A guide to salvation, bequeathed to a person of honour, by his dying-friend the R.F. Br. Laurence Eason, Ord. S. Franc. S. Th. L.

Of the meer Moral lives of Christians.

We find others, not so brutish as the former, but yet far from true and good Christians. They think they are per∣fect, because rational, humane Reason, Prudence, natural and moral Vertues are the principle of their Actions. They do hold aright the Ballance of Justice, they will do no injury, be∣cause naturally they love Equity; They assist the afflicted, because they think it reason to relieve their like, and they desire to be assisted in the like Conditi∣on. They abstain from sensual Plea∣sures,

from carnal Contents, because they are Noble, and aspire to greater Things, than to be slaves to their Bo∣dies. Major sum, & ad majora natus, quam ut corpori me Servitutem exhibe∣am. Said a Moral Pagan, I am born to greater things than to be a drudg to my Body. They patiently endure the injuries and affronts offered, because they esteem it proper to a generous Courage, to misprise feeble Spirits, and to esteem them not worthy their Choller; As a Lyon and Elephant con∣temn the barking of little Doggs. All this is, to be but an honest Man, and one of Honour, but far from a good Chri∣stan; a true Disciple of Christ and Faith. Dorotheus one time visited the Sick of his Monastery of which he was Abbot; The Informarian addressing himself to him, said Father, I have a great Tempta∣tion of vain Glory, considering that you admire my diligence, seeing all the Rooms and Beds so clean and orderly composed: The Saint thus replyed, Brother, one may affirm, that you are a good Ʋalet and

Groom of the Chamber, but one cannot say, for all this, that you are a good Reli∣gious. So if you are a man of honour; just, zealous for the common good, out of a natural inclination only, or out of a moral and philosophical Probity, one may say, that you are a good justice of Peace, a good States-man, Wise, Poli∣tick; but for all this, a man cannot say, that you are a good Christian. I do not condemn this morral Life as bad, but I rather commend it, as laudable to be Practised. Because it hinders a man from committing many Evils; it affords good examples to others, and renders a man less indisposed for further helps: And God of his mercy will sooner have com∣passion on such, then on those that are vitious, and corrupt in naturalls, and offend against the manifest light of Rea∣son: but I only affirm this kind of life to be Insufficient for the obtaining of Salvation. Because man is ordained to a Supernatural end, to which nature can∣not reach, nor discover the means which God hath ordained to obtain this

end by, nor the manner how he will be worshipped or served in order to it. The greatest importance of this life is to serve God in a manner agreeable to himself; which a man cannot do, unless God ma∣nifest his Will to him by Divine Reve∣lations, which Pagans endeavouring to do by their natural judgment commit∣ted unsupportable extravagancies, and monstrous errours in the manner of their Worship. Aristotle generally estee∣med the greatest man for humane lear∣ning, and one who penetrated further the secrets of nature, then others; yet as Theodoret relates of him, [Theod. lib. 8. de cura graec. affect.] He was so deplo∣rably blind in the conduct of his Con∣science, that he Sacrificed to his de∣ceased Woman, who had been a Servant to a Tyrant; and that not once, but of∣ten is his life, and in that manner that the Athenians sacrificed to Ceres, which was with the most Religious Ceremonies, which were used in the superstions of the Gentiles; And therefore he said truly, that natural reason is as weak

and blind towards divine things, as the eyes of a Batt or Owl are to behold the brightness of the clear Sun. And do we not manifestly see the truth of this now amongst us, by the diversity of Sects and Opinions in Religion, every one fol∣lowing the dictamen of their natural reason, and so run into many absurdi∣ties in this kind, and are continually changeing their judgments, without certainty in any thing. And we see that natural reason is weak and de∣fective, even in things within its own Sphear, as appears in the divers and contrary Opinions among Philosophers and Scholastick Divines, and in the differences in the judgments of men in ordinary occurrences; what a blind Guide then must this needs be in divine and sublimer things? From this then we must necessarily conclude, that the light of Faith is required to direct us without errour in these Affaires. The Apostle affirms, that Fedes est substan∣tia rerum sperandarum: That Faith is the ground of things we hope for in the next

Life, and the foundation of our Spiritu∣al Edifice; if that be wanting, there can be no building; if that be not sound, all must fall to the ground. And the Apostle further declares the necessity of this. Accedentem ad deum oportet crede∣re; he that will come to God he must be∣lieve aright: And captivate his under∣standing and reason to the obedience of Faith; to which Reason must be a Hand∣maid not a Mistris. And our Blessed Saviour tels us, that he who doth not be∣leeve is condemned. And this Faith can be but one; so the Apostle affirms Una fi∣des: One Faith, one Baptism, one Lord of all. Hence is that of St. Fulgentius [lib. de fide c 38.] omni enim homini &c. to a man that holds not firmly the faith and unity of the Catholick Church, neither his Baptism, nor Alms, nor Death for the name of Christ, will profit him to Salvation. And St. Athanatius informs us in his Creed, that he who will be Sa∣ved, above all things, must hold the Ca∣tholick Faith, entirely and inviolably; From hence it necessarily follows, that

a man, though our Politicians imagine the contrary, cannot be Saved in any sort of Religion, for all these cannot be the only true one, necessarily required to Salvation. I will conclude this discourse concerning a meer honest Life, with the judgment of St. Augustine; [Serm. 13. de verb. Apost.] The Epicurian Phi∣losophers, saith he, practised vertue, for the conveniency of the Body; useing mo∣deration in their eating and drinking, in their prosperities and adversities, and in their whole conduct, for the welfare of their body, that it may in no man∣ner suffer dammage. The Stoick Phi∣losophers, being more Spiritual, practi∣sed Vertue for the natural good of the Soul, and Reason; to which Vertue is conformable and agreeable; in fine, he blameth them both, that their ver∣tues were defective; and as the first were Sensual in their moderation and temperance, so the second were proud in their Vertue, which they practised for it self, and the good of reason to which they ordred it. The first, saith he,

lived according to the flesh, the second according to the reason of the Soul, but neither according to God. So according to St. Augustine, one is not to rest in the utility and honesty of vertue; but he will, that a Christian Soul should raise it self higher, to practise Vertue for God, to glorify him by it; So that the body should not be the end, nor also the ra∣tional Soul, but only God, to whom it must be ordered and referred, He on∣ly being our soveraign good, and so a∣lone deserves to be desired and searched for himself, and in that manner as he hath prescribed, without which there can be no true Vertue acceptable to him; and the light of Faith is necessary to direct us in this, seeing humane rea∣son cannot do it. Therefore Christ sends us to his Church, to receave from her his Doctrine and Instructions, and com∣mands us to obey her, under the penal∣ty of being rejected as Heathens and Pub∣licans, which he Incurs, who makes his imagination his Oracle, his proper sence his Doctor, and himself the Church he followes.