Meditations and Vows Divine and Moral, Part 9 – Part 31

Meditations and Vows Divine and Moral · Part 9 – Part 31

p. 179

All temporall things are troublesome: For if we hauehave good things, it is a trouble to forgoe them; and when we see they must be parted frō, either we wish they had not been so good, or that wee neuer had enioyed thē. Yea, it is more trouble to lose them, than it was before ioy to possesse them. If contrarily, wee hauehave euill things, their very presence is troublesome; and still we wish that they were good, or that we were disburdened of them: So p. 18good things are troublesome in euent, euill things in their vse. They in the future, these in present: they, because they shall come to an end, these because they doe continue. Tell mee, thy wife, or thy childe lyes dying, and nowe makes vp a louing and dutifull life, with a kinde and heauenly parture; whether hadst thou rather, for thy owne part, she had been so good, or worse? would it hauehave cost thee so many heartie sighes and teares, if shee had beene peruerse and p. 19disobedient? Yet, if in her life time I put thee to this choyce, thou thinkest it no choyce at all, in such inequalitie. It is more torment (sayest thou) to liue one vnquiet monethmonth, then it is pleasure to liue an age in louelove. Or if thy life be yet dearer: Thou hast liued to graye hayres, not hastened with cares, but bredde with late succession of yeeres. Thy table was euer couered with varietie of dishes: Thy backe softly and richly clad. Thou neuer gauest denyall p. 20to either skinne or stomacke; Thou euer fauouredst thy selfe, and health, thee. Now death is at thy threshold, and vnpartially knocks at thy doore, doest thou not wish thou hadst liued with crusts, and beene clothed with ragges? Wouldest thou not hauehave giuen a better welcome to death, if he had found thee, lying vponupon a pallet of straw, and supping of water gruell; after many painfull nights, and many sides changed in vain? Yet this beggerly estate thou detestest in health, p. 21and pitiest in others as truely miserable: The summe is; A begger wisheth he might be a Monarch while he liues; and y^e great Potētate wisheth he had liued a begger, when hee comes to die; &, if beggery be to hauehave nothing, he shall be so in death, though he wished it not. Nothing, therefore, but eternitie can make a man truely happy; as nothing can make perfect misery but eternitie: for as temporall good things afflict vsus in their ending, so temporall sorrowes afford vsus p. 22ioy in the hope of their ende: What folly is this in vsus to seeke for our trouble, to neglect our happinesse? I can be but well; and this that I was well, shall one day bee grieuous: Nothing shall please me, but that once I shall bee happie foreuer.

10

The eldest of our forefathers liued not so much as a day to God; to whome a thousand yeeres is as no more; we liue but as an houre to the day of our forefathers; for if nine hundreth p. 23and sixty were but their day, our fourescore is but as the twelfth part of it: and yet of this our houre we liue scarce a minute to God: For, take away all that time that is consumed in sleeping, dressing, feeding, talking, sporting; of that little time there can remaine not much more than nothing: yet the most seeke pas-times to hasten it: Those which seeke to mend the pase of Time, spurre a running horse. I had more neede to redeeme it with double care and p. 24labor, then to seeke how to sell it for nothing.

11

Each day is a new life, and an abbridgement of the whole. I will so liue as if I accounted eueryevery day my first, and my last: as if I began to liue but then, and should liue no more afterwards.

12

It was not in vaine, that the ancient founders of languages vsed the same word in many tongues, to signifie both Honor and charge; meaning therein to teach vsus the inseparable connexion p. 25of these two. For there scarce euer was any charge without some opinion of honour: neither euer was there honour without a charge; which two, as they are not without reason ioyned together in name by humane institution, so they are most wisely coupled together by God in the disposition of these worldly estates: Charge without honor, to make it amēds, would be too toylesome, and must needes discourage and ouerlay a man. Honour without charge p. 26would bee too pleasant, and therfore both would bee too much sought after, and must needes carie away the mind in the enioying it. Now many dare not bee ambitious, because of the burden; chusing rather to liue obscurely & securely: And yet on the other side those that are vnderunder it, are refreshed in the charge with the sweetenesse of honour: seeing they cannot bee separated; it is not the worst estate to want both: They whome thou enuyest for honour, perhaps p. 27enuy thee more for thy quietnesse.

13

Hee that taketh his owne cares vponupon himselfe, loades himselfe in vaine with an vneasie burden. The feare of what may come, expectation of what will come, desire of what will not come, and inability of redressing all these, must needes breede him continuall torment. I will cast my cares vponupon GOD, hee hath bidden mee; they cannot hurt him; he can redresse them.

p. 2814

Our infancie is full of folly; youth, of disorder and toyle; age, of infirmity: Each time hath his burden, and that which may iustly worke our wearinesse: yet infancie longeth after youth; and youth, after more age; and hee that is very old, as he is a child for simplicitie, so he would be for yeeres. I account olde age the best of three; partly, for that it hath passed thorow the folly and disorder of the other; partly, for that the inconueniences p. 29of this are but bodily, with a bettered estate of the minde; and partly, for that it is neerest to dissolution. There is nothing more miserable then an old man that would bee yong againe. It was an answere worthy the commendations, of Petrarch, and that which argued a minde truely philosophicall of him, who when his friend bemoned his age appearing in his white temples, telling him he was sorry to see him looke so olde, replyed: Nay, be sory rather p. 30that euer I was yong to be a foole.

15

There is not the least action or euent (whateuer the vaine Epicures hauehave imagined) which is not ouer-ruled, and disposed by a prouidence, which is so far from detracting ought from the maiestie of God, for that the things are small, as that ther can be no greater honor to him then to extend his prouidence & decree to them because they are infinite: Neither doth this hold in natural things onelyonly, which are p. 31chained one to another by a regular order of succession; but euen in those things which fall out by casualty & imprudence: whence that worthy father, when as his speach digressed beside his intētiō to a confutatiō of the errors of the Manichees, could presētly gesse, that in that vnpurposed turning of it, God intēded the conuersion of some vnknown auditor; as the euēt proued his cōiecture true ere many daies; whē ought fals out cōtrary to that I purposed, it shall content me, that GOD p. 32purposed it as it is fallen out: So the thing hath attained his owne ende, whiles it missed mine. I know what I would, but GOD knoweth what I should will. It is enough that his will is done, though mine be crossed.

16

It is the most thankelesse office in the world, to be a mans Pandar vntounto sin. In other wrongs, one man is a wolf to another; but in this, a diuel. And, though at the first this damnable seruice cary away reward, yet in conclusion, it is requited p. 33with hatred and curses. For, as the sicke man extreamly distasted with a loathsome potion, hateth the very cruze wherin it was brought him; so doeth the conscience once soundly detesting sinne, loathe the meanes that induced him to cōmit it. Contrarily, who withstands a man in his prosecution of a sinne, while he doteth vponupon it, beares away frownes, and hart-burnings for a time: but when the offending partie comes to himselfe, and right reason, hee recompenseth p. 34his former dislike with so much more louelove, and so many more thankes. The franticke man returned to his wits, thinks him his best friend, that bound him, & beate him most. I will doe my best to crosse any man in his sinnes: If I hauehave not thankes of him; yet of my conscience I shall.

17

God must be magnified in his very iudgements: Hee lookes for praise, not onelyonly for heauen, but for hell also: His iustice is himselfe, as well as his merciemercy. As p. 35heauen then is for the praise of his merciemercy; so hell for the glory of his iustice. We must therefore bee so affected to iudgements as the author of them is, who delighteth not in blood as it makes his creature miserable, but as it makes his iustice glorious. EueryEvery true Christian then must learne to sing that compound dittie of the Psalmist: Of merciemercy and iudgment. It shal not only ioy mee to see God gratious and bountifull in his mercies, & deliuerances of his owne; but p. 36also to see him terrible in vengeance to his enemies. It is no cruelty to reioyce in iustice. The foolish merciemercy of men is cruelty to God.

18

Rarenesse causeth wonder; and more then that, incredulitie, in those things which in themselues are not more admirable, than the ordinary proceedings of nature If a blazing starre be seene in the skie, eueryevery man goes forth to gaze, and spendes eueryevery euening, some time in wondering at the beames p. 37of it. That any foule should bee bred of corrupted wood resolued into wormes, or that the Cameleon should euer change his colours, and liue by ayre; that the Ostrich should digest yron; that the Phoenix should burne her selfe to ashes, and from thence breed a successor; wee wonder, and can scarce credite: Other things more vsuall, no lesse miraculous, wee knowe, and neglect. That there should bee a birde that knoweth, and noteth the houres of day and p. 38night, as certainely as any Astronomer by the course of heauen; if we knowe not, who would beleeue? Or that the load-stone should by his secret vertue so drawe iron to it selfe, as that a whole chaine of needles should all hang by insensible points at ech other, onelyonly by the influence that it sends down from the first, if it were not ordinarie, would seeme incredible; who would beleeue when hee sees a foule mounted as hie as his sight can descrie it, that there were an engin p. 39to be framed, which could fetch it downe into his fist? Yea, to omit infinite examples, that a little despised creature should weaue nets out of her owne entrailes, and in her platformes of building should obserue as iust proportions as the best Geometrician, we would suspect for an vntrueth, if we saw it not dayly practised in our owne windowes. If the Sun shuld arise but once to the earth, I doubt eueryevery man would be a Persian, and fall downe and worship it: whereas p. 40now it riseth and declineth without regard. Extraordinary euēts ech man can wonder at: The frequence of Gods best workes causeth neglect; not that they are euer the worse for commōnesse; but because we are soon cloyed with the same conceit, and hauehave contempt bred in vsus through familiarity. I wil learne to note Gods power and wisedome, and to giuegive him praise of both in his ordinary works: so those things which are but triuiall to the most ignorant, shall be wonders to p. 41me; and that not for nine dayes, but for euer.

19

Those that affect to tell nouelties and wonders fal into many absurdities, both in busie enquirie after matters impertinent, and in a light credulitie, to what-euer they heare; and in fictions of their owne, and additions of circumstances to make their reports the more admired. I hauehave noted these men, not so much wondred at for their strange stories, while they are telling, as derided afterwards, whē p. 42the euent hath wrought their disproofe & shame. I will deale with rumors, as graue men doe by strange fashions, take them vp when they are growen into cōmon vse before; I may beleeue, but I wil not relate them but vnderunder the name of my author; who shall either warrant me with defence, if it be true; or if false, beare my shame.

20

It was a wittie and true speach of that obscure Heraclitus, that all men awaking are in one common worlde, but p. 43when we sleep, ech man goes into a seueral world by himself; which thogh it bee but a world of fancies, yet is the true image of that little worlde, which is in eueryevery mans heart. For the imaginations of our sleepe, shewe vsus what our dispositon is awaking. And as many in their dreams reueale those their secrets to others, which they would neuer hauehave done awake: so all may and doe disclose to themselues in their sleep those secret inclinations, which after much p. 44searching, they could not hauehave found out waking. I doubt not therefore, but as God heretofore hath taught future things in dreames (which kind of reuelation is now ceased) so still hee teacheth the present estate of the heart this way. Some dreames are from our selues, vaine and idle like our selues: Others are diuine, which teach vsus good, or mooue vsus to good; & others diuelish, which solicite vsus to euil. Such answere cōmonly shal I giuegive to any tēptation in the day as I doe by p. 45night. I will not lightly passe ouer my verie dreams: They shal teach me somewhat; so neither night nor day shalbe spēt vnprofitably; y^e night shal teach me what I am; the day what I should be.

21

Men make difference betwixt seruants friends, and sonnes: Seruants, though neer vsus in place, yet for their inferioritie, are not familiar. Friends, though by reason of their equalitie, and our louelove, they are familiar; yet still wee conceiue of them as others from our p. 46selues: But children wee thinke of, affectionately, as the diuided peeces of our owne bodies: But all these are one to God; his seruants are his friends, his friends are his sonnes; his sonnes, his seruants. Manie clayme kinred of GOD, and professe friendship to him (because these are priuiledges without difficultie, and not without honor) all the triall is in seruice. The other are most in affection, and therefore secret, and so may be dissembled; this consisting p. 47in action must needs shew it selfe to the eyes of others. Ye are my friends if ye doe whatsoeuer I commaund you: friendship with God is in seruice, and this seruice is in action. Many weare Gods cloth, that knowe not their Master, that neuer did good chare in his seruice: so that God hath many retainers that weare his Liuery, for a countenance, neuer waite on him; whom he will neuer owne for seruants either by fauour, or wages; few seruants, and therfore few sonnes. p. 48It is great fauour in God, and great honour to me, that he will vouchsafe to make mee the lowest drudge in his familie; which place if I had not, and were a Monarch of men, I were accursed. I desire no more but to serue; yet, Lord, thou giuest mee more, to bee thy sonne: I heare Dauid say, Seemeth it a small matter to you, to bee the sonne in lawe to a King? What is it then, oh what is it, to be the true adopted sonne of the King of glory? Let mee not now say as Dauid of Saul, but p. 49as Sauls grand-childe to Dauid; Oh, what is thy seruant, that thou shouldest looke vponupon such a dead dogge as I am?

22

I am a stranger here belowe, my home is aboue; yet I can thinke too well of these foraine vanities, and can not thinke enough of my home. Surely, that is not so farre aboue my head, as my thoughts; neither doth so farre passe me in distance, as in comprehension: and yet I would not stand so much vponupon conceiuing, if I could admire p. 50it enough: but my straight heart is filled with a little wonder; and hath no roume for the greatest part of glorie that remaineth. Oh God what happines hast thou prepared for thy chosen? What a purchase was this, worthy of the blood of such a Sauiour? As yet I doe but looke towardes it afarre off: But it is easie to see by the outside how goodly it is within. Although as thine house on earth; so that aboue hath more glorie within than can bee bewrayed by the p. 51outer appearance. The outer part of thy Tabernacle heere belowe is but an earthly and base substance; but within it is furnished with a liuing, spirituall, and heauenly guest: so the outer heauens, though they be as gold to all other materiall creatures; yet they are but drosse to thee: Yet how are euen the outmost walles of that house of thine beautified with glorious lightes, whereof eueryevery one is a world forbignes, and as an heauen for goodlines: Oh teach mee by this to p. 52long after, and wonder at the inner part, before thou letst mee come in to behold it.

23

Riches or beauty, or what-euer worldly good that hath been, doth but grieue vsus; that which is, doth not satisfie vsus; that which shall be, is vncertaine. What follie is it to trust to any of them?

24

Securitie makes worldlings merrie: and therefore are they secure, because they are ignorant. That is onelyonly solide ioy, which ariseth from a resolution; p. 53when the hart hath cast vp a full account of all causes of disquietnesse, and findeth the causes of his ioy more forceable: thereupon settling it selfe in a stayed course of reioycing: For the other, so soone as sorrow makes it selfe to be seene, especially in an vnexpected forme, is swallowed vp in despaire; whereas this can meet with no occurrence, which it hath not preuēted in thought: securitie & ignorance may scatter some refuse morsels of ioy, sawced with p. 54much bitternesse; or may be like some boasting housekeeper, which keepeth open doors for one day with much cheer, & liues staruedly al the yeer after. There is no good ordinary but in a good cōscience. I pitie that vnfoūd ioy in others, & wil seek for this sound ioy in my selfe. I had rather weepe vponupon a iust cause, than reioyce vniustly.

25

As louelove keepes the whole law, so louelove onelyonly is the breaker of it; being the ground, as of all obedience, so of all sinne; for p. 55whereas sinne hath been commonly accounted to hauehave two rootes, LoueLove, and Feare; it is plaine, that feare hath his originall from louelove, for no man feares to lose ought but what he loues. Here is sinne and righteousnesse brought both into a short summe, depending both vponupon one poore affection: It shall be my onelyonly care therefore to bestowe my louelove well; both for obiect, and measure. All that is good I may louelove, but in seuerall degrees; what is simply good, absolutely; p. 56what is good by circumstance onelyonly with limitation. There bee these three things that I may louelove without exception, God, my neighbour, my soule; yet so as each hauehave their due places: My body, goods, fame, &c. as seruants to the former. All other things I will either not care for, or hate.

26

One would not think, that pride, and base mindednesse should so well agree; yea, that they louelove so together, that they neuer goe asunder. That p. 57enuie euer proceedes from a base minde, is graunted of all: Now the proud man, as hee faine would bee enuied of others, so he enuieth all men. His betters he enuies, because hee is not so good as they: He enuies his inferiours, because hee feares they should prooue as good as he: His equals, because they are as good as hee. So vnderunder a big lookes, he beares a base minde, resembling some Cardinals mule, which to make vp the traine beares a costly portemātle, p. 58stuffed with trash. On the contrary, who is more proud than the basest (The Cynicke tramples on Platoes pride, but with a worse) especially if hee bee but a little exalted; wherein we see base men so much more hauty, as they hauehave had lesse before what they might bee proud of. It is iust with God, as the proud man is base in himselfe, so to make him basely esteemed in the eyes of others; and at last to make him base without pride. I will contemne a proud man p. 59because hee is base, and pitie him because hee is proud.

27

Let me but hauehave time to my thoughts; but leasure to thinke of heauen, & grace to my leasure, & I can be happy in spight of the world: Nothing, but God that giues it, can bereaue me of grace; and he will not, for his gifts are without repentance. Nothing but death can abbridge mee of time; and when I begin to want time to thinke of heauen, I shall hauehave eternall p. 60leasure to enioy it. I shall bee both wayes happy, not from any vertue of apprehension in mee (which hauehave no peere in vnworthinesse) but from the glory of that I apprehend; wherin the acte and obiect are from the author of happinesse. Hee giues mee this glory, let me giuegive him the glory of his gift. His glory is my happinesse, let my glory be his.

28

God bestowes fauors vponupon some in anger; as he strikes other some in p. 61louelove. The Israelites had better hauehave wanted their Quailes, then to hauehave eaten thē with such sawce. And sometimes at our instancie remoouing a lesser punishment, leaues a greater, though insensible, in the roume of it. I will not so much striue against affliction, as displeasure. Let mee rather be afflicted in louelove, than prosper without it.

29

It is strange that wee men, hauing so continuall vse of God, and being so perpetually beholding to him, should p. 62bee so strange to him, and so little acquainted with him since wee account it a peruerse nature in any man, that beeing prouoked with many kinde offices, refuies the familiaritie of a worthy friend, which doeth still seeke it, and hath deserued it. Whēce it comes that wee are so loath to thinke of our dissolution and going to God: for naturally where wee are not acquainted, wee list not to hazard our welcome; chusing rather to spend our money at a simple p. 63Inne, then to turne in for a free lodging to an vnknowen Host, whome wee hauehave onelyonly heard of, neuer had friendship with; whereas to an entire friend, whose nature and welcome wee know, & whom we hauehave elsewhere familiarly cōuersed withall, we goe as boldly and willingly as to our home, knowing that no houre can bee vnseasonable to such a one. Whiles on the other side wee scrape acquaintance with the world, that neuer did vsus good, euen after many p. 64repulses. I will not liue with God, and in God, without his acquaintāce, knowing it my happines to hauehave such a friend. I will not let one day passe without some acte of renewing my familiarity with him, not giuing ouer til I hauehave giuen him some restimony of my louelove to him, and ioy in him; and till he hath left behind him some pledge of his continued fauour to mee.

30

Men, for the most part, would neither die nor be p. 65old. When we see an aged man that hath ouerliued all the teeth of his gummes, the haire of his head, the sight of his eyes, the taste of his palate, wee professe, wee would not liue till such a cumbersome age, wherin wee prooue burdens to our dearest friendes, and our selues: Yet if it bee put to our choyce what yeer we would die, we euer shift it off till the next; and want not excuses for this prorogation, rather than faile alledging wee would liue to amend; when yet we p. 66doe but adde more to the heape of our sinnes by continuance. Nature hath nothing to pleade for this folly; but, that Life is sweet: Wherein wee giuegive occasion of renewing that auncient checke, or one not vnlike to it; whereby that primitiue vision taxed the timerousnes of the shrinking Confessors; Yee would neither liue to be old, nor die ere your age: what should I doe with you? The Christian must not thinke it enough to endure the thought of death with patiēce, whē p. 67it is obtruded vponupon him by necessitie; but must voluntarily call it into his mind with ioy; not only abiding it should come, but wishing that it might come. I will not leaue till I can resolue, If I might die to day, not to liue till to morrow.

31

As a true friend is the sweetest contentment in the worlde: so in his qualities, he well resembleth honie, the sweetest of all liquors: Nothing is more sweete to the taste, nothing more sharpe p. 68and cleansing, when it meetes with an exulcerate sore. For my selfe, I know I must hauehave faults; and therefore I care not for that friend, that I shal neuer smart by: For my friends, I know they can not bee faultlesse: and therefore as they shall finde me sweete in their prayses and incouragements, so sharpe also in their censure. Either let them abide me no friend to their faults, or no friend to themselues.