compassion how much more Grace and that sundry waies As first by that argument that we are all members of one mysticall body and fellow-members one with another which hath beene formerly urged Of this body the Head is Christ who hath shewed this sympathy by his owne example which also hath beene evidenced already To which let this be added out of one of the ancients This forme of piety saith he Christ the mediatour betweene God and man hath shewed unto men who doubtlesse without dying might have saved us from Death if hee would But he rather chose to redeeme man by dying for man His love had not beene so great unto us unlesse he had taken upon him our woundes neither had he so effectually shewed the force of his charity if he had not for a time taken on himselfe that which hee came to take from us Hee found us mortall who made us able to continue immortall And hee who by his word so made us could have restored us by the same word without his Death But to shew how powerfull his compassion was towads us he became that for us which he would not have us continue to be Himselfe undertooke death for us that so he might for ever free us from Death Let the same minde be in us Christians towards our fellow members which was in our head Christ towards us otherwise wee cannot bee true Christians How can wee hope for salvation by him if we be not living members of his body If wee be living members then are wee feeling members As long as the member is in the body it is effected with the griefe of any part of the body But if it be either dead or cut off from the body let the body bee dismembred or cut into a thousand peeces it feeleth not so is every Christian who is not affected with the affliction of another Christian. Such doe shew themselves to be no better then rotten branches in the Vine and must exspect no better reward then the true Vine awardeth them Men doe gather such and doe cast them into the fire and they are burned Besides if we enter into a due consideration of the persons suffering how many things doe wee meet with which may moove an obdurate heart to pity them They are men should we see a man beating his horse his dog as our men are beaten by these circumcised dogs wee would pity the poore beast and crie out that the owner were a verier beast then that he beateth They are our country-men and unto many neare kinsemen Were they forraigners and strangers how could wee but relent at the relation of their miseries Can any true Christian heare or read without teares the relation of the Imperialists cruelty in Bohemia or in Magdenburge or Spanish Immanities among the West Indians Yet these were strangers farre remote from us and these last men of another world They are Christians and consequently our brethren Were they enemies wee could not wish them worse on earth then that which they endure Nay were they Turks a Christian would hardly see without griefe a Turke to suffer that of others which Christians doe of Turkes Can we then heare of those miseries which men our owne country-men our brethren doe endure and not consider them Consider and not compassionate them Compassionate and not straine our abilities to the uttermost to relieve them They are the living Temples of God Should wee suffer Gods Temples to be possessed by Infidels if we could free them Were our owne houses possessed by theeves what would we doe what would we not doe to cleare them What then should we not doe to redeeme the living Temples of the Holy Ghost In my thoughts whensoever we dine or sup in our houses that expostulation of the Lord with the secure Iewes should pluck us by the eares Is this a time O ye to sit in your sieled houses and the house of the Lord to lie wast Is this a time for us to feast it in our houses and to suffer the houses Temples of the holy one of Israel to be possessed by mischievous Mahumetans Then from our sorrowfull brethren reflect wee our thoughts upon our selves and in the scales of our owne estate weigh we the equity of the precept which will not a litle incite us to the performance of it Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them What more equitable You might have beene bound with them yea you might have beene bound and they free if God had so disposed You might have fallen into their bonds and they enjoyed your freedome And would not you then have desired of them what now is required of you towards them Well then you know what their and your Master commandeth Whatsoever you would that men should doe unto you the same doe unto them It might have beene your case it may bee your case you know what is past you know not what is to come Have we not reason to make their case our owne if we consider that it may be our owne It may be your own Nay is it not in some respects your owne already For Are you not in the body as in the end of this verse And what is the body but the prison of the soule Doth not every man living beare about him a walking prison Is not the soule in bonds while it is in the body And it may come to passe before the soule be freed out of this prison the body that the body also may be in bonds and endure captivity Why should any man thinke that any thing incident to man should not befall him seeing he is a man That which happeneth unto one may happen unto any one and soonest perhaps unto him who thinkes it impossible that it should happen unto him When Manasses was on his throne he litle dreamp't of a prison and that he should exchange the gold on his head for irons about his heeles yet so he did And so did King Zedechias and the richest of heathen kings Craesus So did some Emperours of Rome many Emperours of Constantinople one Emperour of the Turkes Should God ever cast us into such calamities we should be the better able to endure them in our selves if we had first felt them in others Then should we also conceive better hope that God would touch the hearts of others to compassionate us if hee have once touched ours to commiserate others But I will prevent falling into the hands of Turkes I trow I purpose not to adventure on the Seas or to come so nigh them as to be caught by them Grant it But thou maist fall fowle with Turkes at home Land-pyrats Vsurers Oppressours or into some other misery that shall enforce thee to crave commiseration as much as ours doe who are in Barbary And art thou sure if thou adventurest not thy selfe on Sea to be safe on land Though thou com'st not neare the Turkes may not they come
sold cauterized scared as wee doe beasts by those who are bipedum nequissimi of all too footed beasts most brutish yoaked together like oxen their owne oxen and horses keeping Holy-day while our miserable bretheren doe beare their burthens and plough the fields to favour them yet not allowed when they have thus laboured the whole day as competent sustenance convenient lodging as we doe our horses oxen but more cruelly beaten when they have done their worke then our beasts are by us when they worke not as wee would Sometimes layd flat on their bellies and receiving an hundred blowes or more on their backes sometimes on their backes and so belly-beaten that they seeme tympanous and bladders rather then bellies sometimes balled with tough cudgels on the soles of their feet untill their feet be swolne unto foot-bals and so left to crall away vsing as well as they can their hands insteed of feet how many upon slight suspition and false suggestion of a fault have beene dragged through the streets on the hard stones by ropes or coards fastned into their bored feet The very pictures of which torments what eyes save those which stand in Turkes heads can behold without teares I will not aggravate those grievances which are already too great by inserting reports how they are aggravated by some of our nation who should rather with every true hearted Christian endevour to ease them not adding more affliction to such heavie bonds Charity bids me to be incredulous of that which griefe and passion causeth some of ours boldly to divulge that there are among us who for their private gaine doe not a little advance the prevailing of the common enemy against their country-men and brethren that ours are surprised with our owne powder and shot and afterwards laden in Barbarie with English gyves and yrons God forbid that it should be so but if it be so may it not be probablie concluded at least conjectured that those incestuous arrowes which have dispersed the noisome Pestilence have come out of this quiver of not compassionating our woefull brethren but rather augmenting their woes God I hope will raise up some happie hand to exhibite to our gratious Soveraignes eyes eares Danmoniorum gemitus as our predecessors the old Brittons pressed by the Picts presented unto the Consul Boëtius Britannorum gemitus but with better successe Neither will that illustrious Peere the Oracle of Iustice in our land faile to performe what he is said to have promised at Plymouth with tearefull eyes the evidences of a tender and truly religious heart to the mournfull wives and children of these oppressed captives that when he returned to the Court he would become their advocate unto the Majestie of the King Remember him ô my God concerning this who is so vigilant in doing justice at home that he is not dormant in extending mercy to those who suffer extreame misery abroad If any doe aleadge that our owne wants will not suffer us to succour them in theirs I say so too I acknowledge it that our wants who are at libertie doe restraine us from releiuing our brethren who are in barbarous captivity But what wants Want of charity want of the bowels of mercy want of Christian compassion want of feeling our brethrens wants and consequently of true Christianity these these are the wants that doe hinder us How much hath beene lavishly expended in Pompes in Playes in Sibariticall-feasts in Cameleon sutes and Proteus-fashions besides other vanities and yet there is no complaining of want How many soules might have beene ransommed from that Hell on Earth Barbarie with halfe these expences Yet heerein doe men only complaine of want Of all others let us beware of this want of compassion toward our lamentable captived Brethren of whose insupportable bondage if wee have no feeling we our selves are in a farre worse thraldome as one passage in these ensuing meditations will shew us Neither am I singular in this sentence sweet Salvian doubteth not to affirme so much of the men of Carthage while Carthage yet was Christian who frequented stage-playes feasted froliked while some of the Brethren were slaine by the enemy others carried away into captivity As sometimes King Ahasuerus and Haman sate drinking in the Palace while the City Shushan was in perplexity so among them while the walles of their City were surrounded with the sound of the armour of the barbarous beseiger some of the Citizens yea of the Church were mad-merrie at the Theater Some were slaine without others committed fornication within Part of the people without the City were made captive by the enemy part of them within made themselves captives unto vices And these of the two deadly evills underwent the worst it being more tolerable to a true Christian to sustaine the bondage of the body then of the soule as our Saviour affirmeth the Death of the soule to be more formidable then the Death of the body Can we be perswaded that such a people was not captived in minde who could be so merrie in their brethrens captivity Is not he a captive in minde and understanding who can laugh among the slaughters of his brethren who understands not that his owne throat is cut in theirs who thinks not that he himselfe dyes in their Deathes Thus or to this purpose that elegant authour Whose words were they engraven as I wish they were in the hearts of our sin-enslaved Libertines there were some good hope that they would first strive to be freed themselves from their spirituall bondage and then they would be more sensible of their brethrens corporall thraldome In the midst of their myrth they would remember their mercy and account that they should dearely answere for every penny lavisht out in vanity which ought rather to have beene employed in procuring their Christian country-mens liberty And as the Elder Plinie said to his nephew when he saw him walke out some houres without studying Poteras has horas non perdere so would these say to themselves of their wastfull and commonly sinfull expences I might have chosen whether I would have lost this mony I might have saved it by bestowing it either towards the redemption of my enthralled brethren in Barbarie or on the reliefe of their wreched Wives and Children at home and so have made a more advantagious returne then any of our Merchants doe by their most thriving adventures into any parts of Barbarie To perswade men to this heavenly improovement of some part of their meanes are these poore meditations sent abroad by him who inlie compassionates his brethrens importable burthens wishing all blessings to those charitable soules who according to their abilities doe endevour to support them And for all his travells herein craveth nothing but your prayers for himselfe and your charity towards them for whom he intercedeth professing himselfe His distressed Brethrens dayly sollicitour CHARLES FITZ-GEFFRY COMPASSION TOWARDS CAPTIVES HEB. 13.3 Remember those that are in bonds as bound
the due reward of our deeds Yet let not their demerits exclude your mercy no more then that thief's transgression did Christs Compassion While Law gives them life let them not be denied reliefe Some of them who came in malefactors may dye Confessors therefore remember them Remember those who are in bonds for debt whether their owne or other mens as sureties suretieshippe hath undone many Debt it selfe to an honest minde is a great bondage even when a man is at liberty Himselfe his owne prisoner his mighty sighes and daily sorrowes are the Serjeants his troubled mind the Sherifs ward Every naile or bramble that catcheth him by the coate he conceives to be a catch-pole and starting he cries out at whose sute To be buried in debt is but a death without buriall But if vexation have added affliction to their bonds then is their case more lamentable therefore remember them But especially remember them that are in bonds for Christs sake and his Gospels either in the Popish inquisition or in Turkish thraldome As for that bondage of bondage that Minotaure which devours Men the Romanish inquisition it seemes that the Devill devised it as the Interloper and Interceptor of all charity There is no comming to them that are so inclosed no seeing them no sending to them as if the Devill intended to keepe Christ close prisoner All we can doe for them is to remember them with our teares to condole them with our prayers that Christ who cannot be excluded will visit them with inward comfort and confirme them to the end The Popish inquisition O it is a more barbarous bondage then any in Barbary O Lord when thou makest inquisition for bloud remember their bloudy inquisition Remember O remember your brethren who are in Turkish bondage those who sit downe by the waters of Tunis Algier Sally and weepe or sing to an heavy tune Nos patriae fines dulcia liquimus arva We poore soules have exchanged the best country for Barbary our Christian brethren for cursed Mahumetans our Ministers for Mofties our Temples for Mosquies Our wives are widowes while their husbands are alive and happy were the miserable husbands if their wives were widowes indeed Our children are Orphans while their fathers are living and well were it for the afflicted fathers if the children were Orphans indeed This their very banishment is but a breathing death yea by the Prophets verdict more to be lamented then Death Weepe not for the dead neither mourne for him but weepe for him that is carried away They are in the hands and bands of them who are enemies unto Christ and therefore the more cruel unto them because they are constant unto him If David cried out woe is me that I am constrained to dwell in Mezech then may they woe is me that I am constrained to abide in Morocco and to be a bondslave in Algier He because his soule dwelt among them who are enemies to peace these because they are captivâ— to them who are enemies to him who is our peace and doe all they may to deprive them of that peace of God which passeth all understanding Adde hereto that they are debarred the meanes of spirituall comfort by the Ministery of the word Insteed of Ministers of Christ to comfort them they have the Messengers of Satan to buffet them and with Iobs wife to say unto them not in words but in the more feeling language of blowes curse God dye or curse Christ live but a life more cursed then death it selfe Poore captives they cannot say as S. Luke doth of the Malteses The Barbarians shewed us no little kindnesse but the quite contrary the Barbarians shew us no little cruelty Remember those your country-men your acquaintance some of your owne kindred with whom you have often eaten dranke and made merry those who sometimes went up with you to the Temple of the Lord now abandoned from the Temple and grievously suffering because they will not abandon the Lord sold in markets like beasts by creatures more brutish then beasts stigmatized branded when they are bought by circumcised monsters miscreant Mahumetans I want words as well to expresse the persecutours wickednesse as the sufferers wretchednesse One of them in a letter to his wofull wife concerning his owne and his fellowes miseries among other sad passages inserteth this advice in any case not to suffer their Sonne to adventure on those costs least he should fall into his fathers wofull case when I read it I remembred king Antigonus his charge to his sonnes in a tempest that neither they nor theirs should adventure on the Seas But this in my thoughts was little to the others charge Therefore I could not but thinke on the Glutton in hell and his sute unto Abraham that he would send Lazarus to warne his surviving brethren not to come into that place of torment Their case praised be God is not so desperate but if there be an hell upon earth it is not in Aetna nor in mount Ilecla nor in any of the Indian Vulcans it is in Morocco or Algier for miserable captive Christians Remember them Nay how can you if you have Christian hearts forget them sooner should your right hand forget her cunning sooner should you forget both right hand and left sooner should you with Messala Corvinus forget your owne names then your brethrens intolerable bondage who have given their names to Christ and daily suffer such greevances because they will not renounce the name of Christ. O let not your enioyed liberty and present prosperity banish them and their thraldome out of your memory While you sit safe at home and see the smoake of your owne chimnies breath in the best your owne English ayre they sit downe by the waters of Babylon and weepe at the remembrance of Sion While you feed on the fat of Lambes and drinke wine in bowles they eate the bread of sorrow and drinke dry the river Marah While you have your musicke at bankets of wine their wine is their teares the jingling of their chaines their sorry musicke broken Hearts their Harpes sighing their singing and some prolonged hope of enlargement by your charitable contribution their only earthly comfort While you come to the Temple and to the Table of the Lord doe heare the word of the Lord may have the ministers of the Lord come unto you to conferre with you to comfort you though too few doe make us of such happinesse they deare soules doe see nothing but the abomination of desolation the God Manzim the mocke God Mahomet circumcised Cadees urging them in the language of Satan If thou wilt have ease or liberty fall downe and worshippe me A day will come when you shall no more remember these your earthly delights or remember them with more griefe because they are posting from you or you passing from them Then at last your carnal friends who at first