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my days, to all heavenly dispositions; that, while my outward man is so much more lessened, as it draws nearer to the centre of its corruption, my spiritual part may be so much more dilated in and towards thee, as it approacheth nearer towards the circumference of thy celestial glory.

LXXII.

SIN WITHOUT SENse.

ALAS, Lord, how tenderly sensible I am of the least bodily complaint, that can befal me! If but a tooth begin to ache, or a thorn have rankled in my flesh, or but an angry corn vex my toe, how am I incessantly troubled with the pain! how feelingly do I bemoan myself! how carefully do I seek for a speedy remedy! which till I feel, how little relish do I find in my wonted contentment! But, for the better part, which is so much more tender as it is more precious, with what patience, shall I call it, or stupidity, do I endure it wounded, were it not for thy great mercy, no less than mortally! Every new sin, how little soever, that I commit, fetches blood of the soul: every willing sin stabs it: the continuance wherein festers inwardly; and, without repentance, kills. O God, I desire to be ashamed and humbled under thy hand, for this so unjust partiality; which gives me just cause to fear, that sense hath yet more predominance in me, than faith. I do not so much sue to thee, to make me less sensible of bodily evils, whereof yet too deep a sense differs little from impatience; as to make me more sensible of spiritual: let me feel my sin more painful, than the worst disease; and, rather than wilfully sin, let me

die.

LXXIII.

THE EXTREMES OF DEVOTION.

I ACKNOWLEDGE it to be none of thy least mercies, O God, that thou hast vouchsafed to keep me within the due lines of devotion; not suffering me to wander into those two extremes, which I see and pity in others. Too many there are, that do so content themselves in meer formalities, that they little regard how their heart is affected with the matter of their prayers: so have I grieved to see poor mis-devout souls under the papacy, measuring their orisons, not by weight, but by number; not caring which way their eye strayed, so their lips went; resting well apaid that God understood them, though they understood not themselves: too near approaching whereunto, are a world of well-meaning ignorant souls at home, that care only to pray by rote, not without some general intentions of piety, but so, as their hearts are little guilty of the motion of their tongues ;

who, while they would cloak their carelessness with a pretence of disability of expressing their wants to God, might learn, that true sense of need never wanted words to crave relief: every beggar can, with sufficient eloquence, importune the passenger for his alms: did they not rather lack a heart than a tongue, they could not be defective in bemoaning themselves to heaven for what they lack; especially, while we have to do with such a God, as more esteems broken clauses made up with hearty sighs, than all the compliments of the most curious eloquence in the world. On the other side, there are certain zealous devotionists, which abhor all set forms and fixed hours of invocation, teaching, and so practising, that they may not pray, but when they feel a strong impulsion of God's Spirit to that holy work; whereupon it hath come to pass, that whole days, yea weeks, have gone over their heads, unblessed by their prayers: who might have taken notice, that, under the Law, God had his regular course of constant hours for his morning and evening sacrifices; that the ancient saints, under the Old Testament, held close to David's rule, evening, and morning, and at noon to pray and cry aloud; Psalm lv. 17: so as the very lions could not fright Daniel from his task: and, even after the vail of the Temple was rent, Peter and John went up together to God's house, at the ninth hour, to Evening Prayer; Acts iii. 1: yea, what stand ye upon this; when the Apostle of the Gentiles charges us, To pray continually? 1 Thess. v. 17. Not that we should, in the midst of a sensible indisposedness of heart, fall suddenly into a fashionable devotion; but, that, by holy ejaculations and previous meditation, we should make way for a feeling invocation of our God, whose ears are never but open to our faithful prayers. If we first, though silently, pray that we may pray, the fervour of our devotion shall grow upon us, in praying: these holy waters of the Sanctuary, that, at first, did but wet the soles of our feet, shall, in their happy process, rise up to our chins. I thank thee, O God, that thou hast given me a desire to walk even, between these extremities. As I would be ever in a praying disposition to thee, so I would not willingly break hours with thee: I would neither sleep nor wake, without praying; but I would never pray, without feeling. If my heart go not along with forms of words, I do not pray, but babble; and, if that be bent upon the matter of my suit, it is all one to thee, whether the words be my own, or borrowed. Let thy Good Spirit ever teach me to pray, and help me in praying: let that ever make intercessions for me, with groanings which cannot be expressed; Rom. viii. 26: and, then, if thou canst, send me away empty.

LXXIV.

THE SICK MAN'S VOWS.

h

THE answer was not amiss, which Theodoricus, Bishop of Coleine, is said to have given to Sigismond the Emperor; who, demanding how he might be directed the right way to heaven, received answer; "If thou walk so, as thou promisedst in thy painful fit of the stone or gout "." Our extremities commonly render us holy; and our pain is prodigal of those vows, which our ease is as niggardly in performing. The distressed mariner, in the peril of a tempest, vows to his Saint a taper, as big as the mast of his ship; which, upon his coming to shore, is shrunk into a rush candle. There was never a more stiffnecked people, than that, which should have been God's peculiar; yet, upon every new plague, how do they crouch and creep to the power, which their murmurs provoked! And we daily see desperation makes those votaries, whom health dispenseth with, as the loosest of libertines. Were it essential to prosperity, thus to pervert and debauch us, it were enough to make a good heart out of love with welfare; since the pleasure and profit of the best estate is far too short of recompensing the mischief of a depraved jollity; but now, the fault is in our own wretched indisposition: the blessing is God's; the abuse is ours. Is the sun to be blamed, that the traveller's cloak swelts him with heat? Is the fruit of the grape guilty of that drunkenness, which follows upon a sinful excess? Can we not feed on good meat, without a surfeit? And, whose fault is it, but ours, if we forget the engagements of our sick beds? Rather than health should make us godless, how much better were, it for us to be always sick? O my God, I do acknowledge and bewail this wretched frailty of our corrupt nature: we are not the same men, sick and whole: we are apt to promise thee fair, and to pay thee with disappointment; and are ready to put off our holy thoughts, with our biggins. It is thou only, that canst remedy this sickness of our health, by working us to a constant mortification. Oh, do thou ever bless thy servant, either with sanctified crosses, or a temperate prosperity.

LXXV.

THE SUGGESTIONS OF A FALSE HEART.

SURELY, if thousands of souls perish by the flattery of others, more perish by their own; while their natural self-love soothes them with plausible, but untrue suggestions, concerning their estate. Is the question concerning grace? The false heart

Eneas Sylv. de Reb. gest. Alph.

tells a man, he is stored to superfluity and excess; when he is, indeed, more bare and beggarly, than the proud pastor of Laodicea. Is the question of sin? It proclaims him, not innocent only, but a Saint: it tells him his hands are pure, when he is up to the elbows in blood; that his tongue is holy, when it is foul with perjury and blasphemy; that his eye is honest and chaste, when it is full of adultery; that his soul is clean, when it is defiled with abominable lusts, or with cruel rancour and malice. Is the question concerning virtue? It tells a man he is just, when he is all made up of rapine, and violent oppression; that he is eminently wise, when he hath not wit enough to know himself a fool; that he is free-handed and munificent, when he sticks not to rob beggars; that he is piously religious, while he pulls down churches. Thus is the man still hid from himself; and is made to see another, in his own skin: he cannot repent, because he thinks himself faultless he cannot amend, because he is ever at the best: his only ease and advantage is, that he is carried hoodwinked into hell. If the question be concerning some scrupulous act to be done or omitted, now self-respect plays its prizes at all weapons: what shifting and traversing there is, to avoid the dint of a present danger! what fine colours and witty equivocations doth the soul find out, to cozen itself into a safe offence! If the question be of a sinful act already committed, what a shuffling there is, to face it out by a stout justification! maugre conscience, it was not lawful only; but, such as the circumstances were, expedient also: and, if it be so foul, that an apology is too odious, yet an extenuation cannot but be admitted: be it amiss, yet, not heinous, not unmeet for pardon. One would think hell should have little need of the fawning assentation of others, when men carry so dangerous parasites in their own bosoms: but, sure, both together must needs help to people that region of darkness. Take heed, O my soul, how thou givest way to these flattering thoughts, whether arising from thy own breast, or injected by others; and know, thou art never in more danger, than when thou art most applauded. Look upon thine estate and actions with unpartial and severe eyes. Behold thine own face, not in the false glass of opinion and mercenary adulation, but in the true and perfect glass of the Royal Law of thy Creator: that shall duly represent unto thee, whether the beauty of thy graces, or the blemishes of thy manifold imperfections: that alone shall tell thee, how much thou art advanced in a gracious proficiency, and how shamefully defective thou art in what thou oughtedst to have attained. Judge of thyself, by that unfailing rule; and be indifferent, what thou art judged of, by others.

LXXVI.

SACRED MELODY.

WHAT a marvellously cheerful service was that, O God, which thou requiredst and hadst performed, under the Law! Here was not a dumb and silent act in thy sacrifices, a beast bleeding before thy altar, and a smoke, and flame arising out of it here was not a cloudy perfume, quietly ascending from the golden altar of thine incense: but, here was the merry noise of most melodious music, singing of psalms, and sounding of all harmonious instruments. The congregation were upon their knees, the Levites upon their stage sweetly singing, the priests sounding the trumpets, together with cymbals, harps, psalteries, making up one sound in praising and thanking the Lord; 2 Chron. xxix. 25-28. 2 Chron. v. 12, 13. Methinks, I hear, and am ravished to hear, in some of thy solemn days, a hundred and twenty of thy priests sounding with trumpets : thy Levites, in greater number, singing aloud with the mixture of their musical instruments: so as, not the Temple only, but the Heaven rings again. And, even in thy daily sacrifices, each morning and evening, I find a heavenly mirth: music, if not so loud, yet no less sweet and delicate; no fewer than twelve Levites might be standing upon the stage, every day, singing a divine ditty over thy sacrifice; psalteries, not fewer than two, nor more than six; pipes, not fewer than two, nor more than twelve; trumpets two at the least, and but one cymbal1: so proportioned by the masters of thy choir; as those, that meant to take the heart through the ear. I find, where thy holy servants, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, (doubtless by thy gracious direction, yea, by thy direct command; 2 Chron. xxix. 25-28.) both appointed, and made use of these melodious services: I do not find, where thou hast forbidden them: this I am sure of, since thou art still and ever the same, under both Law and Gospel, that thou both requirest and delightest in the cheerful devotions of thy servants. If we have not the same sounds with thy Legal worshippers, yet we should still have the same affections. As they might not wait upon thee, sorrowful; so, it is not for us to praise thee, with drooping and dejected spirits. O God, do thou quicken my spiritual dulness in thy holy service; and, when I come to celebrate thy great Name, while the song is in my mouth, let my heart be the stage, wherein trumpets, and psalteries, and harps shall sound forth thy praise.

Maimonides in Cle hamikdash. c. 3.

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