The parable of the pilgrim written to a friend by Symon Patrick ...

CAP. XXI.

Of the indeavours of his Enemies to keep him from doing good to his Brethren, under a pretence of Love to God. And of the Excellency of that Brotherly Charity.

AND here it seems very seasonable to remember you, of another common subtilty whereby your Adversaries will study to deceive you, and put a great stop to your progress in the way you are about to en∣ter. Which is, to detain you in the amusements of contemplation, and to busie your head only with Me∣ditations and Conferences with Jesus. They know that this will keep you too much at home, as well as any thing else, and that you will travel in your mind and thoughts only, but not with your whole man to Jerusalem. And therefore they will labour to per∣swade you of this at least, that there is not half so much Piety can be exercised abroad as in your Closet, and that the good we do our Brethren, is nothing comparable to the Meditations we have of God and our Saviour, and the Affections we express unto them.

This will very much hinder your proficiency, and put a greater rub than you imagine in your way, if you lend any belief unto it. It will keep you very much behind, under the pretence and colour of putting you forward, and it will depress and thrust you down be∣low others, while you seem to be mounting up on high, and soaring to a pitch far above them. For your Enemies understand very well, that God ac∣counts all that as done to himself, which is done to your Brethren for his sake. He hath made over all those benefits to them which are owing to him, because he is in no need of them. They are become his Re∣ceivers, and he hath devolved the right which he hath to our returns of Love to him, upon our Brethren. Be not you ignorant of this then, but understand it as well as your Enemies, that you never serve God bet∣ter, nor so well neither, as when you are doing any service to your poor Neighbours. You are bound, you think, to express such Love to God, as he hath ex∣pressed to you. Only you find that he is not capable to receive such effects of it, as you experiment in your self from his affections to you. But will you imagine now, that he will lose the right he hath to your thankful retributions, because he is in want of no∣thing? No such matter: he hath deputed those who are in need to receive from us that which is due to him, and imploy it to their own uses. He hath com∣municated (as I may say) all his claim to them, and bids them demand in his Name that which we cannot give, much less forgive to him. So that you exercise Justice and Charity both together, when you do good to your Neighbour; and there is a double Charity in it also, one to Him, and another to them. They have good done them upon his account, and he takes it so

much as done to himself that he acknowledges an ob∣ligation, and binds himself to pay us again.

Nay, let me tell you, that there is nothing in all the world can render you so divine and heavenly as to do much good. This puts us in the place of God to our poor Brethren to whom he sends relief and help by our hands. Is not this a very high honour? And is not that a very noble quality which so differences us from all others, that it makes us like to the Most High? The Mechanical Christian will here find himself to be dead and void of God; it being nothing but a Spirit of Life, and that very Divine too, which will carry us out of our selves, and fill us with perpe∣tual ardors of Love to others, and instigate us to be doing of good to all. This is the very Character of the Deity, for God is Love, and he that loveth, dwel∣leth in God, and God in him. And therefore if you covet to excel all others, study to be indued with the most profitable Gifts, as the great Apostle advi∣seth: and yet, saith he, I shew you a more excellent way, and that is Charity. For this causes us to make use of all those Gifts for the benefit of Man∣kind. This is the rarest way of excelling others, because it makes us excell our selves, and likens us to God. The Angels, you know, had the am∣bition of being like to God in Power and Majesty, aspiring, as is conceived, to the Throne of the Most High. Our first Parents were soon infected with the like vanity, and they rubbed their Leprosie upon them, for they affected to resemble God in wisdom and knowledge. But by this means you know that both of them lost what they enjoyed, instead of adding more unto it. What must we do then who see their

falls? must we be content not to be like to our Crea∣tor? Not so neither, but we must indeavour to imitate him in Love and Goodness, in which there is no dan∣ger. This admits of no excess (as wise men observe) but only of error. We cannot love too much, though we may be imprudent in the communications of it. Though Angels and Men suffered so much by the desire of other things in excess, yet in Charity there can be none, nor shall either of them suffer any damage by it. And therefore it was that God sent his Son Jesus into the world that by looking on him we may know how to become Divine. All his acts of power were acts of Love. All his Miracles were Mercies to men. He never imployed his Might but to do benefits. To teach us that they are truly great who are little in themselves (as he was) and great in Cha∣rity. That they are indued with most power who can do most good: and that they are nearest to God and most highly exalted, who are nearest to their neighbours and most deeply humbled. You know that if a Circle be made, and you draw lines from the circumference to the middle point or Center where they all meet; the further these lines are in any place one from the other the farther they are from the Center; and the nearer they come to that, the nearer also and the clofer their approaches are to each other. This may be a resem∣blance if you please of our condition here in this World, where we are all in our way to God the Center of our Rest, and travelling to Jerusalem where we hope to meet in him. We are desirous now to draw as nigh to him as we can, and many fancy that their musings, meditations and prayers, are the chiefest if not the only things that bring them near unto him. But as I have told you heretofore so let me now repeat

it again, That God and our Brethren are so inseperable that we cannot touch the one but we must be joyned to the other also. The further any of us is removed from his neighbour (as you see in that similitude) at the greater distance he is from God. He cannot go away from the former, but he goes away in the same proportions from the latter too. And the nearer and closer he is joyned in the affection of Charity to his neighbour, the nearer he is unto God, the more doth he approach to his excellencies, and to an union with him. If you will be a follower of God then as a dear child of his, Walk in love. You cannot chuse sure to do otherwise when you have so glorious a pattern be∣fore you. It is an honourable thing now you see to love, since God himself is become a Lover. You may have imagined perhaps that some offices of Charity are ignoble and disparage a person of honour: As most men of condition think it below them to go into a poor mans house, to come near the stinking wounds and the dirty beds of the meaner sort: and there are very few who do not account it a sneaking quality to put up injuries and pass by affronts. But you cannot be of this mind if you look upon God who by loving us hath also taught us how honourable and glorious all these things are. They are not below us since they are not below himself. There is no man so much our inferiour, as we are all beneath Him. And yet he condescended to them. He comes and dwells in this perishing flesh of ours. He despises not our poor cot∣tages: he dresses our wounds: he takes care of our sores: he heals our sicknesses, he passes by our trans∣gressions; yea, he prayes us to be friends, and intreats us to be reconciled. And that is a thing which men think to be so poor and mean that no great spirit can

indure to submit unto it. To go to others who have offended us and beseech them to lay aside their enmity is thought to savour of baseness and to be an argument of a low and cowardly mind. But God will give us leave to think so no longer. He hath shown us that it is the effect of a most generous and noble dispositi∣on, and so far from being a blemish to us that we should glory in it to be the first in making peace and offering terms of reconciliation. Others may think to give proofs of their gallantry by standing in defiance to all those who will not submit themselves and lye at their feet; yea by trampling on them who shall in the least offend them: but God teaches us by his own example that there is no greater height of mind, then in Humi∣lity and Meekness to condescend to others, yea to lay our selves at their feet and beg of them for the sake of the Lord of Peace that they will be the children of Peace. This is to become the sons of the most High and heirs of the greatest Glory.

And now let me ask you for what end would you shut up your self in your Closet, or make a Cell of your house? Is it not that you may improve your self in the knowledge of God; and do you not hope there to converse more with Heaven? you need not then be put to the trouble of this confinement, for I assure you nothing will so much promote your end as Love of your neighbour. This will make you feel what God is and give you the clearest and strongest sense of him. And the larger and wider your Charity grows, the more able will you be to conceive the vastness of Gods Love, and the less doubt you will have of his Univer∣sal good will. It will dispose you also more then any thing else to believe the Gospel, and will win your

assent to those reports which seem most incredible. When you find in your self such a great loye to others, it will be easier for you to conclude that God might love us so much as to send his only Son into the World, and give him also to dye for us sinners. And if there be any thing of greater force then other to bring you acquainted with the joy and peace of Jerusalem, and to make discoveries beforehand of it, this must be that happy Spy. For they consist very much in the dear love and friendship which there is between all the in∣habitants of that blessed place. But these things I will leave to your own thoughts and only pray you to im∣ploy your mind in all your secret retirements so much in these meditations, that you may issue forth from thence very full of God, and as a man inspired to do much good. For this active devotion is that which God loves. He will impart more of his blessings to you if you open your hands in doing benefits to others, then if you should lift them up all day in pra∣yers to Heaven. He refuses nothing to the stirring and diligent souls, whom love and good-will have set in motion. He delights to give to those who imploy his Grace. It is a pleasure to him to bless those who go forth to meet his favours and do not expect them in their Chambers. But we never imploy his Grace bet∣ter then when we imitate the effusions of it upon us in our kindness and benignity to others. And we are never more like to meet his blessings, then when they are blessing of him for the good that we have brought unto them.

I know you will be ready to say hereafter, that you can design a great deal more, than you doubt you shall ever do. That the Idaea you have of this Noble

quality is very high, but you are affraid it is above your reach. And therefore I pray you before hand that you would not trouble your self with such thoughts, but only remember these two things. That when you have done all the good that ever you can, that will dispose you still to do more: and in the mean season you are to take care of this, to rejoyce heartily that there are others in the World who can do more good then you. If we were once arrived at this noble disposition of rejoycing in the good of others, either in that which they enjoy, or that which they can do, we should be so far from wanting Cha∣rity, that we should equal our selves with the most excellent and blessed natures. As we should have no cause to complain that we are not in the same throne with Princes, nor to envy the learning of those who sit in the Chairs of Wisdom: so we should not come behind the devotion of the greatest Saints, nor be much inferiour to the Angels, who think it no small part of their happiness that they can rejoyce in God and in all the marks of his goodness wheresoever they can discern them. Are we less happy because our Wit is not so strong, our revenues not so large, our station not so high, and so our power to oblige others not so great as those of many of our neighbours? No such thing, but we shall rather be the more happy if in the midst of a low condition and in a meaner rank, we can keep our selves from the rust and canker of envy which is wont to grow soonest in such places as are low and damp. He hath raised himself to a very high pitch whose soul surmounts all discouragements and rejoyces in the Universal good of mankind by whomsoever it is procured. Hereby we shall make the happiness of every person that is above us to be our own. For how

is he more Happy then I who gets a victory, if I tri∣umph in it as much as himself? Wherein is he Supe∣riour to me whose riches increase, if I be not only con∣tented therewith, but much better pleased in his pro∣sperous estate then I was before he injoy'd it? Nay, if it make me well, to see him in health, and refresh my spirit, to see him merry, and really render me bet∣ter to behold his progress in wisdom and vertue; then I have the benefit of all these, and they become mine as much as his in whom they are. And can you con∣trive a better way then this to make your soul the re∣sort of all pleasures; the very Center wherein the happiness of the whole world shall meet, the Ren∣devouz (if you will give leave to that word) of all those joyes which are scattered every where among Gods creatures? It is not possible for you to do it: nor is there any delight so noble and sublime, so pure and refined as this that with so much ease you may enjoy. It is the very extract of all other pleasures; it is the Essence and Spirit of them without the grosser parts, which are wont to detain half of the pleasure from us. Though other pleasures make more noise, yet this gives greater contentment. They make a louder sound, but the commendation of this is its silence and quiet. The world takes more notice of others but the very secrecy of this joy increases its sweetness, and vapours not out the purity thereof. Other in∣joyments may be greater in bulk, but this is more in value. They are obtained at a great charge, but this we injoy at other mens cost. Those persons have the labour and sweat together with their delight, and we have the pure pleasure. They work not for themselves only, but they must do us some service thereby. We come in for a share of all their gettings,

and want nothing which they have, but only the toil and the pains. And yet so innocent is this pleasure, that while we enjoy all that others do we leave them all they had and take nothing away from them. As the Bees suck an invisible sweetness, which robs the Flowers of none of their beauties from whence they fetch it: So do we when we solace our selves in other mens goods; which are not impaired by our rellishies nor made less by all the contentment we draw from them. Nay we oblige them by this means, and pay them largely for all that we take. It will be an ad∣dition to their pleasures to know that others are pleased with them. It will be the best part of their satisfaction to understand that you cast not an evil eye upon their enjoyments. Their happiness would be imperfect, if you did not think your self happy too. They will owe as much to you as to their own acqui∣sitions, and you equal your self to them by not envying their superiority.

But I think it is time to conclude this discourse con∣cerning the good you are to do your Brethren; and therefore I shall only admonish you of a thing which may be apt, if you have not considered it, to trouble you in your way to Jerusalem; and so pass to other matters. After you have done all the good you can, you must not think to have the pleasure of finding all these persons grateful on whom you have bestowed your favours. You must rejoyce in your own Ver∣tue, without expecting that additional delight which reciprocal love would afford you. Such a good na∣ture I believe as yours will make you suppose that you have received a favour when one hath but done you justice, and therefore you will be infinitely senfi∣ble

of any kindness, and think that it layes an everlast∣ing obligation of gratitude upon you. But do not imagine that you shall meet with much of this inge∣nuity in the World: There are a far greater number of such a wicked disposition, that they look even upon kindnesses as their due, and will render you no more thanks for them, then men commonly do for Justice to which every body claims an equal right. Nay you will meet with those who when they are highly obliged, do love to avoid the persons that put those bonds upon them. They will not behave themselves so well as to take your kindnesses for their due, but carry it rather as if you had done them a sensible wrong. And I wish I could not say that there are such ill natures who cannot indure so much as to be∣hold those who have been their benefactors, but shun them as if they were their deadly enemies. But you will find I fear too many of these wretches, who think whensoever they see you that you upbraid them with al the good they have received from you. When you did them benefits you laid chains upon them, and they think it no crime to hate him that hath made them his Prisoners. They will heartily wish you were dead, that so they may be freed from their bonds which will dye and be buried in the same grave together with you. For they, measuring other mens natures by their own evil disposition, which inclines them to do good to none, unless it be with a design to make them slaves; they could wish never to see those persons, who they think, look upon themselves as their Lords and Masters, by having thus engaged them. Their cour∣tesies are meer traffique, and they alwayes expect to gain more than they give: which makes them hate their benefactors, who look they imagine for payment

also far greater than they have a will to make. Nay, they had rather do a courtesie to those who never did any thing for them, than be officious to those persons who have so much obliged them. Just like those wicked people who had rather make a present to others, than pay what they owe to their Creditors. Which, to say the truth, is no more than the necessa∣ry confequence of that cursed principle I named be∣fore, of trading with kindnesses, and putting them out to Use, that they may improve into greater, to be rendred back to them. I know very well there is no vice more odious than this, or which lyes under grea∣ter reproach even by ungrateful persons themselves; but yet I assure you, it will be found that there is none more common. And the mischief of it is, that it is ne∣ver so likely to grow in base natures, as when they have been highly bound to you. The kinder you have been, the more ungrateful they are like to prove: like those, who having contracted a vast debt, and having little to pay, run away with shame, and pay just nothing at all. You must do good therefore meerly for the Love you bear to it self; and though you de∣sire no payment but only the pleasure of having it kindly resented, you must be content sometimes to lose that small return, and rest satified in what you have done, and in your pious disposition to do the same again.