Sect. 2, him, is left at his dispose: for then in case the event be not answerable to our defires, or to the efficacy of the inftrument, we have nothing left to rest in but the honesty of our purposes; which it is the more likely we have fecured, by how much more we are indifferent concerning the fuccefs. S. James converted but eight perfons, when he preached in Spain; and our Bleffed Saviour converted fewer than his own Difciples did: And if thy labours prove unprofperous, if thou beeft much troubled at that, it is certain thou didst not think thy felf fecure of a reward for thine intention, which thou mightest have done if it had been pure and juft.

5. He loves vertue for God's fake and its own, that loves and honours it wherever it is to be feen; but he that is envious or angry at a vertue that is not his own, at the perfection or excellency of his neighbour, is not covetous of the vertue, but of its reward and reputation,and then his intentions are polluted. It was a great ingenuity in Mofes, that wifhed all the People might be Prophets; but if he had defigned his own honour, he would have prophefied alone. But he that defires onely that the work of God and Religion fhall go on, is pleased with it, whoever is the inftrument.

6. He that defpifes the world and all its appendant vanities is the best Judge, and the moft fecure of his intentions, because he is the fartheft removed from a temptation. Every degree of mortification is a teftimony of the purity of our purpofes: and in what degree we defpife fenfual pleasure, or fecular honours, or worldly reputation, in the fame degree we fhall conclude our heart right to religion and fpiritual defigns.

7. When we are not folicitous concerning the inftruments and means of our actions, but ufe thofe means which God hath laid before us, with refignation, indifferency and thankfulness, it is a good fign that we are rather intent upon the end of God's glory than our own conveniency or temporal fatisfaction. He that is indifferent whether he ferve God in riches or in poverty, is rather a feeker of God than of himself;

and

and he that will throw away a good Book becaufe it is not curiously gilded, is more curious to please his eye than to inform his understanding.

8. When a temporal end confifting with a fpiritual, and pretended to be fubordinate to it, happens to fail and be defeated, if we can rejoyce in that, fo God's glory may be fecured and the interests of Religion, it is a great fign our hearts are right, and our ends prudently defigned and ordered.

When our intentions are thus balanced, regulated and difcerned, we may confider, 1. That this exercife is of fo univerfal efficacy in the whole courfe of a holy life, that it is like the Soul to every holy action, and must be provided for in every undertaking; and is of it felt alone fufficient to make all natural and indifferent actions to be adopted into the Family of Religion.

2. That there are fome actions which are usually reckoned as parts of our Religion, which yet of themfelves are fo relative and imperfect, that without the purity of intention they degenerate: and unless they be directed and proceed on to thofe purposes which God defigned them to, they return into the family of common, fecular, or finfull actions. Thus Alms are for Charity, Fafting for Temperance, Prayer is for religion, Humiliation is for Humility, Aufterity or Sufferance is in order to the vertue of Patience and when these actions fail of their feveral ends, or are not directed to their own purposes, Alms are mif-fpent, Fafting is an impertinent trouble; Prayer is but Liplabour, Humiliation is but Hypocrifie, Sufferance is but Vexation; for fuch were the Alms of the Pharifee, the Faft of Jezabel, the Prayer of Judab reproved by the Prophet Ifaiah,the Humiliation of Ahab, the Martyrdom of Hereticks; in which nothing is given to God but the Body, or the Forms of Religion, but the Soul and the Power of Godliness is wholly wanting.

3. We are to confider that no intention can Sanétifie an unholy or unlawfull action. Saul the King difobeyed God's commandment, and fpared the cattel of Amalek to referve the best for Sacrifice and Sant

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the

S. Bern. lib. de præcept.

the Pharifee perfecuted the Church of God with a defign to doe God fervice: and they that killed the Apoftles had alfo good purposes, but they had unhallowed actions. When there is both truth in election and charity in the intention, when we go to God in ways of his own chufing or approving, then our eye is fingle, and our hands are clean, and our hearts are pure. But when a man does evil that good may come of it, or good to an evil purpofe, that Man does like him that rolls himfelf in Thorns that he may fleep eafily; he roafts himfelf in the Fire that he may quench his thirft with his own fweat; he turns his face to the Eaft, that he may go to bed with the Sun. Publius Mi- I end this with the faying of a wife Heathen: He is to be called evil that is good onely for his own fake. Regard not how full bands you bring to God, but how pure. Many ceafe from fin out of fear alone,not out of innocence or love of vertue, and they (as yet) are not to be called innocent but timorous.

mus.

SECT. III.

The third general Inftrument of Holy Living; or the Practice of the Prefence of God.

THAT God is prefent in all places, that he fees eve

ry action, hears all difcourfes, and understands every thought, is no ftrange thing to a Chriftian ear, who hath been taught this doctrine not onely by right reafon and the confent of all the wife men in the world, but also by God himself in holy Scripture. Jer. 23.23,24. [Am I a God at hand (faith the Lord) and not a Godafar off? Can any bide himself in fecret places that I shall Heb. 4.13. not fee him? (faith the Lord) Do not I fill heaven and earth? Neither is there any creature that is not manifeft in his fight but all things are naked and open to the Ads 7. 28. eyes of him with whom we have to doe. For in him we live and move and have our being.] God is wholly in every place, included in no place, not bound with cords, (except thofe of love,) not divided into parts, nor changeable into feveral fhapes, filling Heaven and

Earth

Earth with his prefent Power, and with his never abfent Nature. So St. Augustine exprefles this Ar- Lib.7. de ticle. So that we may imagine God to be as the Civit. c. 30. Air and the Sea, and we all inclosed in his Circle, wrapt up in the lap of his infinite Nature, or as infants in the wombs of their pregnant mothers; and we can no more be removed from the prefence of God than from our own being.

Several manners of the Divine Prefence.

The Prefence of God is understood by us in feveral manners and to feveral Purposes.

1. God is prefent by his Effence, which because it is infinite cannot be contained within the limits of any place and because he is of an eflential purity and fpiritual nature, he cannot be undervalued by being fuppofed prefent in the Places of natural uncleannels: because, as the Sun reflecting upon the mud of ftrands and fhores, is unpolluted in his beams; fo is God not difhonoured when we fuppofe him in every of his creatures, and in every part of every one of them, and is ftill as unmixed with any unhandfome adherence, as is the foul in the bowels of the body.

~

περ τη ἐσ α ὅπως καὶ

dria

2. God is every where prefent by his Power. He ds Trolls the Orbs of Heaven with his Hand, he fixes the exH TH Earth with his Foot, he guides all the Creatures with BO his Eye, and refreshes them with his Influence: He av, μEimakes the Powers of Hell to fhake with his terrours, ζων το and binds the Devils with his Word, and throws alsoπαντὸς ὡσε them out with his Command, and fends the Angels on Embaffies with his Decrees: He hardens the joints of Infants, and confirms the bones when they are Refp. ad Or fashioned beneath fecretly in the earth. He it is that thod. affifts at the numerous productions of fishes, and there is not one hallownefs in the bottom of the Sea, but he fhews himself to be Lord of it, by fuftaining there the Creatures that come to dwell in it: And in the Wilderness, the Bittern and the Stork, the Dragon and the Satyre, the Unicorn and the Elk, live upon

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his

Mat. 18. 20.

his Provifions, and revere his Power, and feel the force of his Almightiness.

3. God is more fpecially prefent in fome places by the feveral and more fpecial manifeftations of himfelf to extraordinary purposes, 1. By Glory. Thus his feat is in Heaven; because there he fits incircled with all the outward demonftrations of his glory, which he is pleafed to fhew to all the inhabitants of thofe his inward and fecret Courts. And thus they that die in the Lord may be properly faid to be gone to God; with whom although they were before, yet now they enter into his Courts, into the fecret of his Tabernacle, into the retinue and fplendour of his glory. That is called walking with God, but this is dwelling, or being, with him. I defire to be diffolved and to be with Chrift, fo faid S. Paul. But this manner of the Divine presence is referved for the elect People of God, and for their portion in their Country.

4 God is by Grace and Benediction specially preHeb. 10. 25. fent in holy places and in the folemn affemblies of his fervants. If holy People meet in grots and dens of the earth when Perfecution or a publick neceffity difturbs the publick order, circumstance and conve nience, God fails not to come thither to them; but God is alfo by the fame or a greater reafon present there were they meet ordinarily, by order and publick authority: there God is prefent ordinarily, i. e. at every fuch meeting. God will go out of his way to meet his Saints, when themselves are forced King. s. 9. out of their way of order by a fad neceffity: but Pfal.138.1,2. elfe God's ufual way is to be prefent in thofe places

where his fervants are appointed ordinarily to meet. But his prefence there fignifies nothing but a readinefs to hear their prayers, to blefs their perfons, to accept their offices, and to like even the circumstance of orderly and publick meeting. For thither the prayers of Confecration, the publick authority feparating it, and God's love of order, and the reasonable cuftoms of Religion, have in ordinary, and in certain degrees fixed this manner of his Prefence; and he loves to have it fo.