A Christian Directory Volume I Part 39

[102] Sick bodies only suffer ill; but sick souls both suffer ill and do ill. Plutarch's Mor. p. 314.

[103] See the a.s.sembly's Larger Catechism about aggravations of sin.

[104] See my treatise of "Crucifying the World," and of "Self-denial."

[105] Of the Temptations to hinder Conversion, see before, chap. i.

[106] Vide Pool's Synopsis, Critic, in Levit. i. 77. In these latter the word "spirit" signifieth the ill disposition, which Satan as a tempter causeth, and so he is known by it as his offspring.

[107] See my "Treatise against Infidelity," as before cited.

[108] Animi molles et aetate fluxi dolis haud difficulter capiuntur.

[109] See my two sheets for the Ministry.

[110] Vir bonus est qui prodest quibus notest, nocet autem nemini. P.

Scalig. Ne pigeat evangelic.u.m ministrum, aegrotum visitare, venio aliquo recreare, familic.u.m cibario saltem pane pascere, nudum operire, pauperem, cui non est adjutor, a divitum calumniis et potentia eripere, pro afflictis principem magistratumve convenire: rem familiarem consilio augere, morientibus sedulo et benigne astare, lites et dissidia componere, &c. Acosta, 1. 4. c. 18. p. 418.

[111] Some think they merit by curing the hurts which they have caused themselves. Sed nequitia est, ut extrahas mergere, evertere ut suscites, includere ut emittas. Non enim beneficium injuriae finis; nec unquam id detraxisse meritum est, quod ipse qui detraxit intulerat.

Senec. de Benef.

[112] "Sell all and give to the poor, and follow me." But sell not all, except thou follow me: that is, except thou have a vocation, in which thou mayest do as much good with little means, as with great.

Lord Bacon's Essay 13.

[113] Absurdum est unum laute vivere, c.u.m multi esuriunt. Quanto enim gloriosius est multis benefacere, quam magnifice habitare? Quanto prudentius in homines quam in lapides, et in aurum impensas facere.

Clem. Alexand. 2. Paedag. 12.

[114] n.o.bilius et praestantius est charitatem exercere in Deo, quam virtutes propter Deum. Charitas compendiosissima ad Deum via est per quam celerrime in Deum pervenitur; nec sine charitate aliqua virtus supernaturaliter homini sapit: charitas enim forma omnium virtutum est. Per hoc charitatis exercitium, h.o.m.o ad tantam sui abominationem venit, ut non solum seipsum contemnat, verum etiam se ab aliis contemni aequo animo ferat; imo etiam ab aliis contemptus gaudeat.--Thaulerus, flor. c. 7. p. 114.

[115] Austin, (Tract. 9. in John,) having showed that among men, it maketh no one beautiful to love one that is beautiful, saith, Anima nostra fda est per iniquitatem: amando Deum pulchra efficitur: qualis amor qui reddat pulchrum amantem? Deus semper pater est: amavit nos fdos, ut ex fdis faceret pulchros: pulchri erimus amando eum qui pulcher est. Quantum in te crescit amor, tantum crescit pulchritudo; quia ipsa charitas animae pulchritudo est.

[116] O orator, in tua oratione plus dilige Deum quam teipsum et alia: et si hoc facis, justus es et prudens, et de charitate et sanct.i.tate habituatus: Qui habitus est amicus tuus in oratione--O Orator! quando orabis pro commissis, just.i.tiam, Dei tec.u.m teneas diligendo; non autem odiendo: quia si sic, misericordia Dei non posset esse tua amica, eo quia injustus esset; et tuus habitus esset crudelis et a spe et charitate prolongatus et tuum amare in odire esset perversum, de quo odire esset in aeternum habituatus. Raim. Lullius, Arte Magna de Applic. cap. 114. p. 557, 558.

[117] Read Julian Toletan. his Prognosticon. Si in clis fidelibus haec servatur haereditas, frivola quaedam et tepida proferunt aliqua, putantes eam se percipere in terrena Jerusalem; mille annis existimant esse deliciarum praemia proprietate recepturos: qui interrogandi sunt, quomodo astruant delicias corporales, dum dicatur hanc haereditatem nec corrumpi posse nec marcescere. Didymus Alexand. in Petr. 1. cont. Millenar.

[118] Of the nature of affiance and faith, I have written more fully in my Disputation with Dr. Barlow, of Saving Faith.

[119] SOLA fide Deo SOLI constanter adhaere. A SOLO cunctis eripiere malis. Peucerus his Distich, in his ten years' imprisonment. Scult.

Curric. p. 22.

[120] Of hope and a.s.surance I have spoken afterward.

[121] Of enthusiastic impressions I have said more in my Directions for the Cure of Church Divisions, and in the defence of it, and in other books.

[122] 1 Chron. xvi. 34; 2 Chron. v. 13; Psal. x.x.xi. 7; lx.x.xvi. 5; cviii. 3, 4; xcii. 4, 5; cx.x.xvi. 4; cxlv. 5-7, 11, 12; cxix. 64; Job x.x.xvi. 24, 26; Psal. cvii. 22; civ. 31; lxvii. 6; Rev. i. 5; John xv.

9; Gal. ii. 20; Eph. i. 17, 18; ii. 6, 7; iii. 18, 19; Psal. cx.x.x. 6, 7; xci. 2, 9; xciv. 22; lix. 16; lxii. 7, 8; lvii. 1; xlvi. 1, 7, 11; lx.x.xix. 1; cxvi. 1-3; ciii. 1-3; lxvi. 13, 16, 17; x.x.xiv. 1-3.

[123] Phil. iii. 1; Isa. lviii. 19; Job xxii. 26; Isa. lv. 2, 3; Psal.

iv. 7; Acts xiv. 17; Deut. xxvii. 7; xii. 12, 18; 1 Pet. i. 3, 4, 6; John xiv. 16, 26; xv. 26; Isa. liii. 3, 4; 1 Pet. i. 8, 9; Matt. xi.

28; Isa. lv. 1; Rev. xxii. 17; 1 Thess. v. 11, 14, 16; Phil. iv. 4; Psal. x.x.xiii. 1; 1 Pet. v. 7; John v. 40.

[124] Isa. lxiii. 9; 2 Cor. ii. 7; Zeph. iii. 17; Deut. x.x.x. 9; x. 15; Isa. lxii. 5; James ii. 13; John xiv. 13, 18.

[125] Laetari in Deo est res omnium summa in terris. Bucholtzer.

[126] Tres sunt virtutis conditiones, tentationis remotio, actuum multiplicatio, et in bono delectatio. P. Scaliger.

[127] Heb. i. 3; Acts vii. 55; Rom. iii. 23; Rev. xxi. 11, 23; Jude 24; 1 Pet. iv. 13; 2 Cor. iii. 18.

[128] _Lege Ga.s.sendi Oration, inaugural, in Inst.i.tut. Astronom._

[129] Christia.n.u.s est h.o.m.o dicens et faciens ingrata diabolo; et ornans gloriam Dei, autoris vitae et satis suae. Bucholtzer.

[130] Of prayer I have spoken afterward. Tom. 2, &c.

[131] Turp.i.s.simum est philosopho secus docere quam vivit. Paul Scaliger. p. 728.

[132] Nam ilia quae de regno clorum commemoranter a n.o.bis, deque praesentium rerum contemptu, vel non capiunt, vel non facile sibi persuadent c.u.m sermo factis evert.i.tur. Acosta, lib. iv. c. 18. p. 418.

[133] I pa.s.s not this by as a small matter, to be pa.s.sed by also by the reader. For I take the love of G.o.d kindled by faith in Christ, with the full denial of our carnal selves, to be the sum of all religion. But because I would not injure so great a duty by saying but a little of it; and therefore desire the reader, who studieth for practice, and needeth such helps, to peruse the mentioned books of "Self-denial," and "Crucifying the world."

APPENDIX.

_The true doctrine of love to G.o.d, to holiness, to ourselves, and to others, opened in certain propositions; especially for resolving the questions, What self-love is lawful?--what sinful?--Whether G.o.d must be loved above our own felicity, and how?--Whether to love our felicity more than G.o.d, may stand with a state of saving grace?--Whether it be a middle state between sensuality and the divine nature, to love G.o.d more for ourselves than for himself?--Whether to love G.o.d for ourselves be the state of a believer as he is under the promise of the new covenant?--And whether the spirit and sanctification promised to believers, be the love of G.o.d for himself, and so the divine nature, promised to him that chooseth Christ and G.o.d by him out of self-love for his own felicity?--How G.o.d supposeth and worketh on the principle of self-love in man's conversion?--With many such like. To avoid the tediousness of a distinct debating each question._

Though these things princ.i.p.ally belong to the theory, and so to another treatise in hand, called "Methodus Theologiae;" yet because they are also practical, and have a great influence upon the more practical directions, and the right understanding of them may help the reader himself to determine a mult.i.tude of cases of conscience, the particular discussion and decision of which would too much increase this volume, which is so big already, I shall here explain them in such brief propositions as yet shall give light to one another, and I hope contain much of the true nature of love, which is the mystery of the christian religion.

_Prop._ 1. The formal act of love is complacency, expressed by a _placet_; which Augustine so oft calleth delectation.

2. Benevolence, or desiring the good of those we love, is but a secondary act of love, or an effect of the prime, formal act. For to wish one well is not to love him formally; but we wish him well because we love him, and therefore first in order love him.

3. Their definition of love is therefore inept, and but from an effect, who say it is, _Alicui bene velle, ut ipst bene sit_.

4. Love is either merely sensitive and pa.s.sionate, which is the sensible act and pa.s.sion of the sensitive and fantastical appet.i.te; or it is rational, which is the act of the rational appet.i.te or will. The first is called sensitive in a double respect; 1. Because it followeth the apprehension of the senses, or fantasy, loving that which they apprehend as good; 2. And because it is exercised pa.s.sionately and feelingly by the sensitive appet.i.te. And the other is called rational, 1. Because it is the love of that which reason apprehendeth as good; and, 2. Because it is the complacency of that will which is a higher faculty than the sensitive appet.i.te.

5. Sensitive love is oft without rational, (always in brutes,) but rational love is never totally without sensitive, at least in this life; whether it be because that the sensitive and rational are faculties of the same soul, or because they are so nearly connexed as that one cannot here move or act without the other?

6. But yet one is predominant in some persons, and the other in others.

7. Love is the complacency of the appet.i.te in apprehended good. Good is the formal object of love. Sensitive love is the complacency of the sensitive appet.i.te in sensible good (or in that which the sense and imagination apprehendeth as good). Rational love is the complacency of the rational appet.i.te in that which reason apprehendeth good: the same thing with primary volition.

8. Good is not only a man's own felicity and the means thereto, called _mihi bonum_, good to me; either as profitable, pleasant, or honourable (as some think that have unmanned themselves): but there is extrinsic good, which is such in itself, in others, or for others, which yet is the natural object of man's love (so far as nature is sound). As the learning, and wisdom, and justice, and charity, and all other perfections of a man at the antipodes, whom I never saw, nor hope to see, or to receive any benefit by, is yet amiable to every man that hath not unmanned himself. So also is the good of posterity, of countries, of kingdoms, of the church, of the world, apprehended as future when we are dead and gone; yea, if we should be annihilated, desirable, and therefore amiable to us; when yet it could be no benefit to us.

9. Self-love is sensitive or rational. Sensitive, as such, is necessary and not free; and it is purposely by the most wise and blessed Creator planted in man and brutes, as a principle useful to preserve the world, and to engage the creature in the use of the means of its own preservation, and so to bring it to perfection, and to endue it with those fears and hopes which make us subjects capable of moral government.

10. The rational or higher appet.i.te also hath a natural inclination to self-preservation, perfection, and felicity; but as ordinable and ordinate to higher ends.