in all our wandrings from it We shall find little reward at the Evening of Life for sitting all the day Idle in the Market-place of the World. 'T is a sad and unanswerable End of our Lives to Eat and Drink and rise up to Play. The Epilogue of that Comedy will be spoken in Hell. Idleness is but One of Hagars crimes Folly marches after and Misery brings up the Rear of both Camest thou from Abraham's Family the happiest in all the Earth and made only unfortunate by thee Canst thou forsake the Houshold of Faith and be safe Art thou Stealing away with the Fruit of thy Masters Loins to give it a Birth in Egyptian Aire and Robbing thine own Child of all the Blessings that an Heir of Abraham may hope to Inherit And whether wilt thou go to those again that sold thee out for a Slave Canst thou expect to render thy condition any where better than there from whence thou camest The stubbornness of thy Heart was the cause of the bitterness of thy Life 'T was thine own Pride that justly incensed thy Mistress Nor canst thou look down on thy swelling Womb without blushing at thine own Ingratitude Return therefore and pay her the Honour her Merits and thine own Duty requires from thee All the World will be but Bush and Brake to thee a very barren Wilderness to the Comforts of thy Masters House Hagar as once that Woman of Samaria by a discovery of her private Concerns discerning the Blessed Angel to be more than Man doth not Impiously pin her own Guilt on her Mistresses Sleeve nor dares to Impeach her in the least shew as too conscious of her own Crimes to conceal them from him that she saw very well knew them already This Modesty and the tacite Confession of her own Imprudence fits her for Mercy and sets her free from further Rebukes But this glorious Messenger had another Errand He came not from Heaven only to return her back to her Mistress however to Encourage her to it he will be so favourable to give her a Light into the dark Cells of her Womb and discover to her what lay concealed there And as Abraham had a Vision into all the Contingencies of his Family so shall his Concubine be blessed above Women in the Knowledge of the Sex Nature Condition and Fortunes of her yet unborn Child The Angel is Godfather indeed and gives him a Name A name that shall live and flourish in the Mouths and Memories of a numerous and durable Posterity whose condition and manner of Life he Prophesies shall be strange and different from all the World. A generation of Men that shall delight to Rove as a wild Ass in the Wilderness to keep a-part by themselves in the Desarts of the Earth Fierce Cruel and Warlike such are the Saracens and Arabians and such is their Quality and kind of Life to this day Hagar devoutly returns the Glory of his grace unto God who had beyond all Expectation regarded her in Affliction by so glorious a Legate The Beams of whose Majesty were so kind to her to leave her the Light of her Eyes which she admires was not lost by so dazling an Object and Baptizes the very Well with its own Water giving it an everlasting Name that still bears the Memoire of the Mercy of being Able to live after she had seen the Lord. With a glad Heart and full resolutions of better Conformity she returns back to her Lady and doultless very humbly submits her self to her Grace who receives her in obedience to the order of Heaven which seldom sends ill Members to the Church after the Convictions of Conscience upon them We are never good in our Callings till God meet and directs us Onesimus was All Hands for Philemon when God had changed his Heart Grace qualifieth us for universal service to God and Men. Abraham to whom doubless the transaction with the Angel in the Wilderness was very accurately repeated by Hagar provides like himself for the Birth of his Child and hath great hopes of the Son that an Angel had already given Name to Who when he came into the World finds a Father that had already passed Eighty Six years on the Earth CHAP. VII The Covenant of Grace renewed and confirmed to Abraham and the Spiritual Heirs of his Faith for an Everlasting Testament that neither Sin nor Death shall ever be able to dissolve â—TWas in that Chilly and Withered Age when now Time had snowed upon him and he was ready to stumble upon the dark Mountains and the Grave waited for him and his Hopes of Sarah's Body were as desperate and cold as his own Blood and Spirits that the Lord made his Fifth Visit and Appearance to his beloved Abraham He is so far from casting him off in his Old Age or for saking him when his strength faileth that behold he cometh with such Cordials in his Hand as shall brisk up and invigorate his fainty Soul and renew his strength as an Eagle He shall have new Eyes that shall pierce deeper into the Mystery of the Godhead and enable him to see more clearly He shall have new Feet to Walk on before his God more firmly one would have thought he had come already at this Age to the end of his Course but now he must walk on still He shall have new Ears to hear Himself and his Lady called by other Names He shall have new and better Promises for his Faith and Hopes to build on more strongly A new Sacrament to establish and confirm those hopes more Infallibly A Wife who shall no more be called Barren A new Heir that shall make him the Father of Kings A Family that shall bare a new Mark and Impress And all these in the very despair and evening of his Days to let all the World see the Almighty Power of Him who from the beginning hath wrought all things out of Nothing and can make things to start up and be which do not yet Appear to give Life to our Hopes and Souls God thinks it but a small thing that he had already confirmed to Abraham and his Children all the Kingdoms of Canaan for a Possession by his Oath And tho' he foresaw well enough that there would be but too many of them whose Affections would be incorporate into those fruitful Fields and Pastors and all their utmost desires centred in the exuberant Productions of them yet had he given ample Testimony of his kindness to Abraham in making so rich and noble Provision for the worst of his Family whose Ingratitude to himself and Apostacy from their Great Fathers Faith and Principles might perhaps in time raise the Stomack of that very Land against them which had gotten a custom of Vomiting out her Inhabitants Those whom she saw making so ill use of her Bounty as so surfeit on her Dainties and abuse them to the dishonour of her great Lord for whom therefore having made Portions so perfectly connatural to themselves
Delight and Joy Is he not thy Father whom else shouldst thou Reverence and Love Is he not thy God in Covenant with thee whom else shouldst thou rejoyce and delight in No true Son of Abraham who knows how Zecharies Soul was ravished when God after more than two Thousand years performed the mercy promised and in remembrance of his holy Covenant which he swore to our Forefather Abraham sent his Great Heir into the World to confirm and seal it with his Blood will think it remote from the Story of Abraham's Life if I stop a little and spend a Page or two in the opening the Bowels of this Mercy wherein his own Salvation is so nearly concerned and which have swell'd up the Volumes of so many of our Excellent Authors If the same Covenant were all the Desire and all the Salvation of the Princely David with whom it was also renewed the Comfort whereof was the Joy and Rejoycing of his Heart methinks it might be some Refreshment here to every Heir of the same Promise A Brief Account of the Covenant of Grace KNow then that by this Promise I will be a God unto thee Each Person of the Holy Trinity is made over to them to work personally and distinctly for them And true Believers have a real Propriety in each Person of the Blessed Godhead I will be thy God saith the Father here And I will give my Son to them Vnto us a Son is given and I will pour out my Spirit upon them Not a Communicable Attribute of God but what is made over and put by this Covenant into the possession of the Sons of Abraham to live on Therefore David claims the Strength of God as his own and the Mercy of God as his own Thou art the God of my Strength and the God of my Mercy That Power and Mercy which thou hast secured to me for my Hope and Comfort to make use of in all Extremities and against all Infirmities and the whole Church claims the Benefit and Honour of their Relation to God from no other Right Doubtless thou art our Father And I will be a Father unto them to act as a Father for them So not any Merit or Grace in Jesus the Son but what is as certainly secured whatsoever he was or did or suffered was all for their sake The Fruit and Benefit of all most certainly accrewable to Them. All the Operations of the Holy Spirit sure and certain to the Heirs of this Promise They shall infallibly be convinced of Sin Converted to God established in Grace comforted in Affliction and prepared for Salvation All the Decrees of Heaven run in their Favour and all Providences co-operate for their Eternal Good. Jesus Himself is the Head of the Covenant the first Federate the Corner-stone on whom is built the whole Fabrick the Contrivance whereof thô secret and mysterious transacted by Covenant between the Father and Himself Yet we find Eternal Life secured by Promise to every Believer before the foundation of the World on condition of such performances that Christ in fulness of Time should appear in the World to perfect and accomplish And some of these Articles of the Covenant of Redemption are expresly apparent to any that carefully observe them in Isaiah 49. Jesus therefore is the first Elect but we Elected in him He the first Called and we Called by him In Him is all fulness dwelling from which we receive Grace for Grace He Commissionated sealed and sent with the Offices of Prophet Priest and â—ing Other Prophets Commissioned under him are sent to perswade and draw us into the Bonds of the Covenant these speak to the Ear but He is the True Prophet that effectually worketh by speaking to the Heart Him shall ye hear I will allure her I will speak to her Heart when I speak See Margin Hosea 2.14 He draws us as he did Abraham by Illumination and giving us New Eyes to see God in the Beauty of his Holiness and the exceeding Riches of his Grace Sin in its Sinfulness Deformity Filthiness and execrable Effects Duty in the Reasonableness Good and Profitableness of it Our selves as perfectly undone by Nature and further destroyed by Sin All Creatures in their insufficiency and weakness to do us any good All our Righteousness as filthy Rags and nothing Himself as the only Refuge of Hope and Salvation to be no where had but in him He our only Priest sacrificing his own Body upon the Tree and pouring out his own Blood to expiate Sin which the blood of Sacrifices could never take away but by this Offering Blotted out removed to the distance of the East from the West buried in the depths of the Sea Sought for but not found forgotten and remembred no more freely and for ever pardoned and the Hand-writing that was against us Cancell'd and nothing laid to our charge 'T is he makes an end of Sin and brings in Everlasting Righteousness by which we are justified from all things and perfectly reconciled to God He is our Peace and since his Return to Heaven becomes our Advocate there to plead the Merits of his own Righteousness for the Justification and Acquitment of all the thankful Heirs of Abraham God hears Him always His Blood speaks for us and on that Account God is but Just in Jorgiving our Sins himself having paid the Ransom and becoming the great Propitiation 'T is from the prevalency of his Intercession that he is so Able to save all that come to him Such an High-Priest became us our Case desperate without Him No satisfaction for the least sin possibly to be made by our selves Ten thousand Rivers of Oyl and the offering up the fruit of our Bodies for the sin of our Souls too mean a Sacrifice and to no purpose at all Redemption cost more than so and Man must let it alone for ever The poor carnal Sons of Abraham going about to establish their own Righteousness could not make it stand they too soon found It had no feet to subsist on The Galathians seeking to compound the Matter by an unnatural mixture of their own with Christs were by that attempt in the Account of the Holy Ghost but Fools and Bewitched He alone the Lord our Righteousness Object But how shall we be brought into it Ans He is therefore a Great King a Spiritual King a King over Hearts he hath Arguments to perswade us to lay down our Necks to his easie Yoke and to bear his lighter Burthen For he is a gentle Prince and his Laws are not Grievous or unsufferable his Service is perfect Freedom There is nothing difficult to a willing Mind and a ready Heart which himself is able to give I will give them a new Heart and a new Spirit will I put within them this and my own Spirit which also I will put in them shall cause them to walk in my Statutes and to keep my Judgments and do them Ezek. 30.26 His Throne is within and all the Exercises
Hell Who but these have rais'd up all the Assassinations and Massacres upon the Body of the Church not only by Heathenish and Pagan Instruments but have sent their thousands and ten thousands into Death by the less merciful hands of those who Drunk with Blood have yet the blasphemous Impudence to call themselves by the Name of Jesus Who but these had the Brow to move the Court of Heaven for the subversion of the whole Colledge of the Apostles at once and with an equal Insolence to endeavour the utter evacuating the whole Project of our Eternal Redemption by tempting the great Authour of it to cast himself upon sinful and unwarrantable Means of Preservation and directly tending to his Ruine and when that would not take consult together more effectually to work their Ends by the cursed Treachery of his own Servant In a word these are they that have wrought all the late Storms and Tempests in the World 't is they have wrought all the Devastations that Turkish and Gallican Tyranny have executed for them The unnatural Wars in our own Bowels the horrid Massacres of the Church in France and Ireland the deplorable Fewds among our selves these have kindled our Fires burnt up our Cities enflamed our Spirits contrived the Plots of our Ruine and are yet at work very briskly to bring them to Perfection And all this from the Inveterate Hatred they bear to God and Man roaring as Lyons to devour twisting themselves as Serpents to deceive by all subtle wayes and wiles beyond all imagination by secret and invisible Engines and Artifices profound Stratagems and Devices making use of all sorts of Means and Instruments as well by real Friends as professed Enemies to the very Wife of thy Bosom nay to the dividing thy self and making a Party for themselves in thy Heart And yet we snore in our security and dally in an insensibleness of any danger while yet these mighty Enemies are round about they fill the Air we breath in and hover over our Heads and are prying into all our most retired Actions and are Witnesses to all our Villanies to give Evidence against us in the last Day Nay they mingle themselves with our very Affections and Passions and fly-blow our very Prayers and Devotions and Charities endeavouring to render tham all fruitless and unprofitable to us and unacceptable to God. In short instead of wishing well to us assisting us in our Work rejoycing in our Conversion and ministring to our Comfort the service of the good Angels these repine at our Welfare hinder our Repentance Lull us along in our Security terrifie our Spirits imbitter our Lives enrage our Enemies enstrange our Friends disease our Bodies and betray our Souls For all which and infinite other unmentioned Calamities and Disasters from them whom may we justly Curse and execrate as the Original cause of all but Sin which by its malignant Influences and wicked Inchantments from being amiable Creatures of the sweetest Inclinations and Affections hath transformed them into real Furies and Devils against us Come hither Reader and with that Roman Souldier envy me the Honour of preparing the Funerals of the great Pompy alone but bring with thee all the Luminaries of thy Soul gather all the straggling forces of thine utmost reason and considering Faculties and all too little to ruminate as thou oughtest on this rueful Spectacle David once bitterly Mourned at the Bier of one Prince of Israel Slain by the Treachery of an insolent Traytor But who hath slain all these Heaps upon heaps once glorious Princes of Heaven O see what a slaughter sin hath made upon them And then consider the weight of that Argument presented to thee by Peter and Jude If God spared not the Angels that sinned but cast them down into Hell and delivered them into Chains of darkness to be reserved unto Judgment How will he spare thee They were Angels Infinitely above thee in the Dignity of their Nature and Creation yet Greatness was no Argument for Mercy They were a Multitude in the confederacy yet neither did the Number of the Offenders move pity in the least but one and all Thousands of them to Hell without Mercy yet it was the first Offence too they sinned but once and some think but in Thought and Justice seized upon them to Execution and God dealt not with them as with thee and me Reader on whom he hath long waited even while we have been multiplying provocations and stirring up his wrath to destroy us yet still hath he waited to be gracious to us And methinks 't were pity to make a God wait in vain upon us to lose all the Expences of his Patience and Expectation from us We would do well to think on it and the force of the Apostles most Pathetick Argument Despisest Thou the riches of his Goodness and Patience and Long-suffering Thou that art but a poor Worm a Clod of the Earth and no Angel a Creature of Yesterday and who art crushed before the Moth and whose Foundation is in the Dust Despisest thou And who art thou that should despise a God And to despise him too To entertain low and unbecoming thoughts of Him that could Nod thee into Hell and send thee to accompany Devils in Torments Not so much as to have an Eye towards him or to spend a Look upon him or to concern thy Thoughts about him thinkest him unworthy of thy Notice or Observation and yet a God and such a one on whom Angels and blessed Spirits Gaze with unspeakable Admiration and Delight not to have the least sense of him No neither whilst he is flowing out to thee in the sweetest of his Communications that of his Goodness to despise Goodness and that Goodness not to others but thy self thy self Reader to despise a God who hath been so long good to thee The very Fountain of all the good Mercies thou hast enjoyed and herein good as not to punish thee for the abuse of those Mercies but is still waiting Now if thy reason be not drench'd into a perfect Bruitishness be thine own Judge whether such Goodness should not lead thee to Repentance A mercy he never vouchsafed to the Angels never waited to see whether they would return or no but for the first Sin delivers them to Justice layes them in Chains and reserves them to destruction while yet he is still Courting thee to come in and submit Declares himself unwilling to ruin thee makes Oath of it That he hath no delight in thy Blood but infinitely rather that thou shouldest return and Live and thou may'st believe him Reader thou hast his very Heart in that Protestation Well 't is not unworthy thy most serious Reflection to fix a while on Gods Severity towards these Angels who are now under Chains of wrath and thou art walking presumptuously on the snares of Death too but should thy feet stumble on the dark Mountains as they will and the fall of thy Body shall burst out thy
it 's Orignial Dust the Tyrrany still had been easie and supportable while the Jewel within had made an escape with all the Treasures of her Excellencies whole and untouch'd had she been so kind to have left some memorable Marks of her Cruelty on the exteriour Perfectious of his Beauty the whole Creation would have called a Parliament and humbly have offered their Loyal Subsidies to their great Soveraign Each Bard and Beast would have been proud to wrap him in their Down and Furrs each Blossom and Flower would have sewed Themselves together to have made them Summer-suits as Shem and Japhet they would have hid their Faces while they had reverently mantled the defects of their Lord. But O Cruelty never to be forgotten never to be mention'd without horrour The Robe of Immortality is not only rent off from the stately Pavilion of the Body but the bloody Tyrant kills the Porter at the Door with design to make way to the rifling the Richer Closets within As Lightning it values not the Sheath so it can but melt down the Steel of the Interiour Power and Strength and trembles not to adventure into the presence Chamber of the great Queen whom all Pale and even Dead with fear he invades with insufferable Insolence flying in her Sacred Face and with unmerciful Hands tearing out those glorious Lights that lately sparkled Joy into the Heart of her Maker and in a moment Devests her of all those Royalties which made even a God to doat upon her And then to perfect the sorrow the Sorcerer forces into her weak and bloodless hand a Circean Cup of Magical Poisons tempered together by his own mischievous Fingers which she unhappy Princess too greedily swallows as what she thought might quickly Period her sorrows but Destruction on him would you know the execrable effects of that fatal Draught The poor Soul instead of expiring falls into a perfect Frensie when immediately you might have seen her throwing her unfortunate Self into the Cursed Arms of the cruel Deflowrer and in Posture of most Lascivious Courtship Kissing the very hands that had made the Rape upon her Sacred Person and with a Fondness as Strange as Unparallel'd Sacrifices all her Powers to the Lusts of her Mortal Enemy Have you not seen some poor Distract rolling in Straw with her Hair dishevil'd in Raggs all torn winding her Face into infinite forms Now casting out Melancholly smiles and those followed by pitiful Sighs which as soon are exchanged into loud Laughter and that dying into a plodding Silence while she knits her Straws into a thousand knots and tearing them again into pieces with fury Glad of every Feather to play with and adoring the smallest Sun-beam with ridiculous Ceremonies till the noise of her Keeper startles her into trembling whom she fears and flatters at once as glad of his coming yet afraid of his stay In short most perfectly insensible of her own Sorrows and equally uncapable of removing them she renders her self a willing Prisoner to her own Affliction and imagins her very Dungeon a Pallace This alas is too imperfect a Pourtraicture of this Princesses Lunacy in whom the Complacencies of her first Affections so pure and ravishing are all drown'd in the flote of new senceless Passions who in the loss of ineffable Felicities of divine Amours and the dearest Embraces of a God distractedly falls in Love with Feathers and Straws and Shadows and every thing and is unhappily betrayed to Court her very Torments and Plagues My people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit Jer. 2.11 Now to make the Tragedy yet more compleat each Scene of it is Acted in the very Presence of her great Lord who had but plac'd himself behind the Tapistry for tryal of her Fidelity and Love where he makes this Lamentable Discovery of her treacherous Disloyalty and sees her thus miserably surpriz'd The whole Court above expected nothing less than Ten thousand Deaths to have been darted into her false and ungrateful Heart and look't each minute for her Sentence into everlasting Tortures When O unfathomable Goodness instead of Punishment and Death her dearest Lord commiserates the poor frantick and Summoning a Council of the profoundest Wisdom where Love sat President he graciously consults the most effectual Means for the rendring her to her self again and applying the most proper Remedies of removing at least abating the Distemper and doubts not but her more sensible Reflections on his Kindness and Pity will endear her again to a more careful and faithful Obedience and Duty when in the right use and improvement of her Reason she shall prudently animadvert on the tenderness of his Heart and the Royalty of his Care and Provisions for her While the Debate was hotly carried on by the whole Trinity see One of themselves But here Reader Expression fails me and never yet were Words found out never shall be to delineate that unutterable Goodness which God himself so highly commended and the very Angels stand astonished at and for which Thousands of thousands and Ten thousand times Ten thousand of the Heavenly Quire pour upon his glorious Head infinite Blessings and Hallelujahs for Ever and Ever and the Soul that joyns not in that Eulogy let him be Anathema Maranatha Accursed till Himself comes to pronounce him so to all Eternity This glorious One not only intercedes for her Pardon but undertakes the Cure and so passionately pursues the Request that he generously offers to wash away the stain of her disloyalty with the dearest Blood of his Heart But because he had yet None for he was God too he would draw some from his Patient and artificially temper it into a Body for himself which his Divinity shall Consecrate into so spotless a Purity and immaculate Perfection as should highly ennoble his Blood and make it so Meritorious and Rich that when it should come to be poured out from his precious Veins will abundantly satisfie the expectations of Justice and serve to be a full Propitiation for the whole Offence for he took it on purpose to Bleed it out again to finish the Project of his Love and her perfect Redemption and Safety And thus was Himself contented to die for her and at the dear Price of his own Life to purchase her wholly to himself while he expects she will devote her self wholly to his absolute Service and Honour and ever pay him the grateful Returns of her Heart for so unconceivable Kindness and Love While he will Operate by such other Methods as he fears not shall accomplish her entire Restoration and render her again an Object of Beauty to the holy Eyes of her Maker by the Loveliness that he himself will put upon her Tho' yet he finds from too visible Symptoms that the Diffusion of the Venome thro' every part and which had so sadly corrupted her Seminals would greatly endanger her Posterity to whom the Disease would be certainly communicated with her Nature And alas the experience
checkles at the happy success of her Project and finds her Disciples so tractable that she resolves to raise an Academy in the City to train up Youth to Succession Her self will sit in the Chair and Read daily Lectures of Debauchery and the blackest Arts and those so Publick that none shall pretend the want of Opportunity to pass into the greatest Proficiencies in them She designs them all for Epidemical Profit and therefore shall be performed in open School She celebrates Impudence as a glorious Vertue and to be found Blushing is present Expulsion tho' few were found in Sodom of that Maidenly Complexion Epicurus hath but stollen his principles from her She assures them that the Soul dies with the Body and there is nothing better than to Eat and Drink They must contemplate nothing but Sensuality and the Palate protesting to them how great a God the Belly was and that nothing would satisfie this Deity better than when they made much of themselves The more they Offer to him the sooner should they experience the Blessing to whose Sacrifices their Fields and Herds yielded them so cheap an Assistance that they would be the ungratefullest Persons living should they not load his Altars with their frequent Victims This Doctrine sounded so sweetly in their Ears and was suited so fitly to their natural Constitutions that you might have seen the Furniture of their stately Plains taken off and devoted to the Voratious Gulph of Gluttony Each Park and Forrest send in their liberal Contributions the Luscious Venison is immur'd in Pales of Paste The stately Taurus dress'd up with Gilded Horns and Flowery Garlands presenting himself in Sacrifice to the great Colon. Beasts lie mangled on every Stall and more Shambles ordered to be presently built a general slaughter is proclaimed The innocent Inhabitants of the Air cannot flie in peace for them and the Scaley Nations are made to swim in Ponds of Butter Dishes march in Battel Array and Jolly Boles go Round while Gomorrah Smoaks too and the Five Cities are all but one Kitchen Hogsheads bleed and the Conduits run with the Blood of Noah's Vintage Musick and Songs Good Cheer and Wine and Wine and Songs and Musick and Good Cheer an Health and an Health and Ten thousand Healths to her who had made Sodom happy and brought a perpetual Holy-day with her Teaching them the true end and use of Life and merrily to pass their Time away When before her Arrival their days were spent in carking Cares and solicitous Thoughts for the World which basely Captiv'd them in the Chains of a sordid Bondage and made them very Slaves to their own degenerous Humours from all which she had so happily freed them and open'd the Gates of that grateful Liberty that makes every Mortal so Happyâ— Pride Fulness of Bread and abundance of Idlenesâ— was in her The poor Women finding how the Game raâ— began to relent and think it folly to stand ouâ— any longer They fall in with the Humour oâ— the Time and see Coyness and Stiffness growâ— quite out of Fashion They found themselveâ— losers already by an unprofitable Haughtiness which if they persisted in might in a little time render their whole Sex but needless and immodish since there was no standing against her who swayed all the Town They are willing therefore to yield a little and out of Policy to be more tractable since very necessity drave them to it They think upon Terms of Accommodation with the Empress who they hope is not so Implacable by Nature but may be by some means appeased again while themselves will give her those fair Demonstrations of future Conformity which may work her to better Apprehensions of them To this end they let loose all the Reins of Modesty and Chastity by which they think they had been Restrained too long already to run in a full career the Race of all Licenciousness and Lust Vertue grows a very Burden and hateful to them Pleasure the only brave Goddess they Adore in whose Service they are so superstitious and severe that they devote their whole Time and Studies to approve themselves her most Bigotted Votaries The snares of Temptation are weaved by every Hand they dress themselves up into all the Advantages of Love and have Exchange of Complexions that suit with the several Fancies of every new Admirer That day is lost that is not bless'd with fresh Assignations of to Morrows Joys and they awake to nothing but renewed Acts of Yesterdays Frolicks They take care not to appear too frequently in the same Garb Ridiculing those of meaner Fortune whose Abilities supply them not to the same Variety of Dress They look with scorn on those that Retire themselves to the Inner Rooms with the Torment of keeping at Home who have not the Invitation to Gallant it abroad or be blessed with the Courtships of a secret Love. They are Mad that Nature had not lodg'd upon them the most killing Charms of Lust which they strive to supply by Artificial Means and the bewitching Arts of Language and Wit. They But alas My very Ink blushes to pass any further and the humour of our Age needs little Instruction into courses they Imitate already so much to the Life When the great Ninive was ripe for Judgment God sent them a Prophet to give them notice of their approaching Ruine and gâ—ve them Forty days to consider of the Message the Breath of whose Mouth blew them All to the Ground in the deepest Agonies of Terror and Sorrow Proclamations issue out for a General Fast and the whole Court for Example to the People are wrapt in Sack-cloth and the Ashes on their Heads very happily prevented the whole City from being turned all into Cinders When God himself drew Arguments of Pity from their present Penance the Tears of the Children and the very Looing of the Cattle turns his Heart and prevails to revoke the Decree But such was the fearfull Defection of Sodom that the Inhabitants there were more Brutish than the Beasts so Pamper'd and Shining so ready and fit for the Slaughter that he resolves now by an Immutable Decree to Offer up an Holocaust of them all to the honour of his Justice and the Eternal Memorial of the Sacrifice so Great and Exceeding were their Provocations that he will not deal with them aâ— with other Sinners and summon them severally to Judgment as they are taken and Arrested by Death But a Commission of Oyer and Terminer shall be sealed for their immediate Tryal and Execution Giving all the World notice by their Pre-damnation what themselves must expect for the same Guilts at the General Conflagration And now Sodom the last Scene of thy Tragedy is just upon Acting and the merry Banquet of thy Luxury is hastening to an End Wrath and Destruction bring in the Voider Tables and Guests are hurried away together Thou hast enjoyed a long and pleasant Day to Act the Comedy of thy Mirth but now it 's dying into an Eternal