Miscellanea spiritualia: or, Devout essaies: composed by the Honourable Walter Montagu Esq.

§. III.

How God worketh, and how the Devil coun∣termineth in this vocation, wherein a safe course is directed.

THere is no notion under which we can more apply look upon God, then as a Physician to our weak Nature: He who knows all the properties of Actives and Passives, applyes to all constitutions their proper reme∣dies; and as some Medicines are not proper both for Beasts

and Man, in regard of their different tempers; So for brutish sensual persons, there are required stronger Drugs, then to more reasonable and ingenious dispositions. The Word of God makes this difference often between voluptuous and sensual habitudes, and between pious and vertuous consti∣tutions, calling the one Dogs, and the other Children; wherefore as the Physicians minister to some tempers onely such Drugs which they call Benedicta, blessed simples, which work kindly, and yet effectually upon them, & to others they are fain to prescribe Minerals, and more violent Ingredients to move them: So there are some such insensible habits of minde, as Gods Benedicta, his Blessings, and his gentle voyce of vocation doth not move; but their strong Na∣ture rather works upon them, and alters them, turning them into the nourishment of their passions, while all their tem∣poral Benedictions are converted into aliment of their sen∣sualities.

Therefore to such indurate tempers, God ministers often rude and violent Minerals, so unprepared, as they seem to the world to be poysons; these we may call Affronts, Losses, Dishonors, and all kinde of Disappointments: and these violent compositions work upon their Natures, and alter it, by which their cure is performed; so that oftentimes the worlds Injuries prove R••ceits ministred, when it intends ruines: For while the enemies of our Nature, viz. all kinde of crosses and vexations seem to chase us out of the field, they convey us into that retreat whereunto God hath de∣signed us. This is a frequent contrivement by Gods Pro∣vidence, to secure his friends by the chase and pursuit of his enemies, and theirs; as he preserved David from acting against him, by the malevolence of the Princes of the Phi∣listines, who thought they had shamed him, by rejecting and casting him out of their Troops, when indeed they pre∣served him innocent, from staining himself in the blood of his Brethren. So God excites very familiarly the ad∣versities of this world, to remove, and seemingly to expel

his servants out of it, to deliver them from the guilt of loving the world, providing thus against their longer en∣gagement with his Adversary, who is the Prince of this World.

And as God vouchsafes to serve himself sometimes of the storms which the Prince of the Ayr raiseth in this world, by making them carry such wracks upon his coast of Soli∣tude, as he designs to save with the loss onely of their tem∣poral fraights: So the Prince of the World doth sometime make use of this Shore, for the casting away of many, to whom he shews it as a secure harbor or shelter which they have under their Lee, and can reach when they please, upon any distress of weather: And thus as an Angel of Light, he promiseth this Sanctuary, of retiring to God as a security which cannot fail, even after all the provocations of him, whereby he perswades many to sport themselves with him in his large alleys, in the days of their youth and fortune; Leave no flower ungathered (as the Wise man says) of th••s season. And when either the winter of Nature, or of Fortune, hath withered and blasted all those sweets, then it is time enough to retire to Gods cover for shelter, who refuseth no sort of Refugiats.

These insinuations do work with many, so as to em∣bolden them to live profusely upon the present stock of their Time and Fortune, with this purpose, of taking San∣ctuary either at some assigned time of their Age, or upon any pressing Contingency. Hence is it, that taking their Councel of Gods Enemy, he presents such Clients to him, as have robb'd him all their life, in a purpose to repair to him for protection against the Law, and exemption from his hand of Justice; and thus, in effect, the house of Prayer is turned, and designed by such Projectors, to be but an har∣bor of Theeves.

How often doth the Prince of Darkness amuse many with this falacy, who walk with him in his large alleys, even by this light he shews them, by which they conceive to see

a safe issue out of this broad way, into the narrow paths of the Kingdom of Light? But alas! how many lose them∣selves in this labyrinth, and are founder'd in this calm Sea of the world, even while they have this coast of retreat, and Solitude in their eye? And how many others, who are entred into the Port, sink there, by those leaks they bring in with them, never being able to stop those overtures in their mindes, through which worldly affections and passions soak continually into their thoughts some ill habit or other, still keeping intelligence with the world? And for this cause many either revolt back openly to it, or else hold some private treacherous correspondence with it, in a nauseousness and distaste of all Spiritual aliment, and a tepid irresolution between breaking off and holding on that course; and re∣maining in this nauseousness, we know how disagreeable this temper is to Gods stomack; so that many presuming to take this Water of Tryal, being polluted by a long co-habitation with temporal loves, it proves to them rather pu∣trifaction, then purgation; and their mindes, in stead of a Spiritual conception and improvement, break out into an unsound and fruitless dissipation.

Likewise as this deceitful project of relinquishing the world, is often preferred by the Father of Lyes to many sensual and brutish lives; so, me thinks, it hath this proper∣ty, common to many Animals, who believe when they have hid their head, that their whole body is covered, because such whom St. Jude calls bru••e beasts, seem to conclude, that when their bodies shall be retired and sequestred from the world, their mindes are removed and estranged from it: But they quickly finde the brutality of that opinion, by the blows and wounds wherewith the Images of the world as∣sault and charge their mindes; by this disabuse they perceive her nakedness and exposure to all those vexations from which they thought themselves guarded and covered; and God, who regards only the posture and nearness of the heart * 1.1 to him, doth adjudge a punishment s••ted to this presumption,

in revenge of their promising themselves the being able to carry their mindes out of the world into his Sanctuary at their own assignments; he often receives the body onely, and leaves the minde still in this habitual loosness, making the bodies division in this separation from the world, the revenger of this presumption of adventuring to dispose of one of the most dear properties of Grace, namely, the re∣treat of our mindes by the right of Nature: For nothing is more peculiar to Grace, then to impart the joy and peace of the Spirit, in a state of contradiction to all the cases of the Flesh.

It is in some sort a design of Simony, to expect the gifts of the Holy Spirit, upon the exchange of a local transaction of our persons. Holy King David had not onely stept into the way, but was running in the way of God, when he had his heart dilated and enlarged unto him, so as his Flesh and his Spirit both joyned in an exultation in the living God: Therefore it is very useful Animadversion, not to relie upon the Covenants of our own private Spirit for the conveyance of this so happy condition to us, of a godly retreat and ••e∣posure of our selves, since the more Nature promiseth, the less interest she hath in it, this self-arrogation being an evidence against our title to this possession of Grace.

Upon these considerations I may advise such as are come to labor under the burthen of their mundanities (which they have been less cautious in loading themselves with, in respect of this final discharge they have proposed) to remember when they come to Christ to be disburthened that precedent in the Gospel, which relates aptly to their cases, which is, that of the ten Lepers, who when they came to Christ, stood after off, and lifted up their voyces with, JESUS have mercy upon us; the consciousness of their pollution, kept them at * 1.2 that reverend distance: And Christs answer in this case is a very pertinent direction to such Spiritual Lep••••s, Go, and show your selves to the Priests, take advise of Gods Ministers, and their opinions of the cl••anness and purity of their inten∣tions,

before they venture into the communion of this San∣ctuary of holy Solitude, otherwise their present offering may prove of as ill an odour as their former Sacriledge.

If these Animadversions meet likewise with any such as are not urged by the pressure of their Consciences, but ra∣ther solicited so much by their natural temper and disposi∣tion to privacy and retiredness, as upon the least provoca∣tion of the world they are apt to break with it, these humors are desired to stay and pause ••••riou••ly and long on this sug∣gestion; for this may often be the operation of Melancholy which works this hasty promptitude: And as Melancholy is the highest degree of choler in the Humors; so in these hasty sallies out of the society of the world, there may well be more Natural Humor, then Spiritual Disposition, and so this be rather a Disease, then a devout Constitution: Wherefore like sick men that forbear food long, while the Humor is consuming, these retreaters may for some time live quietly, as long as this Humor of the worlds disrelish is wasting and spending it self; but after that is digested, the appetite of the world returns, and likely gnaws upon their peace, they having no natural food for it. Hence is it that such complexions ought to be very advised in this their assigning of themselves, according to the propensity of their Humors, which perswades them often, that what is indeed but the Ec••ho of their own voyce of Nature which speaks in them, is a Spiritual vocation: For their Natural Consti∣tution raifeth that desire in their imaginative part, which causeth a little repetition and answer of it in the Judiciary and Rational power of their minde; but it is rather from the hollowness of their reason, then the solidity of it, that this Eccho is returned.

The result therefore of all these Examinations of several Cases, must be, Not to conduct our selves by the prece∣dents of special extraordinary vocations of some, whom Christ hath sent for out of the streets and by-ways of the world, that is, immediately from the foulness and immundicity of

their lives, and by his Messengers of Crosses and Afflictions, compelled them to come into his house: For these Cases are pre∣rogatives * 1.3 of Gods Grace, which do not alter the known Laws that are enacted by him; by which Laws we ought to try our vocations, to wit, by the mature advice of those Judges he hath seated in his Tribunal upon Earth, his Church; and by their Sentences to make the tryal of all our own pri∣vate impulses or motions of our Spirit, to this dispossession and abnegation of the world▪

Christ himself hath ruled this case in an excellent Parable, * 1.4 of one that builds a Tower, which is properly adopted to the design of a contemplative life, as it is the erection of a frame of life, raised high above the other parts of the Earth, and intended for prospect and discovery; so that none must un∣dertake this edifice, but after computation of the pertinen∣cies requisite for the finishment, lest they expose themselves to the reproach, of having begun what they were not able to finish; and this reckoning and account of our provision, must be made by the consulting of a prudent Spiritual Surveyor, not trusting to the Architecture of our own Spirit, in which we must zealously, often and humbly consult the eternal Ar∣chitect of all Spiritual frames, for a sincere discernment of his order, in the regulating our own designs, with this ad∣dress of the cautious Spirit of Holy David, Lord, grant me * 1.5 to know the way wherein I should walk; for I have lifted up my soul to thee.

This parting and separation from our own Will, is the first leave we must take in our valediction to the world; and this is not to be done by a hasty dismission of it, for so it is but a weight thrown upward, which is fastened to us, and falls quickly back again; therefore it must be loosened and severed by degrees, and steeped, as it were, in the fresh spring∣ing water of Prayer and Mortification, whereby it will peel and fall away the easilier: Some perseverence in this disposition is requisite, to blanch and whiten the intention perfectly. St. Pauls advice for our preparation for the Holy

communion, is, me thinks, very properly applicable to this our preparation, for participating of this Spiritual food; for Religious Solitude is the Table of the Holy Ghost: Therefore, let a man examine himself, and then eat of this bread of life, for he that presumes to taste of it unworthily, may be truly impeached as guilty of much irreverence to the Holy Spirit, in venturing to come to the Communion of his Gifts and Graces rashly, without a due consulting of his invitation.

I need not urge our precaution and advisedness in this case farther, since our temerity in it is brought to be a kinde of Sin against the Holy Ghost: Whereupon I will close up this Ad∣vertisement in St. Johns words, Beloved, believe not every Spi∣rit, * 1.6 but try the Spirits, whether they be of God; for many false promises of this Spirit of an happy Solitude, are current in the world, it being truer in no case then in this, It is not of * 1.7 him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God who sheweth mercy.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Jer. 30.
• * 1.2

  Luke 17.
• * 1.3

  Luke 17. 23.
• * 1.4

  Luke 14. 28.
• * 1.5

  Psal. 142.
• * 1.6

  1 John 4.
• * 1.7

  Rom. 9.