A mission of consolation. Usefull for all afflicted persons. / By W.S.

A mission of consolation. Usefull for all afflicted persons. / By W.S.

Table of contents

Title page

To the READER.

A MISSION OF CONSOLATION.

Of the covenant of sufferings as men the Sons of Adam.

Of the covenant of suffering as Christians, the Sons of Christ.

Perfect Patience defined, imperfect consolated and directed

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A MISSION OF CONSOLATION. Usefull For all afflicted Persons.

By W. S▪

LONDON, Printed by W. B. for John Williams, and are to be sold at the sign of the Crown, in Paul's Church-yard. 1653.

To the READER.

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Reader,

LEt the Author of this small Volume, who hath practised some years in the most exact (in prison) school of patience, invite [Page] thee unto a serious perusual hereof, that you may thereby partake (in some measure) of the benefit of his sufferings; he esteeming it a great glorie in a Christian under persecution for his conscience sake, to impart to others the good uses he makes in time of his affliction; [Page] that they may by such example, apprehend the Cross to be the lighter and so take it up with more alacrity and chearfulness, and also conceive the miseries assigned us here on earth the less insupportable.

This Mission of Consolation, this small first [Page] born child, (for so it is) will after you have well view'd it) smile upon you, like a pleasant Infant full of health; and tell you, that it is no Paradox to say there is virtue in a prison; which indeed hath a Sympathy onely with virtue for untill a Person so richly endued enters the grate, [Page] it lies clouded and obscured; but then breaks forth and shews its splendour. A prison is (in my observation) one of the narrow and troublesome passages, which a Christian findes in the straigt way that leads to heaven.

Let not the spurious issue of the now adulterated [Page] press discourage you in reading for that is become an ambodexter in this age, Printing with one hand Truth, & with another error: be satisfied, that this relishes not of any upstart or unsound opinion, but will well become thy pocket, or thy chamber, if thou art afflicted or [Page] persecuted for preserveing to thy self a good conscience.

It shews thee in the enterance, thy first estate as man, the Sons of Adam full of impuritie aud pollution, and born in a capacitie of onely bearing sorrow and travail. But in the second part it [Page] doth most admirably repair thy condition, leading thee into a covenant with thy Redeemer. And in the third it instructs thee how to fit and prepare thy self for so divine and heavenly society.

If thou findest content in reading requite the Authour with thy [Page] good wishes, not further inquiring after him, but let the effect of thy prayers onely finde him out,

W, S.

A MISSION OF CONSOLATION.

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Of the covenant of sufferings as men the Sons of Adam.

TO the first covenant of sufferance you know we all give our voice, by a natural instinct, before we have [Page] scarce enjoyed so much as light for it; and our eys may be said to set their mark to it, before we are able to set our hands to this Article of eating in the sweat of our brows: for our eys pay their sweat, which is their tears, for what we taste, even before we be able to receive bread for it; and as we grow into a state to set our hands to the covenant of labour, we [Page] know there is scarce any thing we relish much, that doth not cost us sweat, and contention; nay we are of such a constitution, that we can have no kinde of delectation: the which some want and suffering must not precede to affect us with the gust of it, so as we are sentenced to pay a great fine of pain before hand for all those fleeting, and transitory pleasures, which [Page] at best do but run over our senses, and so pass away and leave them again in their drouth, and privation. And most commonly the advance of all our pain and passion rendreth us nothing of what they negotiate. So as a man when he looketh upon himself in the best reflexes his temporary wishes can make him, shall finde this brand and stigmate of Adam upon [Page] on his forehead. Gen. 3. 19. Thou shalt eat in the sweat of thy brows.

And this is a mark which God stamped upon Adam of another kinde of signification than that he set upon Cain, for this directeth to all things that occur to man in this life to strike him, and wound his temporal estate in some kinde or other; in so much as all the Creatures do in their [Page] several manners execute this sentence upon the Sons of Adam not alowing themselves to be enjoyed by them without stinging them in some sort, either with the anxietie of their appetite to them, preceding fruition, or the distaste of satiety following it, or with vexation of a deprivement of them during the Order of their affections to them. So as we may well say [Page] that every thing we finde now assaults our felicity in this life in some sort to kill it, and to revive to us the memory of our covenant of sufferance we entered into as soon as we entered into light. For which reason the wise man proclaimeth elegantly the tenour of it saying Eccles. 40. 1. Great travel is created for all men, and a heavie yoak upon the children of [Page] Adam, from the day of their coming forth of their mothers womb until the day of their burying in the mother of all their cogitations, and fears of the heart, imaginations of things to come, and the day of their ending, from him that sitteth upon the glorious state unto him that is humbled in earth and ashes. Neither need we look back upon the defaced images of all conditions [Page] in the dead prints of History, we have such living figures of them before our eys, as must needs imprint upon our thoughts a lively character of the deplorable estate of all mortals, whereby out of the ruines of houses whereof you lament the demolishments, you may pick up some materials to build in your mindes this frame of the instable constructure of [Page] the greatest strength of humane happiness; and thus your friends may in their fall some way support your virtue, and your patience, when you consider how incident it is to the vicissitudes of the world to expose unto us that changeable scene whereof Solomon reporteth this to us. Eccles. 10 and 7. I have seen servants upon horses, and Princes walking upon the[Page]ground as servants. And in such capital letters as these you may now reade the articles of the covenant of sufferance, which man is engaged in, whereof Job maketh a manifest, is signed even by all the Princes of the earth; for we finde this under their hands in all records of them, in some part of their lives. Job 14 1. Man born of a woman and living [Page]a short time is replenished with many miseries. In so much that after man by sin had made miserie for himself in this life, it seemeth a mercie of God to have joyned death with it, before which even the light of nature is sufficient to shew the Philosophers that none can be counted happy. And in order to this proof, we mark that Cain he who first abused death by [Page] imploying it to make sin, was thought worthy of no less a punishment than the protraction of life, which he had made so afflicting by his fearing to die, and thus he was made his own torturer, by the ignorance of the evil of life, and of the good of death which he had so much demerited the knowing of, for his brothers goodness was thought worthy to be quickly [Page] relieved by death, and his malice was adjudged to the pain of apprehending it, and to the supplice of a long life. With good cause then may this be well reflected on, that the first virtuous and godly Abel, man was quickly removed out of this hedg of thorns his father had set, and reconveyed towards Paradise, and the first impious murtherer was sentenced to live [Page] in the pungencie, and asperity of these pricks and bryars of the earth. But such is Gods wisdom as he can extract medicines out of all the Brambles, and Thistles our earth is over-run with, and minister them to our infirmity, for he applieth even those griefs, and sorrows which sin introduced to the expulsion of sin in it self; so as this is an operation worthy of Gods [Page] invention by the labour, and exercising of the bodie to enlarg the freedom of the soul, even by this unfortifying of her prison in which she is kept, the closer, the stronger the delectation of our senses groweth upon us. Therefore the distancing of the conveniencie of the flesh dilateth the commodities and freedoms of the spirits, so as it is a divine [Page] artifice which God useth by hanging weights of sufferings and pressures upon our senses, to winde up rather than to clog our spirits, which are the motions, and resorts of the whole frame, and in probation of of this experiment. David saith. Psal. 4. 1 In tribulation thou hast enlarged me.

And it is most observeable that God ministred this receipt [Page] (drawn out of thorns) to all those Sons of Adam whose mindes he meant to purge and clarifie; for all the holy Patriarks took this detersive potion of bitterness and affliction in this life; and it deserveth our attention to note, how the nearer the time drew to the manifestation of the Son of God (who was designed the man of sorrow) the passions of gods children [Page] grew the bitterer and the sharper, for the Patriarks were exercised by divers mortifications, which were not capital, they staid upon the distresses of their life: some of the Prophets as they approached to this fulness of the time of passion tasted by anticipation, of the cup of death, in which they were all but figures of Christs cup-bearers, as Esay, Jeremy, Zachary, [Page] and others, and so those sufferings which in time were the least distant from Christ (as those we finde recorded in the Maccabees) came also the nearest to the horror and acerbity of the passions of Christ, and Christians for they went not straight to death, but turned about to take a compass of tortures, to make death bitter to those they could not make it terrible; as [Page] you may reade in the execution of the mother, and her seven children, the very dawning of the day of passion which was coming on gave them this light of fortitude.

It seemeth this weight of sufferance and sorrow was always in so natural a motion upon the children of God, that it moved the faster the nearer it came to the centre (the man of sorrow) who [Page] being the Son of God by nature, was the centre of all the Sons by grace, and adoption, and therefore all the bloudy sacrifices of the Law of nature, and ceremonial, tended and pointed to him as their last term, and direction; in order whereunto S. Paulinus sticketh not to say that Christ from the begining of all ages suffereth, and triumpheth in all the Churches [Page] persecutions: in Abel, he is killed by a brother, in Noah, he is derided by a Son, in Abraham he is a Pilgrim, in Isaac a Victim, and in Jacob a Servant, in Joseph he is sold, in Moses left a Derelict, in the Prophets he is stoned, starved, and vilefied. So as all the lines of holy passions, drawn from the circumference of all ages tend, and resort to this centre [Page] of the man of sorrow, the Lamb of God, slain from the beginning of the world.

These evidences may prove unto us clearly enough the first bond or covenant of sufferances we are entered into as men, (and even in that notion we seem to be implicit christians) since he who suffered sufficiently for us all, maketh all virtuous afflictions referraable to him) it had [Page] been very easie for me to have exhibited a more precise manifest of this our first designation to sufferings under the notion of men, there are so many excellent draughts of it stamped by the moralists, or naturalists of all ages; but I chose to deflect a little from the letter of the Text, that I might make the inferences rather stongly usefull, than critically uniform; and [Page] therefore as I have already stepped beyond the out court of the Gentiles, into part of the temple, I will not call back to Philosophy to borrow any demonstrations of this principle, wherein the proofs are so acumulate as all Sects of Philosophers which differ so much concerning the point of the good mans life, concur in the confession of the multiplicity [Page] of the ills thereof, but I shall not as I said walk aside into the gardens and flowry beds of the Gentiles, because I conceive it more proper for your state, to have some wholesome confection to take, than a nosegay of the flowers of Philosophy to smell to onely, in these unhealthful times; for the larg contemplations of of the miseries of human nature is not a [Page] receipt direct, and express enough for your present exigencies, for that is but as a good air of meditation, that may be sufficient for such as are but in light ordinary indispositions of fortune, but your distempers require some more forceable application of comfort, by taking into your mindes the strongest obligations to patience and longanimity, I will therefore [Page] pass on to the other two assignments of suffering which are upon you as Christians, and leave this our single humanity sealed with Jobs signature. Job 14. 22. His flesh while he lives shall have sorrow and his soul shall mourn upon himself.

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Of the covenant of suffering as Christians, the Sons of Christ.

WHat we have said of our first obligation may well extenuate all, we are bound to suffer by the second, for when we behold the infelicity of of our condition as we are men, we may well wonder more that we are preferred to be Christians, than that we are continued to [Page] be sufferers: for sure if God had consulted with Adam after he saw his own nakedness, and the anexture of all the miseries thereunto whither he would have bowed the heavens & have come down, to repair this his ruinous condition, by his investing his miserable human nature, he would have answered with the humble Centurion, Matth. 8. 8. Lord I am not [Page]worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof, but onely say the word and I shall be healed. Seeing he who made all by one word, could have redintegrated Adam with a word, remaining in the simplicity of his divine nature, without the Word being made flesh, and being as it were unmade himself (as the Apostle warrants us to say) by taking that flesh upon him, which [Page] was become as it were mans prison, so far was it from being worthy to be the receptacle of God.

When we consider then how God chose this way of commiserating our nature, not to purg it by his power but by the very infirmity thereof, by taking the passibleness of it upon him, we cannot deny the suffering part to be the most beneficial property of it, [Page] since God made use of that onely for the restauration of it, wherefore the feeling that portion of human nature upon us, which is the most ennobled by Gods election, and preference, cannot rightly be accounted a prejudiced condition, whereupon we may conclude that the blessing of being Christians may easily reconcile us to the Obligation of being sufferers, [Page] for what can be the reason why Christ when by his pains he took away the sting of sin, could not also take off the points of suffering in this life; which are but thorns of that plant, but because his passions had infused such a quality into our pains, as might produce this strange effect in our nature, to make our root the less capable of bearing fruit by the excrescense, and [Page] growth of these sprigs out of it, for temporal afflictions spring out of sin; as out of the root thereof, and nothing drieth up, and infecundateth so much the radicall fructifying vigor of this root, as the springing up of temporal miseries, and distresses; so as the fruit of sin, which is death is killed the soonest by the fertility of sufferings in this life.

Since Christ hath [Page] then by the virtue of his Crown of thorns imparted this faculty of the asperities of our life, of taking off the growth as his did the guilt of sin, we need not wonder why he hath left all these temporal bitternesses upon our nature which he himself took expresly to taste in our nature: so as we may be said to become the more Christians, the more we are called to [Page] be patients. Which position we shall finde the more clearly demonstrated to us, the farther we advance into the principles of Christianity.

Saint Paul when he wrot to the Romans in those times, when in a paralel of our cases the Christians were partly immured up in prisons, and partly expelled to the adjoyning fields thought (it seemeth) to sweeten their [Page] condition to them by representing that mortification, and sufferance was their calling and profession; for he asketh them as of a notorious thing, whither they know not this to be the constitution of christianity, saying Rom 6. 3. Are you ignorant that all we who are baptised in Christ Jesus, in his death we are baptised? Intimating that our first incorporation into [Page] the bodie of Christ, is in effect an expiration of this world, and a translation by the virtue of the death of Christ into such a sort of life as he hath patterned to us by the inception, progress, and consummation of his life. And the Apostle presseth thus the proof of this assertion Rom. 6. 4. For we are buri [...]d together with him in baptism into death: to evince this position [Page] that our mundanity is drowned, and buried in our Christning, and that the life of Christ which was a continued part of mortification is to be (as it were) our breath, and animation. And while we are in this spiritual manner buried in the life of Christ, that is covered, and inclosed with indignities and oppressions, we are acting that part we took upon us in baptism, where we [Page] isted our selves into that militia which was erected by him, who killed death by dying, and hath left the same discipline to all his souldiers to destroy death by dying to the world: mortifications therefore must needs be the proper duties of that service a christian is upon, and his pay is conditioned rather upon his suffering, than his acting as the Apostle proceedeth to testifie. [Page] For if we become complanted to the similitude of his death, we shall be also of his resurrection. So in a Christians case the wages of death is life, for if he die here by a privatiō of the carnal life of this world, he performeth the condition of life everlasting. For which reason S. Paul who was the great commander of the Gentiles in this militancy (wherby this kinde of dying [Page] death is swallowed up in Victory) hath left us his discipline in 1 Cor. 15. I die dayly; and he giveth us those orders. To be the followers of him as he was of Christ whom he began not to follow untill he was overthrown in the command he had in this world, and was (as it were) resuscitated by the same hand that had killed him. We may remember he was revived by what is destructive [Page] to this life, by being almost famished, and illuminated by this worlds darkness, and restored to corporal light, onely to see how much he vvas to suffer for that Name for which all the sufferings he had in his head were to be imployed, but in a manner far differing from this design; for they were assigned to be enjoyed by himself not to be dispensed to others [Page] by his hand so as this seemeth the gratification of his Christianity, the having of all that treasure of crosses he had prepared for other Christians, appropriated to his own use; whereof he grew so sensible, as in gratitude to this his preference, he returned his. I do exceedingly abound in joy in all our tribulation.

But let us look upon his master and ours [Page] Christ Jesus in his own time of tribulation, and we may represent him to our selves, in the first instant of his conception accepting this Order from his father, which he gave to his follower S. Paul, of Acts 9. 15. I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my Name before the Gentiles, and Kings, and the children of Israel. In which commission he laboured three and thirty [Page] years, wherein, all we are acquainted with of his life is either laborious or incommodious, or in extremity dolorous, and painfull. It seems the holy Ghost did not think any thing worthy to stand upon record for Christ that was not eminently suffering, and therefore passed over in silence, those parts of his life which we may suppose to have been the least distressfull. If we look [Page] upon his way that is drawn out to us from his cradle to his Cross, we shall finde that he fore-saw in all ages, more than the persons themselves who are under them can do. He truly bore all our labours, and our griefs. All the anxieties, and contristations that now oppress you were in a sharper degree pressing upon his heart and since he was content to aggravat all his [Page] sufferings by taking on him the sense of your grievances, may not you very easily alleviate all your heavinesses, by taking into your minde the resentment of sufferings, which were designed for your succor in your temptations, by the reflection upon his precedent? so that his example is not a simple injunction on you to suffer, but a conferment of an abilitie to [Page] sustain it, and a means to improve, and ameliorate your estate in your coinheritance with him: for the Apostle inforceth this Doctrine with this Energy of A fathfull saying 2 Tim. 2. 12. For if we be dead with him, we shall live also together, if we sustain we shall also reign together.

This deserves well our contēplation, that the fulness of the divinity [Page] did inhabit in Christ, and the clear vision of God did always illuminate him, notwithstanding this, it was miraculously disposed by God, that the affluence of joy springing from the deity, should not overflow his body, and possess the inferior portions of his soul, that there might be left room for pain and anguish; the which was manifest in his passion, [Page] in so much as stupendious miracles were requisite for an admittance of so much sorrow into his most sacred minde: If God were pleased thus to multiply miracles, that affliction might have access to his beloved Son, in whom he was so well pleased; shall we with whom he hath so much cause to be displeased wonder at any calamity, or tribulation whereby he is [Page] pleased to correct us, especially when it is a mark of our filiation, and fraternity with Christ? We who cannot be exempt from sufferings without a miracle, as we are Sons of Adam, shall we be astonished at any imposition, under this notion of brothers, nay even Members of Christ? in which respect S. Bernard saith excellently, that Delicate and tender Members [Page] are not decent, and becoming a head stuck full of thorns. Therefore the pressures, and pungencies of this life make the Symmetry, and proportion of the body of Christianity, to the head Christ Jesus: who since he did not so much as speak one idle vvord, all his praises, and Beautifications of the poor, and the afflicted must needs verifie the good of adversity. [Page] And Surely Christ did much less do any idle deed, and if the exemplarie life of his labours, and one-rations had not been directed to our conformity therein, there might seem some supervacuousness and redundancy in his continual hardness, and asperitie of life. Would God have afflicted his onely Son so, if it were indifferent to do, or not to do as he did? or [Page] that it did not concern those vvhom he had fore-knovvn, and predestinated to be conformable to the image of his Son in this point that he might be the first born of many brethren? Our fraternity therefore is derived to us by this similitude. Our sins might have been effaced not onely by a drop of Christs bloud, but even by a drop of his svveat; vvherefore this seemeth [Page] one of the chief reasons that did induce the atrocity of his passion, and the austeritie of his life, the necessity of such a patern for our imitation, since our nature vvas grown so degenerous, and effeminate, as no less than gods participation of all the sorts of grievances, and injuries thereof, would serve to form in us a chearfull disposition to the sufferings, and [Page] infelicities of this life God did not therefore intend to vex us, when he placed our salvation in difficulties, and in our natures aversions, for to sweeten the bitterness of this strong necessity, which was to work upon our nature, to purg us from the love of this world he was so gratious, as to infuse the company of Christ into this receipt, that the taste of his society might make [Page] more pleasant to us the ill savour, and acerbity of the remedy. Well therefore may we say. A greater than Elisha is here, who hath amended these waters by but tasting of them, and hath left neither death nor bitterness in them; for they are become rather waters springing up to life everlasting.

And we may observe that in conformity to Gods method [Page] with his Son Christ continued the same stile to his Mother; for she whom all Generations were to call blessed was not allowed any of what this world calls Blessings; for she who had born the Redeemer of the whole world, was not able to go to the highest rate of the Temple, for his Redemption; her poor estate did not reach to pay so much as a Lambe for the Son [Page] of God, and the Lamb who was to take away the sins of the world, had not so much as a Lamb for his Ransom. The lowest price that was set for any of the children of Israel was the rate her low condition was taxed at, none was set at less than a pair of Pidgeons, or a pair of Turtles, and the Mother of God was in this inferiour form of the Daughters of Men. [Page] This may serve to sweeten the bitterest water of poverty when we ponder this, that Christ would not allow his Mother to taste of any other spring; and though he would not let her taste of the sowreness of the forbidden fruit: yet he fed her more than any other with these bitter Leaves, which grew out of the same root, that is, though he was pleased [Page] to exempt her from sin, yet he would not dispense with her in sufferings, which we know are but the productions of sin; and so she whom we may suppose to have been excepted out of the rule of sinners, was exalted above any in the state of sufferers. And this seems to be very consonant, that as she was Mother to the man of sorrow, and of no sin, so she should [Page] be a bearer of all griefs without any guiltiness: but howsoever this point is accorded by all parties that being the purest of all creatures, Luke 2. 29, 35. she was never the less the greatest of all Patients: when she came to redeem her own Redeemer by the legal ransom, and was to enter into possession of her Son, we may note that the joys that we represaged [Page] her by Simeon in him were very dark, and mystical, but her own sorrows very clear and manifest. For this mystery of her having a light to the revelation of the Gentiles in her arms, and the glory of thy people Israel was hard to be understood of one that was in the lowest rank of the people: but this part was easie to be conceived of his being a [Page] mark of contradiction, and that a sword should pierce through her own soul.

Nature it self evidenceth the miseries which mothers are liable to from children, and thus she had here her sorrows and her sufferings writ to her in the common Alphabet of nature, and her joys and consolations cyphered out onely to her in the figures and characters [Page] of grace, which are so hard to be decyphered, though it may be she had the key of them: but howsoever her faith was to be exercised by a tedious and very sudden triall in affliction. She quickly found the sword in her soul, for we may easily conceive what a wound her sudden flight into Egypt was, how many fears, distresses and anxieties, pierced her [Page] tender heart in that laborious flight. And sure the sword of Herod, that parted so many mothers and children, pierced her soul even while she possessed her childe: she may well be judged to have out-suffered any of them in their own losses, for she had the grief of being the occasion of all them upon her heart, so as the sword that was drawn directly against her [Page] soul though the stroke did not light upon it, as it was aimed, yet it may be thought to have wounded her in a sharper manner than it did any it fell bloudily upon, for her exquisite charity must needs feel all their anguishes and passions who were thus afflicted as personating her.

Thus we see how she began her possession of her Son with the sorrows of a multitude [Page] of mothers inflicted on her, and if we look upon her being dispossest of her Son, there we shall see the sword piercing her soul in so horrid a manner, as the pains which all the daughters of Jerusalem ever had in the birth, or death of their children were but shadows of her torture: whereupon S. Bernard saith, Neither tongue can express, nor heart can [Page] conceive the dolours wherewith the holy bowels of this Mother were excruciated.

Now blessed Virgin you pay with rigorous interest that pain which nature was not allowed to exact of you in your delivery: the pangs which you felt not in the birth of your Son, are infinitely replicated upon you at his death, when we consider the Mother of Christ standing by [Page] the Cross, and seeing her Son under those Nails, Thorns, and Scourges, and all the other Tortures.

With what hand can we hope to touch this dolefull figure of the blessed Virgin, to give it a lively resemblance? I will therefore leave it veiled with this reason upon it, No figure is like to sorrow, the not being pourtraictable being the nearest similitude [Page] can be made of this figure of disconsolation. That which purporteth most to our purpose is, that by the not being able to comprehend the immensity of the sufferings of the Mother of God, we may be the less apt to apprehend any extremity in our own: when she who had at least no actual sin to expiate, had so much sorrow to exercise her virtue. How [Page] shall we (who have so much sin to satisfie for) wonder at any sufferings, whereof we have so much need to sanctifie us?

There is then no reason why we should fear to be mistaken, in taking crosses for commodities, indignities for honours, poverty for treasures, since the eternal wisdom, and divine understanding hath counselled this acceptation of them, [Page] not onely by his advise but by his Mothers president, and his own personal investure of them. He who is both the supreme goodness, and the supreme power, chose by those low humbled means to redeem us, and by the same we must perfect our salvation; the work must be finished by the same instruments by which it was begun.

Christ told his Disciples, there were many [Page] mansions in his Fathers house, but never gave them notice of any other way to any of them but this of the crosses, and miseries of this world; & surely as he said of the mansions, so may we say of the marches to them, if there had been another passage he would have told it them. This narrow way and straightgate is all the direction we finde either by his life, his doctrine or [Page] his death. Mat. 11. 12. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. Is the word, or motto belonging to the Arms of the Gospel: and as Christ said, no body ascendeth into heaven but he that descended out of heaven; therefore he vouchsafed to come down to live out this way, which he imprinted upon his sacred humanitie: So that now this way lyeth so [Page] fairly marked out by the prints of his steps, in his return to his eternal mansion, as no bodie that looketh up to heaven can miss the seeing of it, though it be not the milkie way of the Poets, but the bloudy way of the Prophets, and Apostles. It is traced out more fairly in the firmament of a Christian, which is the Gospel, than the other in the material skie. The [Page] life of Christ is such a sequence, and connexion of bright, and shineing sufferings, as sheweth our souls as intelligably the way to heaven, as those stars do our eys that sensible trace in the firmament. We may cast our eye upon this Galaxie or constellation of humility, and depression in Christs life, we shall see it illustrious, and shinning in an humiliation under all sorts of [Page] Creatures. He humbled himself to the Angels, he vouchsafed to receive comfort of an Angel; as if his necessity, not humility, had required it. When he was hungry he was pleased to take food, as alms from the Angels; when he could have turned stones into bread. He humbled himself to man, and woman, remaining obedient to his Mother, and Joseph. He subjected [Page] himself to impious Princes, to Herod, Cesar, Caiphas, and Pilate, by understanding their burthens, and their judgments he submitted himself to vile, and infamous servants, as to Malchus, and to his torturers, deriders, and others. He yielded himself even to inanimate creatures, suffering heat, and cold, to strike upon him, and by Iron, Wood, Thorns, and [Page] Reeds he indured to be violated, and offended, nay he subjected himself to his greatest enemy the Devil himself, when he suffered him to carry him up to the pinnacle of the Temple; So there is no creature from the sublimest to the meanest, from the best to the worst to whom Christ did not humiliate himself.

And thus you see this arch of humiliation [Page] set as it were on another bowe, in the clouds of his humanity for a sign of this covenant of sufferances, wherein I have suggested to you your ingagement, and this bowe of his covenant is so extended, as it makes a perfect circle, it reacheth from the sphere of angelical, to that of inanimate substances, to both which we see Christ did submit himself, and so his [Page] subjection toucheth the highest, and the lowest point of his own creatures, which consideration of his ineffable humility must needs assure us of the admirable effect it hath produced of converting crosses into the nourishment of his body left upon earth, and so to bring that which seperated his soul, and his body, now to be the means of reuniteing the body to the [Page] head, for the cross is left in his Church, to conjoyn, and consociate the Members into their suffering head, Christ Jesus, and we may well add, that this divine sign of the cross set in the heaven of his person, so conspicuously remains as a sensible mark of his promise to the Church of never being drowned in any inundation of crosses failing on her.

Looking up therefore [Page] to the heavenly object of Christs sufferings we may be comforted by our similitude, and we may rejoyce at our securitie, which this covenant recapitulateth to us, as often as we contemplate it; in so much as there is none of you who groan under any pressure or tremble under any oppression, Heb. 12. 2. But Looking up upon the author and finisher of out faith Christ Jesus, [Page] may not see him bearing the same cross with joy, despising the confusion of it. Whither you sweat under your burthens, or whither you bleed under the edg of these times, you shall finde your persecution both civil and sanguinary, patternd to you in the person even of God, & man, Christ Jesus, who hath not left so much as your fears, and terrours out of the exemplar of his [Page] passions, his Mark 14. 33. He began to be heavy and to fear. Was designed purposely as a cordial in your fits of fainting, and if there were any point in your afflictions which were not exemplified to you in Christs passions, that circumstance ought to prove to you a sufficient consolation, in that you had some suffering to offer to Christ of your own, besides the coppy and [Page] portraicture of his. But alas all that we can imagine in our own pains wherein there is no imitation of his, is that which we may better blush at, than boast of; for it is onely the guilt of deserving more than we can endure in this life, this is simply ours in our afflictions, wherein we finde no resemblance in the figure of Christs sufferings, which part of our cases may make [Page] us offer up to Christ a thankfull alacrity in all temporal penalties infflicted on us, for having taken off from us the burthen we could not remove by any sufferings, and having left us onely such pressures as may aleviate the weight of that intolerable gravation which is the guilt of sin: for our crosses in this life by the virtue of the cross of Christ (whereof our heaviest [Page] are but chips or shaveings) do not onely keep our sins lower, but also weigh against the temporal penalty of those which are in the scale.

It may admit a question whither it be a more precious Christian exercise to do good, or to endure evils: that state is certainly the best in which both are conjoyned, when suffering many grievances, we act as much [Page] good as we are able.

Let them then who have nothing left to give to God by way of actions, rejoyce in the facultie of sorrows: When King David extols the dignity of man he raiseth it upon this ground that God had made him a little lower Psal. 8. Then Angels, but in this respect we may say that God hath advantaged him above them by furnishing [Page] him with more instruments of attaining heaven than they have by having coupled a body to this spirit in which he may suffer for Christ, when many other capacities of expressing his gratitude are suspended; for man hath not onely all the several powers of his minde but also the senses of his body given him as Organs of working out salvation by carrying the Cross [Page] upon them, with this corporeal furniture man is enriched above Angels; so as man may even out of the greatest infirmities of his constitution extract matter of glorification. This virtue hath been imparted to the vility of flesh, & bloud, since God vouchsafed to be invested in it; Our flesh received this priviledg not onely of being admitted into heaven, but of contributing [Page] to the souls degrees of glory by the proportions of the bodies suffering; Rom 8. 13. S. Paul saith, It is no wonder that God having giving his own Son to humane nature, should have given all these other prerogatives with him.

Out of this state of our mortality the Saints shall rise as high as they should have done from the state of innocence, and immortality, [Page] which shews that they are equally sanctified in the brevity, and shortness of their life now, to what they should have attained in many ages, if they had remained immortal. The similitude of sorrows, and crosses by the grace of Christ, countervaileth, and compensateth the numerousness of the years of our service. Our redeemer hath left us this compendious [Page] way of approaching heaven by the necessities and molestations of our flesh, the which he would not expunge in it that he might present his Father the children of his most pretious passions, as much purified in a little time, as they should have been in the efflux of many ages. He who raised above the highest heaven the heaviest of our earth upon this engine of the [Page] Cross, hath left it us, to winde up the easilyer our terrestrial qualities upon the same Machine. This was the means which S. Paul made use of in all his elevations up to the third heaven. Gal 2. 20. With Christ I am nailed to the Cross: carried him up to that sublimity; and he kept himself so close nailed to the Cross all his life, as when he was weak [Page] he was strongest and never esteemed his raptures so much as his revilings, and ignominies. He professeth to glory willingly in nothing but in his humiliations.

2 Cor. 12. Gladly will I glory in my infirmities, in contumelies, in necessities, in distresses for Christ, &c. because he found power was perfected in infirmity, whereby we are convinced that [Page] those who are called to Christianity are assigned to all sorts of crucifyings.

All the iniquity of a Christian consists either in doing what Christ did not, or in refusing to do what he did, and none can excuse themselves by an in capacity of imitating Christ, in that wherein he hath been pleased to state Christian profession; for every one may be poor, and [Page] patient, and mortified, but every one is not qualified to attain to Riches, Honour, or Learning. This is the wisdom, and love of God, to have those things made the best contributions to our eternal felicity, which may not onely be reached by every one, but can even scarce be missed by any, which are the afflictions, and adversities, of this life, wherefore those who [Page] it may be would not have had the Zeal to affect a similitude to Christ in these hard touches of Gods hand, must not be so ungratefull as to repugne this operation of God upon them, or be ashamed and confused to see this figure of deformity in the worlds eye impressed upon them, in poverty, infamy, destitutinos of friends, reproaches of enemies and [Page] all other assimillations to Christ; but rather acknowledg a mercy of God, who having called them to these trialls as Christians, whereunto they have answered but ill in other times, that now he vouchsafeth himself to place them in the society of the passions of Christ, remembring what the great Doctor in this worlds miseries, and the others felicities, [Page] remonstrates to us, 2 Cor. 1. 7. That in the same measure you are partakers of the passions you shall be of the consolation of Christ.

[Page]

Perfect Patience defined, imperfect consolated and directed

NOw I set up to your patience as a kinde of brazen Serpent to cure all the stings you are exposed unto; I must desire you to understand clearly the integral constitution of this virtue: for I ascribe so much efficacy to it, supposing the patience I handle to be an habit, [Page] or disposition inherent in our wills, which receiveth humbly, and beareth uncomplainingly all sorts of temporal grievances and passions in order to a conformity to the will of God, and our similitude to Jesus Christ, or as S. Augustine saith, True patience ordaineth us to endure all kindes of evils of pain, to avoid all manner of ills of guilt. These definitions [Page] do not admit either a lame, or a pide patience to enter into this high form of efficacy, that is, if it be peccant, either in progress and continuation, or imperfect in the integrity, that is required in it, of submitting to all sorts and degrees of sufferances, as coming all from one providence. If we have any exception against any of this Jury of Gods [Page] chusing to try us by, it is a sign our patience is but spotted, and partycolour'd, or if it be intermitting, and by fits onely, this betrayeth the unsoundness of it. Wherefore we must endeavour to certifie our nature in these two deficiences, to which it is very liable: The first is of having refractory intervals, in which we let in impatience, and murmur, to detract at [Page] least from the intireness of this virtue, and suffer our senses to speak too freely against that which offendeth them. The other is of our aptness to make motions to God for some especial exceptions in our tribulations, resigning our selves but partially to his design upon us, and likewise this deprecation is of the present crosses that are upon us, believing we [Page] could place any other to sit lighter upon us, if that were removed, with which we are actually charged, and thus we are commonly tempted instead of suing for patience to God, to desire his patience in our repugnancies, and that he would change his minde rather than ours. This is a familiar irregularity in our natures, in the point of our sins, as well as of our sufferings; [Page] there are but few that have not some bosome sorrow, that they would compound for the being exempted from, and offer a resignation to all the rest: but this is that hesitation, or stammering (as I may say) in our patience, which is a great impediment to our conversation with God.

I do not censure the first motions or the propensions of our nature [Page] to such eases, and discharges for such a fault as should distract or scandalize any body with their own imperfection in this kinde; for as S. James saith, Jam. 3. 2. In many things we offend all; if any offend not in word this is a perfect mar. These inclinations to ease are (as we may say) slips of the tongue not of the minde, but such trips and faltrings as are hardly fully to [Page] be redressed: therefore this animadversion is intended onely for advice to every one that findes these knots, and stands in their patience to endeavour to work them out faithfully, by prayer, and not to stop, or hang willingly upon them. But the interruption or discontinuance of our patience and breaking off into fits of intemperate complaints, is much more to be precautioned, [Page] and marked for reformation; for according to Saint Augustines similitude, this is not onely to strike out of tune, but even to break the instrument; for he compareth patience to a Lute, and tribulation to the strings, which while they are well touched make musick; and so whilest patience praiseth God, and gives thanks in tribulation, it yieldeth a [Page] sweet melodie to the ears of God; but when we fall into querulousness and murmur, we break the Lute. When therefore we are so far advanced towards victory as the having our senses disarmed by affliction, the pleasures of which are our enemies sharpest instruments, we must watch that he forge not new arms out of our pains, which God hath given us as [Page] armour against his shafts; and when he hath scarce any art left to wound us by sensuality, through the hardness of our conditions, then he tempteth us by the weight of our armour, to bring us to throw it off by impatience, and repining, which indeed is to cast off the defensive armour that God giveth the spirit against the devil, and the flesh. When the [Page] Tempter hath nothing left but pain whereby to provoke us to offences, one would think he were not to be feared, since all impatience is but a new pain, which is proposed to us, let us therefore consider that consequence, when we are solicited to unquietness and reluctation.

When we suffer by the violence and injustice of our enemies, the devil would get [Page] nothing by this negotiation if we should bear it patiently, and virtuously; for he would lose so much on the one side as he had got on the other; what he had gained upon those he had made his Officers, and emissaries of iniquity and injustice he would lose as much by the sufferers improvement and sanctification, and so his malice would be unprofitable unto him, [Page] therefore when he hath prevailed with the one part to act his suggestions to the innocent, then he turneth to the other passive side, and labours to excite their murmur, fury, or impatience, that his trade may render him profit on both sides; a great prize by the malice he imports into the hearts of his Factors, and may have some gain also exported to him out of the [Page] mindes of the Patients. We know when Satan had set the Sabeans & the Chaldeans a work against Job, he left no art unessayed to infuse the fire of murmur and impatience into his breast, and he took the subtilest way; for he got fully into that half of him that lay in his bosom, and though he did not kindle any spark of rebellion in his own holy [Page] breast, yet we may say his heart was a little over-heated in the ardours of that fiery fornace he lay so long in; for his breath savoureth a little of some distemper which he found in it. By which we are not warranted to let our tongues loose when they press and strain to break from us, to run after some provocation to murmur and complaint, but rather [Page] warned to be exactly vigilant in all such motions, since he whom God chose for his champion, as having not his like upon the earth had such words shaken out of him in his storm, as we may believe he resented more their having escaped him, than he did all the violations he had suffered from his adversary, for he never wished any thing recall'd but [Page] his words. Chap. 40. vers. 4. 5.

This then may justly be a forceable motive to us, to set a watch over our lips, when God hath set such a guard over our heart, as affliction, especially in a good cause. Let us not then, when there is no fault in the cause make one in the calamity, by our impatience, since we ought rather to render double praises both [Page] for out affliction & for our innocence. When we are punished for crimes we ought to have patience, & when we suffer innocently we may well add gladness to it; and we finde a good cause produceing this effect in the Macedonians, when they were in your cases whom the holy Ghost hath left upon record as a president for you. 2 Cor. 8. 2. In much experience of [Page] tribulation they had abundance of joy, and their very deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their simplicity: All this treasure of virtue issued out of the mine of patience and longanimity which maketh by the power of grace even the duration of the pain an Antidote against impatience.

But by exhibiting unto you this high mistery of patience which [Page] is (as I may say) a sacred confirmation of all virtue, I do not intend to discourage those who are but yet initiated and Catechized in this mistery; for this ultimate perfection of rejoyceing in tribulation is not a precept that claimeth our performance, but a counsel that sheweth the excellency we may aspire to; which the grace of Christ hath set within [Page] in our reach to exercise that virtue, which though it seem supernatural, is but suitable to the Members of such a head. Those therefore who finde not in their natures this finished disposition need not perplex themselves with any scruple of faultiness, for if they are but in this temper of sincerely and humbly demanding of God that grace which is requisite [Page] for the discharge of their duties in these cases of temptations, though they finde for the present some aversion, and reintencie in their mindes against their miseries, they may safely conclude that God will minister, and suppeditate grace sufficient for their support from falling into any direct sedition, so long as they feel a sound and rectified desire to advance [Page] in the state of perfect abnagation. Let them not disquiet themselves with their distances from the top of the mountains so long as they are faithfully climbing, in this case the indulgence of Christ is very applicable when he saith: Mark. 9. 40. vers. Those that are not against him are with him. So long as we finde not our will joyned with our weakness against [Page] this self-denial we shall not be charged with disloyalty.

There was a great cloud of infirmity in that Fathers faith, when he began with Christ in Mark. 9. 22. If thou canst any thing help us; yet as soon as he was advanced to. I do believe Lord help my incredulity. His suit was granted, in like manner when we begin with much imperfection we must not [Page] distract our selves in apprehensions of our faintness, but proceed sincerely to. I desire, O Lord, a perfect conformity to all thy Orders, help my inconformity. This prayer continually pursued will certainly obtain the expulsion of that spirit which casts us often into fire, and water, into several distempers in onr afflictions let us remember Christs lesson in this [Page] case. All things are possible to him that believeth.

If we aspire faithfully to this perfection we shall quickly finde we have dangerous enemies left; when we have once ingeniously undertaken our own reduction, we must not expect to taste suddainly the good relish of mortification. The first fruits of Canaan were held to be unclean, to figure to us [Page] that there is always some impurity in our first thoughts, and designs of a spiritual conformity; we must expect such a progression in this perfection of Christianity, as Isaac made the digging of his wells in the Land of Promise. The first water he called Contention, the second Enlargment, and at the last he came to that he called Abundance, when all strife and difficulty [Page] was ceased. So we shall in the beginning of our digging for this refreshing water of patience finde the inhabitants of our earth (our sensitive appetites) raise great opposition, and in our pursuance, and progress we shall meet with less contradiction, and more enlargment of our spirits, and at the last after a faithfull prosecution we come to that abundanee [Page] of water which Christ promiseth.

John 7 38. Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Which is not onely acquiescence, but joy and exultation in all pressures, and distresses. This is the method of our advance in spiritual graces as the Psalmist designet to us. They shall go from virtue to virtue.

Wherefore we must not be dismayed and [Page] relaxed when at first we encounter difficulty, and contestation in our senses against patience, and conformity but remember how gratious and indulgent God is to a little tender virtue, that hath but the quality of sincereness, as the holy spirit intimateth by the Angel in the Revelation saying, Apoc. 3. 8. Behold I have given before thee a door opened[Page]which no man can shut, because thou hast a little power, and hast kept my word, and hast not denyed my Name. So that here we see God, to a little disposition openeth a large passage towards plenitude, and consummation.

When therefore we finde our hearts set to keep Gods word, and that in the first incoation of our virtue we do but accept afflictions in his Name. He [Page] that is the holy One, and the true One, will open that door of perfection which the violence of the whole world shall not be able to shut any more against us. Wherefore in all our straights, and coactions, either of our spirits, or of our fortunes, let us remember how the holy Spirit calls to us; Dilate thy mouth and I will fill it. As long as we do not contract [Page] and shrink our hearts in a perverse chagrin; we need not fear the finding them yield, and give a little at the first in the pressures of affliction, and though we never arrive at this last station of perfect patience, of joying in tentations, there are many mansions in heaven which answer the several promotions upon earth.

Not all Apostles, not all Prophets, [Page] 1 Thess. 1. 14. The Angel promiseth their reward, Apoc. 18. To them that fear thy Name, little and great. So long as we acknowledg our own minority we may hope for our portion among the little ones. This I say onely by S. Pauls warrant of, Comfort the feeble hearted, support the weak: for I perswade every one to this holy ambition of ascending as high even [Page] as the steps of persecution can raise them; and there is no Ladder so good as this of the Cross to scale by: and in our invitation to the nuptial Supper of the Lamb, it is not humility, but rather pusilanimity, to aim to sit down but in the lowest place; they who point no higher, design to stay too near the door, and so may more easilier fall short of that than they who [Page] aspire to the place of those who have left all for Christ, which is the throne of judging Nations.

With good cause then I humbly advise every ones aspiring to the supremest pitch of patience, and resignation. And I have warrant to discharge every one from dejection, and confusedness in this case of imperfection when they do loyally and ingenuously [Page] enterprise a proficiency in this virtue. And for this reason the Apostle when he adviseth perfection, yet admitteth infirmity to an expectance of Gods perfecting thereof, saying, Phil. 3. 15. Let us as many as are perfect be thus minded, and if you be any otherwise minded this also God will reveal to you. They who are not already stated in the accomplishment of this [Page] virtue may hope for a further improvement by the compassion of God to ingenious addresses.

Gods indulgence to the compleatness of our patience must therefore be taken hold on, onely as they stay to keep us from falling into dejection, and is not to be used as a Rest whereon to lean the wriness and bent of our perverted nature; for so we may [Page] insensibly induce an habit of crookedness, and petulancy into our own dispositions.

Let us have therefore this direction of S. James always in our design at least: Jam. 1. 3. Let patience have a perfect work, that you may be perfect and intire, failing in nothing. By this we may rest assured of the perfection which is contained in patience, since the Apostle asscribeth [Page] this integrity, and indeficiency to it in all things. So as when we are possest of this compleatment of patience, then we are instated in a fortune which is so obnoxious to the distresses of any want, that all privations administer to us the end of all possessions, which is joy and satisfaction.

This hath always been the state of the Saints by whieh having [Page] nothing they were possessing all things, 2 Cor. 6. 10. For out of this [...]reasury they who lose parents, children, houses, and lands, for the Gospel have their assignment for the hundred fold now in this time. And in confirmation of this truth we finde by experience that there is no condition so perfect in this world, that hath not often need of patience [Page] to make it tolerable: and they who have perfect patience never want any other possession, to make their conditions acceptable. All which duly pondered, I shall not need say more in recommendation of this excellent virtue: but it is requisite to close up this point with the recalling to your memory that our onely addresses to this plenipotentiary consolation [Page] is a constant research of it by prayer. In that order therefore I shall leave it to you with this petition of S. Paul for the Thessalonians upon the same occasion. Our Lord direct your hearts in the charity of God, and patience of CHRIST.

[Page]

Information about this book

Title statement

A mission of consolation. Usefull for all afflicted persons. / By W.S.

Slingsby, William, fl. 1653.

Edition statement

1653

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Text Creation Partnership,

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Date

2008-09 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A93329

ID [STC]

Wing S3997

ID [STC]

Thomason E1552_1

ID [STC]

ESTC R209477

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

99868354

ID [PROQUEST]

99868354

ID [VID]

170083

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(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A93329)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 170083)

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— A mission of consolation. Usefull for all afflicted persons. / By W.S., Slingsby, William, fl. 1653..

Extent

[12], 150 p.

Printed by W.B. for John Williams, and are to be sold at the sign of the Crown, in Paul's Church-yard.,. London, :: 1653.. (W.S. = William Slingsby.) (Annotation on Thomason copy: W.S. expanded to S'lingsby"; "Aprill. 4.".) (Reproduction of the original in the British Library.)

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