was some difference between them two I know saith he my life may be profitable many ways and therefore am I loth to lose it but because of your life you know little profit little good can be made you care not how easily you part with it Beloved it may be justly suspected that they who esteem thus lightly of their lives are but worthless and unprofitable men our own experience tells us that men who are prodigal of their money in Taverns and Ordinaries are close-handed enough when either pious uses or necessary and publick expence requires their liberality I have not heard that Prodigals ever built Churches So these men that are so prodigal of their lives in base quarrels peradventure would be cowardly enough if either publick service or Religion did call for their help I scarcely beleive any of them would die Martyrs if the times so required it Beloved I do not go about to perswade any man to fear death but not to contemn life life is the greatest blessing God gives in this world and did men know the worth of it they would never so rashly venture the loss of it But now lightly prizing both their own and others Bloud they are easily moved to shed it as fools are easily won to part with jewels because they know not how to value them We must deal with our lives as we do with our money we must not be covetous of it desire life for no other use but to live as covetous persons desire money onely to have it neither must we be prodigal of life and trifle it away upon every occasion but we must be liberal of our lives know upon what occasion to spare upon what occasion to spend them To know where and when and in what cases to offer our selves to die is a thing of greater skill then a great part of them suppose who pretend themselves most forward to do it Nam impetu quodam instinctu currere ad mortem cum multis commune est For brutishly to run upon and hasten unto death is a thing that many men can do and we see that bruit beasts many times will run upon the spears of such as pursue them Sed deliberare causas expendere utque suaserit ratio vitae mortisque consilium suscipere vel ponere ingentis animi est but wisely to look into and weigh every occasion and as judgment and true discretion shall direct so to entertain a resolution either of life or death this were true fortitude and magnanimity And indeed this prodigality and contempt of life is the greatest ground of this quarrellous and fighting humour Qui suam vitam contempsit dominus est alienae There is a kind of men who because they contemn their own lives make themselves Lords and Commanders of other mens easily provoking others to venture their Bloud because they care not how they lose their own Few places of great resort are without these men and they are the greatest occasioners of Bloudshed you may quickly know them there are few quarrels wherein they are not either principals or seconds or some way or another will have a part in them Might there be publick order taken for the restraint of such men that make a practise of quarrelling and because they contemn their own lives carry themselves so insolently and imperiously towards others It will prevent much mischief and free the Land of much danger of Bloud-guiltiness The second cause which is much alledged in defence of Duels I told you was point of Honour a conceit that it is dishonourable for men of place and fashion quietly to digest and put up contumely and disgrace and this they take to be a reason of that authority and strength as that it must admit of no dispensation For answer First the true fountain and original of quarrel are of another kind and Honour is abused as a pretence The first occasioners of a great part of them are indeed very dishonourable let there an Inventory be taken of all the Challenges that have been made for some time past and you shall find that the greatest part by far were raised either in Taverns or Dicing-houses or in the Stews Pardon me if in a case of this nature I deal a little plainly Drinking Gaming and Whores these are those rotten bones that lie hid under this painted Sepulchre and title of Honour Lastly to conclude It is a part of our profession as we are Christians to suffer wrong and disgrace Therefore to set up another doctrine and teach that Honour may plead prescription against Christ's precepts and exempt you from patient enduring of contumely and disgrace you withstand Christ and deny your vocation and therefore are unavoidably Apostates But we lose our labour who give young men and unsetled persons good advice and counsel the civil Magistrate must lay to his hand and pity them who want discretion to pity themselves For as Bees though they fight very fiercely yet if you cast a little dust amongst them are presently parted so the Enacting and Executing some few good Laws would quickly allay this greatness of stomach and fighting humour How many have been censured for Schismaticks and Hereticks onely because by probable consequence and afar off they seemed to overthrow some Christian principle but here are men who walk in our streets and come to our Churches who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 openly oppose that great point of Christianity which concerns our patience and yet for their restraint no Synod is called no Magistrate stirs no Church-censure is pronounced The Church of Rome hath long ago to the disgrace of the Reformed Churches shut them out of the number of Christians and pronounced them all Excommunicated persons who upon what pretence soever durst enter the Feild for Duel and single Combat Theodosius the Emperour enacted it for a Law and it is extant at this day in the Code a Book of Laws that if any man spake disgracefully of the Emperour Si ex levitate contemnendum si ex infamia miseratione dignum si ex injuria remittendum Lactantius Summa virtus habenda patientia est quam ut caperet homo justus voluit illum Deus pro inerte contemni So great a virtue is patience that for the attaining of it it is Gods will we should suffer our selves to be contemned as Cowards Christ is an Example to us of suffering disgrace let us as the Israelites look up to this Serpent and all the stinging of fiery Serpents shall do us no harm We must forsake all and follow Christ therefore Honour and Reputation too If we be ashamed of this pattern of patience Christ will be ashamed of us Now that God may give a blessing to what hath been delivered let us c. Matth. XXVI Verse 75. And he went forth and wept bitterly THus to commit to writing as here our Evangelist hath done and so to lay open to all posterity the many slips and errours which have much blemish'd
Christ and resolution in his quarrel he gave an evident testimony when he protested himself ready to lay down his life for him Greater love then this in the Apostles judgment no man hath then to lay down his life for his freind This St. Peter had if we may beleive himself yea he began to express some acts of it when in defence of his Master he manfully drew his sword and wounded the servant of the high Preist But see how soon the scene is changed This good Champion of our Saviour as a Lion that is reported to be daunted with the crowing of a Cock is stricken out of countenance and quite amazed with the voice of a silly Damsel yea so far is he possess'd with a spirit of fear that he not onely denies but abjures his Master and perjures himself committing a sin not far behind the sin of Iudas yea treading it hard upon the heels But the mercy of God that leaves not the honour of his servant in the dust of death but is evermore careful to raise us up from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness suffers not this Rock this great Pillar of his Church to be overthrown He first admonishes him by the crowing of a Cock when that would not serve himself full of careful love and goodness though in the midst of his enemies forgets his own danger and remembers the danger of his servant Himself was now as a sheep before the shearer dumb and not opening his mouth yet forgets he not that he is that great Shepherd of the flock but David like rescues one of his fold from the mouth of the Lion and from the paw of the Bear He turns about and looks upon him saith the Text he cries louder unto him with his look then the Cock could with his voice Of all the members in the body the Eye is the most moving part that oft-times is spoken in a look which by no force of speech could have been uttered this look of Christ did so warm St. Peter almost frozen-dead with fear that it made him well-near melt into tears As if he had cried out with the Spouse Cant. vi O turn away thine eyes for they have overcome me he grows impatient of his looks and seeks for a place to weep what a look was this think you St. Ierom discoursing with himself what might be the cause that many of the Disciples when they were called by our Saviour presently without further consultation arose and followed him thinks it not improbable that there did appear some Glory and Majesty in his Countenance which made them beleive he was more then a man that thus bespake them whatsoever then appear'd in his looks doubtless in this look of his was seen some Sovereign power of his Deity that could so speedily recover a man thus almost desperately gone A man that had one foot in hell whom one step more had irrecoverably cast away It was this look of Christ that restored St. Peter Quos respicit Iesus plorant delictum saith St. Ambrose They weep for their sins whom Iesus looks upon Negavit primo Petrus non flevit quia non respexerat Dominus Negavit secundo non flevit quia adhuc non respexerat Dominus Negavit tertio respexit Iesus ille amarissime flevit St. Peter denies him once and repents not for Iesus look'd not back upon him he denies him the second time and yet he weeps not for yet the Lord look'd not back He denies him the third time and Iesus looks upon him and then he weeps bitterly Before I come to make use of this it shall not be altogether impertinent to say something unto some Queries that here arise concerning the condition of St. Peter and in him of all the Elect of God whilst they are in a state of sin unrepented of for as for St. Peter's faith which some make doubt of there can as I conceive no question be made It is not to be thought that St. Peter had revers'd with himself the confession that he had formerly made of Christ or that he thought doubtless I have err'd this is not the person whom I took him to be Indeed through fear and cowardize he durst not confess that with his mouth unto salvation which in his heart he beleived unto righteousness Any thing further then this that speech of our Saviour takes away wherein he tells him before-hand I have pray'd that thy faith might not fail But since our Age hath had experience of some who because the Election of God standeth sure and Christ's sheep none can take out of his hands conclude therefore that for the Elect of God there is no falling from grace that to David and Peter no ill could happen no though for so they have given it out that they had died in the very act of their sin To meet with such disputants I will breifly lay down what I conceive is to be thought in the point Wherefore parate fauces pani as St. Bernard speaks Hitherto I have given you milk provide your stomacks now for harder meat and such as befits strong men in Christ. Peter and Iudas for I will couple them both together in my discourse whilst they are both joyned together in sin Peter I say and Iudas in regard of their own persons were both more or less in the same case both fallen from grace both in a state of sin and damnation till the Repentance of St. Peter altered the case on his part But the Grace of God signified two things either the purpose of God's Election the Grace and Favour Inherent in the Person of God which he still casts upon those that are his notwithstanding their manifold backslidings or else it signifies the habit of sanctifying qualities Inherent in the Regenerate man those good Graces of God by which he walks holy and unblameable Again the state of Damnation signifies likewise two things either the purpose of Gods Reprobation or else the habit of damnable qualities in the sinful man From the state of Grace as it signifies the purpose of God to save the Elect can never fall In the state of Damnation as it signifies something inherent in us every man by nature is and the Elect of God even after their Calling many times fall into it that is they may and do many times fall into those sins yea for a time continue in them too David did so for a whole years space which except they be done away by repentance inevitably bring forth eternal death for the state of mortal sin unrepented of is truly and indeed the state of death yea the whole and sole reason of the condemnation of every one that perishes for Christ hath said it Except ye repent ye shall all perish So then you see that into the state of Damnation as it signifieth something inherent in us a man may fall and yet not fall from the state of grace as it signifies God's purpose of Election
audierint aliquid contradici The same temper must be found in every Reader of Scripture he must not be at a stand and require an answer to every objection that is made against them For as the Philosopher tells us that mad and fantastical men are very apprehensive of all outward accidents because their soul is inwardly empty and unfurnished of any thing of worth which might hold the inward attention of their minds so when we are so easily dor'd and amated with every Sophism it is a certain argument of great defect of inward furniture and worth which should as it were ballance the mind and keep it upright against all outward occurrents whatsoever And be it that many times the means to open such doubts be not at hand yet as St. Austin sometime spake unto his Scholar Licentius concerning such advice and counsel as he had given him Nolo te cansas rationesque rimari quae etiamsi reddi possint fidei tamen qua mihi credis non cas debeo so much more must we thus resolve of those lessons which God teacheth us the reasons and grounds of them though they might be given yet it fits not that credit and trust which we owe him once to search into or call in question And so I come to the third general part the Danger of Wresting of Scripture in the last words unto their own Damnation The reward of every sin is Death As the worm eats out the heart of the plant that bred it so whatsoever is done amiss naturally works no other end but destruction of him that doth it As this is true in general so is it as true that when the Scripture doth precisely note out unto us some sin and threatens Death unto it it is commonly an argument that there is more then ordinary that there is some especial sin which shall draw with it some especial punishment This sin of Wresting of Scripture in the eye of some of the Antients seemed so ugly that they have ranged it in the same rank with the sin against the holy Ghost And therefore have they pronounced it a sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 greater then can be pardoned For the most part of others sins are sins of infirmity or simplicity but this is a sin of wit and strength the man that doth it doth it with a high hand he knows and sees and resolves upon it Again Scripture is the voice of God and it is confest by all that the sense is Scripture rather then the words It cannot therefore be avoided but he that wilfully strives to fasten some sense of his own upon it other then the very nature of the place will bear must needs take upon him the Person of God and become a new inditer of Scripture and all that applaud and give consent unto any such in effect cry the same that the people did to Herod The voice of God and not of man If he then that abases the Princes Coin deserves to die what is his desert that instead of the tried silver of Gods word stamps the Name and Character of God upon Nehushtan upon base brasen stuff of his own Thirdly No Scripture is of private interpretation saith the Apostle There can therefore be but two certain and infallible interpreters of Scripture either it self or the holy Ghost the Author of it It self doth then expound it self when the words and circumstances do sound unto us the prime and natural and principal sense But when the place is obscure involved and intricate or when there is contained some secret and hidden mystery beyond the prime sense infallibly to shew us this there can be no Interpreter but the holy Ghost that gave it Besides these two all other Interpretation is private Wherefore as the Lords of the Philistines sometimes said of the kine that drew the Ark unto Bethshemesh If they go of themselves then is this from God but if they go another way then is it not from God it is some chance that hath happened unto us so may it be said of all pretended sense of Scripture If Scripture come unto it of it self then is it of God but if it go another way or if it be violently urged and goaded on then is it but a matter of chance of mans wit and invention As for those marvellous discourses of some framed upon presumption of the Spirits help in private in judging or interpreting of difficult places of Scripture I must needs confess I have often wondred at the boldness of them The Spirit is a thing of dark and secret operation the manner of it none can descry As underminers are never seen till they have wrought their purpose so the Spirit is never perceived but by its effects The effects of the Spirit as far as they concern knowledge and instruction are not particular information for resolution in any doubtful case for this were plainly revelation but as the Angel which was sent unto Cornelius informs him not but sends him to Peter to school so the Spirit teaches not but stirs up in us a desire to learn desire to learn makes us thirst after the means and pious sedulity and carefulness makes us watchful in the choice and diligent in the use of our means The promise to the Apostles of the Spirit which should lead them into all truth was made good unto them by private and secret informing their understandings with the knowledge of high and heavenly mysteries which as yet had never entred into the conceit of any man The same promise is made to us but fulfilled after another manner For what was written by revelation in their hearts for our instruction have they written in their books To us for information otherwise then out of these books the Spirit speaks not When the Spirit regenerates a man it infuses no knowledge of any point of faith but sends him to the Church and to the Scriptures When it stirs him up to newness of life it exhibits not unto him an inventory of his sins as hitherto unknown but either supposes them known in the Law of Nature of which no man can be ignorant or sends him to learn them from the mouth of his teachers More then this in the ordinary proceeding of the holy Spirit in matter of instruction I yet could never descry So that to speak of the help of the Spirit in private either in dijudicating or in interpreting of Scripture is to speak they know not what Which I do the rather note first because by experience we have learnt how apt men are to call their private conceits the Spirit and again because it is the especial errour with which S. Austine long ago charged this kind of men Tanto sunt ad seditionem faciliores quanto sibi videntur spiritu excellere by so much the more prone are they to kindle Schism and contention in the Church by how much they seem to themselves to be endued with a more eminent measure of Spirit then
death and hell you shall in these words find nothing pertinent But if you take this Resurrection for that act by which through the power of saving grace Christ the Sun of righteousness rises in our hearts and raises us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness here in these words you may perchance find a notable branch of it For to raise our thoughts from this earth and clay and from things beneath and such are those which here Abraham calls The good things of our life and to set them above where Christ sits at the right hand of God this is that practick Resurrection which above all concerns us that other of Christ in Person in regard of us is but a Resurrection in speculation for to him that is dead in sin and trespasses and who places his good in the things of this life Christ is as it were not risen at all to such a one he is still in the grave and under the bands of death But to him that is risen with Christ and seeks that good things that are above to him alone is Christ risen To know and beleive perfectly the whole story of Christ's Resurrection what were it if we did not practise this Resurrection of our own Cogita non exacturum à te Deum quantum cognovâ—ris sed quantum vixeris God will not reckon with thee how much thou knowest but how well thou hast lived Epictetus that great Philosopher makes this pretty Parable Should a Shepherd saith he call his sheep to account how they had profited would he like of that sheep which brought before him his hay his grass and fodder or rather that sheep which having well digested all these exprest himself in fat in flesh and wooll Beloved you are the flock of Christ and the sheep of his hands should the great Shepherd of the flock call you before him to see how you have profited would he content himself with this that you had well Con'd your Catechism that you had diligently read the Gospel and exactly knew the whole story of the Resurrection would it not give him better satisfaction to find Christ's Resurrection exprest in yours and as it were digested into flesh and wooll 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To have read Chrysippus his Book this is not virtue To have read the Gospel to have gathered all the circumstances of the Resurrection of Christ this is not Christianity to have risen as Christ hath done so to have digested the Resurrection of Christ as that we have made it our own this is rightly to understand the Doctrine of the Resurrection of Christ. For this cause have I refused to treat this day of that Resurrection in the Doctrine of which I know you are perfect and have reflected on that in the knowledge of which I fear you are imperfect which that I might the better do I have made choice to prosecute my former Meditations begun when I last spake unto you in this place For so doing I shall open unto you one of the hardest points of your Spiritual Resurrection even to raise your thoughts from the things of this life and seat them with Christ above To make my way more fair to this I will take leave to put you in mind in short how I proceeded in the opening of these words when I last spake unto you out of this place You may be pleased to remember that after some instruction drawn from the first word Son I proceeded to consider the ensuing words wherein having by an Alchimy which then I used changed the word Recordare Remember into Cave Beware and so read my Text thus Beware thou receive not thy good things in this life I shewed you that we had never greater cause to consult our best wits what we are to do and how we are to carry our selves then when the world and outward blessings come upon us Upon this I moved this Question Whether or no if the things of this world should by some providence of God knock and offer themselves to us we are bound to exclude them and refuse them or we might open and admit of them I divided my answer according to the divers abilities and strengths of men First Qui potest capere capiat he that hath strength and spiritual wisdom to manage them let him receive them But in the second place he that is weak let him let strong diet alone and feed on herbs let him not intangle himself with more then he can manage Let him try Quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri To the first the sum of what I spake was this Receive them we may and that without danger of a Recepisti first if we so received them as if we received them not secondly if we esteemed them not good thirdly if we did not esteem them ours And here the time cut me off and suffered me not to descend unto the second part upon which now I am about to fall Cave ne recipias Take heed thou receive not thy good things In this matter of Receiving and entertaining these outward and foreign good things there have been two ways commended to you the one the more glorious to receive them of this we have spoken The other the more safe not to receive them of this we are now to speak These ways are trodden by two kinds of persons the one is the strong man and more virtuous the other is weaker but more cautelous the one encounters temptation the other avoids it We may compare them to the two great Captains Hannibal and Fabius the one ever calling for the battel the other evermore declining it In one of these two ranks must every good man be found if we compare them together we shall find that the one is far more excellent the other far more in number For to be able to meet and check our enemy to encounter occasions to act our parts in common life upon the common stage and yet to keep our uprightness this indeed is truly to live truly to serve God and men and therefore God the more because men On the contrary to avoid occasions to follow that other vincendi genus non pugnare to overcome the world by contemning and avoiding it this argues a wise indeed but a weak and fainting spirit I have often wondred at Antiquity which doting extremely upon a sequestred a solitary retired and Monkish life sticks not to give out that all perfection is in it whereas indeed there is no greater argument of imperfection in good men quam non posse pati solem non multitudinem not to be able without offence to walk the publick ways to entertain the common occasions but to live onely to God and to themselves Vtilis ipse sibi fortassis inutilis orbi Men of no great publick use but excellent for themselves Saints indeed in private but being called forth into common life are like Batts in the Sun utterly ignorant of publick practise like Scheubelius a great
Mathematician but by book onely and not by practise who being required sometime in an Army to make use of his Quadrant knew not the difference between umbra recta and umbra versa Yet Beloved because this kind of good men is by far the greatest in number and secondly because it is both an usual and a dangerous errour of many men to pretend to strength when they are but weak and so forgetting their place range themselves among the first whereas they ought to have kept station among the second sort I will take leave both to advise my self and all that hear me to like better of the safer though the weaker side and to avoid the exprobration of a Recepisti here in my Text simply non recipiendo by not receiving not admitting at all of the outward lower and temporal good things rather then by an improvident fool-hardiness to thrust our selves upon occasions which we are unable to manage without offence This I am the more willing to do because there is not among men a greater errour committed and more frequent then in this kind for in most things in the world men that have no skill in them will be content to acknowledge their ignorance and to give place to better experience should we put the discussion of some point of Scholarship to the Plough-hind or a Case in Law to the Physician or a point in Physick to the Lawyer none of these will offer to interpose but will advise to consult with every one in his proper mystery but let offer be made of moneys lands places of honour and preferment and who will excuse himself who will acknowledge his ignorance or weakness to manage them Whereas in all the Arts and Sciences there are not so many errours committed as in the unskilful use of these things cum tamen nusquam periculosius erretur and yet our errours are no where so dangerous It is therefore a thing most necessary that in this behalf we advise men either to know their weakness or to suspect their strength Malo cautior esse quam fortior fortis saepe captus est cautus rarissime better to be cautelous and wary then strong and hardy the strong man hath been often captivated but the wary man very seldom We read in many places of Moses and Samuel of a race of men greater in bulk and stature then the ordinary men unto whom men of common inches seemed but as Grashoppers such were the Anakims the Enims the Horims the Zamzummims the Rephaims and the like but if you read the Scriptures you shall find it observed unto your hand that the men of lesser bodies always drove them out if you demand the reason experience will answer you that the one went upon the opinion of strength and hardiness the other of wary wit and policy It fares no otherwise with these two orders of men of which I have spoken there is the Anakim the man that goes forth in the conceit of his strength and valour there is the man of mean stature whose strength is his wariness were there a survey taken of both these it would be found that more by far have perished by unadvised adventuring upon the things of this world then by discreet and sober retiring Wherefore dost thou find that thou comest on and thrivest in the world that the good things of this world wooe thee and cast themselves into thy lap that wealth that honours that abundance waits upon thee take heed how thou presume of thy strength to manage them look well upon them and see if there be not written in the fore-head of every one of them Recepisti But Beloved I perceive I deceive my self for these gay things of the world carry not their Recepisti in their fore-heads as they come towards us they are smooth and fair you can prognosticate nothing by their countenance but serene and Summer weather Our great master Aristotle hath told us That if our pleasures did look upon us when they come to us as they do when they turn their back and leave us we would never entertain them these goodly things have their Recepisti written in their back it is never discovered till it be too late to mend it when death summons us when the world the flesh the glory and pomp of life turns its back and leaves us then shall you read Recepisti Cave therefore presume not but be wary and that thou mayest avoid a Recepisti cave nerecipias be sure that thou receive not How many of those think you who out of their opinion of skill and strength have given free entertainment to the world have made large use of the world lived abundantly fared costly dwelt sumptuously clothed themselves richly when their time and hour came would rather have gone out of some poor cottage then out of a Princely Palace and lived with no noise in the world that so they might have died in some peace See you not what some great Persons in the Church of Rome have often done Charles 5 the Prince of Parma sundry others though they lived in all pomp and state yet at their death they desired to be buried in a poor Capuchin's hood miserable men If to die in a state of perfect sequestration from the world were so precious so available a thing how much more precious more available had it been to live in it For thus to die not having thus lived is nothing else but to give sentence against their own life for we shall not appear before God as we died but as we lived To profess hate and dissertion of the world at our death as most do to put on humiliation at our death that live at ease and in state all our life this is but to be buried in a Capuchin's hood What is it beloved that thus reforms our judgment and clears our sight at that hour Nothing but this all our pleasures all our honours all the May-games of our life they now shall shew themselves unto us and every one cry out unto us Recepistt Thou hast received thy good things Now Beloved that I may a little the better strengthen with good reason this my advice de non recipiendo of retiring from and rejecting the goodly things of the world give me leave a little to consult with my Topicks and to try out of what place I may draw some arguments to bring you on the easier And first of all were there no other reason to perswade you yet the very reading of this story where I have taken my Text would afford arguments enough for what meant Abraham I beseech you when he told the rich man he had received his good things Did he use some obscure and unknown phrase which no circumstance of the story could open It stands not with the goodness of the Holy Ghost to tell us of our danger in unknown Language something therefore certainly we shall find to open the meaning cast back your eye upon the description of the
or to avenge their own wrongs and so to decline the sentence of the Magistrate is quite to cut off all use of Authority Indeed it hath been sometimes seen that the event of a Battel by consent of both Armies hath been put upon single Combat to avoid further effusion of bloud but Combats betwixt Subjects for private causes till these latter Ages of the world was never allowed yet I must confess the practise of it is very ancient For Cain the second man in the world was the first Duelist the first that ever challenged the Feild in the fourth of Genesis the Text saith That Cain spake unto his Brother and when they were in the Feild he arose and slew him The Septuagint to make the sense more plain do add another clause and tell us what it was he said unto his brother 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us go out into the feild and when they were in the feild he arose and slew him Let us go out into the feild it is the very form and proper language of a Challenge Many times indeed our Gallants can formalize other words but evermore the substance and usually the very words are no other but these of Cain Let us go out into the Feild Abel I perswade my self understood them not as a challenge for had he so done he would have made so much use of his discretion as to have refused it yet can we not chuse but acknowledge a secret judgment of God in this that the words of Cain should still be so Religiously kept till this day as a Proem and Introduction to that action which doubtless is no other then what Cain's was When therefore our Gallants are so ready to challange the Feild and to go into the Feild let them but remember whose words they use and so accordingly think of their action Again notwithstanding Duels are of so antient and worshipful a Parentage yet could they never gain so good acceptance as to be permitted much less to be counted lawful in the civil part of the world till Barbarism had over-ran it About five or six hundred years after Christ at the fall of the Roman Empire aboundance of rude and barbarous people brake in and possest the civiller part of the world who abolishing the ancient Laws of the Empire set up many strange Customs in their rooms Amongst the rest for the determining of quarrels that might arise in case of doubtful title or of false accusation or the like they put themselves upon many unusual forms of Trial as to handle red hot Iron to walk bare-foot on burning coals to put their hands and feet in scalding water and many other of the like nature which are reckoned up by Hottoman a French Lawyer For they presumed so far on Gods providence that if the party accused were innocent he might do any of these without any smart or harm In the same cases when by reason of unsufficient and doubtful evidence the Judges could not proceed to Sentence as sometimes it falls out and the parties contending would admit of no reasonable composition their manner was to permit them to try it out by their swords that so the Conquerour might be thought to be in the right They permitted I say thus to do for at the best 't was but a permission to prevent farther mischeif for to this end sometimes some known abuses are tolerated So God permitted the Jews upon sleight occasions to put their wives away because he saw that otherwise their exorbitant lusts would not be bounded within these limits which he is Paradise in the beginning had set And it is observed of the wise men which had the managing and bringing up of Nero the Emperour that they suffered him to practise his lusts upon Acte one of his Mothers Chamber-maids Ne in stupra foeminarum illustrium perrumperet si illa libidine prohiberetur Lest if he were forbidden that he should turn his lust upon some of the Noble-women Permission and toleration warrants not the goodness of any action But as Caiaphas said Better one man die then all the people perish so they that first permitted Duels seem to have thought better one or two mutinous persons and disorderly die in their folly then the whole Common-wealth to be put into tumult and combustion yet even by these men it was never so promiscuously tolerated that every hasty couple upon the venting of a little choler should presently draw their swords but it was a publick or solemn action done by order with inspection either of the Prince himself or of some other Magistrate appointed to order it Now certainly there can be no very great reason for that action which was thus begun by Cain and continued onely by Goths and Vandals and meer Barbarism Yet that we may a little better acquaint our selves with the quality of it let us a little examine the causes and pretences which are brought by them who call for trial by single Combat The causes are usually two First disdain to seem to do or suffer any thing for fear of death Secondly point of honour and not to suffer any contumely and indignity especially if it bring with it dis-reputation and note of cowardise For the first Disdain to fear death I must confess I have often wondred with my self how men durst die so ventrously except they were sure they died well In aliis rebus siquid erratum est potest post modum corrigi in other things which are learnt by practising if we mistake we may amend it for the errour of a former action may be corrected in the next we learn then by erring and men come at length not to err by having often erred but no man learns to die by practising it we die but once and a fault committed then can never afterward be amended quia poena statim sequitur errorem because the punishment immediately follows upon the errour To die is an action of that moment that we ought to be very well advised when we come to it Ab hoc momento pendet aeternitas you may not look back upon the opinion of honour and reputation which remains behind you but rather look forward upon that infinite space of Eternity either of bliss or bale which befalls us immediately after our last breath To be loath to die upon every sleight occasion is not a necessary sign of fear and cowardise He that knew what life is and the true use of it had he many lives to spare yet would he be loth to part with one of them upon better terms then those our Books tell us that Aristippus a Philosopher being at Sea in a dangerous Tempest and bewraying some fear when the weather was cleared up a desperate Ruffian came and upbraided him with it and tells him That it was a shame that he professing wisdom should be afraid of his life whereas himself having had no such education exprest no agony or dread at all To whom the Philosopher replied there
for both these are compatible for a time If then we look upon the persons of Peter and Iudas both of them are in the state of mortal sin unrepented of and therefore both in state of damnation but if we look back unto God we shall see a hand reach'd out unto St. Peter pulling him back as he is now running down the hill which hand we do not see reach'd out unto Iudas Christ had a look in store for St. Peter which if it had pleased him to have lent unto Iudas Iudas would have done that which St. Peter did When then we pronounce St. Peter and in him any of the Elect of God as they are in St. Peter's case to be fallen from grace we speak not with relation to any purpose of God but we mean onely that they have not that measure of Sanctification which ought to be in every child which shall be an heir to life and what hinders to pronounce that man fallen from grace whom we must needs acknowledge to be in that state in which if he continue there is no way open but to death What then may some men say had St. Peter lost the Spirit of Adoption had he not those sanctifying qualities of Faith Hope and Charity which are proper to the Saints and are given them by divine inspiration in the moment of their conversion was that immortal seed of the Word quite kill'd No verily How then Having all these may he not yet be called the child of death I answer he may and is indeed so for these do not make him that at no time he can be so but that finally he shall not be so for they are not armour of proof to keep out all darts neither do they make our souls invulnerable as the Poets fain the body of Cyenus or Achilles to have been but they are precious balms ever more ready at hand to cure the wound when it is given They are not of force to hinder mortal sin for then every soul in whom they are were pure undefiled neither were it possible that the Elect of God after their conversion should fall but they are of force to work repentance which makes all our wounds remediable He that is mortally sick and dies and he that is likewise mortally sick and through help of restoring physick recovers in this both agree that they are mortally sick notwithstanding the recovery of one party The wound of St. Peter and of Judas was mortal and in both festred unto death but there was balm in Gilead for St. Peter for Iudas there was none The sting of the fiery Scorpion in the Wilderness was deadly and all that looked not on the Brazen Serpent died the Brazen Serpent altered not the quality of the Scorpion's sting it onely hindred the working of the poison The sting of sin in St. Peter and in Iudas was deadly but he that was lift up on mount Calvary as the Brazen Serpent was in the Wilderness at him did St. Peter look and live Iudas did not look and therefore died How comes it about Beloved that God every where in Scripture threatens death without exception to all that repent not if the state of sin unrepented of in whomsoever it is be not indeed the state of death When David was intending to stay in Keilah and suspecting the inhabitants of that City asks of God whether the men of Keilah would deliver him over into the hand of Saul God tells him they would and therefore certainly had he stayed there he had been betrayed unto Saul To urge that St. Peter because of God's purpose to save him could not have finally miscarried though he had died without repentance as some have not stuck to give out is nothing else in effect but to maintain against God that David had he stayed in Keilah had not fallen into Saul's hands because we know it was God's purpose to preserve David from the violence of Saul All the determinations of God are of equal certainty It was no more possible for Saul to seize on David then it is for the Devil to pull one of God's Elect out of his hand as therefore the determinate purpose of God to free David from the malice of Saul took not away that supposition If David go to Keilah he shall fall into the hands of Saul So neither doth the Decree of God to save his Elect destroy the supposition If they repent not they die eternally for the purposes of God though impossible to be defeated yet lay not upon things any violent necessity they exempt not from the use of ordinary means they infringe not our liberty they stand very well with common casualty yea these things are the very means by which his Decrees are brought about I may not stand longer upon this I will draw but one short admonition and so to an end Let no man presume to look into the Third Heaven to open the Books of Life and Death to pronounce over peremptorily of God's purpose concerning himself or any other man Let every man look into himself and try whether he be in the faith or no The surest means to try this is to take an unpartial veiw of all our actions Many deceive themselves whilst they argue from their Faith to their Works whereas they ought out of their Works to conclude their Faith whilst presuming they have Faith and the gifts of sanctification they think all their actions warrantable whereas we ought first throughly to sift all our actions to examine them at the Touch of God's Commandments and if indeed we find them currant then to conclude that they come from the sanctifying Graces of the holy Spirit It is Faith indeed that gives the tincture the die the relish unto our actions yet the onely means to examine our Faith is by our Works It is the nature of the Tree that gives the goodness the savour and pleasantness to the Fruit yet the Fruit is the onely means to us to know whether the Tree be good By their fruit ye shall know them saith Christ It is not a rule not onely to know others but our selves too To reason thus I am of the Elect I therefore have saving Faith and the rest of the sanctifying qualities therefore that which I do is good thus I say to reason is very preposterous We must go a quite contrary course and thus reason My life is good and through the mercies of God in Iesus Christ shall stand with God's Justice I therefore have the gifts of Sanctification and therefore am of God's Elect For St. Peter to have said with himself I am of the Elect this sin therefore cannot endanger me had been great presumption but thus to have reasoned My sin is deadly therefore except I repent I am not of the number of God's Elect this reasoning had well befitted St. Peter and becomes every Christian man whom common frailty drives into the like distress I made my entrance into my Sermon with the consideration
once turn'd a little water into wine then every year in so many Vine-trees to turn that into wine in the branches which being received at the root was mere water Or why was it more wonderful for him once to feed five thousand with five loaves then every year to feed the whole world by the strange multiplication of a few seeds cast into the ground After the same manner do we by the daily actions of Christian men For why is it a greater miracle to raise the dead then for every man to raise himself from the death of sin to the life of righteousness Why seems it more miraculous to open the eyes of him that was born blind then for every one of us to open the eyes of his understanding which by reason of Original corruption was born blind For by the same finger by the same power of God by which the Apostles wrought these miracles doth every Christian man do this and without this finger it is as impossible for us to do this as for the Apostles to do the miracles they did without the assistance of the extraordinary power of Christ. So that hitherto in nothing are we found inferiour unto the cheif Apostles what if there be some things we cannot do shall this prejudice our power It is a saying in Quintilian Oportet Grammaticum quaedam ignorare It must not impeach the learning of a good Grammarian to be ignorant of some things for there are many unnecessary quillets and quirks in Grammar of which to purchase the knowledge were but loss of labour and time Beloved in the like manner may we speak of our selves Oportet Christianum quaedam non posse it must not disparage the power of a Christian that he cannot do some things For in regard of the height and excellency of his profession these inferiour things which he cannot do they are nought else but Grammar quirks and to be ambitious to do them were but a nice minute and over-superstitious diligence And yet a Christian if he list may challenge this power that he can do all things yea even such things as he cannot do St. Austin answering a question made unto him why the gift of Tongues was ceased in the Church and no man spake with that variety of Languages which divers had in the Primitive times wittily tells us That every one may justly claim unto himself that miraculous gift of Tongues For since the Church which is the body of Christ of which we are but members is far and wide disperst over the earth and is in sundry Nations which use sundry Languages every one of us may well be said to speak with divers Tongues because in that which is done by the whole or by any part of it every part may claim his share Beloved how much more by this reason may every one of us lay a far directer claim to an absolute power of doing all things even in its largest extent since I say not some inferiour member but Christ who is our Head hath this power truly rcsident in him Howsoever therefore in each member it seems to be but partial yet in our Head it is at full and every one of us may assume to our selves this power of doing all things because we are subordinate members unto that Head which can do all things But I must leave this and go on to the remainder of my Text. Hitherto I have spoken first of the person I. Secondly of his power can do I should by order of the words proceed in the third place unto the subject or object of this power pointed out unto us in this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things But the subject of this Christian power hath been so necessarily wrapped up and tied together with the power that for the opening of it I have been constrain'd to exemplifie at large both what this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this all things is and how far it doth extend so that to enter upon it anew were but to trouble you with repetition of what is already sufficiently opened I will go on therefore unto the second General of my Text. For here me thinks that question might be asked which Dalilah asked of Sampson Tell me I pray thee wherein this great strength lieth Behold Beloved it is expressed in the last words through Christ that strengtheneth This is as I told you that hair wherein that admirable strength of a Christian doth reside I confess I have hitherto spoken of wonderful things and hardly to be credited wherefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest the strangeness of the argument call my credit into question Loe here I present unto you the ground of all this A small matter sometimes seems wonderful till the cause of it be discovered but as soon as we know the cause we cease to marvel how strange soever my discourse of Christian omnipotency doth seem yet look but upon this cause and now nothing shall seem incredible For to doubt of the Omnipotency of a Christian is to question the power of Christ himself As the Queen of Sheba told King Solomon that she had heard great things of him in her own countrey but now she saw truth did go beyond report so Beloved he that travels in the first part of my Text and wonders at the strange report of a Christian mans power let him come to the second part to our Solomon to him that is greater then Solomon to Christ and he shall find that the truth is greater then the fame of it for if he that was posses'd of the evil spirit in the Gospel was so strong that being bound with chains and fetters he brake them all of what strength must he be then whom it pleaseth Christ to enable or what chains or fetters shall be put upon him which he will not break From this doctrine therefore that Christ is he that doth thus enable us we learn two lessons which are as it were two props to keep us upright that we lean not either to the right hand or to the left First Not to be dejected or dismay'd by reason of this outward weakness and baseness in which we seem to be Secondly not to be puft up upon opinion and conceit of that strength and glory which is within us and unseen For the first for our own outward weakness be it what it will we cannot be more weak more frail then Gideon's pitchers now as in them their frailty was their strength and by being broken they put to flight the Army of the Midianites so where it pleases Christ to work that which seems weakness shall become strength and turn to flight the strongest adversary Satis sibi copiarum cum Publio Decio nunquam nimium Hostium sore said one in Livie we may apply this unto our selves be we never so weak yet Christ alone is army and forces enough and with him we can never have too many enemies The flesh indeed is weak for so our Saviour tells us yet
to the Land of Promise Yea it is generally thought a matter of congruity that the world go well with every good Christian man Against those I will lay down this one conclusion That if we look into the tenour of the New Testament we shall find that neither the Church nor any Christian man by title of his profession hath any certain claim to any secular blessing Indeed if we look into the Iews Common-wealth and consider the letter of Moses Law they may seem not onely to have a direct promise of Temporal felicity but of no other save that For in the Law God gives to Moses the dispensation of no other but temporal Blessings and Cursings in the xxvj of Leviticus and the xxviij of Deuteronomy where God seems to strive with all possible efficacy to express himself in both kinds there is not a line conteining that which should betide them at their ends all their weal all their woe seem'd to expire with their lives What sense they had of future rewards or with what conceit they passed away to immortality I list not to dispute This suffices to shew that there is a main difference in the hopes of the Church before and since Christ concerning outward prosperity as for Christians to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Chrysostom they have greater and harder races to run greater prizes to take in hand then our Fathers before Christ. The Church was then in her youth she was to be led by sense as a child we are come to the age of perfect men in Christ. That the Church therefore might not deceive her self with this outward peace which is but a peace of ornament he strips her as it were of her borrowed beauty and washes off her Fucus gives her no interest in the world sends her forth into a strange Land as he did Abraham not having possession of a foot and which is yet more not having so much as a promise of any which yet Abraham had If Christ and his Apostles teach as sometimes they do Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and the righteousness thereof and these things shall be cast in upon you That Godliness hath the promise both of this life and of the life to come It is not presently to be conceived that every true Christian man shall doubtless come on and thrive in the world That which they teach is no more but this That we ought not to despair of the Providence of God for look what is the reward and portion of vertue and industry in other men the same and much more shall it have in Christians their goodness shall have the like approbation their moral virtues shall have the like esteem their honest labours shall thrive alike If sometimes it hath fallen out otherwise it is but the same lot which hath befallen virtue and honesty even in the Pagan as well as the Christian. In the fifth of St. Matthew where Christ teacheth us That the meek spirited shall possess the earth think we that it was the intent of the holy Ghost to make men Lords of the earth to endow them with Territories and large Dominions That which he teaches us is but a moral lesson such as common reason and experience confirms That meek and mild spirited men are usually the quietest possessours of what they hold But that these speeches and such as these in the New Testament be not wrong'd by us by being drawn to our avaritious conceits and thought to halt if sometime the meek-spirited become a spoil to the extortioner and be stript of all he hath give me leave to commend unto you one rule for the interpretation of them which will give much ease to unstable minds The holy Ghost delivering general propositions in things subject to variety and humane casualties is to be understood for the truth of them as far as the things themselves are capable of truth and according to the certainty of them There are many propositions fram'd even in Natural things of Eternal truth no instance neither of time nor person can be brought to disprove them our daily experience evermore finds them so There is a second order of things created by God himself subject to mutability which sometimes are not at all and being produced owe their being sometimes to one cause sometimes to another the efficacy of the cause no way being determined to this effect but of it self indifferent to produce it or not The managing of affairs whether in publick of Common-weals or in private of any man's particular state or calling Moral rules of behaviour and carriage yea all the things that are spoken concerning the temporal weal or woe of actions good or bad they are all ranged in this second order Now in all these things it is impossible there should be propositions made of unavoidable certainty If the rules and observations drawn for our direction ut plurimum usually and in the ordinary course of events hold currant it is enough to make them Maxims of Truth it matters not though at some time upon some occasions in some person they fail Now from the condition of these things the propositions made by the holy Ghost himself are by their Authour not exempted In the Book of the Proverbs the holy Ghost hath registred such store of Moral wisdom and Precepts of carriage in temporal matters that all the wisdom of the Heathen most renowned for Morality come far short of it These Precepts though with us they have as indeed they ought to have much more credibility as delivered unto us by an Authour of surer observation and exempted from all possibility of errour yet notwithstanding in regard of the things themselves they are of the like certainty of the same degree of truth when we find them in the Writings of these famous Ethnicks whom it pleased the holy Spirit to endue with Natural wisdom and Moral discretion which they have when we read them registred in the Oracles of God and thesame uncertainty have they in regard of some particulars when they be spoken by Solomon which they have when they are uttered by Plato or Euripides Solomon much inveigheth against the folly of Suretiship was it therefore never heard of that a wise man was surety for his neighbour with good success I. Caesar when he thought to have upheld his estate through mercy and clemency lost his life is it therefore false which Solomon teacheth that Mercy upholdeth the throne of the King He knew well and his son had dear experience of it that the peoples hearts are won and kept by mild and merciful dealing rather then by rough and tyrannous proceedings yet he could not be ignorant that even Kings sometimes reap mischeif and death there where they have plentifully sowed love and mercy Thus then and no otherwise are we to understand the holy Ghost preaching unto us the reward of the meek-spirited and the promises of this life to the godly For we are not to suppose that God in
and Religious Vow or what request is it that this great Suitour moves to so great a Lord Nothing else but bread and raiment to put on If God will give me bread to eat and raiment to put on then shall the Lord be my God A suit of the lowest and meanest rank imaginable For which of us all would serve I say not some great King but even a mean Lord at so cheap a hand The wandring Levite in the Book of Iudges which hires out himself to Micha thinks it not enough to have apparel and victuals but he will have ten shekels by the year for his wages We have a common saying No service to the service of a King Iacob it seems finds it not so The wandring Levite finds a better service with a Countrey Farmer then Iacob doth with the great King of Heaven and Earth Food and raiment they are rather Debita then Beneficia they seem rather due debts then favours Non homini dantur sed humanitati None so wicked none so contemptible but thus much is due to him if not to his person yet to his very Nature and Beeing Good Laws and Magistrates many times and in many fashions cut off offenders by death but no Law did ever prescribe nor no good Magistrate did ever practise to take away the life of any offender by starving him Tiberius and Caligula and some others who are recorded to have practised this are noted and pointed out for Tyrants and Monsters of their age He who hath no right to his life as having forfeited it to the Law for some offence yet whil'st his breath remains in him hath a right unto his bread and this a right which nothing can forfeit How then shall we esteem this as a favour for which Iacob doth thus Religiously oblige himself unto God In the first of Samuel God leaves it as a curse upon the posterity of Eli that they should come and crouch for a peice of silver and a morsel of bread and say Put me I pray thee into one of the preists offices that I may eat a peice of bread When Iacob doth thus sell himself unto God for food and raiment what is it else in outward shew but a peice of that curse which is laid upon the posterity of Elie Yet all this which we have said and what else to the same purpose may be said notwithstanding the parts of my Text do all hold one with another good symmetry and proportion there is nothing amiss nothing to be amended in them As some curious Statues if ye look upon them not in their due light and distance seem very ill-favour'd and disproportion'd but veiw them at their light and distance and nothing shall seem more beautiful more proportionable So Beloved fares it with this Text of Scripture how deform'd and disproportion'd soever it may seem to sense and in that which sense doth yeild yet if we look into it in the right spiritual light with which God endows those which are spiritually minded we shall not find any thing fuller of true art and beauty That I may therefore help you a little and place you in the true light I will consider this Vow of Iacob's first comparatively in regard of himself and secondly absolutely in its own nature and out of both draw lessons for your instruction And first of the Vow comparatively in regard of the person vowing Where First of all I will speak a little by way of concession and grant For let it be supposed that it had been some small and contemptible thing that Iacob had ask'd such a thing that a great heart would scarcely have deign'd to stoop to yet Iacob had done nothing unbefitting himself Timanthes was a famous Painter among the Antients and it was observed of his peices that there was always in them somewhat more then was express'd He pictur'd Hercules sleeping in a small Table but that it might be known to be the draught of a man of extraordinary bulk and stature he drew two Pigmies by him taking the compass and measure of his Thumb This act of Iacob's like to one of Timanthes peices there is more to be understood in it then is exprest for though it seem but small and nothing proportionable to so great a person yet if we compass and fathom it well we shall understand a greater lesson contain'd in it Iacob dedicating himself unto God upon such easie terms and accepting a thing so small shewed most apparently what esteem he had of his God and that he valu'd him in his person not in his benefits and hath left unto us an absolute example in what manner we ought to love our God To love God for himself this is to be a freind of God to love him for his benefits this is to be a Merchant Could Iacob have passed by food and raiment as well as he did all other good benefits of God he would not have given himself thus unto God upon composition but absolutely and without condition Now he is constrain'd to fall upon the condition of food and raiment for without this he could not love his God because without this he could not subsist or have his being By this he evidently witnesses that he therefore and for no other end desired to be but onely to love and serve his God It was God alone and his good acceptance which Iacob doth here compound for under the terms of food and raiment It was an excellent speech of Crispus Passienus a witty Gentleman of Rome Quorundam se judicium malle quam beneficium quorundam beneficium malle quam judicium Some man's love is better then some man's money some man's respect and good opinion is more to be esteem'd then another man's benefit Malo Divi Augusti judicium malo Claudii beneficium I had rather have Augustus's good opinion then reap any benefit or commodity by him for he was a wise understanding Prince but I had rather reap some benefit by Claudius then have his good opinion for he was a Prince of shallow and weak understanding Doth not Iacob here express the same conceit It seems he doth For when he came to compound with men he made his bargain in another manner When he came to Laban he would not serve him for bread and raiment onely but fourteen years he serves him for his wives and six years for his flock By these means he rais'd unto himself a great and numerous family and became rich and wealthy Why did he thus could he not have covenanted with God as he did with Laban and so have grown rich at an easier hand He could but in dealing with God and with Laban his end was not the same Maluit Dei judicium maluit Labanis beneficium with God he sought acceptance and good opinion with Laban he sought his own commodity for what could the good opinion of a fool profit him for spell Laban a little but the other way and Nabal is his name and folly
many times draw Pictures of fair Women and call them Helen or Venus or of great Emperours and call them Alexander or Caesar yet we know they carry no resemblance of the persons whose names they bear So when men write and decipher actions long before their time they may do it with great wit and elegancy express much politick wisdom frame very beautiful peices but how far they express the true countenance and life of the actions themselves of this it were no impiety to doubt unless we were assured they drew it from those who knew and saw what they did One thing more ere I leave this Head I will admonish you of It is a common Scholical errour to fill our papers and Note-books with observations of great and famous events either of great Battels or Civil Broiles and contentions The expedition of Hercules his off-spring for the recovery of Peloponnese the building of Rome the attempt of Regulus against the great Serpent of Bagradas the Punick Wars the ruine of Carthage the death of Caesar and the like Mean while things of ordinary course and common life gain no room in our Paper-books Petronius wittily and sharply complain'd against Scholemasters in his times Adolescentulos in Scholis stultissimos fieri quia nihil ex iis quae in usu habemus aut audiunt aut vident sed piratas cum catenis in littore stantes tyrannicos edicta scribentes quibus imperent filiis ut patrum suorum capita praecidant sed responsa in pestilentia data ut virgines tres aut plures immolentur in which he wisely reproves the errour of those who training up of youth in the practise of Rhetorick never suffered them to practise their wits in things of use but in certain strange supralunary arguments which never fell within the sphere of common action This complaint is good against divers of those who travel in History For one of the greatest reasons that so many of them thrive so little and grow no wiser men is because they sleight things of ordinary course and observe onely great matters of more note but less use How doth it benefit a man who lives in peace to observe the Art how Caesar managed wars or by what cunning he aspired to the Monarchy or what advantages they were that gave Scipio the day against Hannibal These things may be known not because the knowledge of these things is useful but because it is an imputation to be ignorant of them their greatest use for you being onely to furnish out your discourse Let me therefore advise you in reading to have a care of those discourses which express domestick and private actions especially if they be such wherein your self purposes to venture your fortunes For if you rectifie a little your conceit you shall see that it is the same wisdome which manages private business and State affairs and that the one is acted with as much folly and ease as the other If you will not beleive men then look into our Colledges where you shall see that I say not the plotting for an Headship for that is now become a Court-business but the contriving of a Bursership of twenty nobles a year is many times done with as great a portion of suing siding supplanting and of other Court-like Arts as the gaining of the Secretary's place onely the difference of the persons it is which makes the one Comical the other Tragical To think that there is more wisdom placed in these specious matters then in private carriages is the same errour as if you should think there were more Art required to paint a King then a Countrey Gentleman whereas our Dutch Pieces may serve to confute you wherein you shall see a cup of Rhenish-wine a dish of Radishes a brass Pan an Holland Cheese the Fisher-men selling Fish at Scheveling or the Kitchen-maid spitting a loin of Mutton done with as great delicacy and choiceness of Art as can be expressed in the Delineation of the greatest Monarch in the world From the order of Reading and the matters in Reading to be observed we come to the method of observation What order we are for our best use to keep in entring our Notes into our Paper-Books The custom which hath most prevailed hitherto was common placing a thing at the first Original very plain and simple but by after-times much increased some augmenting the number of the Heads others inventing qâ—â—â—ter forms of disposing them till at length Common-place-books became like unto the Roman Breviarie or Missal It was a great part of Clerk-ship to know how to use them The Vastness of the Volumes the multitude of Heads the intricacy of disposition the pains of committing the Heads to memory and last of the labour of so often turning the Books to enter the observations in their due places are things so expensive of time and industry that although at length the work comes to perfection yet it is but like the Silver Mines in Wales the profit will hardly quit the pains I have often doubted with my self whether or no there were any necessity of being so exactly Methodical First because there hath not yet been found a Method of that Latitude but little reading would furnish you with some things which would fall without the compass of it Secondly because men of confused dark and clowdy understandings no beam or light of order and method can ever rectifie whereas men of clear understanding though but in a mediocrity if they read good Books carefully and note diligently it is impossible but they should find incredible profit though their Notes lie never so confusedly The strength of our natural memory especially if we help it by revising our own Notes the nature of things themselves many times ordering themselves and tantum non telling us how to range them a mediocrity of care to see that matters lie not too Chaos-like will with very small damage save us this great labour of being over-superstitiously methodical And what though peradventure something be lost Exilis domus est c. It is a sign of great poverty of Scholarship where every thing that is lost is miss'd whereas rich and well accomplish'd learning is able to lose many things with little or no inconvenience Howsoever it be you that are now about the noon of your day and therefore have no leisure to try and examine Methods and are to bring up a young Gentleman who in all likelihood will not be over-willing to take too much pains may as I think with most ease and profit follow this order In your reading excerpe and note in your Books such things as you like going on continually without any respect unto order and for the avoiding of confusion it shall be very profitable to allot some time to the reading again of your own Notes which do as much and as oft as you can For by this means your Notes shall be better fixt in your memory and your memory will easily supply you of things