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

§. I.

Treating the Originall rectitude of Mans nature, and the present obliquity thereof.

AS in Navigation, Cosmographie is no lesse usefull then Astrologie, by reason it is by some relation to the earth, that all measures are taken, and all reckonings are made in the severall courses of our saylings; even so in our spirituall voyage through this life, it seems no lesse requisite, to study the Map of our own Earth we carry about us, then to speculate the Globe of heaven, whereunto we are steering, in regard the constitution of our infirme Nature ought to be understood, in order to the con∣ducting of the Vessell to her supreme and heavenly designati∣on; And the knowledge of our selfe, is as it were the Com∣passe, whereby we must set our course, since it is out of divers knowne properties of humane nature, that we forme points of direction, by which we judge, how neere our actions and designs stand to the right course of a rational nature: And as

the soule and bodie in man, hold an analogie with the firma∣ment and the earth, in point of constituting but one world of these so differing substances; So shall we doe well to consider the spirituall and corporeall substances in man, as making one coexistence, whereby we may the better understand the na∣ture of the subject we discourse upon, and reflecting on man's consisting of two so diverse portions, as spirit and materiality, we shall wonder the lesse, at those so discordant qualities, which are found in this compound nature of Man.

If Faith did not oblige us to beleeve our own originall inte∣grity, we have scarce vertue enough left to own it, our reason is so degenerated, as she hath no mind to claime by that pre∣scription the dominion of our sensitive appetites (which are her naturall subjects) she seemes so much better pleased to yeeld unto their government: but let us move Reason (by the dig∣nity of her prerogative, and the debasement of her conditi∣on in submitting to the rule of our passions) to endeavour the recovering as much of her Rights, as can stand with the forfei∣ture of her first state.

God made man so noble a creature, as even in his obnoxi∣ousnesse to misery, there was an excellence of nature; For the freedome of his will was one of the chiefe prerogatives of his state, and the abuse of this power, declares the dignity of it, by the severity of God's vindication, since upon the first defe∣ction of mans will from him, God did teare and divide the Kingdome he had given him, rending the sensitive powers from the dominion of the rationall; And in this breach, he left mans reason though not wholly deposed, yet so much distressed by the powers of the other revolted Tribes, as she needs now a forrein succour, not onely prevenient, but actu∣ally concomitant for her support, in this continuall warfare against her naturall subjects, our affections and sensitive ap∣petites, which have set up idols of their own making, like Jeroboams calves, (the delights of the senses) to maintaine this division and independencie, upon the soveraignty of reason, to which they were at first subjected, looking alwayes up

with the eyes of the Hand-maid, upon the eyes of the Mistresse sincere and rectified reason. This first happy state of man we are bound to beleeve, even in this deplorable condition we now find him, for the spirit of his Creator assures us, that God made man upright, & he intangled himself in all his perplexities.

We may therefore well ask the Prophets question, O how didst thou fall in this Morning light, when there was but one block in all the earth to stumble at? Thou wert made to tread upon the earth, onely as on a stage, beautified and adorned for thy passage over it, in triumph up to heaven, not to sink into it, and be wrapp'd up in it, in this foule and dark conveyance of thee, whereunto thou art now sentenced. Thou wast created to have been served onely by the mutati∣ons of all creatures, not to have suffered with them by any change, which should have been in thee onely a translation of thy earth to heaven, not a resolution of it into dust; for mans soule as having never been offended by his body, should never have put it away, and left it to his owne vility, but should have gratified the services thereof, with an immediate prefer∣ment to glory and impassibility: O! what can be answered by man for this selfe-destruction?

Me thinks Man replyes, that the weight of the then greatest of all created substances, falling from heaven, fell upon him, and thus shiver'd him into dust; indeed this is all can be said to move compassion for him, and this prevailed so much with his Maker, as Man's fall was commiserated and redressed, and he that fell upon him, was left fastned to the abisse of his own precipitation. What a sad contemplation is this, that the morning star who was created to feed onely on the increated light, was so soone condemned to feed on dust, as being falne from an Angel to a Serpent; and Man who was to rise up to the Purity of Angels, and to know no foulenesse by the way, was quickly sentenced to the becomming dust: so that by this commerce with the Serpent, Man is become his food. O then as the Wise-man sayes, sure it is the tongue of the Ser∣pent, while he fed first upon thee, that infused the poyson of

pride into all thy corruption; For mans nature savours so of this venome, by which it was first tainted, (which came from the Serpent, who retains his pride in all his debasement) as even through all the veines of mans infirmities there runs still this mortal spirit of self-love and presumption, though he be reduced daily, to plead the misery and infirmity of his na∣ture, in defence of his reproachable imperfections.

There seemes to be no better Character of the infelicity of humane nature, then is made by those, who inveigh against the weaknesse of it, yet claime that as an authority for all their faults, making the propensity to ill, the patronage of it, as if the forbidden fruit were now become medicinall for a weak conscience: That is, as if our inward frailty might serve for a purgation of most of our faults. This is a confection the Serpent offers us often, which his tongue may be said to make against the venome of his teeth; For how familiar is it, to ac∣cept this prescription, and to apply thisreceipt of (it is not I, * 1.1 but sin that dwels in me) for the cure of all the stings of con∣science, as if the accusation of the wretched man, were sufficient for the acquittance of him before God. For how many when they are ingenuous in this confession, think they are dispensed with for many grosse infidelities? so as even the discovery of the nakednesse of our nature, passeth often to our sense for the cover of all her deformities: how familiar this selfe de∣ception is, I need not argue, but rather complain directly in these tearmes of the Gospel, since the light that is in thee is darknesse, how great is that darknesse? This being our case; * 1.2 when the knowledge of our infirmity becomes the despaire of our recovery.

This considered, may not we say that the Serpent while he feeds upon our dust, (that is, prevaileth upon our frailties) blowes part of it into our eyes, to blind us, raising this cloud out of our infirmities, that we may see no way out of them: which subtilty prevaileth so much, as despairing often of our constitution, we consult our poysoner, for receipts, onely to give us a fair and easie passage through this life, and for allay∣ing

the disquiets of our nature, he gives us such remedies, as are pleasant for our senses to take, which are variety of sensible fruitions, that rock our childish nature into some rest, by the motions of her owne infirmities; Thus commonly our life is but a continued slumber, in which our reason lies bound up, and our fancie is the onely loose and living faculty of our soule, which raiseth to us, but dreames and similitudes of good and evill, sometimes vaine images of joyes, and other amazing phantasmes of fears; and in this dream of opinion and imagination we usually passe our lives, seldome waking and comprehending the true nature, even of the things wherewith we are the most affected: In so much, as while the truth is that our life in this world is but a kind of dreame or shadow, we dreame so strongly, as we doe not discerne it to be but a dreame; for the momentanynesse and inanity of our life seldome comes into our fancie, which though it be so suscepti∣ble of all levities, yet seldome admits the thought of mans owne lightnesse into it; the vanities of our life, shadow and cover to us our lives being but a shadow; and thus while we breath continually in this element of vanity, it becomes as the ayre to us, which we feele not sensibly in our familiar res∣piration, and yet our breath is nothing else but aire: after this manner, while our life is nothing but vanity, we are the lesse sensible of this constitution.

So vaine a thing is meere humane nature, as when your wit hath fancyed the most ayerie and light conceptions, it can, for images of this inanity, man seemeth yet so much vainer then all those expressions, as even all of them leave no im∣pression on man, of his owne vanity, for he makes no use of those his apprehensions, but lives as if hedid traduce and abuse himselfe in his conceptions and expressions of his owne vacuity and emptinesse, and falls not at all into considera∣tion of those disabusing notions: and thus he verisies what the holy Spirit sayes of him, that man compared to vanity is * 1.3 found lighter then it.

For, as if the variations and instability of his owne state,

were not sufficient for his vexation, doth not man adde to them, the changeablenesse of many other creatures, more va∣nishing and fleeting then himselfe, by fastning his love to them, namely, to riches, honour, beauty, and the rest of this worlds flashes, and blazes of delectation, which goe out very often, even before they have so much as warmed our senses.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Rom. 7.
• * 1.2

  Mat. 6. 23.
• * 1.3

  Rom. 8.