continuance of the worke it pleased him to use the meane assistance of second causes as of Angels and intelligences that he might adde worth and honour to them by so great imployment So likewise in the workes of Grace and second diffusion of his goodnesse upon his creatures the great worke of enfranchizing the world by his Bloud himselfe alone would performe but in applying the merits and vertue of his Passion to the chosen vessels of honour and mercie he doth graciously call in a manner to his aide Apostles and Apostolicall men And as God being the Author of nature fals under himselfe and workes with every creature or second cause in a manner and measure agrreable to their naturall and ordinary way of working So likewise being the Author of Grace and having never yet for some great reasons best knowne to himselfe made two men with a perfect agreement either of face or nature sendeth Apostles and Preachers who have in their commands a speciall injunction of being like to him who saith I am made all things 1 Cor. 9. 22 to all men that I might by all meanes save some And God himselfe not onely in executing the generall Acts and Decrees of his Providence over his creatures but also and more especially in the more notable praxis and speciall exercise of his providence over his Church from the beginning of the world was all things to all men CHAP. VII GOD hath full power and absolute dominion over all his Creatures because he call'd yea catched them out of nothing and because to speake in the Apostles dialect in him they live move and have their being And therefore hee may lawfully give Lawes to them to the due and strict observation of which they are strongly bound under paine of his high displeasure seconded with most heavie punishment Wherefore giving a Law to the Jewes by the mediation of Moses he beginneth with an argument of his authority and dominion over them I am the Lord thy God which have brought thee out of Exod 20. 2. the land of Aegypt out of the house of bondage This laid for the corner-stone I thus proceed in the building In the infancie and childhood of the world when sinne was not as yet so active so quicke so cunning but dull and clownish and to foreshow the backwardnesse of nature in matters pertaining to Heaven yes to naturall knowledge and even humane society and also that it might fully and plentifully appeare to after-ages how nature is wrought and polished as in materiall things by Art so in spirituall matters by Grace The Law by which God for the most part guided man was onely borne with him was young as he was young and grew as he grew non scripta sed nata lex as the Orator saith being a Law not written and sent in a letter to us from Lycurgus Solon or Moses but borne with us or if written written onely in the soule of man where it continually remaineth in the shape of a light discovering to the view of the Soule the beauty of good and the deformity of evill For Good is faire and amiable and the cleare eye of reason beholdeth in it at the first sight a singular convenience with the will of man and a sympathy with Heaven And therefore they who were bound onely with the looser ties of the Law of nature and who now in strange Countries and in wilde and uncouth places dispense their actions by the light of reason beare a Preacher in their hearts Ill is blacke and deformed and reason in the first glance seeth a loathsomenesse a Toad in it and heareth presently as it were a jarring and disagreement with God and Heaven And therefore the drunkard the lascivious person and others of the same torne and ragged coate loath in deed not by any pious act of Christian vertue but by a deed of nature their owne beastlinesse and can by no meanes endure to be call'd what they are For as the Beast runneth the Bird flieth from danger as the one prepareth his den the other his nest as they looke abroad for daily nourishment provide carefully for their young know what will satisfie their cold of hunger what coole their heate of thirst what complyeth with their different appetites follow the leading of their admirable properties and by a secret instinct cheerefully performe the severall acts of their nature So man since he dealt with the Tree of Knowledge naturally knoweth good as opposed to evill as he naturally distinguisheth light from darknesse Againe some things are good in themselves and not good onely because God commands them to be loved and imbraced and these in the first place the light of nature sheweth to be good And some things are evill in themselves and not evill onely because markt and branded with a prohibition and these chiefely the light of nature showeth to be evill For if the light or law of nature in its owne nature did not make it cleare to Caine that he ought not to have killed his good brother Abel how did he sinne or what branch of law did he breake in killing him sinne being the violation of a law But certainly he trespassed upon that first principle of nature in morality Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri ne feceris what you would that men should not doe unto you doe not you unto them And hither Saint Paul pointeth For when the Gentiles which have not the law doe by nature the things Rom. 2. 14. contained in the law these having not the law are a law unto themselves One step more and we are in the bottome Although the the Sage Aegyptians in Damascius cried out three times in every performance of their heathenish my steries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unknowne darknesse yet by the plaine and easie search of humane power the old Philosophers found that there was a God and that he was but one in Essence that he was every where that he was omnipotent and the like though verily their knowledge both of God and his workes was rather opinion then knowledge it did so hang waver For the Philosopher opening his minde occasionally concerning the birth of the world sometimes he was and sometimes againe he was not Aristotle In one Arist l. 1. de coelo 1. Top. c. 9. booke hee judgeth absolutely that the world stood in the same state in which now it is in all eternity In another he stops like a man come unawares to a place where the way is divided and doubts which path leads to the truth In a third booke discussing the generation of living things Lib. 3. de generatione animalium c. 11. he sayes a man shall not beleeve amisse who shall take it for certaine that the first man and beast upon supposition that they came of the earth were either produced out of a Worme or an Egge and at length breaking the Egge in long handling concludes it is the most consentaneous to
out of the way and but one true way as there is but one health yet many sicknesses but one way to be borne yet many wayes to dye And man ever since he first erred is very prone to erre and having erred stops not in the first error but adds presently error to errour by loving and admiring his owne errour And errour is not alwayes desirous to be a neat and a fine errour but now and then it will be grosse The snow is evidently white Who will say in the hearing of a reasonable creature that snow is not purely white And yet a wise Philosopher whose name and memory have out-stayd the melting of many snowes beleeved it was black and the maine point of his doctrine was that sence playd foule with reason and snow was black We are all mortall some of us dye every day and all in a due time Yea saith S. Ambroso Vitae hujus principium mortis exordium est nec prius incipit augeri S. Ambr. lib. 2 de vocat Gent. cap. 8. vita nostra quà m minui Cui si quid adjicitur spatii temporalis non ad hoc accedit ut maneat sed in hoc transit ut pereat The first entrance into this life is the beginning of death neither doth our life begin to be encreased before it beginneth also to be diminished To which if any time be added it doth not come to remaine with us but to leave us and come no more Those who lived in the Age before us our Fathers and Grandfathers are dead and turn'd to dirt and we now in their places we also must shortly dye and turne to dirt and others succeed us and they likewise must take their turne and thus we all turne by turnes one after another into plaine dirt and this is the meane and homely end of all our bravery And yet an infamous sect of Heretikes in St. Justine firmely beleeved they forsooth were immortall and should never dye and this although they saw the brethren of their Sect sicken and dye like other men and then be buried in Graves and there lye still The old Annals of Egipt and Italy tell us that Flouds Trees Mice Cats and Crocodiles were honoured by the Egyptian Sages for gods and when the Cat kill'd the Mouse they said one god in his anger destroyed the other the more great the lesser and as meane creatures by the Roman Senatours And as S. Justine observeth S. Just Apolog 2. the same creatures were esteemed as they were Beasts by some by others used as Sacrifices to please the gods and by a third sort adored as gods Three things S. Austen would have seene if God had so ordered it in his providence Paulum in ore Romam in flore Christum in corpore Saint Paul the divine Oratour in his flourishing time of preaching the Gospell Rome in her flower Christ in his body And in Rome when she was in this pompous estate the Ague was honoured as a Goddesse and there also by ill fortune ill Fortune had her Temple Feare Palenesse what not The Lacedaemonians all the time of their life adored death Amongst another wise Generation of people rich Altars were dedicated to Poverty and old Age. Another grave Tribe beleeving fire to bee a most powerfull God travelled from Country to Country in the reigne of Constantine the great and provoked by a generall Challenge the Gods of other Countries to encounter their God And overcōming them as being compacted of wood or other matter subject to fire they came at last to Alexandria in Egypt where the River Nile by the due spreading of which that Country is fatned was accounted a God The statue of Nile being brought forth as it was hollow and full of water having on every side little holes covered with wax and fitted in all points for the purpose and fire being applied for a set battell the wax melted the water found way and the victorious God Fire was put out and there was an end of the journey And all these people cried up for Gods the things they conceived to be good ut prodessent that they might help and profit them and the things they found to be hurtfull nè nocerent that they might not hurt them CHAP. 6. MAhomet in his Alcoran describing the Turks Paradise saith it is beautified with pleasant Brooks enriched with beautifull fruits adorned with rich hangings and the like We may fitly say of him as Eusebius saith of Cerinthus an old Heretick who thought and taught that the happinesse of the other life consisted in the pleasures of marriage to be enjoyed in the fulnesse of delight for a thousand yeares in Hierusalem Quarum rerum cupiditate ipse Euseb li. 2. Eccl. hist cap. 22. ducebatur in eisdem beatam vitā fore somniabat He dreamed happinesse to be placed in those things with which himselfe was tickled And the Thalmudists the stricter and more rigid part of Jews have stuffed their Expositions with most idle Stories as that God doth punish himselfe at certain times for having beene so rough to them and the like stuffe The Indian Priests were as vaine who instilled this doctrine into all their simple Followers that when a Master should dye the Servants ought all to kill themselves that so they might readily serve him in the other world A grave Author writes of a people so fond that the first thing they saw in the morning was their God for that day and so perhaps they loved as many Gods as they lived days It hath been alwayes the maine plot of the devil to canker and corrupt the world with false opinions and chiefly with the practice of Idolatry For as the understanding is opinionated so the will works and if wee faile in the keeping of one of the two first commandements wee strike at the head of him that enableth us in the keeping of all the rest The devout Christians in the Primitive Church went in great numbers to see the places wherein Christ was borne was conversant and was crucified But the devill had quickly so stirred in the businesse and squared the matter by the power of the Pagan Emperours that the Christians comming afterwards and thinking to finde the crib in Bethleem found the image of Adonis Venus her white Boy and found nothing of the Crib but onely that it was not to be found And turning from thence to mount Calvarie they found the seene chang'd there also and beheld the statue of Venus placed with such evident signes of open warre against Christ and the profession of his name and faith Vt si quis Christianorum Ruffi Eccl. hist. lib. 1. cap. 7. saith Ruffinus in illo loco Christum adorare voluisset Venerem videretur adorare that when the sincere Christian should come with a rectified will to adore Christ his action if not his devotion might goe awry and honour Venus The devill would faine have taught them to adore an Image which they saw rather then
the Church and that 's a great way St. Cyprian in the same place exhorteth us very seriously not to deale with them not to eat with them not to speake with them O the foule corruption of our Times O for some zealous power that may reforme the abuses mine eyes have seene It is one of the first endeavours of the Papists in England which they exercise towards the society of men to gaine the good wills of Ministers For if they purchase the Ministers good will and good word they clip the wings of the Law hold him fast that hath a great stroke in matters concerning them And where the Papists have great meanes they are very free to Ministers in their entertainments and send their Coaches for them and their wifes But when they have beene merry and are gone their good name which they left behind them hath not as good entertainment as they For the Papists say and I have heard them These Ministers are the veriest Epicures meere belly-gods if we fill their bellies we shall be sure to have them our friends when the bag is full the Pipe will goe to our tune a long time after Modo ferveat olla if the pot seeth and there be warme meat providing for dinner what care they whether there bee a God or no If wee licker them throughly with strong Beere and good sparkling Canary and call them to ride and hunt with us they will talke familiarly with our Priests and heare them jest at their Religion and at the Professours and Defenders of it and as freely jest as they and yet will honestly keepe counsell they are not Christians but Atheists And thence the Papists fetch as they think a strong argument against our Religion And whilest these Ministers frequent their houses with a pretence of converting them for so they tell ignorant people that groane under the scandall they subvert them utterly Truly a Minister and a daily Guest of the Papists enquired when this Book which I intended for the service of God and the detestation of Popery came into the light that said he I may sit by the fire-side and laugh at it and I beleeve he will if he can spare so much time from drinking The Lord forgive him and teach him to be practicall in the practicable things in which this Book is doctrinall But why should I be opposed in my reasonable proceedings against the Adulteresse of Rome by my own Mothers owne children and so often by so many of them or why should entertainments or private ends be more deare to them then Gods truth Let every man observe what great Christmasses they keepe and how they abound in dancing and revelling striving thereby to make the hearts of the Country people which are soone taken with such baits their owne lest they should at any time either accuse them or beare witnesse against them And in their houses many if not the greater part of their servants were lately Protestants O Lord whither doe they pull us one by one I know where having one of a Family they made the number up five presently and the Father had bin but a while before a Church-warden and these are all Attendants upon a rich Papist I would their devotion did not blaze so much and so often like an Ignis Fatuus lead poore Travellers out of their way It is my opinion grounded upon experience In every day of the year O pitty Some and more then we dreame of in this little corner of the world are drawne with queint devices with smooth tearms of Art with trim speaking and eloquent behaviour from us from our owne body by them to them O weak people to be thus drawne weake in life or understanding or at least weak in resolution selling Christ for a messe of pottage or for thirty pence at most If the Papists goe on there will be quickly I say not few but fewer found hearts in England Take notice of this all good people Existimemus If we have no zeale we have no religion no Church and zeal is like fire if it be it burnes Wee carry our selves perinde quasi S. Chrysost hom 1 adversus Iudaeos nihil accideret grave saith St. Chrysostome cùm membra nostra putrescunt as if no harm did happen to us when our own limbs drop away in corruption from our bodies But I turne to the matter in hand CHAP. 18. THe Teachers of the Arian Heresie by which Christ was throwne downe from Heaven to the degree of a meere creature were the most affable and most insinuating people that lived in those dayes How subtill were they both in the propagation of their faith and the carriage of their manners they shewed the poore plaine people three corners of their handkerchers saying Here are three and these three are not one how then can three persons be one God And they did not juggle onely with the simple sort For they deluded Ruff lib. 10 Eccl. hist cap. 21. six hundred Bishops by a cunning proposall whether they would worship Christ or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who because they were not skill'd in the Greek language answered they would worship Christ and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little thinking they denied Christ to be consubstantiall with his Father And how cunningly did they serue themselves into the favour of great-ones moving one by another as Constantine by his sister Constantia What did they not attempt against holy Athanasius they suborned a false woman to accuse him of rape they brought in the arme of a dead man with an intention to soyle him with murther and sorcerie they would have pulled him limb from limb in the midst of an honourable Assembly In very truth no people were ever so like these heretikes in their practises as the Popish Priests and Jesuits of these days I have heard from themselves that one Jesuit sat singing in a Coblers shop with his apron before him to hide himselfe from the Officers that pursued him another counterfeited himselfe to be drunk and acted it rarely that he might put a trick upon a Constable and that a third dancing with a Lady heard her Confession sin after sin as he met her because he wanted better opportunity These are but pranks yet the good Fishermen would not have done so What black sin will they not fix upon him that is their enemy though a friend to Christ But here I cannot stay Yet note God hath layd a curse upon dissemblers that if you neerly follow their lifes and actions with your eyes you shall clearely perceive them often tripping and plainely discovering the foule disorder of their hearts in crooked proceedings that doe not savour of Evangelicall doctrine or Apostolicall gravity It is the prophocie of Esay The Esay 15. 6. waters of Nimrim shall be dried up Some English it the Panthers waters shall be dried up The Panther say the best writers of naturall History being exceedingly spotted doth seek out secret fountains
stay in his owne home in the inferiour part of the soule and not breake in upon the minde and that in all the stirring Reason should have her principall motion For if passion be first she will blinde Reason and then draw her into her faction change opinion alter judgement worke strangely upon the apprehension turne the discourse and make another man And as anger so love desire joy feare griefe and the rest are all to be wisely tempered Rule 5. KNow that when any thing is well and piously said or done in your presence God speakes to you And that when you see or heare of the miseries of other people God presents them to your eyes or eares as warnings to you and as copious Theames of his praise And that when your faults are objected against you even by furious and angry persons the objection commeth by way of permission from God intending your benefit And that which is more strange God many times speakes to you by your selfe as when you instruct others Yea by dumbe and unsensible creatures And therefore heare diligently what they say which you may fitly doe in this manner When you see a Lion looke up to the preserver the Lion of the tribe of Judah and downe to the destroyer the roaring Lion with an earnest and urging desire to follow the one and to flie from the other And thinke of the royall mercie and most noble sweetnesse of God couched under the terrour of his Majesty of which they plentifully share even when his justice rideth in triumph that lie prostrate before him by humility When you see a Beare cast your inward eye upon the Beares which devoured the undutifull children because their parents had not performed the very first and most common office of Beares and licked their young into forme Seeing a Hog looke downe upon the prodigal childe a very child lying all along by the trough amongst his fellow swine and take into your minde the base abjection of a sinner wallowing in the filth and mire of his owne lust and carnall desires When you heare a Cocke the bird of day and usher of the morning crowe take Saint Peter by the hand and goe out or in and weepe bitterly When you see a bird say in the private study of your heart It is God that giveth meat pullis corvorum invocantibus eum to the young of the crew calling upon him feeding the little gaping Crowes forsaken of their mother as borne white and which therefore shee doth not thinke to be of her colour with the dew of Heaven When you see a stirring and painefull Ant goe sluggard to the Ant and learne spirituall husbandry When you see a Lilly thinke of him who is the Lilly of the vallies and presently inferre that Gods grace is not confined to a narrow circle and tyde to a certaine sort of persons but open to all suppliants and if it growes any where chiefely it s most usuall place is in the Valleys Seeing all this faire wardrobe and furniture of creatures say heartily What will not he give us in our Countrey who heapeth upon us such plenty in our banishment How faire are the roomes of Heaven within if the outward parts are so gay and so richly deckt with starres We are removed a great way from Heaven and are very nigh to Hell we play as it were upon the tyles on the top of the house and if here we are blest sure if we land in Heaven wee shall make the land Sea and swimme in blessednesse If a haire doth not perish from our head the whole man shall be kept as a choyce peece Times ergo ne pereas saith Saint Austin to a timorous and diffident S. Aug. hom 14. tom 10. person cujus capillus non peribit Si sic tua custodiantur superflua in quanta seeuritate est anima tua Non perit capillus quem cum tondetur non sentis peribit anima per quam sentis Doe you feare therefore lest you should perish one of whose haires shall not perish If your superfluous things are kept so warily in what a sweete security is your soule Your haire perisheth not which being cut off when you are pold you feele not what hath passed and shall your soule perish by which you feele When you take a staffe in your hand say Thy rod and thy staffe they comfort me the one serving for Psal 23. 4. correction the other for direction Think at the sight of Bread upon your Table Through how many hands and fortunes hath God brought this good Bread safe to me It was Corne then sowed it dyed lived againe grew was greene washed with the raine brushed with the wind dryed with the Sunne then turned colour it lay abroad many a cold night was reaped threshed winnowed ground into meale and bolted kneaded and made into very good Bread and baked and all for me a sinner Such is the state of a righteous man And when thou art in company others wandering with other discourses let thy reason travell by it selfe and make strange discoveries in the view of some one standing by thee O man who framed that faire Globe of thy head the stupendious fountaine of all thy senses Who decked thy head with haire and a face wherein all parts conspire and meete in a beautifull proportion moving love and admiration Who drew a faire skin over thy flesh Who provided for every sense its proper object delightfull spectacles for the eyes pleasant sounds for the eares flowers for the smelling faculty dainties for the taste and soft things to please the touching power Who made the little bals of the eyes that rich and curious peece of worke to keepe watch and sentinell for the safety of the body and spread curtaines over them to shut out every shadow and shew of danger The eyes are little but see great things Who formed the eares to be the faithfull scouts of the soule and to lye out and lissen on both sides of the fort Who taught the tongue to speak so perfectly that all speech can never sufficiently expresse the excellencie of speaking Who gave a law to the stomacke to send nourishment to every part in a measure fit for the part to which it comes Who ranked the bones in order Who gave strength to the sinewes and confined the wandring bloud to the veines Who fitted the armes and hands for outward action Who shaped the feet to uphold the frame and maintaine it with the face looking towards our Countrey He growes upwards towards Heaven and he is going thither while earth lies under his feete God blesse him in his journey O the wisedome of him that sits upon the Throne in Heaven I will furnish you farther in this kinde afterwards Rule 6. EXercise these Acts as devotion of occasion shall call An Act of Faith Comming into the world as into a strange Countrey and finding people for the most part to beleeve as their Countrey and friends beleeve and
a troubled Sea divert the mischievous aime of witch-craft stay the rude course of a devouring fire fright away evill thoughts and make the Devill runne and doe many such feates After your death he will declare you to be a Saint and in Heaven and give way that Altars and Churches may be consecrated to your honour and called by your name and that the world may pray to you as freely and as fervently as to God and that your withered bones may be worshipped but not till the age be past in which he lived and the people gone who were eye witnesses of your life O the witchcraft of the Devill If we thinke that we came into the world to throw away our soules wee are too blame He that seeth a great streame of water presse forward in a calme Sea may be assured that a Whale passeth Here is the secret the streame of all things goeth with the Popes greatnesse And yet the Jesuits keepe him in awe and in a kinde of strict obedience to them Indeed they keep other great persons in subjection and make them Benefactours to them that their greatnesse may be long greatnesse The Pope dare not compose the quarrell betwixt the Jesuits and the Dominicans because he cannot except he side with one of them and abandon the other And Martin Luther cannot bee forgot And the Monke I so much speake of threatned his Holinesse home in his Epistle Dedicatory before the booke which old Leander transformed into good Latin for him The booke was made in the heat of those deadly quarrels betwixt the secular Priests and the Regulars wherein they accused one another of heresie and of strange things CHAP. IV. TO dry up this foule water in the fountaine The Pope is not head of the Church because this high and superlative power would then have most shone out and appeared in the Christian Hemisphere immediately after Christ had given the commandement upon which they build this power this Babel-Tower Nor could the rage of outward persecution hinder the perfect execution of spirituall power And what need could there be of the secular arme to joyne in the binding of the ready conscience with a law especially when Christians were so forward and prompt in the schoole of vertue as then they were Or at least persecution could not hinder the full acknowledgement of such a power And although we meete in the books of the Councels with so many faire and flattering Epistles of the Popes to the Grecian Emperours much degenerating from Popish gravity Because he hath in his keeping the Keyes of Heaven Hell Purgatory yet still the Grecians did bandy against them and desired to turne this over-swelling power into its owne and proper channell as they and other ancient Churches doe at this day Doth not here a man a meere vaine weake man exalt himselfe above God and every thing that is called God He is adorned with three Crownes for foure reasons Because there are three persons in one God he being the supposed Deputy hath three Crownes united in one Miter Because hee is Christs Vicar who was a King a Priest and a Prophet Because he is Prince of Rome Naples and Sicilie Let me give the fifth reason Because he was dirt he is dirt and he shall be dirt Constantine in the Councell of Nice expounded that place of the Psalme I have said yee are all Gods and sonnes of the Highest of Bishops He therefore exalting himselfe above all Bishops and to a heighth above all his Brethren by the head and shoulders lifts himselfe above all that is called God Let my soule goe with Saint Austin Neque S. Aug. l. 2. cont Donatistas c. 2. enim quisquam nostrum Episcopum se esse Episcoporum constituit aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem collegas suas adigit Not one of us doth make himselfe the Bishop of Bishops or with tyrannicall affrightment force his fellow Bishops to the necessity of obedience And Saint Austin hath no reflection here upon Constantine who called himselfe in the Nicene Councell 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop of Bishops in regard of his fatherly care over them because he speakes both of tyrannicall terrour and of fellow Bishops They say It is necessary to have an infallible Judge for the last resolution of controversies in matters of faith But if the Pope can stretch out his power to such definitions at home in his owne Chaire by his fire side to what strange end I pray is all this repairing from all parts to Councels All matters of faith in their doctrine are of equall moment and slipping in one we go downe in all And though every trouble be not so great ut omnes vexentur nationes that al Nations should be troubled in the settling of it yet exery growing trouble of faith which cannot be laid by argument and ordinary meanes requires that the whole body should helpe the part in danger of perishing Neither indeed can a Councell among them be a true judge of controversies For they professe that although the Pope as President of the Councell is tied to joyne with the greater part of voyces yet there is a reservation behinde that the Pope though not as President yet as the chiefe Prince of the Church may cancell the Acts of the Councell reverse the Decrees and retract the judgement So that in the marrow of the matter the judgement of a Councell is nothing but a vaine flash of the Popes private opinion And how stout he is in the defence of matters pertaining to the royalty of his owne greatnesse the whole world can testifie And for that great controversie long tossed and tumbled amongst them concerning the power of the Pope over the temporall affaires of Princes the Benedictine Monkes our Countreymen denyed lately the lawfulnesse of such a power But in the issue of the matter seeing the Jesuits more potent and themselves sliding downward into disgrace they drew back their necks softly out of the snare looked sorrowfull one upon another and repented of their errour And is it not every day feared in Rome that the Sorbon Doctors in Paris will at length give the lie to this great Authority and stately Seate and See of Rome O the vaine swelling of a bubble It is not commendable in a Church-person to be garded on both sides with great Fans from the impudencie of Waspes and Flyes and to keepe the winde away to be ushered with Trumpeters to be honoured like an Emperour to decke the head with more Crownes then God promiseth to his faithfull childe And it was not good which Paulus Aemilius writeth Paul Aemil. that his Holinesse suffered the great Embassadours of Sicilie to lie prostrate on the ground and at his gate crying that part of the Masse Qui tollis peccata mundi miserere nostri Qui tollis peccata mundi dona nobis pacem O thou that takest away the sinnes of the world have mercie upon us Thou that takest away
the sinnes of the world give us peace Goe the wormes shall eate thee till they are poyson'd with corruption Wise men are madde Our feet slip we tumble and Lord have mercie upon us The gay flower withereth when the common grasse remaineth greene And man is the silly foole of his owne fancie God forgive him who said that he and three of his Cardinals were able to governe so many worlds if God should make them CHAP. V. HOw vaine is the Church of Rome in teaching that the Popes Throne doth so farre overlooke all other Thrones that he cannot be censured by an earthly Judge though ingulfed in the most horrible crimes that in all the extravagancies of the heart were ever committed Let him enter a Fox raigne as a Lion die like a Dog as Pope Boniface Let him commit whoredome upon Altars give Benefices to his Whores and golden Chalices consecrated to holy services which an honest Lay-man cannot touch breake open doores burne houses put out his God-fathers eyes cut off his fingers hands tongues and noses of his Cardinals not remembring what he said when he did first invest them in purple Ego te creo socium Regis I create thee to be the fellow of a King and moreover invocate the Devill and drinke to him as Pope John the twelfth Let him be a most notorious Conjurer and make himselfe over by compact body and soule to the Devill as Pope Silvester the second Let him be carried with the Whirle-winde of ambition and have poysoned sixe other Popes to hew out his owne way before him as Pope Hildebrand Yet he sits above the reach of censure he flies with the Eagle above the Thunderbolt That they may give sinewes to this doctrine they produce an Act of a Councell celebrated in Rome which saith Neque praesul summus a quoquam judicabitur Concil Rom. quoniam scriptum est non est discipulus supra Magistrum Neither shall the chiefe Bishop be judged of any because it is written the Disciple is not above his Master And that they may adde strength to this plausible falshood they bring in the reare an eminent example For when Bassus and Marinianus laid to the charge of Pope Sixtus the third that he had in the rage of his lust defiled a consecrated Virgin Maximus the Consul crie out Non licet adversus Pontificem dare sententiam It is not lawfull to give sentence against the chiefe Bishop Looke how they shuffle the matter and give it from one hand to another amongst themselves But is not this to encourage sinne to permit and flatter evill and to suffer it to grow out and openly spread it selfe when it may be easily beate downe in the blossome This doctrine hath so farre given heart to all kindes of wickednesse that if we search into every succession of Bishops scattered through the whole Christian world and examine every linke of every chaine we shall not meete in any Sea with sinnes that deserve to be called sinnes with relation to the foule enormities of Rome Are not these evill fruits of evill doctrine and yet no man almost doth name the Pope but under the sacred title of his Holinesse But though his Holinesse is not liable to reproofe a man would think his wickednesse should And how silly is the Church of Rome in teaching that although the most holy and most learned Bishops that ever lived should joyne their heads and hearts in a Councell and there using the pious helpe of holy Scriptures of other Councels and Fathers before them and of humble prayers for the powerfull assistance of the holy Ghost should with an unanimous consent decree what is to be preached the Pope notwithstanding might come in the upshot and though a most wicked and illiterate creature lawfully pronounce all the Decrees to be of no weight no effect no validity The generall Councell of Chalcedon upon sound premeditation made an absolute Decree that the Bishop of Constantinople should have equall power through all the great extent and latitude of his government with the Bishop of Rome which Canon Pope Leo and Pope Gelasius quickly rejected and the single authority of one man tooke place because our Saviour had said to Saint Peter I have prayed for thee that thy faith faile not But every prayer of Luk 22. 32 Christ was granted therefore the Pope cannot erre It must here follow that either the Decrees of Councels are fallible or the Popes sentence Is it not strange that God should communicate his holy Spirit to the contempt of Councell more fully to a private person for so he is in this matter being one though a publike sinner then to the whole Church the Spouse of Christ Let the Pope claime to himselfe all power in all affaires who now can chide his ambition or give the lie to his infallibility CHAP. VI. ONe of my great admirations concerning the Church of Rome is that whereas there are many Churches yet extant of great antiquity and some wherein Christ was almost if not altogether as soone heard of as in Rome she will not consort and comply with them in things which were wholly in use amongst the Primitive Christians If she desires with a Christian desire and not with a desire onely of her owne advancement to win them why doth she not come as neere to them as it is most evident they come to the Primitive Church This way of the Bishop of Rome was never Gods way Which I will demonstrate in a plaine discourse though not plaine to the plaine that I may a little ease my reader in his journey with various objects God as he was ever God so he was ever good For the most eminent Attribute of God saith Dyonysius is goodnesse The nature of goodnesse is to spread and diffuse it selfe And every good doth spread and diffuse it selfe according to the variety and greatnesse of goodnesse which it hath And therefore God the Father being infinitely good doth infinitely spread and diffuse himselfe upon the Son And the Father and Sonne being infinitely good doe infinitely spread and diffuse themselves upon the holy Ghost And if the Father Sonne and holy Ghost doe not in any kinde spread and diffuse themselves infinitely upon the Angels and us it is because we being creatures and by course of necessary consequence finite are not capable of an infinite diffusion The Charity by which a good man loves good might be infinite if the subject could be infinite Now as in the works of nature and first diffusion of his goodnesse upon his creatures God the first cause would first worke by himselfe and himselfe bring about the most weighty matter of making all these fine things of nothing and moreover of waking nature out of her dead sleepe in the Chaos that it might appeare to us who should afterwards heare the grave and strange story of the Creation that hee was all-sufficient and could not be at a fault for want of help Yet managing the
men Saint Paul to the Jewes under the Law though not a Jew under the Law became as a Jew under the Law To the Gentiles as one of them though not one of them To the weake though not weake as weake The great Interpreters of holy Scripture give three reasons why Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrewes doth not begin after his accustomed manner Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ The first was given by Theodoret because he was more answerably Apostolus Doctor Gentium the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles as himselfe proveth The second by Saint Hierome because he cals Christ in the same Epistle the Apostle Galat. 2. Hebr. 3. 1. and higb Priest of our profession and therefore lest he might seeme to thrust himselfe in the ballance with Christ he concealed his title The third and last is given by the same hand and happily to my purpose because hee most pleaded for the abrogation of the Mosaicall rites of which the Hebrewes though Christians were yet zealous as it is plaine in the Acts of the Apostles Act. 21. 20. And therefore lest the mention of his name should breake the sinewes and weaken the force and energy of his doctrine he is plyable to their passion and in a manner denies his owne name And we know that the wise Apostles in the Primitive Church gave way to the Hebrewes in the use of many legall ceremonies untill the full and plenary promulgation of the Gospell that the Church might with more ease be compacted of Jewes and Gentiles and the parts not stirred close the better Saint Clement writes of Gamaliel the great Pharisee and Doctor of the Law that hee was left being now a Christian by the serious appointment of the Apostles in the Councell of the Jewish Elders to qualifie their heate and mitigate their cruelty And in the Acts he acts his part he doth comply Act. 5. with both sides and reach beyond them all This Milkie way went all the godly Prelates who succeeded the Apostles or their Schollers in all Churches keeping an even hand betwixt innovation and stubbornnesse This ever was and is and ever will bee the knowne course of the holy Ghost even in the soules of men especially as he is to borrow of Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Giver of Graces But I am forced here to play Synes in hymnis as I am wont when I relate the foule prankes of the Papists and imitate the Painter who endeavouring to shew to the eye a multitude of men discovereth in some onely their faces in some the tops of their heads in others one onely foot and sometimes a cheeke and one eye stands for a man while he leaves the rest for our imagination to paint which truly performeth a faire deale more in the Table then the Painter He that is stung by a Tarantula I write what I have knowne is presently taken with a strong and violent fit of dancing and he is best cured when the Musitian playes aptly with the current of his humour and bending of his fancie But I feare I play to one that is stung and yet will never be recovered because no good musicke hath a note so high as to consort with her greatnesse It is she that saith in her heart I sit a Queene Rev. 18. 7. Every man hath his way of writing and I have mine I am sure this way delights and illustrates and affords to every man something which he loves and also keeps the devout spirit in action both of him that writes and him that reades CHAP. XIII AFter many stormie dangers and dangerous stormes by sea and by land I arrived safe into my deare Countrey little England My soule doth magnifie the Lord for it And me thoughts I came out of the noise and tumults of other Countries into England as into a silent harbour and haven of rest having as it were left the world behinde mee And if my comparison may lawfully bring two different things together as a soule going out of earth comes into Heaven Truely after the first step upon land I kneeled downe and kissed the very sands and gravell on the shore Being come to London I presented my selfe to my superiours and shewing my faculties declared whence I came But they seemed fearfull having heard that I had formerly suspected their wayes Yet that was but a qualme and I was quickly disposed of and my walke assigned to me I was placed in a Parish wherein there were and are many more Papists then there are people in the Parish in which I am now seated And they were many of them both rich and of quality There are all poore and of a low name Any man may beleeve without straining his faith that comming to England so top-full of the knowledge of Romish abuses and corruptions I wanted nothing but the very last degree of heate to the taking of fire I wanted but an occasion to set one wheele a going that all the rest might goe with it I had gathered experience out of all their affaires but onely their dealings in England And I desired a little thence to make up the Talent In the house where I lived all my imployment was my service of God in my way and exercise in my studies I know my enemies will grant to me that no man amongst them followed his studies with more exact diligence then my selfe But my way differed from theirs for I alwayes carried Schoole Divinity and other learning with an even hand before me that the mildnes of the one might temper the asperity of the other and that the soundnesse of the one might fortifie the weaknesse of the other and that one might bring the other downe to the understandings of people to be instructed by me They were all for the deepe of Divinity All for diving Whence it comes that few of them are handy in the conversion of soules otherwise then by sleight and cunning or able in the faculty of preaching In this house I wrought the cure of a wound which many Priests had beene doing with never any brought to a Citatrice but my selfe I reaped the benefit of gifts in the house indeede they were thrust upon me yet not so great but a great Priest the famous Divel-Tamer whom I used in Counsell secured to me the taking of them in justice Yet this kindled a quarrell such was the tenacious nature of the prime Litigant and grew to a parting And this for a parting blow perhaps my Reader may understand it Agnes a tender soft Girle having rejected the love of a noble young Romane to couple with the heavenly Bridegroome called to her Headsman with the voice of a man as Saint Ambrose delivereth it saying S. Ambr. l. 1. de Virginibus Pereat corpus quod amari potest oculis quibus nolo Let the body perish which can be loved with eyes with which I would not it should be loved He that should have heard the
Shepheard to feede and preserve not a Wolfe to teare and devoure Give me leave Did the world know how poore my beginnings were I am not ashamed of them in what small helpes I have rejoyced when the Papists vaunted they doubted not to live and see me begge mournfully at their dores for a morsell of bread that my fortunes were carried on the top of the flowing and ebbing waters two yeares from banke to banke before I was fixed and then but weakly setled in a dark nooke Did men know how I have beene used abused forced threatned reviled discomforted they would not be angry that I desired to subsist and to preach the good Gospell of Christ But I will not preach this doctrine till I am call'd CHAP. V. ANd now I thanke the Papists for my unconquerable resolution growing from the grossenesse of their scandals Josephs Brethren were very malicious against him they sold him to slavery the Scene beganne to bee tragicall God came to act his part turned the wheele and made all this malice and misery end in the great benefit not onely of the malicious and undeserving Brethren but of Joseph himselfe his old Father and the whole Kingdome of Egypt Judas sold his Master his Master and the Master of all things for thirty pence the money would goe but a little way he had an ill bargaine When his part was done God entred upon the Stage and by the execrable perfidiousnesse of the Traitour Judas brought about the redemption of mankinde the salvation of the whole world and in effect all the shining that is and ever shall be made by glorious soules and bodies in Heaven I doe not except the soule and body of our Mediatour and Advocate Christ Jesus who though he did not redeeme himselfe because he was not in captivity yet came to be betraied and to redeeme his Betrayer if he would have bin redeemed By this law a prudent Mr. of a family turnes the rough nature of an angry Dog to the benefit and peace of himselfe and his family and a wise Physitian the eager thirst of a bloud-thirsty horseleach to the health of a sick person although indeed these unreasonable creatures of themselves aime at nothing but to satiate their owne wilde natures Saint Austin speaking of evill men saith Ne igitur putes gratis malos esse in hoc mundo nihil boni ex illis metere Deum quia omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur Doe not therefore thinke that evill men are suffered to be evill in this world for no good purpose and that God reapes no benefit by them For every evill man either therefore lives that in time he may decline from evill and incline to good or therefore lives that the good man may be exercised and farthered in the practise of goodnesse by him otherwise he should no live There is a course of things within the generall course of this world pertaining to the order to which God brings all straggling chances in the last act of the play which if we did examine as they come and beget experience we should enlighten and enrich the understanding with heavenly matters exceedingly We behold how admirably at this day moved by the sinfull occasion of Heresie and Superstition the Church doth watch and pray and we know that a multitude of soules now crowned in Heaven hath learned to avoid sinne by observing others punished for sinne which could not in justice have beene punished if it had not beene committed and how murderers doe open the gate of Heaven for Martyrs and that the bloud of Martyrs hath beene the seed of the Church for if they had not died bodily many had not lived spiritually And to goe as high as may be Good comes to God by the worst of evils the good of glory by sinne For to speake with Cassiodore Materia est gloriae principalis delinquentis reatus quia nisi culparum Cassio Var. 3. 46. occasiones emergerent locum pietas non haberet The guilt of a Delinquent person is a principall matter that nourisheth glory For if there were no sinne there would be no place for the exercise of mercie which supposeth misery which misery supposeth sinne And though I gather good from the evill of the Church of Rome yet the evill of the Church is to me a sound argument against the Church That rule of Christ Yee shall know them by their fruits Mat 7. 16. is as true a marke as a signe from Heaven For as the Church of Rome was first known by her workes so now likewise shee is knowne by her workes and the workes of her age not being of the same birth and education with the workes of her youth shew her to bee different from her selfe when workes doe alwayes answer in some proportion to Faith and the Tree cannot be good if the fruit be generally evill And as Saint Justine writeth to the Grecians S. Justin Cohort ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the solid fruit of pious workes gives testimony to the true Religion I came from the last Popish Colledge of which I was a member as I did from all others fairely and respectfully on both sides Their testimony of me is yet in my hands made strong and authenticall with their owne Seale I will give it here word for word Thomas Fitzherbertus societatis Jesu Collegii Anglorum de urbe Rector OMnibus in quorum manus praesentes venerint salutem in Domino sempiternam Fidem facimus atque his literis attestamur latorem praesentium Reverendum Patrem Franciscum Dakerum for this was the last name by which I was knowne amongst them Anglum Sacerdotem esse nec ullo impedimento Canonico prohiberi quo minus sacrosanctum Missae Sacrificium ubique celebrare possit Cum vero etiam in hoc nostro Collegio sedis Apostolicae Alumnus fuerit modo absolutis studiis in Angliam ad luerandas Deo animas proficiscatur nos quo illum affectu nobiscum morantem complexi sumus eodem discedentem paterne prosequimur omnibus ad quos in itinere devenerit quantum valemus in Domino commendamus In quorum fidem caet Romae ex Collegio Anglorum die 9. Septemb. 1635. Thomas Fitzherbertus manu propria Those with whose understandings this will suite are able to understand it without a translation The Faculties annexed by the Pope to the exercise of my Priestly function were these I have them under their owne hands Ordinariae Facultates Alumnorum Collegii Anglicani 1. FAcultas absolvendi ab omnibus casibus Censuris in Bulla Caenae Domini reservatis in Regnis Angliae Scotiae Hiberniae 2. Vt possint illis quos reconciliaverint dare Apostolicam benedictionem cum plenaria Indulgentia prima vice Catholicis vero congregatis ad Concionem vel ad sacrum in Festis solennioribus Apostolicam benedictionem sine plenaria Indulgentia
Priests in your houses and now doe in opposition to and in defiance of the firme lawes of this Kingdome who cease not to trouble the whole State Kingdome and to set all on fire with their scandalous and fabulous reports and with their seditious and libellous Pamphlets who daily pervert the Kings good subjects and draw them by as many devices as the great Plot-master of Hell can hatch or invent from their duty to God and allegiance to the King then which there are no stricter obligations no ties more sacred You promise to doe the contrary of which you most wilfully performe even while the promise comes warme from your mouths Is not this meere juggling Fifthly bee not so nominall doe not call them Fathers and supreame Judges and acknowledge their power to frame or change of whom you beleeve otherwise then you speake It is the generall Tenent of your Church and if you be not as ignorant of your Doctrine as you are of your Service you will confesse it to be so that Judges yea Princes extra Ecclesiam Catholicam out of the Catholike Church have not power to frame Decrees or make Lawes prejudiciall to your Faith And therefore your Church sayes that your Priests are not obliged or bound by conscience to give a just account to such Judges of their proceedings even those which fall out of confession because those Judges have no true and lawfully-derived power by which to fasten any such engagement upon them And it is a received Maxime amongst your Jesuits that even a Popish Common-wealth when the Church and Common-wealth in some sense are in eodem gradu atque ordine in one and the same degree and order of Faith cannot validly decree any thing prejudiciall to the glory of the Church or to the Canons and constitutions of it Sixthly doe not mince your tearmes lest you are suspected in all things and shroud the most black attempts and most bloody practises of the Romish See against our State with the faire-coloured Mantle of extraordinary proceedings They were extraordinary indeed that is above all ordinary wayes of wickednesse In truth you are extraordinary in your expressions though not as extraordinary as your Church in her proceedings And how dangerous are those people that call the top of all mischiefe but extraordinary proceedings I will not straine this point farther lest I learne of the Jesuits to break into that Cabinet of secrecie which the Italian cals ragioni di stato And heare me doe not father the Gun-powder treason upon a few discontented persons but lay the greater waight of imputation where the greatest waight of sinne was O England give me I pray thee a resting place while I live and when I am dead a place of buriall For the Church of Rome cast backe into her Ingredients is nothing but deceit and colour You shall finde another lesson in this booke and other Authors of that Aggregate of malice and mischiefe And whereas a grosse part of our English Papists are Jesuited let the world judge to what myriads of mischiefes we lie open Seventhly do not pleade so confidently that you are in no wise guilty of the wicked facts of your Progenitours because you are guilty of their Religion and beliefe in conformity to which waighed down with a graine or two of Ghostly perswasion they became guilty of those wicked facts And posita causa sequitur effectus say the Logicians The cause being put the common cause the Catholike cause the cause of Religion the effect helped home by the last disposition of a little Ghostly instruction may follow And as you love me call not your errours supposed errours as if we supposed errours in you while you are certaine of our errour I must tell you that wee are as certaine you erre as we are certaine that God and his word erre not And therefore let your truth be supposed but not your errours Eightly leave the old tricke of closing with our Divinity when it makes for your present occasion and turne and againe forsaking it at every turne Whatsoever all Divines say now beliefe was enforced in Queene Maries dayes And suppose that Beliefe as being opus Gratiae a worke or effect of Grace is not to be enforced would you be suffered to possesse your innocent children sufficiently Baptized with a strange beliefe to encrease your number another would say your pestiferous and viperous brood but I will not by threats and promises and rich rewards and thus you enforce beliefe while you thinke not of it to win a maine part of our Clergie though not to your Faith yet to your occasions and by continuall entertainments of them and theirs make them in many practises of high note and consequence more yours then their owne or ours especially when your Priests are still besieging your eares and there whispering that you ought to labour at all times and by all meanes that are feiceable to set up the Popes Throne in all places Ninthly be not so large in the blazoning of your due obedience I will put you a case If your Prince blowne forward with the zeale of Gods truth should endeavour to pull the Pope the grand Father of delusion and Idolatry out of his Chaire in which men talke he sits infallible and utterly to extirpate such a monster-power out of the Christian world Answer me would your Religion permit you to assist your Prince in that most honourable cnterprise And therefore all your promises I turne over to his examination that trieth the heart and searcheth the reines Onely take heed that a mentall reservation is not at the dore And if you are ready in good earnest to minister assistance with your fortuns pray turn the Channel and that masse of money which you bestow on your death-beds to Jesuits Monks Friers and Priests and to the superabundant maintenance of their houses in strange lands reserve for the safety of your poore Country which in your liberall contributions to Popish uses you take paines to ruinate Lastly for shame doe not hope that your affaires may be settled in as great peace and security as theirs who are united in the same reformed Church with his Majesty and not onely serve him faithfully but also beleeve honourably of his profession and are one soule with him who send not their children by stealth into forraine Countries that soiled with strange manners and a strange Religion in strange Countries they may returne at length to teach disseminate in his Dominions the peace of which you promise with submission and in all humility to preserve a Religion coupled with manners dangerous to all that he cals his One thing I dare presume that in this publike Jubilee it is not intended that Vice shall sit hand in hand rejoycing with Vertue or Errour with truth And so farewell And pray when we meete againe in this kinde be true and reall in omni apice in every tittle of what you write And thinke not that although I acted
as other vaine tyes hold them I doe shake off all these idle obligations in imitation of the Primitive Church and of all holy men in succeeding Ages I firmely beleeve that the Scripture is the word of God and that all things revealed in it are true And I beleeve that as God made the world for himselfe and his glory So and more eminently he directeth his Church to himselfe and his glory That is therefore the pure Church of Christ which casteth all the glory upon God which leaneth and relieth wholly upon the most pretious merits and passion of Christ which cryeth to God onely for helpe which is throughly obedient for Gods sake to lawfull authority bee it amongst Heathens which doth not permit and countenance sinne by which onely God is dishonoured And she cannot be the cleane spouse of Christ which God and his Truth being infallible performeth the most high and most reverend Acts of Religion upon uncertainties As prayeth absolutely for a soule turned out of the body without a certaine knowledge of her being a determinate friend or enemy of God And worshipeth that with the worship of God for God which if the Priest be deficient in his intention or defective in his orders is in her owne opinion a creature And she is not the faire spouse which hath lost her attractive beauty and which all Jewes and Infidels hate and abhorre justly moved at least with a notorious shew of Idolatry And therefore I beleeve that the Church of England is the Spouse of Christ as being free from these blemishes and conformable to Scripture And in the defence of this Faith I stand ready to give up my sweete life and dearest bloud And if I die suddenly to this Faith I commend the state of my eternity An Act of hope in God I doe hope in God because hee is infinitely full of goodnesse and is like a nurse which suffereth pain in her brests till she be eased of her milke because hee is most able and most willing to helpe me because he hath sealed his love with most unbreakable promises and because hee knoweth the manifold changes and chances of the world the particular houre of my death and the generall day of judgement in all which I hope greatly this good and great God will deliver me An Act of the love of God I such a one in perfect health and memory able yet to revell in the world to enjoy wealth and pleasure to sacrifice my body and soule to sensuality doe contemne and lay under my feete all goe behinde me Satan sworne enemy of Mankinde and love God purely for himselfe For put the case he had not framed this world or beene the prime cause of any creature in it put the case hee had never beene the Author of any blessing to mee yet excellencie and perfection of themselves are worthy of love and duty and as the object of the understanding is truth so the object of the will is goodnesse and therefore my will shall cheerefully runne with a full career to the love of it Saint Austin S. Aug. hom 38. hath taught me Qui amicum propter commodum quodlibet amat non amicum convincitur amare sed commodum He that loves his friend for the profit he reapes by him is easily convinced not to love his friend but the profit Wherefore although I should see in the Propheticall booke of the divine Prescience my selfe not well using the divine helpes not rightly imploying the talents commended to my charge and to be damned for ever yet still I would love him away ill thoughts touch me not I would insomuch that if it were possible I would even compound and make to meet hands the love of God and damnation For although I were to be damned yet God could not be in the fault and though I should be exceedingly miserable by damnation he would yet remaine infinitely good and great by glory and though I did not partake so plentifully of his goodnesse yet many others would O Lord I love thee so truely that if I could possibly adde to thy perfection I freely would but because I cannot I am heartily glad and love thee againe because thou art so good and perfect that thou canst not be any way more perfect or good either to thy selfe or in thy self And I most humbly desire to enjoy thee that thy glory may shine in mee and that I may love thee for ever and ever It grieves me to thinke that if I should faile of thee in my death I should be deprived in Hell not onely of thee but also of the love of thee Note pray that other vertues either dispose us in a pious way towards our neighbour as justice or doe order the things which are ours and in us as many morall vertues or they looke upon those things which appertaine to God as Religion or they direct us to God himselfe but according onely to one Attribute or peculiar perfection As the vertue of Faith giveth us to beleeve the divine authority revealing to us Gods holy truth Hope to cast Anchor upon his helpe and promises But with charity or the love of God we fasten upon all God with respect to all his perfections we love his mercie justice power wisedome infinity immensity eternity And faith hope patience temperance and other vertues leaving us at the gate of Heaven charity enters with us and stayes in us for ever An Act of Humility O Lord if others had beene stored with the divers helpes the inspirations the good examples the good counsell the many loud cals from without and yet from thee which I have had they would have beene exceedingly more quicke more stirring in thy service Many Acts which I have thought vertues in me were onely deedes of my nature and complexion My nature is bespotted with many foolish humours I am unworthy dust and ashes and infinitely more unworthy then dust and ashes A Sinner I am not worthy to call thee Father or to depend in any kinde of thee to live or to be The foule Toade thy faire creature is farre more beautifull then I a Sinner-Toade Verily if men did know of me what thou knowest or what I know of my selfe I should be the rebuke and abomination of all the world An Act of resignation to the will of God Whither shall I flie but to thee O Lord the rich store-house of all true comfort The crosse which seemeth to me so bitter came from thy sweet will Can I be angry with thy good providence Is it not very good reason that thy royall will should be done in earth as it is in heaven And though perhaps it was not thy direct and resolute will that all my crosses should in this manner have rushed upon me yet the stroke of the crosse being given it is thy direct intention that I should beare it patiently I doe therefore with a most willing hand and heart take Gaule and Vineger delivered by thy sweete