactions but to the brutish part of a man; and that these are the refreshments and relishes of that noble part of us, by which we are better than beasts; and whatsoever other instrument, exercise, or consideration, is of use to take our loves from the world, the same is apt to place them upon God.

5. Do not seek for deliciousness and sensible consolations in the actions of religion; but only regard the duty and the conscience of it. For, although in the beginning of religion, most frequently, and, at some other times, irregularly, God complies with our infirmity, and encourages our duty with little overflowings of spiritual joy, and sensible pleasure, and delicacies in prayer, so as we seem to feel some little beam of heaven, and great refreshments from the Spirit of consolation; yet this is not always safe for us to have, neither safe for us to expect and look for: and when we do, it is apt to make us cool in our inquiries and waitings upon Christ, when we want them: it is a running after him, not for the miracles, but for the loaves; not for the wonderful things of God, and the desires of pleasing him, but for the pleasures of pleasing ourselves. And as we must not judge our devotion to be barren or unfruitful, when we want the overflowings of joy running over: so neither must we cease, for want of them. If our spirits can serve God, choosingly and greedily, out of pure conscience of our duty, it is better in itself, and more safe to us.

6. Let him use to soften his spirit with frequent meditation upon sad and dolorous objects, as of death, the terrors of the day of judgment, fearful judgments upon sinners, strange horrid accidents, fear of God's wrath, the pains of hell, the unspeakable amazements of the damned, the intolerable load of a sad eternity. For whatsoever creates fear, or makes the spirit to dwell in a religious sadness, is apt to entender the spirit, and make it devout and pliant to any part of duty. For a great fear, when it is ill managed, is the parent of superstition; but a discreet and well-guided fear produces religion.

7. Pray often, and you shall pray oftener; and, when you are accustomed to a frequent devotion, it will so insensibly unite to your nature and affections, that it will become trouble to omit your usual or appointed prayers; and what

you obtain, at first, by doing violence to your inclinations, at last, will not be left without as great unwillingness, as that, by which at first it entered. This rule relies not only upon reason derived from the nature of habits, which turn into a second nature, and make their actions easy, frequent, and delightful but it relies upon a reason, depending upon the nature and constitution of grace; whose productions are of the same nature with the parent, and increases itself, naturally growing from grains to huge trees, from minutes to vast proportions, and from moments to eternity. But be sure not to omit your usual prayers without great reason, though, without sin, it may be done; because after you have omitted something, in a little while you will be past the scruple of that, and begin to be tempted to leave out more. Keep yourself up to your usual forms: you may enlarge, when you will; but do not contract or lessen them, without a very probable reason.

8. Let a man, frequently and seriously, by imagination, place himself upon his death-bed, and consider what great joys he shall have for the remembrance of every day well spent, and what then he would give, that he had so spent all his days. He may guess at it, by proportions: for it is certain, he shall have a joyful and prosperous night, who hath spent his day holily; and he resigns his soul with peace into the hands of God, who hath lived in the peace of God and the works of religion, in his life-time. This consideration is of a real event; it is of a thing, that will certainly come to pass. "It is appointed for all men once to die;" and, after death, comes judgment; the apprehension of which is dreadful, and the presence of it is intolerable; unless, by religion and sanctity, we are disposed for so venerable an appearance.

9. To this may be useful, that we consider the easiness of Christ's yoke, the excellences and sweetnesses, that are in religion, the peace of conscience, the joy of the Holy Ghost, the rejoicing in God, the simplicity and pleasure of virtue, the intricacy, trouble, and business of sin; the blessings and health, and reward of that; the curses, the sicknesses, and sad consequences of this; and that, if we are

W

See the Great Exemplar, Part iii. Disc. xiv. of the Easiness of Christian

Religion.

weary of the labours of religion, we must eternally sit still, and do nothing for whatsoever we do contrary to it, is infinitely more full of labour, care, difficulty, and vexation.

:

10. Consider this also, that tediousness of spirit is the beginning of the most dangerous condition and estate in the whole world. For it is a great disposition to the sin against the Holy Ghost: it is apt to bring a man to backsliding and the state of unregeneration; to make him return to his vomit and his sink; and either to make the man impatient, or his condition scrupulous, unsatisfied, irksome, and desperate : and it is better, that he had never known the way of godliness, than, after the knowledge of it, that he should fall away. There is not in the world a greater sign, that the spirit of reprobation is beginning upon a man, than when he is habitually and constantly, or very frequently, weary, and slights, or loathes, holy offices.

11. The last remedy, that preserves the hope of such a man, and can reduce him to the state of zeal and the love of God, is a pungent, sad, and a heavy affliction; not desperate, but recreated with some intervals of kindness, or little comforts, or entertained with hopes of deliverance; which condition if a man shall fall into, by the grace of God he is likely to recover; but, if this help him not, it is infinite odds, but he will quench the Spirit.

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SECTION VIII.
Of Alms.

LOVE is as communicative as fire, as busy and as active, and it hath four twin-daughters, extreme like each other; and but that the doctors of the school have done, as Thamar's midwife did, who bound a scarlet thread, something to distinguish them, it would be very hard to call them asunder. Their names are, 1. Mercy; 2. Beneficence, or well-doing; 3, Liberality; and, 4. Alms; which, by a special privilege, hath obtained to be called after the mother's name, and is commonly called charity. The first or eldest is seated in the affection; and it is that, which all the other must attend. For mercy, without alms, is acceptable, when the person is disabled to express outwardly, what he heartily de

sires. But alms, without mercy, are like prayers without devotion, or religion without humility. 2. Beneficence, or well-doing, is a promptness and nobleness of mind, making us to do offices of courtesy and humanity to all sorts of persons in their need, or out of their need. 3. Liberality is a disposition of mind, opposite to covetousness; and consists in the despite and neglect of money upon just occasions, and relates to our friends, children, kindred, servants, and other relatives. 4. But alms is a relieving the poor and needy. The first and the last only are duties of Christianity. The second and third, are circumstances and adjuncts of these duties; for liberality increases the degree of alms, making our gift greater; and beneficence extends it to more persons and orders of men, spreading it wider. The former makes us sometimes to give more, than we are able; and the latter gives to more, than need by the necessity of beggars, and serves the needs and conveniences of persons, and supplies circumstances whereas, properly, alms are doles and largesses, to the necessitous and calamitous people, supplying the necessities of nature, and giving remedies to their miseries.

Mercy and alms are the body and soul of that charity, which we must pay to our neighbour's need: and it is a precept, which God therefore enjoined to the world, that the great inequality, which he was pleased to suffer in the possessions and accidents of men, might be reduced to some temper and evenness; and the most miserable person might be reconciled to some sense and participation of felicity.

Works of Mercy, or the several Kinds of corporal Alms.

The works of mercy are so many, as the affections of mercy have objects, or as the world hath kinds of misery. Men want meat, or drink, or clothes, or a house, or liberty, or attendance, or a grave. In proportion to these, seven works are usually assigned to mercy, and there are seven kinds of corporal alms reckoned. 1. To feed the hungry. 2. To give drink to the thirsty. 3. Or clothes to the naked. 4. To redeem captives. 5. To visit the sick. 6. To entertain strangers. 7. To bury the dead . But many more may

* Matt. xxv. 35.

y Matt. xxvi. 12. 2 Sam. ii. 5.

be added. Such as are, 8. To give physic to sick persons. 9. To bring cold and starved people to warmth and to the fire; for sometimes clothing will not do it; or this may be done, when we cannot do the other.

right ways. 11. To lend money.

10. To lead the blind in

12. To forgive debts.

13. To remit forfeitures. 14. To mend highways and bridges. 15. To reduce or guide wandering travellers. 16. To ease their labours, by accommodating their work with apt instruments; or their journey, with beasts of carriage. 17. To deliver the poor from their oppressors. 18. To die for my brother. 19. To pay maidens' dowries, and to procure for them honest and chaste marriages.

Works of spiritual Alms and Mercy are,

1. To teach the ignorant. 2. To counsel doubting persons. 3. To admonish sinners diligently, prudently, seasonably, and charitably to which also may be reduced, provoking and encouraging to good works. 4. To comfort the afflicted, 5. To pardon offenders. 6. To suffer and support the weak ". 7. To pray for all estates of men, and for relief to all their necessities. To which may be added, 8. To punish or correct refractoriness. 9. To be gentle and charitable, in censuring the actions of others. 10. To establish the scrupulous, wavering, and inconstant spirits. 11. To confirm the strong. 12. Not to give scandal. 13. To quit a man of his fear. 14. To redeem maidens from prostitution and publication of their bodies c.

To both these kinds, a third also may be added of a mixed nature, partly corporal, and partly spiritual: such are, 1. Reconciling enemies d. 2. Erecting public schools of learning. 3. Maintaining lectures of divinity. 4. Erecting colleges of religion and retirement from the noises and more frequent temptations of the world. 5. Finding employment for unbusied persons, and putting children to honest trades. the particulars of mercy or alms cannot be narrower, than

Nobilis hæc esset pietatis rixa duobus ;
Quòd pro fratre mori vellet uterque prior.
b 1 Thess. v. 14.

a Heb. x. 24.

Mart.

For

• Puella prosternit se ad pedes : Miserere virginitatis meæ, nè prostituas

hoc corpus sub tam turpi titulo.

• Laudi ductum apud vet.

Hist. Apol. Tya.

αἶψά τε καὶ μέγα νεῖκος ἐπισταμένως κατέπαυσε.

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