XIII. But taking up the cross of Jesus is a more interior exercise: it is the circumspection and discipline of the soul in conformity to the divine mind therein revealed. Does not the body follow the soul, not the soul the body? Do not such consider, that no outward cell can shut up the soul from lust, the mind from an infinity of unrighteous imaginations? The thoughts of man's heart are evil, and that continually. Evil comes from within, and not from without: how then can an external application remove an internal cause; or a restraint upon the body, work a confinement of the mind? which is much less than without doors, for where there is least of action, there is most time to think; and if those thoughts are not guided by a higher principle, convents are more mischievous to the world than exchanges. And yet retirement is both an excellent and needful thing; crowds and throngs were not much frequented by the ancient holy pilgrims.
XIV. But then examine, O man, thy foundation, what it is, and who placed thee there; lest in the end it should appear thou hast put an eternal cheat upon thy own soul. I must confess I am jealous of the salvation of my own kind, having found mercy with my heavenly Father. I would have none to deceive themselves to perdition, especially about religion, where people are most apt to take all for granted, and lose infinitely by their own flatteries and neglect. The inward, steady righteousness of Jesus is another thing than all the contrived devotion of poor superstitious man; and to stand approved in the sight of God, excels that bodily exercise in religion, resulting from the invention of men. And the soul that is awakened and preserved by his holy power and spirit, lives to Him in the way of his own institution, and worships Him in his own spirit, that is, in the holy sense, life, and leadings of it: which indeed is the evangelical worship. Not that I would be thought to slight a true retirement: for I do not only acknowledge but admire solitude. Christ himself was an example of it: He loved and chose to frequent mountains, gardens, and sea-sides. It is requisite to the growth of piety, and I reverence the virtue that seeks and uses it; wishing there were more of it in the world: but then it should be free, not constrained. What benefit to the mind, to have it for a punishment, and not for a pleasure? Nay, I have long thought it an error among all sorts, that use not monastic lives, that they have no retreats for the afflicted, the tempted, the solitary, and the devout, where they might undisturbedly wait upon God, pass through their religious exercises, and, being thereby strengthened, may, with more power over their own spirits, enter into the business of the world again: though the less the better, to be sure. For divine pleasures are found in a free solitude.