So far (by the way) is Religion from being an Enemy either to Nature or Pleasure, that it perfects the one, and raises the other to the greatest height. It teaches us the true Use of the Creatures, keeps us from expecting more in them than we can ever find, and leads us to the Enjoyment of the Creator who only can satisfie us. For I wou’d fain know of any experienced Person, whether any of the Delights of this World did ever answer Expedition when Enjoy’d, and whether the Joys of Religion do not exceed it? We come to the first with mighty hopes and are always Disappointed, to the last we approach with Fear and Trembling, supposing it will rob us of all the Satisfactions of Life, we shrink at the Pain and Difficulty, and thats the only thing in which after a little Trial we find our selves much mistaken. Good Christians being indeed the truest Epicures, because they have the most tastful and highest Enjoyment of the greatest Good.
Ladies Calling.
For GOD is too Kind and Bountiful to deny us any Pleasure befitting our Nature; he does not require us to relinquish Pleasure, but only to exchange the Gross and Insipid for the Pure and Relishing, the Pleasures of a Brute for those of a Man. He wou’d not have us enslav’d to any Appetite, or so taken up with any Created Good whatever, as not to be able to maintain the Empire of our Reason and Freedom of our Will and to quit it when we see occasion. And this is all that the Rules of Self-Denial and Mortification tend to so far as they are Rational, they mean no more than the procuring us a Power and Disposition to do that which we come now in the last place to recommend, which is, To sanctifie our very Infirmities, to make even the disorderly Commotions of our Spirits an occasion of producing Holy Passions. It were better indeed if they were rais’d upon a right Principle; that the Passions did not move the Mind, but the Mind the Passions; and that the Motives to Religion were not Sensitive but Rational. However in the Infancy of our Vertue, it may not be amiss to make some use of our Vices, and what we advise if it serve no other end, ’twill help at least to break Ill-Habits and that’s a considerable benefit. Agreeable to which did an excellent Author bespeak the Ladies sometime ago: Let her that is Amorous, place her Love upon him who is the Chiefest among ten thousand; she that is Angry turn her edg against her Sins; she that is haughty disdain the Devils Drudgery; she that is Fearful dread him who can destroy, both Body and Soul in Hell; and she that is sad reserve her Tears for her Penitential Offices. Which, with the rest of that Authors Ingeniuous and Kind Advice, I heartily wish were not only to be seen in their Closets, but transcrib’d in their Hearts and Legible in their Lives and Actions.
Now in order to this, if our guard has been surpriz’d, and some sensible Impression has strongly broke in upon us, so that we find our selves all in a ferment, let us manage the Opportunity discreetly, change the Object and hallow the Passion. Which is no very difficult thing, for when a Passion is boyling it will spend it self on any Object that we please to fix it on. And the Proper Objects of our Passions, being most considerable in ’emselves, and naturally most apt to move us if we’ll but give them fair play, that is allow ’em a place in our Thoughts, they’ll work out the other, and make our Passions what they shou’d be: We have a plain Instance of this in Afflictions, in which our Grief is at first excited by some outward Cause, and when that has softned us, the Spirit of GOD who is never wanting unless we Neglect or Quench him, improves this Worldly into a Godly Sorrow that worketh Repentance not to be Repented of.
Besides, as there is a Pleasure in the Passions as well as in all the genuine Operations of Nature, so there’s a Pain accompanying ’em when misplac’d, which disposes the Mind to a readiness to rectifie them, that so it may enjoy the Pleasure without mixture of Pain. If therefore we assist it with a little Meditation, it will readily come over; and tho we may find it difficult absolutely to quash a Passion that is once begun, yet it is no hard matter to transfer it, so that it may pour forth it self in all its pleasing transports, without fear of danger, or mixture of uneasiness.
But a Caution will not be amiss, which is, that we don’t mistake the Fits of Passion for a Spirit of Piety and Devotion. They are good beginnings ’tis true, but if we’re only wafted up to Heaven in our Closets, and shew forth nothing or very little of it in our Lives and Conversations, we may cheat our selves with the conceit of being Holy, but neither GOD nor Man will be so impos’d on. She who mourns for her Sins, tho never so bitterly, and yet returns to them at the next occasion, gives a very good Evidence of her Weakness, but none of her Repentance. She who pretends to never so great transports of Love to GOD, and yet is wedded to the world, can part with nothing for his sake, nor be content and easie when He only is her Portion, gives Him good words, and makes Him many fine Complements and that’s the whole of the matter. She who makes shew of great Awe and Reverence towards the Divine Majesty at Church and has no regard to Him in the World his larger Temple, as good as declares that she thinks his Presence confin’d to a place, or that she hopes to commute a Days neglect for an Hours Observance, and expresses her Contempt of GOD much more than her Veneration. How can she profess to Hope in Him who is Anxious and Solicitous about the least Event? Or say that her Desires are fix’t on GOD who has a great many Vanities and Sensual Aptites to be Satisfied?
Nor are we less out of the way when we tincture our Religion with our Passions, and fashion an Idea of it according to our own Complection not the tenor of the Gospel. Hence comes that great diversity we meet with both in Practice and Theory, for as there is somewhat Peculiar almost in every ones Temper, so is there in their Religion. Is our Disposition Sad and Cloudy, are we apt to take Offence, Suspicious and hard to be pleas’d? we imagine GOD is so, Religion is not our Joy but our Task and Burden, we become extremely scrupulous and uneasie to our selves and others. And if Resolution and Daring be joyn’d with our Melancholy, and Temptations fall pat in our way, we discard such a troublesome Religion and set up for Atheism and Infidelity. On the other hand, if we’re Fearful and Timerous our Superstition has no bounds, we pay less regard to those Laws our Maker has prescrib’d, than we do to those Chimera’s our own Fancy has invented to reconcile Him. A mistake which the Brisk and Jovial are sensible of, but not of the contrary extreme they run into; they discern that GOD’s ways are ways of Pleasantness, and all his Paths are Peace, that Good Christians live the Happiest Lives, ’tis their Duty to Rejoyce evermore, and all the good things of the World are at their service. All which is very true, but then it is as true, that their Pleasures are not Sensual but Rational and Spiritual, which is not a lessening, but an Addition to their Character; that we are to Use the World so as not to abuse either our selves or it, to testify on all occasions our Moderation and Contempt of it, to be ready to quit it, nay even to part with Life it self when ever they come in competition with our Duty. In a word, if our Anger against our own Sins provokes us to be Peevish with others, tho not so good as they shou’d be, it goes too far. If our Zeal finds fault with all who do not come up to our Heights, or who don’t express their Devotion in our way, it is not according to Knowlege, that is, it is not Discreet and Christian. If our great Love to GOD takes us up so much, that we think we may be morose and ill-natur’d to our Neighbour, we express it in a very disagreeable way: And I dare say it wou’d be more acceptable to Him, if insted of spending it all in Rapture and Devotion, a part of it were employ’d in Imitating his Beneficence to our Fellow-Creatures.
To wind up all; The Sum of our Duty and of all Morality, is to have a Temper of Mind so absolutely Conform’d to the Divine Will, or which is the same in other words, such an Habitual and Intire Love to GOD, as will on all occasions excite us to the Exercise of such Acts, as are the necessary consequents of such a Habit. This frame and Constitution of Soul is what we must all our Life time Labour after, it is to be begun, and some Proficiency made in it whilst we stay on Earth, and then we may joyfully wait for its Consummation in Heaven, the reason why we cannot be perfectly Happy whilst we tarry here, being only because we can have this Temper but Imperfectly. The want of which is the Hell of the Damn’d, the degree of their misery bearing a proportion to their opposition to the Divine Will. For Happiness is not without us, it must be found in our own Bosoms, and nothing but a Union with GOD can fix it there; nor can we ever be United to Him any other wise than by being like Him, by an Intire Conformity to his Will.
Now she who has obtain’d this blessed Temper, whose Will is Right, and who has no Passion but for GOD’s Service, is pleas’d that his Wisdom shou’d Chuse her Work, and only prepares to dispatch it with the greatest Diligence and Chearfulness. She keeps All his Precepts, and does not pick and Chuse such as are for her turn, and most agreeable to her own Humor; but as she does every thing for His Sake, so is she easy and pleas’d under all his Dispensations; is truly indifferent to Applause, and fully content with GOD’s Approbation. Indeed the Conquest of our Vanity is one of our last Triumphs, and a Satisfaction in all GOD’s Choices for us, from a full Conviction that they are most for our advantage, the best Test of a Regular Will and Affections. For these are heights to which we can’t arrive till we have travers’d over all the Paths of Vertue, and when once our Passions are reduc’d to this, I know not in what they can oppose us.
Not but that we’re strictly oblig’d to Provide for honest things in the Sight of Men as well as of GOD, to do nothing but what is of Good Report; to Abstain from all Appearance of Evil; not to give Occasion of Slander to those who desire and Seek it; but to Let our Light so shine before Men, that they may see our Good-works and Glorify our Father who is in Heaven. But when we have done this, and have taken all possible care to approve our selves to GOD and Man, can we be at Ease if we fail in the latter? Are we more desirous of a Good than a Great Reputation? and wou’d we not to get a Name amongst our Fellow Servants, do any thing that may in the least Offend, or be less acceptable to our Common Master? Can we bear the being Censur’d as Singular and Laugh’d at for Fools, rather than comply with the evil Customs of the Age? and are we much more Covetous of the Substance Vertue, than of the Shadow Fame? If it be so we’re pretty sure that all is Right, and that GOD’s will is the Rule, and his Glory the End of all our Actions. It goes to a good Womans heart to receive that Commendation which the good-nature or Civility of another bestows on her, when she knows she does not Merit it, and to find whilst she’s applauded abroad, a thousand Follies, Mistakes and Weaknesses in her own Mind. All the use that she makes of her Credit and Esteem in the World, is to excite her to Deserve it, tho at present perhaps she does not, and Really to come up to that Character which all are Ambitious to have.