and appeares never so thick and dark His voice it is and acknowledged so to be when it hath astonied the mighty Potentates of the earth as His lightenings have made their hearts to tremble like a needle removed from the loadstone or leafe in the forrest tossed with the winde For God thundereth wonderfully with the voice of His excellency great things doth He which we cannot comprehend Out of the midst of water the Lord fetcheth fire and scatters it into all the parts of the earth astonishing the world with the fearfull noise of that eruption And hard stones out of the midst of thin vapours y D Hall contemp creat I can say no more to it but some have trembled at the roaring of this voice and some have mocked but the mockers have been strook down dead in the place to teach us That with God is terrible Majestie and touching the Allmighty we cannot finde Him out But let us heare attentively the noise of His voice and the sound that goeth out of His mouth He directeth it under the whole heaven and His lightning unto the ends of the earth after it a voice roareth z Job 37. 23. 4. And here we may take notice of snow the a Voâ—a communia sunt nives diutiras sedere tellus illo modo sementiscit Plin. nat Hist lib. 7. cap. 2. muck of the earth and of the hail which pruneth without a knife b Job 38. 22. but we cannot enter into their treasures even that is a knowledge too high for us c Dâ— Bart. 2 day but this we know for the Lord hath spoken it He hath reserved these against the day of battell and warre d Verse 23. For more have been consumed by the fall of hailstones then by the dint of the sword e Jâ—sh 10. 11. that we may acknowledge touching the Almighty He is excellent in power and in judgement and in plenty of justice f Job 37 23. All these the lightning and the thunder the snow and the hail do whatsoever He commandeth them upon the face of the world in the earth g Verse 12. Fire and hail snow and vapour stormy windes fulfilling His word h Psal 148. 8. And now our eyes are in this ascending line as the minde IIII. of a truly wise-man who delighteth himself in the Lord rideth on the high places of the earth is fed with the Heritage of Iacob i Esay 58. 14 His minde is above the windes and stormes and clouds where all things are calme serene and quiet And I know not how high our eyes discerne but this is not the least wonder That our visive facultie can ascend so high and not be tyred is the wonder indeed The foot is quickly tyred not so the eye Good reason for that saith the Father k Chrysost Hom. ad Pep Ant. but a gracious providence in it too because of all our members or servants none so necessary upon all occasions as is the eye And therefore that must not feel a wearinesse as doth the other faculties that it may be quick and expedite upon all services The eye can through this large perspective of the aire by which medium I can shew a childe and make it understand what is a diaphan or transparent body the eye can behold the highest starres and in the twinckling of an eye that short moment of time the eye can do it And this is an height that cannot be measured For for ought I can learn the highest starres are as high above the Sun as the Sun is above us and how high that is we may judge by what the Sun and starres seem to us below It is a mathematicall conclusion that hath the certainest grounds of any art that the Sun for quantitie and bignesse thereof would make an hundred sixty earths being so many degrees bigger and yet it seems to us at this vast distance l If that ascending line could be drawn right forwards some that have calculated curiously have found it five hundred yeares journey unto the starrie heaven Dr Hall contemp no larger then a sieves bottom and the least of those starres is fifteen times bigger then the earth yet by reason of that great gulf betwixt the starre and our eye it seems but like the apple in our eye or the pearl and diamond in our ring Thus high can our eye ascend and in a moment of time how then can I think any thing unpassable or impossible to the eye of faith It findes a way or as it was said of one it makes a way through all difficulties If God hath given such a power or quicknesse of elevation to our bodily eye this little candle of the body that it shall light us through this vast gulfe and void space unto such a distance and with such speed what then is the power of the souls eye when it hath received an anointing from above How much beyond those starres can that eye pierce The Saints shall stand and wonder with admiration m 2. Thes 1. 10. but they can never be at a stand they know whom they have trusted and that to Him nothing is impossible Nay He that did make the eye was He who gave a greater power yet to the eye of flesh even to see as farre above the starrie heaven as it is for ought I know to that heaven even to the heaven of heavens and to see them opened and the crown of our glory there n Acts 7. 55. This the Lord can do to show the might of His power and to assure His o Bright Revel 2. 13 p. 33. Antipasses all His faithfull Martyrs by the first that they shall not look to Him or wait for Him in vain their expectation shall be satisfied to the full and beyond For though that was an extraordinary case yet this is ordinary and secured unto the faithfull that whosoever is full of the Holy Ghost who looks up stedfastly into heaven who sets his face thither-ward p Luke 9. 51. he that girds q 1. Pet. 1. 13. up the loines of his minde they are the strength and Basis of the body r Chrysost in cap. 6. ad Eph. Hom. 23. and do imply the strong resolution and activitie of the soul I mean then He who is strong in his God and hath his hope and his heart fixed on Him s Chrysol serm 24. de servo vigili pag. 81. He shall see though his outward eye have not the same clearenesse of vision he shall see as great things as Stephen did he shall see heaven opened the glory of God and the great things that Christ hath done for him for which he shall be admired of all the Saints in that day So much to that which seemeth not the least wonder that God hath given our outward eye such an elevation of sight And now that our eye is thus elevated what and how great are the things which
were to be given unto God The night is for sleepe which must serve as other creatures to strengthen and refresh our bodies not to satisfie ease sloth and a sluggish humour Å¿ Plus vigi are plus vivere est Indâ—lgendum somno est ut corpus reparet non resolvat vires revocet non â—nervet Chrysol de servo vigili Ser. 24. we must beware least that great Devourer t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Clem. Alex Paed. 2. cap. 9. and waster of time sleepe rob and bereave us of those precious and golden houres in the morning when we are freshest and fittest for imployment we should often remember saith the same Divine u Indecens est Christiano si radius solis eum inveniat in lecto posset enim dicere Sol si potestatem loquendi haberet An plius laboravt heri quam tu iamen cum jam surrexerim tu adhuc dormis when we see the Sunne up before us that saying of Austin It is an uncomely thing for a Christian to have the Sun-beames finde him a bed And if the Sunne could speake saith he it might say I have laboured more then thou yesterday and yet I am risen and thou art still at rest And yet as good rest as to move and to no purpose We must not so much as eat in the morning certainly it doth concerne not those of the higher sort onely which we read x 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Iliad 2. A governour ought not to sleep all night long And it is a forerunner of a woe when Princes eate in a * Eccles 10. 16. morning It cannot be conceived that the meaner sort have more priviledge then their betters to eate unseasonably or intemperately so Tremellius expounds that place These precious houres of the morning are for precious imployment the serving of God as becommeth with reverence and feare and then our selves and our brethren in love These are the services which must take up the whole day But more especially in the morning we are fittest for them when we are wholly our selves as the saying is The powers and faculties of the outward and inward man being awakened and refreshed But first we must addresse our selves to God and set our soules in order before Him that we may strengthen and perfume our spirits with some gracious meditations specially of the chiefe end and scope wherefore we live here and how every thing we do may be reduced and ordered to further the maine This is first to be done and a necessitie there is that it be done first else that which follows to be done will be done to little purpose It follows now That we consider briefly how we stand ingaged to this principall service even to call upon all to awake as the Prophet saith All without us and within us to return unto the Lord according as we have received and to give praise unto His Name for now praise is comely †1. It is He that kept us when we could not keep our selves He kept our houses which the watch did not keep from those who y Job 24. 16 17. marked them forth in the day-time Our security is as Noahs was in Gods shutting our doores He it was who preserved that spark of mankinde alive in the midst of the waters as the Father z 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys Tom. 5 Ser. 6. in medio elegantly for so we reade And the Lord shut him in a Gen. 7. 16. The Lord shut in our doores upon us also kept us in safety kept out danger else we had not been alive The destroying Angel I mean danger in any kinde waiteth but his commission from the Almighty and when he had it we heard what havock he makes From this destroyer the Lord kept us though our hearts were not so besprinkled as they should have been nor did we keep our selves according to our b Exod. 11. 22. See Mr Ainsw charge under the safe and secure protection of that Bloud as we should have done yet notwithstanding the Lord kept us The Lord is the great wing of our protection our castles towers houses doores chambers c. but the small feathers thereof These nothing without Him He All without them We may reade of c Athanasius Cent. 4. one who had a safe convoy himself alone through a troop of enemies five thousand in number all and every one appointed for his destruction And of another d H. 3 Charron we may reade murdered by a Monk when he lay entrenched with an Army of friends about him 40 thousand strong Safety is from on high from the Highest is our protection He is our Sun and shield He kept us this night which is now past But behold His goodnesse yet further He hath renewed the face of the earth unto us given us a new resurrection with the day lengthened and stretched out yet further our span of time renewing our strength and making us fresh like the Eagle crowning us with loving kindnesse and tender mercies such mercies as whereby our hearts are cheered to see the light which thousands cannot say great reason we should call upon all to praise the Lord and this right early for now praise is comely †2. We must now every one to his work in his lawfull calling or to that which fitteth for the same if children we are not made as it is said of the Leviathan to take our pastimes in the world and to passe our dayes in vanity The Sun riseth and man goeth to his labour every man his severall way and in those severall wayes so many snares great cause to fence and guard our hearts and as was said to perfume our spirits from above that we may avoid these snares from below e The first fruits of our lips and hearts are to be offered unto God Amb. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Why wilt thou suffer thine adversary to surprise thy castle or strong holds first in the morning Basil de jejunio p. 285. for we shall meet with them it is not possible to be otherwise We draw along with us such a concatenation a chain of businesse as that we must needs be fettered and puzled with them if a gracious hand leade us not the way into them and help us out of them In the commerce betwixt man and man which drives the great trade of the world There sinne sticks as close as a naile sticketh betwixt the joyning of the f Ecclus. 27. 2. stones which consideration engageth us to feare alwayes and to walk close with God that our wayes may be established lest going beyond our brother in bargaining we exchange the favour of God for some poore advantage from the world †3. Now that we are going every man his way as the way of our calling leads us now we must know that God and He onely openeth our way to all our occasions leades us unto them and gives us an
would we have another bloud to cry unto which cries for mercy but if we spill this Bloud and tread it under foot what then whither then shall we flie for mercy when with our own hands we have plucked down our Sanctuary We spill we cast away our right pretious medicine We must then be well advised what we do and be humbled very low for what we have done even to girding with sackcloth and wallowing in dust p Jer. 6. 26. For who is he that may not say even in this case Deliver me from bloud guiltinesse O Lord the God of my salvation q And blessed be God even the God of our salvation that we can in His Name go to bloud for pardon of this crimson sinne even the spilling of His Bloud for so three thousand did before us r Acts 2. And written it is for our example For when the stain of This Bloud was fresh on their hands and hearts too yet being pricked at their hearts for it even for the shedding of that Bloud they cryed to that Bloud and were pardoned And so having premised this I come to the question which hath two branches and so shall have a double answer briefly first to the first branch If these graces be wanting may I go Quest 1 It is not safe If thy case be so wanting upon the ballance Answ thou mayest more safely go to other ordinances for supply others there are appointed by God to cast down the loose and presumptuous as this serves to raise up the humble to nourish the faithfull Soul For tell me what communion hath a proud haughty person with an humbled Lord What hath an unbroken heart to do with a broken Christ What relish can a dead man take in the sweetest dainties What pardon can an implacable man expect from the Lord who paid our debt to the utmost farthing What comfort can that soul fetch from seeing bloud poured out for him who cannot at least poure out his soul in confessions before Him Answer thy self at this point for if I answer I must needs say though to the confusion of my own face that certainly there is required of every communicant that there be some Analogie proportion conformitie or agreement betwixt our hearts the frame of them and the great duty or imployment we are upon I mean thus That we bring mortified lusts before a crucified Lord a bruised spirit before a broken Body a soul fitly addressed to such a feast Some drops of mercy in a free and full forgivenesse of trespasses against us before such an Ocean of mercy swallowing up the guilt of so many trespasses against Him And surely though I define nothing at this point yet truth there is in what I say For I remember Chrysostome saith Å¿ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Disciplâ—â— onely are to come to this holy Table such who are taught from Christs mouth and live according to what they are taught And the danger of not being such an one and yet coming to this feast is certainly very great too for the Father addes in that same place t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That he would rather suffer his own heart bloud to be spilt then that he would give the bloud of Christ to a man of unclean hands of an impure life and known so to be to an unworthy Communicant and discovered to come unnworthily u 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the danger be such in giving then much more is the danger great in Receiving though indeed an impenitent person cannot be said properly to receive Christ but rather to reject Him But yet in proprietie of our speech we say he receives whereas so none can do truly and properly but a Disciple Therefore the Father resumes it again saying he must be a Disciple that comes to this feaâ—t If not I give and he receives but it is a sharp sword in stead of bread x 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mâ—tt 26. Hom 83. â—â— Quest 2. Answ So I leave it upon examination and passe to the second branch Thy worthinesse Do I come as a worthy guest No sure But this is the great enquiry what worthinesse If I had such a degree of sorrow such a measure of faith such a length of charitie then I should think I had some worthinesse in me then I could approach with some comfort This is the conceit and deceit too Indeed we must know there is a worthinesse in acceptation But we will make no mention thereof at this time none at all but for thy better instruction of His worthinesse onely for whose sake our unworthinesse is not imputed unto us For suppose thou haddest all Grace Repentance first Thou couldest gird thy self with sackcloth and as the Lord commands wallow in dust so loathing thy self and haddest all faith too even like pretious faith and all charitie which thou canst extend like the heavens as the Father expresseth and I cannot mention it too often suppose all this couldest thou then think thy self a worthy Communicant I trow not If thou wert worthy what shouldest thou do there It is a feast designed for the halt the lame the blinde for the faint for those that have no strength no worthinesse in themselves none at all If thou haddest not wants very many why shouldest thou come thither where is such a fulnesse Thou comest thither as to a well of salvation which never drains it self but into emptyvessels mark that And therefore the more thou art wanting the more likely nay out of all doubt thou shalt be filled He filleth the hungry the empty soul but the rich He sendeth empty away Therefore open not thy mouth mention not thy worthinesse but the worthinesse of the Lord Iesus Christ for He onely was found Worthy I remember Luthers words upon this point of Catechisme they are to this purpose This thought I am not prepared for this Supper I am an unworthy guest for this Table will make a man sit down astonished and keep him off for ever from approaching thereunto When we consider our worthinesse and the excellency of that Good which is offered there at that Table and then compare them together our wrothinesse is like a dark lanthorne compared to the cleare Sun Therefore let this be thy tryall here saith he Thou wantest a broken contrite heart but doest thou not in thy prayer pray * that is pray earnestly y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 6. de oratione a man may but James 5. 17. speak or prate in prayer as was said and so speak he may that he heares not himself and expects he that God should heare him saith Chrysostome doest thou not I say pray earnestly that the Lord would bruise it give thee a tender spirit sensible of all appearances of evill of all that may offend Thou feelest thy heart dedolent and hard the greatest of all evills but is it not thy burden and thy greatest sorrow that oppresseth thee that such a
herefrom How hast thou been inclined to love the Lord for His goodnesse to feare Him for His Mercies How hast thou been melted thereby to obedience and engaged upon his Service Aske thy selfe againe for in that Method we went Thou hast two hands another hath but one or perhaps none what more worke hast thou done Thou hast a Tongue and the use of the same there is another thou knowest who hath a Tongue but speakes not wherein hast thou glorified thy Maker more then the other hath done Thou hast two eyes thy Neighbour is darke Aske the same question over againe For as it was said of him who was borne blind So it was that the workes of God Iohn 3. 9. should be made manifest in him So we may say we have our eyes eares tongues hands which others have not That we might the more ptaise the Lord for His goodnesse and declare His workes toward the children of men These are the questions but upon the point it is but this single question and the very same and to the same purpose which the King makes to that I doe allude touching Mordecay What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecay x Esther 6. 3. for this So let this be the question What honour what service hath been done to the Lord He hath so honoured thee he hath so served thee he hath so and so preserved thee from the Paw of the Lyon and jaw of the beare so delivered thee Through his strength thou didst leap over such a wall He brought thee out of such a strait He supported thee in such weaknesses He supplyed thee in such a Wildernesse He gave successe to thee in such businesses What shall I say for we are confounded here He is the God not of some but of all consolations the Father of mercies And we can no more number them then we can the drops of the raine or of the dew or the Treasures of the snow and haile but we know who is the Father of them and out of whose Bowels these mercies come whereby thou hast been fed all thy life long and redeemed from evill we know the price of them too the very least of them is the price of bloud What honour hath been done for all this What peculiar Service that 's the single question If now thy heart make answer as we read in the foregoing place There is nothing done no peculiar service at all instead of being the Temple of His praise thou hast been the grave of His mercies They have been buried in thee they have brought forth no fruits if this be the answer of thy heart and so it condemne thee the Lord is greater then our hearts He will condemn much more And therefore it is high time to look into the Register of Gods mercies into the books of record And if these mercies have laine as things cast aside and of no account as dead things out of minde if so long and to this day forgot then now it is high time that thy rest should be troubled and sleep should not come into thy eye till thou hast looked over this Register and recorded the mercies of the Lord and so pressed them on thy conscience That it may answer out of a pure heart that something at the length is done some sacrifice of praise and thanks is returned to the Lord for all this This is the first thing to be done now and it is high time to do it Considering the season It is supposed that gray haires are upon thee here and there they are sugared now and like the hoary frost The Almond tree flourisheth thou art in the winter of thine age It is high time now to look about thee and to consider That is the first ground of consideration 2. That time is hasting whose portion and burden from the Lord is but labour and sorrow And then though we have time for our day lasteth while life lasteth yet no time to do any thing in it to purpose for then the Grasse hopper is a burden So I make two periods of this age And each a ground to presse on unto a timely consideration The one I call declining age when we have lived almost to threescore yeares The other when we are drawing onward to fourescore c. extreame old age of both in their order 1. Both the one as well as the other is an age not more desired then complained of They knew best why that feele the burden of it I have not lived unto it It is likely that person complained not without cause who being willed to hasten her pace told them who were so quick with her That so she could not do for she carryed a great burden on her back And whereas no burden at all appeared to the eye she replyed again that threescore years were passed over her head and that was the burden Plaut And so it may well be with those whose spirits are much spent and strength wasted even at those yeares And then age it self alone is a burden I can speake little here out of experience But this I can say If God be pleased to stretch out my day so long I shall know no cause to complain of the length for that is a blessing Length of dayes is from the right hand Prov. 3. 16. Riches and honour from the left Only we must note here That if the Lord be pleased to shorten the day of this life to any person as sometimes He doth to His dearest and most obedient children their dayes are not long upon earth why yet if He eek out this short day here with an eternitie of dayes and pleasures at His right hand when they are taken hence if so that partie shall have no cause to complaine of a short day on earth so abundantly recompensed in heaven This is a note by the way If I say God be pleased to stretch forth my dayes so long I know no cause why I should complaine of a blessing I may complaine and just cause why I should and that bitterly but not for the accession of yeares If any thing sower them it is of mine owne Leaven and of my owne putting in Complaine of my selfe I may of them I may not Old age is a cal me quiet and easie time if youth have done it no disservice in filling its bones before hand Nor no intemperance hath weakned its head or feete If so Old age hath just cause to complaine of the Man not the man of Old Age. There is no Guest in the world that is more desired and expected and yet when it comes worse welcomed and entertained then Old Age is still with sighes and complaints which we know argues bad welcome I would have my Child make good provision for it against it come and when it is come to give it good welcome Welcome I say I doe not say ease Good welcome doth consist we say in shewing a good and chearefull countenance to our guest
the Father not of some but of all consolations What ever outward comforts we have the comfort of our spirits is from God So then we are driven to this conclusion God onely makes the soule to Rest and gives it ease and that is never till He deales bountifully with it h Psal 117. 7. till He satisfies it with Himselfe a sutable and proportionable-good both During and Satisfying The soule is scattered and lost when it is parcelled-out to variety of things It cannot fixe now It doth but roule like a Ship at Anchor in a Tempest It must be brought to the Vnity of one Desire and one love Till then it will be as unstable as the water as restlesse as a Meteor still tossed and in doubtfull suspence So Truth it selfe Assureth by that very Metaphor i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luk. 12. 29. Psal 9. 112. But ô the peace the securitie of that person whose heart is fixed trusting in the Lord he hath left Cisterns Creature-comforts and is gone to the Fountaine where he shall be satisfied he is got to the Rock of his salvation where is an abiding and now he shall stand fixed and firme upon his foundation like the Rock against which the raging waves may beat but shall be broken Nay more fixed is he then so faster he stands then the hills or mountaines yet because of their setled standing are they called perpetuall hills everlasting Mountaines k â—â—b 3. 6. So fixed is this person and it must needs be so for he findes underneath the everlasting Armes l Deut. 33 27. I know I have transgressed my Rule at this point for I have been too long upon it Yet I pray you doe not think so because it is an high point and I should say yet more unto it because it is so high and of such mightie concernment for this is it which being well observed will hold-up a mans Spirits when the body must fall asunder from it selfe and make the heart rejoyce when the eie-strings must break But I consider your person and place therefore I wil winde up all and your thoughts together in one word which you often meet with I will onely annex Selah here a word which sounds high and gives an elevation to the minde answerable to the matter so your thoughts are raised now reaching after good-things which shall endure as long as Eternitie is long for ever And this is to be Truely exalted This in a True sense to be high-minded II. God hath given you a Name upon earth He hath given you to know too and you blesse His Name for it that herein is the least degree of your glorie A Name upon earth is nothing though it should endure while the earth endures Nothing that to eternity after which the soule is Biased You may reade of one who had a Crown set upon his head consisting of many Crowns for he was an Emperour m Aug. de Civ deâ—i lib 5. 26. yet he would not make that the Crowne of his rejoycing but this was it That the Name of Christ was called upon him that he accounted his honour An honour indeed which reacheth from earth to heaven there to be perpetuated and such honour have all His Saints And this Name you account your chiefe honour also for it is called upon you And you must count it your chiefe work too For I must tell you this with it and then I have told you all It is the hardest thing in the world To be a Christian indeed and Indeed to answer that Name for it is an hard thing for selfe to crucifie selfe To offer a holy violence to ones selfe even to the plucking out or cutting off that which is most pleasing to Nature yet so we must doe saith one n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Clâ—m Alex. Stro. li. 7. pag. 500. if we wil be Christians Indeed And we must believe him for he assureth us so from the mouth of Truth it selfe The violent take it by force We must labour here if we look to rest hereafter if any think other wise he is deceived We cannot think to goe-in at a narrow gate and finde no straitnesse A harder matter it is to tread the way of vertue then to keep a narrow path in the darkest night o Book of providence chap. 4. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The flesh must not live now that it may live hereafter It must die now that it may not die Chrys on Rom. 8. Hom. 13. These are Chrysostomes words englished and they make cleare demonstration That though it be a matter of ease and no labour to be a Christian In Name yet it is a point of difficultie requiring labour and strife both to be such an one Indeed Herein then is your strife and work wherein you will be Abundant because of the Abundant reward to answer this worthy Name worthily And I pray heartily to the God of power to lead you by the hand and strengthen you in the work for it is a Mighty work But if He put forth His hand and your eye be upon the recompence of reward you will breake through all difficulties as is said of Abraham p Chrys upon Gen. Chap. 12. Hom. 31. like Spiders web's for you are called not as was he from one Land to another but from earth to heaven yet he plucked up his feet and so ranne That you may doe so even so runne that you may obtaine the end of your race your Crown is the prayer of him whom you have engaged St. to print my selfe Your much obleiged kinsman EZEKIAS WOODVVARD To the Reader THis Treatise tendeth to the erecting of faire Edifices to the Lord which are the children of children of men The Author sheweth himself herein a skilfull builder in that he first layeth a sure solid foundation and then reareth thereupon his goodly edifice This the Lord Himselfe noted to be the part of a prudent builder Luk. 6. vers 48. He wisely sheweth when and by whom especially this foundation is to be laid even by Parents so soone as their children attaine any competent capacitie Young and tender yeares are flexible and may easily be bowed this way or that way They are like a Argillâ quidvis imitaberis udâ Hor. the moist potters clay which may readily be fashioned into any shape and like soft waxe which soone receives any print Nor so only but also long retains what it first receiveth like b Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem Testa diu Idem a vessell which long holds the savour which it first tooke while it was new Old men are said to remember in their elder yeares what they learned in their younger I shall not need to presse this further it being so plentifully and pithily pressed by the Author himself who layes his foundation very deep even in the mothers wombe and goeth along from infancy to childhood thence to youth
humane nature generally more of the fool then of the wise Touching fondnesse 1. How it ariseth 2. How it hurteth 3. How we may be fortified against it 1. The childe hath cost the Parents deare they see their image in it and in it they look to live when they are gone Dimidiata vcrba M. Felix and it makes them pretty sport besides It hath delightfull gestures pretty antick postures and the lesse articulate words it hath as Minutius phraseth it and perhaps the Gaudemus siquid licentius dixerint verba ne Alex. c. risu osculo excipimus l. 1. cap. 2. more unhappy and licentious also as Quintilian saith the more delight and mirth it causeth Whence else it comes I know not but from corrupted nature it is which too readily idolizeth the creature that this childe is crept into the mother again and lies so close to the father that his life is bound up in the childes life if the childe leave the parent as now that it is lapt so close it is like to do the parent will die such is the strength and impetuousnesse of affection if we give scope and rains unto it Like a childe set at liberty so is affection set at liberty it will shame us and There is no heat of affection but is joyned with some idlenesse of brain A Spanish proverbe Gravis est omnis disciplina puero Prud. Ante palatum quam os instituimus Quint. l. 1. c. 2. trouble us both For this fondnesse is alwayes accompanied with a strange indulgence which is against all fitting discipline hereafter will be time enough in the meane time it shall have any thing else what it will it is at its own choice and then we know What it will chuse that which will most hurt it self in the end so provident the childe is ever carelesse of to morrow prodigall of the present And yet it is commonly left to such a self-pleasing humour that it is sensible of every restraint so that it goes neere to think its girdle and garters to be bonds and shackles It s palate is better instructed also then its mouth so that it can make better choice of dishes then of words 2. And now we may easily reade without the book what hurt this fondnes doth this strange cockering of children It is a strange expression I shall use but the experience of twenty yeers tells me it is true the devill doth not so much hurt I know he will do as much hurt as he is suffered to do to the very utmost extent of his chain but so much hurt he doth not to poore children as doth this fond indulgence It choaks their naturall parts otherwise very Corporis cura mentem obruerunt Quintil. l 1. ca. 11. good and hopefull so that no more can reasonably be exspected from them then from a marish ground we know what grows there It undoes the family Town and City A foolish pity may we call it rather a cruell pity like yvie it kils and makes barren the tree that it embraceth or like the ape it killeth the young with hugging them it lets the childe rather sink under water then it will hold it up by the haire of the head for fear of hurting it Indulgence is the very engine of the Devill like that I have read of made See Hist of the world B. 5. Ch. 4. Sect. 10. p. 532. onely to torment poore creatures with those very Arms which opened towards them as it were for embracement The experience of all ages tells us that this indulgent cockering hath turned many children up the hill or the Caus de eloq li. 3. ca 8. hedge to beggery or worse And hence their complaints the same now as we reade they were in Cyprians dayes a Parentes nostros sensimus parricidas Illud grave quod in aeternitate jugulabit Salv. ad eccl li. 2. ◠Our Fathers and Mothers have proved our murtherers soul-murtherers worse then they who murther the body as Chrysost saith usefully in his 3. book of Monastick life Chap. 4. 3. We have seen this strange humour of cockring what it is and whence it groweth what mischief it causeth These considerations following may help and fortifie us against so destroying an evill The first is 1. Then parents take aready way to rob themselves of their children when they idolize them and dote upon them The heart should be kept as a chaste Virgin espoused to one husband That should lie closest there which can satisfie the creature cannot there is a vanity upon it no more then ashes or the East-winde can satisfie the stomack till the soul be pointed to God as the needle to the North Pole it is still in a shaking trembling posture much like an inhabitant in the Land of Nod still as the waves of the sea in agitation Gen. 4. 16. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Ibid. Agitatio vexatio Trem. tossed between hope and fear for being turned from God to the creature it lies open as a faire mark for every incomfortable accident to strike it at the heart for from thence the heart shall finde the sorest griefes where it placed its chiefest joy and contentment being not placed where it should be in God that which we make our God besides the true one that will prove our tormentor the heart and the creature do close together too well and agree they do as two friends too inwardly as if they could fill up and satisfie each other whereas the better agreement there was and the more compleate riviting of the one with the other the more falling out and bitternesse there will be when the parting day comes which we must look will be quickly if we set up the gift in our heart instead of the giver certainly if God loves us He will hide from us this idoll which we so much dote upon He feeleth the pulse of our affection where it beateth most strongly and to what part the humour is carried most fully and eagerly and there we shall certainly bleed for He can strike us in the right veine If a Parent be inordinate in his affection if his Ioseph and his heart lie like a bundle close wrapt up together then it is very likely that Ioseph must leave his Father that the Parent may learn to sacrifice the childe in affection which is the readiest way to keep the childe for commonly it fals out that the Lord snatcheth away that comfort which we made such store of locking it up too close Peter saw the glory of Christ in His transfiguration It is Luk. 9. 33 34. very observeable that while Peter was speaking of building Tabernacles for some continuance a cloud over-shadowed them and they feared If God shew us that which doth content and please us we would presently build Tabernacles upon these outward comforts I meane the heart would settle and fix upon them it is so good being with these comforts
but now while we are projecting and providing for this continuance then commonly comes some cloud and over-shadows this comfort and sometimes then when we are but speaking and thinking of it then the cloud comes and then follow feares In the story of Ionah it is read That the Lord God prepared a Gourd that it might be a shadow over Ionahs head and deliver him from his griefe So Chap. 4. Ionah was exceeding glad of the gourd Exceeding glad marke that I pray you and that which follows But God prepared a Worme the very next morning and it smote the gourd that it withered The Lord is graciously pleased to grant unto us some comforts here whereby to sweeten our sorrows and to refresh us in our weary pilgrimage But if we shall be exceeding glad of them being but of the same nature and constitution as was Ionahs gourd then look we to it for then commonly the Lord is preparing a worme which will quickly smite that gourd so that it shall wither and then which is next to be considered †2. We shall be troubled as much at the withering of our gourd as we were joyed before in the having of it which was Ionahs case exceeding glad of our gourds exceeding Quicquid mirabere pones invitus Hor. epist lib. 1. 10. sorrowfull and disconsolate at the smiting and withering of the gourds It ever follows by the rule of proportion b Ipse ut laetitiae ita maeroris immodicus egit Tacit. Of Nero burying his beloved daughter Augusta An. 15. Psal 30. 6 7. We are apt to thinke that our gourds do cast a greater shadow then indeed they do or can And answerable is our delight in them and our sorrow for them when they wither Therefore we should know what ever our mountaine or gourd is I meane our comfort in what kinde soever it is Gods favour His influence through it that gives strength unto it and us comfort in it And if He withdraw His favour and restraine His influence as doubtlesse He will if we are too confident of our setling and firme standing thereon as if we could never be mooved then trouble follows and the more our trouble will be the stronger our confidence was and our contentment in the same It is the greatnesse of our affections which causeth the sharpnesse of our afflictions They that love too much will alwaies grieve too much a The presence of a comfort is not more comfortable then will be the absence thereof grievous If we suffer the childe that is the creature we are now upon to shoot too farre into our hearts when the time of severing cometh we part with so much of our hearts by that rent Oh how good is it and how great a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz epist 125. point of wisedome to carry the creature as we do a loose garment apart and loose from the heart easily parted with That when God calls for it as He may with more libertie then we may fetch our childe from nurse yet we take libertie there we may willingly part with it saying here Lord thou gavest it to me Thou maist fetch it from me Blessed be thy name in taking as in giving The Heathen gives a Rule and it is of easie construction Love so as thou maist hate Ama tanquam osurus That is Love your friend so that if hatred should grow betwixt you yet no hurt can follow for you have not so unbrested and opened your self unto him that he can hurt you It is a good rule for a Parent Love thy childe so as one Amatanquam amissurus that is parting with it That is love thy childe so that if thou losest it yet thou doest not lose thy treasure nor thy heart Thou hast not so opened thy self towards it nor is it laid up so close Then thou canst be content with thy losse and submit to His mightie hand That tooke it from thee He was a wise Heathen and one instruction from him comes double to a Christian I kisse my childe to day and then I think it may M. Aur. Aul. Med. lib. 11. 21. 30. p. 148. be dead to morrow It is ominous some will say No that remembrance keeps it loose and apart from the heart and the surer in our possession whereas the common conceits and opinions that our comforts shall not be taken from us nor we moved are as one saith the common lamiae or bug-beares of the world the cause of our trouble and sorrow That we may not be carried by conceits and opinions our desire should be the same that Agurs was That God Prov. 30. Soules conflict pag. 48. would remove from us vanitie and lyes That is from a vain and false apprehension pitching upon things that are vaine and lying and promising that contentment to our selves from them which they cannot yeeld Confidence in vaine things makes a vaine heart and fills it with sorrow for vexation ever follows vanitie when vanitie is not apprehended to be where it is This the second consideration The third this †3. That childe whom we do inordinately set our hearts upon doth seldome or never answer our wished for expectations no not in any measure As the Parent hath widened and opened his heart towards it in a largenesse of expectation and hope so doth that childe commonly contract straiten and close up it self towards the Parent God doth often strike that childe of whom we fondly conceive the greatest hope with the greatest barrennesse Cain proves lighter then vanity and Abel a possession I have observed and much I have observed when the parent hath carelesly neglected one childe and like the ape hugged and fondly cockered another I have observed too that the hated childe proved fruitfull and the fondling barren and withall that childe which the parent did tender most regarded the parent least God ever shortens our account when we reckon without Him and as He commonly blasteth our bold and confident attempts so doth He wither extraordinary hopes in earthly things That we may open our mouthes wide towards Him that can fill them We may note the connexion we finde Gen. 29. 30 31. Iacob loved Rachel more then Leah When the Lord saw that He made Rachel barren The more love the more barrennesse To make differences betwixt childe and childe is not safe a Gen. 37. 3 4. Accedebat invidia quod mater promptior Neroni esset Tacit. An. 4. 13. It causeth great differences and to make fondlings of any is a dangerous presage That this fondling is the childe who will prove as a barren soile like a parched heath or a salt land I could wish that were the worst It is commonly much worse for which is the last consideration 4. It commonly falls out That the childe we so doted upon proves the heaviest crosse That 's the childe commonly which like a backe winde hastens the Parent to the pit making him speake in very bitternesse
Glory Nay it may be said in the sweetnesse of His mercy also takes away that earthly Idoll that the occasion of such irregular affection removed He may draw the heart in which He principally takes pleasure to his own Glorious selfe the onely load-starre of all sanctified love and boundlesse Ocean of happinesse and blisse So much to the first extreame but too little to make it know a measure The Lord teach us here for to Him we Joel 2. 25. looke who can restore the yeers that the Locusts have eaten the Canker-worme and the Catterpillar So can He also all the harmes and losses which we have caused to our children by our extreame folly or bloudy negligence Assuredly these harmfull Beasts that Northern Army do not so much Joel 2. 20. hurt and prejudice the field as our indulgence doth our harvest of hopes which yet we looke to reape from ours The Lord pardon our iniquitie and adde more grace The other extreame follows hurtfull also but not so hurtfull 2 There is a fiercenesse in our nature as farre from knowing a meane as the other for it is another extreame Whence it ariseth for I follow the same method as in the other needs not our enquiry A fruit of corrupted nature it is and a distemper thereof and in distempers we neither know a meane nor can distinguish of persons We fling about us in distempers whether childe or servant is before us all are one while we are in the drunkennesse of passion It is not to be doubted but this distemper is to be found in Parents And we may note That they who are most indulgent are if provoked as they will soone be most severe and violent in their correction as if they had that absolute and universall power over their children which once the Parent had and much power yet they have all the craft is in the wise using of it But they doe not use it well now in their passion they will miscall the childe strangely and strike they know not where and kick too I set down what mine own eyes and eares have told me They do punish perhaps not Laudabat se non sine causa sed sine modo without cause as was said of one in another case but without all measure as if they were not children but slaves And then as was said in the other extreame we may reade without booke that no good can be done but much hurt rather while the Parent is so eager upon the childe it is not then teachable not counsellable for as was said feare betrayeth all its succours nor is the Parent in a fit case to teach or counsell it for what can be expected from a man in a frensie Anger is fitly called so A Parent carryed in a passion cannot mingle his corrections with instructions and where that mixture is not there is no Discipline for that is true Discipline when the childe smarts from the hand and Sim ul sunt haec duo conjungēda Argutio castigatio Inutilis est castigatio ubi verba silent verbera saeviunt unde rectè vocatur castigatio Disciplina quâ delinquens unà dolet discit Bright on the Revelat. chap. 3. vers 19. p. 72. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not possible to put out fire with fire Chrysost in Gen. 32. hom 89. learnes from the tongue We must first convince a childe of his fault and then punish the same if the fault deserve it These two must ever goe together correction and instruction Correction is to no purpose where words are silent and stripes outragious Correction is truly called Discipline because the dilinquent smarts and learnes both together This then is my conclusion wherein I shall a little enlarge my selfe That roughnesse and fiercenesse doth not help in the rooting out of evill though there it doth best but much hurt it doth in the planting in of good there it lets exceedingly It furthers not in the unrooting of evill but rather sets the work back and roots it more in That is the first thing I shall make cleare 1. Man is a noble creature and lord-like of a good house as we say though falne into decay But this remainder or relique there is yet of his noblenesse you may easily lead him when you cannot drag him you may perswade when you cannot force and the more force the lesse good Mildnesse and Meeknesse and sweetnesse in carriage wins much 1. Voluntas cogi non vult doceri expetit A soft tongue breaketh the bone Prov. 25. vers 12. 15. to be observed both even sometimes with a crooked disposition when as roughnesse hardneth It is not the way to plucke down a stubborn heart nor to fetch out a lye though in these cases a Parent must be very active and if he spares his childe he kills it It is a great fault in parents saith one for fear of taking down of the childs spirits not to take down its pride and get victory over its affections whereas a proud unbroken heart raiseth us more trouble then all the world beside And if it be not taken down betimes it will be broken to pieces by great troubles in age I shall consider this evill and some others in fit place now in this place I am removing that which hindreth The parent is bound to teach the childe how to bear the Lam. 3. 27. yoke from its youth This duty the parent is engaged upon But the parent must use a great deale of discretion in the putting on this yoke The parent must not stand in a menacing posture before the childe as ready to strike as to speak and giving discouraging words too When we would back our Colt or break a skittish Heifer to the yoke the comparison holds well we do not hold the yoke in one hand and a whip in the other but we do before them as we know the manner is else there would be much ado in putting on the yoke and in breaking or backing the Colt they would be both more wilde and lesse serviceable It is much so with children if our carriage be not ordered with discretion before them we may make them like those beasts more unruly and perhaps all alike or if they learn any thing by such froward handling it will be frowardnesse When we would work upon a childe our carriage before it should be quiet and as still as might be just in the same posture that a man stands in before the live mark which he would hit he doth not hoot and hollow when he takes his ayme for then he would fright away the game by his rudenesse but so he stands as we well know the manner like one who means to hit the mark Our ayme is the good of the childe we must look well to our deportment before it else we may fright away our game There are some natures saith Clem. Alex. like yron hardly flexible but by the Pad li. 2. c. 10. pag. 97
the wiseman and it deserved our mark he will need your help again to morrow If you deliver him yet thou must do it again Such snares our words are which must be considered The wise mans saying is to be noted g Prov. 14. 3. Trem. In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride that is a foolish man carrieth still about him his feruler or lash which will put him to paine enough because he will speak in the pride of his heart And it is observable which follows A fools mouth is his destruction Chap. 18. 7. and his lips are the snare of his soul A slip with the foot doth not offend us so much as may a slip with the tongue And yet a slip of the foot hath slipt the legge out of joynt and caused much pain but a slip with the tongue hath caused shame and sorrow both Therefore he wrote well to his friend that told him You had better fall in your floore or pavement Isid Pelus 1. Epist 459 then by your tongue An hurt by a sudden fall may be quickly cured but a fall by a rash word hath so broken a man that he could never be restored set straight and in joynt again his rashnesse hath been his ruine not his rod onely as we heard but his destruction as we have read and known which may be wisely considered by the wise in heart for it is not in the Philosophy of fools to consider that an unbridled tongue is storme-like sudden violent and devowring which sinks our ship quickly or precipitates us upon the rock of offence It is an ordinary expression in Homer but of no ordinarie use What a word hath passed the barres rampier or pale of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vallum aut claustrum dentium thy teeth imploying thereby and teaching That our teeth are set not so much to chew our meat as for a trench wall or double pale of Ivory about our tongue to restrain compresse and stop our words lest we utter them rashly before right reason and judgement have given a worthy passe unto them †5. We must consider also that we must give an account Est aliquid quod ex magno viro vel tacente proficias Aliquis vir bonus eligendus ante oculos habendus ut sic tanquam illo spectante vivamus Sen. Epis 11. leg Cl. Alex. Paed. l. 3. c. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. l. 7. 523. 2. Chro. 16. 9. count of every idle word and that to Him who seeth not as man seeth therefore set we our selves still as in His presence the maine and chief help The Heathen man would say It were good for a young man to think some sage and grave Cato were at his elbow over looking his actions and hearing his words that would awe him How much more then should the eye of the Lord awe us which runnes too and fro throughout the whole earth to shew himself strong in the behalfe of them whose heart is perfect towards Him That 's very moving which Laban said to Iacob we are now upon parting no man is with us here is none to witnesse what hath passed betwixt us but this heap and that is but a dead remembrancer but the Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another if thou shalt do so and so no man is with us see God is witnesse betwixt me and thee Nothing should so much awe us as that God is witnesse of our words if we consider he doth watch over us we will make our watch strong and not lightly offend with our mouth And so much to teach us silence till we know how to speak The brief of that which concerns the instruction of the child is but this short lesson Suffer not thy childe to speak vainly much lesse wickedly where-to it is very prone Loose words will quickly produce loose actions a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Paed l. 2. c. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Stro. l 1. p. 205. Therefore give not liberty to much babling there will be much folly a sea of words as the proverbe is but not one drop of reason b and it leadeth to a very bad custome Remember the Preachers lesson Speak * Eccles 327. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Paed. lib. 2. young man if there be need of thee that 's the Rule to judge when speech is better then silence and yet scarcely when thou art twice asked If then it be a daughter let her words be answers silence d is a womans virtue and there is no danger * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. l. 2. p. 285. there So she may learn to open her mouth with wisedome e Prov. 31. 26. and then she shall have joy by the answers of her mouth for a word spoken in due season how good is it f Prov. 15. 23. 7 A parent must look to it that an oath be not heard from the mouth of a childe he will learn it sooner then he will his prayers From his mouth it is like a word clothed with g Eccles 23. 12. death Here the Father is as he is in every thing very exemplary the childe must honour the father and the father owes a reverence to the childe h Maxima debetur pueris reverâ—ntia Juven the elder sort must carry themselves reverently before youth and in this point very circumspectly or else there is no hope but that the childe will practise as he heares and sees Therefore our Lords prohibition must hold in the parent else the childe will be loose and runne out Sweare not at i Matth 5. 34. all not at all willingly but forced by k Vel authoritate deferentis vel duritie non credentis authority or incredulity not at all rashly or lightly not at all by the creature we cannot make the least that is and if we use any thing in a vain and light manner whereby God hath made Himself known to man we take His name in vain and we know what follows I cannot but remember how often that golden-mouthed Father warnes the people of Antioch That they sweare not that they beware of oathes It is the close almost of every Homily And in one place he speaks very plainly and to a childes capacity Away away with this wicked custome of oaths and let us give but so much honour to Gods Name as we do unto our best clothes it is our manner to reserve them for solemne times for speciall service Good friends let us not so farre contemne our own souls and their everlasting welfare as that we use the terrible Name of God more dishonourably then we will our clothes So that Father All meanes must be taken whereby Hom. 9 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the childe may conceive the Name of God aright to be as it is dreadfull and terrible And lesser things must be avoided though they were not evill in themselves to prevent
season now follows and the instructions therefrom CHAP. VI. The second season seasonable for instruction and yeelding a great deale 2. AT noon we eat bread at noon which implyeth that we have done our worke before we are not content to feed an unprofitable servant nor a Lord-Dane an idle drone nor doth the great House-keeper of the world make any allowance here for idle and lazy servants That pattern Å¿ Gen. 24. 33. of servants doth his work first and eates after Ioseph returnes home at noone from his necessary affaires then eates bread with his brethren t Gen. 43. 25. It is supposed and granted That the servant sitting down to eat came from the field plowing there or feeding cattell u Luke 17. 7. He that like an idle Serving-man can finde no good imployment for his hand or minde should be kept fasting according to the Apostles rule He that doth not labour must not eat He that laboureth not lives like a mouse x Quasi mures sâ—mper odêre alicnum panem Plaut Pers Act. 1. Scen. 2. he eats not his own bread Nay he is a thief because he worketh not the thing that is good Ephes 4. 28. And now that we have laboured see our frailtie and what it is wearinesse is a fruit of the curse and now a kinde of sicknesse Rest cures that hunger a sicknesse also meat cureth it But behold how little a satisfaction here is in it and for how little a while we are refreshed now with rest and repast presently again we are weary and faint Our bodies need continuall repairing we are still falling toward our earth dust is turning to dust before our last glasse be turned and the last sand run out Every day there is a spending of the vitalls some dilapidations in our building which these comforts of meat and drink through Gods blessing prop and make up again but with some losse in the principalls A consideration which may assure us that we are but men fraile decaying men and minde us of that state where is constancy and to seek Him who is fulnesse and onely satisfies Here below our comforts and refreshments lie scattered some here some there some in this some in that we go to the fire for some to the cup board for other some to the cisterne of water for other but they are indeed but cisterns quickly suckt up and emptied and then are we as before God is the ever springing-fountain All comforts are summ'd up in Him as the drops in the ocean They are divided here below but united in Christ get Him and we have all in Him Oh say then Give us evermore from that fountain That though we do come to these cisternes to draw yet we may know them to be but cisternes and Him to be the Fountain from whom we may receive fullnesse and satisfaction and so wait for His appearance when we shall be ever with the Lord where we shall hunger no more nor thirst any more c. 3. And this instructs also that we have no true right to the Creatures before us a kinde of right there is y All are yours 1. Cor. 3. 21. 22. that is the churches in order to comfort and happiness but for proprietie so all things are not ours Religion takes not away the distinction of master and servant And therefore it takes not away distinction of goods which is the lesser Doctor Sibs on that Text. Non fundatur dominium nisi in Imagine Dei. Imago baec quid est aut quomo lo deletur Respondebunt spiritus fanatici Imaginem Dei esse puritatem id autem quod delet esse peccatum Verùm hoc ad eversionem imperii omnis spectat Interpretes igitur saniores banc imaginem interpretantur esse rationem naturalem Quae si in toto aut maximâex parte deformetur jus imperii extinguitur L. Verul de bello sacro p. 3. 345. In Engl. p. 122. 123. Lege Clem. Alex. Ad Gentes pag. 44. which is not here a place to dispute but no true nor comfortable right but in our Head the Lord Iesus Christ By sinne we have forfeited them all and more then so we have brought a curse upon them and a vanitie In Christ they are restored and through Him the curse taken off I will cite Mr Dearings words here on Heb. the first chapter verse 2. They are these and yeeld us profitable instruction We must learn of our selves we have nothing but being ingrafted in Him we are owners of all things In mine own right I am naked and void of all I have no meat to feed my hungry body no drink to comfort my faint and thirsty spirit no clothes to keep me warm no house to harbour me c. for the earth is the Lords and the fulnesse thereof I may have from man my warrant here in earth that my house is mine and my land is mine and he is a thief and a robber that taketh it from me But all the men in the world cannot give me my possession before the living God but onely his Sonne Christ who is Heire of all Then that our lands may be our own our goods our own yea and our meat ours let us be Christs that in Him we may have the good assurance of all our substance Take not thy meat but as the gift of Christ who hath sanctified it unto thee nor any thing thou hast but with thanksgiving to Christ that hath sanctified it for thee †4. And the consideration hereof should be a meanes to lift up our hearts as well as our hands and eyes to Him that spreadeth our table prevents the snare feeds us with the finest wheat when others are fed with the bread of affliction and water of affliction or if our bread be course or not that but pulse instead of bread yet He can nourish by it and make the countenance z Dan. 1. ruddy whereas the more daintie fare may tend to leannesse So the parent must teach the childe not to eat with common hands or mouth that is not before the hands be lifted up and the mouth opened to Him Who opened His hand to the parent first before the parent could open his to the childe And now onely commands a blessing and gives the bread power to nourish making it a staffe of bread both to parent and childe which must minde the parent that it is not a childes work to blesse the table but according to the ancient custome the masters duty to pray for a blessing who should best understand that all things are sanctified by the word of God and prayer And so much to raise our hearts before we take our meat towards Him who onely commands a blessing upon our meat and strengtheneth with strength in our souls Psal 138. verse 3. 5. And now that we suppose we are set down to feel and taste how good the Lord is who hath so furnished our table we must consider well what is set
before us else we are as he who puts a knife to his throat a Alioquin Trem. Prov 23. 2. Lege Clem. Alex. paed lib. 2 cap. 1. saith the wiseman What meaneth he by that If we do not moderate our selves in a sober temperate use of the Creatures as men not given to our appetites we do then turn that which was ordained to maintain life and to refresh the spirits the clean contrary way as a meanes to destroy life and to suppresse and damp the spirits which is a great provocation for thereby we fight against God with His own blessings and against our selves with our own weapons and so are as they who instead of putting their hands to their mouthes to feed them put both to their throat to cut it For by intemperance this way in meat and drink by feeding without fear we transgresse the set bounds b Chrysostomes observation touching the use of wine is very usefull for it telleth us the use of all the creatures given for our nourishment wine glads the heart there you have the use of it saith he gladding and refreshing is the very bound and limit set unto us in the use of the creatures if we transgresse that bound we abuse them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad Rom. 15. Hom 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and our heart thereby is made as heavy as a stone our spirits quite flat and dead whence the proverb is An intemperate man digs his grave with his fingers so that although life be within him yet his body is his prison and the grave of Gods mercies and his life serves him to little other purpose then to dishonour that God who hath provided so bountifully for him And this kinde of intemperance I mean this lifting up the heel in our full pasture and exalting the heart this unkinde requitall of the Lord puts man that reasonable creature one degree below the c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Tom. 5. de Lazaro concio 1. unreasonable The ox the horse and the asse These saith the Father usefully when they are fed go on their way carrying their burdens and performing their service but man so overchargeth himself that his meat proves his burden if not this surfeit and makes him unfit to return any service but such as sheweth him to be a debter onely to the flesh which indeed we must nourish that it may be serviceable but further we owe it neither suit nor service Think then how ill we do requite the Lord when fed by Him we spurn against Him loaded with His mercies we load Him with our sinnes refreshed with His comforts we grieve His Spirit by a contrary and unsavorie walking Here then is a fit place and season to teach and learn abstinence one of those vertues so much commended and that may help much to the learning of the other patience so I invert the order d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiot Aul Gell. lib. 17. cap. 19. He that hath gotten command over himself at his Table in moderating his appetite and can deny himself what his stomach eagerly craves will be able to command himself in great matters and bear hard things It is unseemly for a man the Lord over the creatures to be brought under the power of the creature and if he would not which is his wisdome he must consider as well what is expedient as what is lawfull e 1. Cor. 6. 12. And so he teacheth his childe by his own example as well as by precept and much better and now is his season for abstinence is best taught and learnt at the first and no where better then at our meat f Comeditur quantum ad famem bibitur quantum satis pudicis castis sunt omnia quasi comed rint bibâ—rint disciplinam Tert. in Apoll. cap. 39. It is Mr Perkins g On Gal. 5. 24. p. 181. rule That man must deny his desires at the table he must command himself there as one under his own power and not under the power of the creatures if he look to be able to deny goods good-name wife children selfe and all All which must be parted with when they stand in competition with the truth else we lose our selves These are sweet bits indeed and he that cannot deny himself his sweet bits at his table wtll very hardly h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mark 8. 34. deny himself in these If a man must needs swallow that bit because it is sweet and that cup of wine because it is pleasant if he hath so farre lost the command over himself that this he must needs do when yet his stomach needs it not It is very probable then that the same man will strain at the cup of sorrow as at a cup of trembling it will no more down with him by his will then will a Camel but if down it must it is because it must be so there is no remedie for God hath put the cup into his hand and he must drink thereof The lesson then is At our tables we must begin this deniall so we shall frame unto it the better in other things of greater importance We may note here that naturally we are very short spirited all for the present we are impatient of waiting soon tired there even almost before we begin though the Lord hath said The waiting of the meek shall not be forgotten And though the Lords manner is to make His children wait putting a long date to the performance of His promises when yet His deferring is no empty space for in that space much good is done even a fitting for the promise as while the seed lieth in the earth the time is not lost for the hard winter fitteth for the more hopefull Spring But I say so the Lords manner is to inure unto a patient waiting to stay as in the case of Lazarus k John 5. 6. and with those He most loveth two dayes longer when the extremity seems greatest so long as we may think with Martha that the season for help is quite past We may take notice how short our spirits are by that we reade of the two sisters but especially of the three disciples l Luke 24. 21. The third day was come and not fully over and yet but so long deferring their hopes weakened their trust And to day is the third day By them we may learn how short our spirits are and how impatient in waiting But the shortnesse and eagernesse of our spirits appeares in nothing more then in those things which presse upon the necessities of nature We see ordinarily the bread and the cup are put to the mouth before so much as a thought the quickest thing that is is conceived of Him who hath ordained both for our comforts And we may remember how hard it pressed upon Esau yea and upon the good old Prophet m 1. Kings 13. 15. who was easily seduced upon the mention of bread which
sheweth us the eagernesse of our appetites and how peremptory the demands of an hungry stomack are which a man can no more rule then he can his tongue but He who restrained the ravenous lion from tearing the asse and the Carkeise mark it can restrain our eagernesse this way and give us the command of our selves for the better performing His command in cases extraordinary and in suffering great matters when He shall call us unto it I think now of the extremities which famine drives unto and they are scarce utterable by them that never felt them I think also how soon our very necessaries which we have riotously abused and carelessely cast at our feet may be taken from us But then I think withall that in these extremities wherewith Gods dearest children may be exercised and pressed they do so look up to Gods hand and so rest upon it that they certainly finde the same hand as gracious towards them in sustaining them as it was powerfull in holding the mouth of the lion in the forementioned case So as though the extremitie be great yet they do not put forth their hand to wickednesse not to such horrid and bloody dishes as we reade and heare that some in their extremities have done If God take away the meat He can take away the stomach also as the Martyr said or restrain the rage of it so as it shall not touch the carkeise or such unclean things But we cannot tell what delicate wanton persons may do in their straits nor how far our unmortified lusts may carry us If we are in no part crucified to the world and have the world in no sort crucified to us the extremitie may prove unsupportable want of necessaries will presse sore upon those who alwayes have lived at the full and fed themselves without feare and could never part with so much as any of their superfluities They who feed themselves like beasts saith Clem. Alex very likely will walk and do like beasts n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paed 2. 11. wants to such are more disrellishing then dead beer after the sweetest banket They that live in pleasure and lie at ease cannot endure a change o We are hardly brought to change from soft beds to hard boards Hist of the World 4. 2. 11. p. 158. And therefore as we expect the support of the Almighties Hand in our fainting time when we have nothing to support us from without we must look up humbly and thankfully to the same Hand now that we have plenty And we must accustome our selves now that our tables are spread to a sober temperate use of the creatures and to all fitting abstinence holding command over our spirits in His strength we are able to do it who over-powered the lion that we be not brought under the power of the Creature The body hath some preparatives before a purge and when we would come out of a sweat kindely we cast off first one cloth then another so should we do in the ranknesse and sweat of our prosperity p Vitia longae pacis opulentae securitatis Salv. And now the time calls upon us famine and the extremities thereof we have q Chap. 4. § 14. read and heard of and what hath it taught us Our tables are as full of excesse as before and fuller of surfeit So the fool goes on and is punished he cannot lay things to heart but they that are wise do heare the voice of the rod and do fear before it walking humbly with the Lord They have got command over their spirits and are got from under the power of the Creature by denying themselves a little in this and a little in that Now in this lesser thing so making way for greater so as when the rod of their affliction shall bud out again which they expect nay when the Lord shall turn the former rod which wrought no reformation into a serpent so that it stings like a scorpion they may feel the smart thereof but the poyson thereof shall not be deadly And so much to teach us abstinence and to get command over our selves that we be not brought under the power of the creature which will help us much to possesse our souls in patience in the day of trouble They that have not learnt to wait are not fitted to receive the fruits from the r James 5. 7. earth or the accomplishment of the promise from heaven Now touching our children the lesson is this we must not give them alwayes when they aske nor so much as they would have let them feele sometimes the want of it and the biting of an hungry stomack It sweeteneth the creature when they shall have it and puts a price upon the same when it is in their hand It is rare amongst those that are grown up to finde a stomack full of meat and an heart as full of praise The emptie stomack feeles the comfort and is in likelihood more enlarged Let the childe abstain from all sometimes but not often it is their growing time yet sometime altogether from all at all times from part They must not taste of every dish nor look so to do it is not good for the ſ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Al. Paed 2. 1. pag. 103. parent lesse wholsome for the childe there is a drunkennesse t Plures cum sint vino sobriae ciborum largitate sunt ebriae Hier. lib. 2. op 17. in eating as in drinking Accustome children to waite now they will waite with more patience hereafter But more specially teach them a fit and reverent behaviour both before and at the table Though they sit at a common table yet it is Gods table He spread it for the parent and the childe Though there we receive common blessings yet we must not put upon them common esteeme nor return for them common thanks children must not by their rude and uncivill deportment before and at the table make it a stable or an hogs-stye nor must they drown themselves there in an eager fulfilling their appetite like beasts u 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cl. Mex Pop. 2. 7. pag. 127. at their manger or swine in their trough like beasts I say that have their manger before x 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Loco laud. pag. 128. them and their dung hill behind them hereof Clem. of Alex. makes very good use and that is all I tend to here 6. And now that we have eaten we must remember to return praise Our great Master is our great example Before He gave common bread He gave thanks and when He administred the Sacrament of His blessed body and bloud He concluded with an Hymn * Matt. 26. 30. y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Hearken to this saith Chrysostome y upon those words all ye that goe from your common table like swine whereas ye should give thanks and conclude with a Psalme And hearken ye also who will not sit out
till the blessing be given Christ gave thanks before He gave to His disciples that we might begin with thanks-giving And He gave thanks after He had distributed and sung a Psalme that we might do so likewise so Chrysostome Now then that we are filled it is the very season of thanksgiving saith the y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys de Laz. Ser. 1. Tom. 5. Father And he that is now to addresse himselfe to return thanks is supposed to have fed temperately and to be sober They that have fed without feare and are filled with their pasture are more like to kick with the heele then to return praise and in so doing are worse then the most savadge creatures who to shew their thankfulnesse will be at the beck of those that feed them We must remember that with us men every favour requires a z Omne beneficium exigit officium Lege Chrysost in Gen. cap. 12. Hom. 32. Man must not be like his belly what it receives to day it forgets to morrow and when it is full it thinks of temperance Translated out of Basil de jejunio p. 281. Psal 154 10. returne much more when we receive these comforts of meat and drink from Gods hand we must return in way of homage our thankfulnesse If it should be thrice asked as one in another case what is the speciall dutie or grace required in a Christian I should answer thrice also supposing the season Thankefulnesse Thankfulnesse at our sitting down Thankfulnesse at our receiving the blessing Thankfulnesse when we are refreshed Thankfulnesse is as good pleading in the Common Law the heart string a Lord Cooke Pref. Littlet thereof so of Religion It is the very All of a Christian if it be with all the heart And heartie it should be for as it is for beasts to eate till they be filled so is it beast-like to look downward when they are filled If God had made me a Nightingale I would saith on have sung as a Nightingale doth but now God hath made me a man I must as a man sing forth His praise All Thy works blesse Thee and Thy Saints praise Thee Now that we have received mercies we must think to make return else every bit we have eaten will be an inditement against us There is a vanitie in our natures for sometimes we stand upon exactnesse of justice as one saith in answering petty D. 5. 563. courtesies of men and in shewing our selves thankfull for favours received there when yet we passe by substantiall favours from God without taking notice of them But we can easily consider that if it be a sinne in civilitie carelesly to passe by the favours from men much more in Religion to receive from Gods hand and not to returne our thanks b Ila semper cemedendum est ut cibum oratio sequatur Lectio Hier. epist lib. 1. cp 35. pag. 47. And if it be a rude and uncivill fashion to rise from our common tables where we receive common bread to play much more then so to rise from our seat at Church where the bread we are fed withall is so much more precious as the soule is above the body We suppose then we are now rising from our common table where every man hath put in his thanks as into a common stock and so joyntly offered unto God Cyprians words are seasonable here I finde them in Vrsinus touching the order and connexion of the fourth with the fift petition After our supplication to God for supply of food and sustenance Give us we say forgive us that is we pray for pardon of sinnes and offences That He who is fed by God may live to God c Vt à Deo pasti in Deum vivant Thankfulnesse and that is the spring of a kinde obedience must presently follow the receipt of mercies It is good to take the advantage of the freshnesse of a blessing He will not be thankfull anon who is not thankfull now he hath newly felt and found the sweetnesse of a mercy what we adde to delay we take from thankfulnesse If the heart be closed now that the Lord hath so newly opened His hand toward it it is like it will be as hard and dry as a flint afterwards And what an unkinde requitall is it when in stead of being Temples of His praise we become graves of His benefits They lye buryed in us It is an old tradition but instructs very much which is That every creature hath a three-fold voice to man take returne beware In more words the meaning is this when we take the creature into our hands be it bread or be it water d Isa 33. 16. Calv. under these two all is contained saith Calvin we must remember that it speaks thus unto us 1. Take the benefit and comfort which the Lord hath ordained thee from me 2. Returne the duty of praise and thanks which is due to the Lord for me 3. And beware thou forget it not least the Lord deprive thee of me or curse His blessings Our goodnesse e Job 35. 6 7 8. is nothing to the Lord nor can we adde unto His glory by making returne of our thankfulnesse any more then we can give to the fountaine f where at we Aug. de civit 10. 5. drinke or to the Sun whereby we see but yet we must note That there is a taxation or impost set upon every thing we enjoy which is this God the supreame Lord must have His tribute of glory out of the same And from man who hath these things to trade withall God must have the tribute of thankfulnesse It being the easie taske tribute or impost which the supreame Lord of All layeth upon all the goods we possesse and blessings we receive and if we be not behinde with Him in this tribute of our lips He will see that all creatures in heaven and earth shall pay their tributes unto us But if we keep back His homage we forfeit and endanger the losse of all Man will not sow his best seed but in a fruitfull ground God intends His glory in every mercy g Lâ—ge S. Basil in Her Hom. 7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he that praiseth Him glorifies Him Remember then we must when we receive Gods mercies what we reade Deut. 10. 12. And now O Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee All errors saith one h Bp. And. who said much in a little are tolerable save two about the first beginning and the last end we erre against the first when we derive things amisse not acknowledging all to come from God Against the second we erre when we referre things amisse when we returne not all to Him giving Him the tribute of praise I must remember here-with the memorable words of Clemens which are these Behold O man i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Protrept p. 53. for how small a matter the Lord doth give
weakest executioners He needs not an army of Giants one whereof and he was the greatest that I think our last Centuries have taken notice of was of such a stature that the sole of his foot did cover foure of ours z Grimstone Hist of the Netherland p. 39. The Lord needs not an army of such nor needeth He iron charriots nor Elephants to make a battel fierce and terrible against a backsliding and revolted people When a Nation needeth a sharp knife as the Father expresseth it to cut away the dead fresh the Lord can do it by despicable instruments and yet of force and sharpnesse enough to execute His pleasure who to approve Himself the God of all power worketh great things by the weakest meanes Even by His northern Army the locust the cankerworm the caterpiller a Joel 2. 20. 25. A locustis à maribus genus omne occiditur at que arroditur frugum Arnob. lib. 1. p. 3. in fol. vic com These silly creatures can make a Garden of Eden before them a desolate wildernesse behinde them and nothing shall escape them verse the 3. If He speak the word and bid it go the silly frog shall scale the palace and the Kings bed-chamber The rats shall take the tower The mise shall consume all the provision of war and in one night they shall do it as writeth Herodotus And so speaketh that monument there of one holding a mouse in his hand and bidding the beholder look up to God and serve Him in feare b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And to relate nearer to the thing in hand A little worm can devoure all the provision of bread as experience hath sometimes told us and that noted story in Grimston who writeth That the corn twice or thrice sown was as often eat up by a little worm or gray snaile and in one night whence followed dearth famine pestilence wolves c Pag. 819. Anno 1586. Oh that man so dependant a Creature should carry himself proudly before the God of Heaven Who to approve Himself the God of all power and able to abase the proud heart hath a thousand wayes and meanes whereby to do it He can by a gnat a fly an haire stop the breath and by the weakest means destroy life and lively-hood We have often read these words and there is much comfort in them to such who are fearers of the Lord Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field and with the creeping things d Job 5. 23. Hos 2. 18. c. I remember what an old Preacher said upon these Texts It was this What great matter is it will some man think to be at league with the stones of the field or in covenant with creeping things of the ground he feares no danger from these No said the Preacher he doth not and therefore being out of covenant with his God his danger is the greater because not feared He that feares not God hath cause to feare every thing and that he least feares may most hurt him That stone which lieth before him may dash out his brains by such a meanes as no man possibly could suspect and the beast that is in his hand and knows not his strength nor shall put it forth yet may occasion his fall I knew a man for he lived amongst us who had a Barbary horse to present to his great friend and stroaking the back of the beast and there feeling it crushed with the saddle was presently in a great rage with his man and in that rage stamped with his foot the heel of his boot being after the fashion high slipt within the crevice of the stones it was on a causie-way and he plucking his heel out again with some heat and choler fell down forward where a sharp stone standing above the rest met with his fore-head and his brains and dashed them out A great mercy to be at league with the stones and in covenant with the beasts and creeping wormes which we cannot be if out of covenant with God So much to the works of God on the earth and to the instruction therefrom which in this cursorie way and view of them we may take along with us They serve to refresh and comfort to instruct and humble God is great in the very least and to shew Himself the God of all power He can and doth bring to passe great works by the weakest and simplest persons and meanes It follows now that we take a view of the great Waters II. for they with the earth make up but one Globe In the view of this subject leaving more subtile enquiries for a fitter place I behold first their surface secondly their barres and bounds thirdly their weight fourthly the Creatures therein 1. The surface thereof it is as the windes and weather is if calme the sea is very pleasing and in some places like a table if stormy then troubled and raging casting up mire and dirt It sheweth us the common errour and mistake we have when we commend a person for we say he is a very good man unlesse he be stirred or e Multi nonnullam man suctudinem prae se fcrunt quans diu blanda omnia amabilia experiuntur at verò qui eundem servat modestiae tenorem ubi pungitur irritatur quotusquisque Cal. Inst lib. 3. cap. 7. § 4. moved Vnlesse he ◠stirred So is the sea also a comely pleasing creature in her calmes but rough and dreadfull in her stormes If the winde stirre the sea mounts if they bluster it roares I know not a consideration that may sooner calme a man if in a commotion as winde enough he shall finde to cause it But surely a good man findes a calme or makes it even then when there is much stirring about him The windes and stormes properly taken tell us what the sea is and metaphorically taken they tell us what the man is Our passions are elegantly called tortures f Et vino tortus ira Hor. Tortures upon the body many times make the minde more secret or opens the mouth against judgement as said a Lawyer honest and learned for rackings stood not with his law g Fortescue chap. 22. But tortures upon the minde tell us what the man is they discover a man If passion hath put the minde upon the rack and the person now suffer no wrack in the storm of his passion he is a man of a sound constitution we cannot doubt of it For our h Poeta perturbationes non inscitè appellat torturas quod ab iis secreta c. Augment l. 8. p. 252. passions try what a man is indeed as the stormes and windes what wood the ship is made of how firme and sound it is how well compact and set together and so forth for the use hereof is large 2. The surface of the waters shews us how the Lord deales with His ransomed ones conducting them to their haven For with those
our selves and unnecessarily in our Thorough-fare as if there were our abiding and our place of rest and no countrey above no glory there Yet such a Glory it is as no tongue can expresse it no thought can reach unto it Tell not me now so the Father goes on of hell and what the damned feel there n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. tell me of heaven if thou wilt move me and the exceeding glory there For I tell thee that the pain of sense as the learned call them the pain the body shall feel in hell will not be so keene sharpe and fretting though sharp and fretting they will be past all expression yet not so fretting as will be the pain of losse losse of heaven and the exceeding glory there This losse this will be most tormenting Thoughts thereof will sinke the soul into that pit like a stone or lead in the great waters This I say will be the fretting worm the tormenting thought what I have lost what happinesse I have falne from More tormenting it will be then the lowermost hell and the utmost wrath there o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And this thought will adde much to our torment For what a toy a trifle a thing of naught we have forfeited this exceeding weight of glory so small a thing it was that it will be justly said of us we despised our birth-right For this great deceiver be it Satan or our own heart deceivers both he gives us small things p 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a puffe of honour short pleasure transitory riches poore base emptie shrunken things he takes from us great things q 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a weight of glory it contains all an exceeding excesse of glory it cannot be exprest but all this he takes from us He gives us dyrt he depriveth us of the pearle he presents us with a shadow he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 robs us of the substance And here we are without excuse for hereof we cannot plead ignorance it being the daily voice of all the creatures under the Sun sounding lowder then the loudest trumpet r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they are as grasse and the beautie of them as the fading flower vanitie or lighter then so if ought can be and such things are the very best this deceiver can give us but he takes away such things as we heard and as we must conceive them to be if we behold the out-court or pavement of that Holy of Holies This large use the Father makes upon this contemplation as we may better understand and more enlarge it if we peruse his 14 Homily upon the Epistle to the Romanes towards the end And so much in a generall way and view of the firmament and the great works of God there which He hath set out unto open view to shew us what is within and what manner of persons we ought to be who look to enter into that Holy place And withall which is the chiefest of all to stirre us up to presse towards the mark And forgetting things behinde in our earnest pursuite thitherward and expectation thereof to reach out as with necks stretched forth after those high and great things such they are as the eye hath not seene nor the eare heard nor the heart can conceive But such they are unutterable and glorious which the righteous Lord will give to all that feare Him and waite for his appearance Onely shew we our selves men not children who for an apple will part with a pearle and thinke they have no losse by that exchange So much to the contemplation of the firmament of His power the height and glory thereof I descend now unto that creature which the Lord hath divided unto all nations and with which our sense is more acquainted but deceives our sense exceedingly for though it discover unto us things below yet it locks up with the clearnesse of its light and lustre the things above Our eye if we marke it will discerne much higher in a cleare night then it can in the clearest day In the night we see as high above the Sun as the Sun is above us but in the day we have no cleare discerning of any thing that is above the Sun because of the clearnesse of that mightie Body which dazleth the eye if we look upon it and puts it out if we stand and gaze And thus the heathen did and so that light darkened v Leg. Clem. Alex ad Gentes pag. 31. them that-they could not rise to a glory above the creature but where they terminated their sight their they terminated their worship Therein like the countreyman who looking for the King at his Court thinks that he must need be the King who first comes forth in most gorgeous apparel x Reade Plut. in the life of Pericles Morneus de Verit. Rel. Sol quasi solus c. Cic. de divin though the Kings honour sets him forth and sets up his head above others and the glory of apparell those who have least honour But I have digressed I began my morning instructions with the Sun and with that creature I will end my instructions from the creatures It is called a solitary y Leg. Basil Hex Hom. 6. creature because it shines alone obscuring all other lights with his clearnesse and being the fullest in our eye I observe 1. the motion of the Sunne 2. the beames 3. his brightnesse And some short instructions from all Then I shall be at the end of our walk And conclude the instructions there-from 1. Behold if we can the Suns motion we cannot see it stirre but we can see it is passed then by what hand it moves and with what strength and quicknesse no motion so quick except that which is like lightning in an instant Then behold we the magnitude thereof how massive a body it is for it may enter into our conceipt And beholding all this we shall be filled with wonderment and be forced to acknowledge that Wonderfull is the Creator thereof a mightie God Behold again its constancy in moving The Sun never yet rose nor set nor more then once stood still since first it was created to run its course though to us it seemes to do both which makes our morning and our night It still moves to teach us constancy in our holy profession and still in its own sphere and within its own limits and bounds to teach us the decency of order for when it hath touched those limits which we call Tropicks it is retrograde and turnes back again Some have taught that the Sun moves neerer to the earth now then in former times but they who teach so would be taught by stripes and their writing blotted out with spunges saith the learned Scaliger z Exercit. 99. 3. The Sunne never transgresseth his set bounds So much or so little rather to the Suns motion which we see when it is past but the full
understanding thereof is too high and wonderfull for those who are clothed with flesh Man cannot finde out the hand of God herein unto perfection 2. The beames of the Sun are as Wonderfull also we know their Father we understand not their production so wonderfully are they begotten How then can reason carry us into a more secret mystery The proceeding of the Holy Ghost which some whom I have known have searched into with their own light and lost themselves in the search Secret things belong unto the Lord our God but things revealed belong unto us a Deut. 29. 29. First then This we finde revealed The wonderfull power and universall efficacy of those beames for this is the conclusion from the sacred Scripture and from experience That nothing is hid from the heate thereof b Psal 19. 6. And if these beames d In solem inâ—â—â—e coelo affixus sed terris omnibus sparsus est pariter praesens ubique interest miscetur omnibus nusquam 〈◊〉 cla 〈…〉 dâ— violattâ—â— Quanto magis Deus c. a qâ—o nullum potest esse secreâ—â— tenebris interest c. M. Min. Felic pag. 27. in sol are so piercing so searching Whither then Lord shall I goe from thy spirit or whether shall I flie from thy presence c Psal 139. 7. See Chrysol Ser. 2. pag. 5. 6. where shall I hide my self or my sin If I say surely the darknesse shall cover me even the night shall be light about me yea the darknesse hideth not from Thee but the night shineth as the day the darknesse and the light are both a like to Thee I cannot hide my self nor my sin from Thee but I may hide both my self and my sinne in Thee Christ is that hiding place a sure sanctuary for my person and a certaine cover for my sinne There is no flying from Thee for we shall be found out but it is safe flying to Thee for with Thee is mercy So Austin speaks This meets with a known dotage and concludeth against it That God doth see sinne in His children if nothing be hid from the heate of those beames what then can be hid from the Creator of them He hath not beheld iniquitie in Iacob neither hath He seene perversenesse in Israel e Num. 23. 21. No He beholdeth them in His beloved Sonne in whom He is well pleased and for His sake with them He doth not behold sinne in them to condemne to punish them for it for by His sonnes stripes they are healed And this is that rich mystery of grace f Mysterium opulentumgratiae admirabile commercium peccata nostra non nostrae sed Christi sunt justitia Christi non Christi sed nostra est Ex nanivit c. Quomodo in peccatis nostris dolet confunditur hoc modo nos in illius justitia laetamur gloriamur c. Luther in Psal 22. So Luther spake who spake out of experience that admirable exchange when Christ took our sins and gave us His righteousnesse emptied Himself that He might fill us stript Himself that He might invest us sorrowed Himself and was confounded with our sins that we might rejoyce and glory in His righteousnesse An admirable exchange indeed a rich mystery which magnifyeth the riches of Gods love giving His Sonne to the world and of Christ giving Himself for the world of beleevers But this doth not take off from Gods knowledge what He seeth not to condemne and punish He doth see even in His Israel to reprove and correct And when He shall correct for sinne His Israel shall confesse against this vanitie tossed to and fro Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee our secret sins in the light of thy countenance g Psal 90. 8. 2. From the different operations of the beames I note That the diversitie of subjects the Sun worketh upon diversifies the effects And this is but a conclusion of experience also how unclean soever the place is where they come they alter not but work diversly according to the matter they work upon If upon clay it is hardned If upon waxe it is softned if upon a dung-hill the stinking vapours more offend if upon a garden of sweet herbs the sweet savour more refresheth if upon good fruits they grow for the use of man if upon weeds they grow to humble him The alteration is here below in sublunary creatures the Sunne changeth not Hence we learn how unreasonable that dealing is which the Wise-man telleth us of The foolishnesse of man perverteth his way and his heart fretteth against the Lord h Prov. 19. 3. This should not be so but clean contrary For when a man perverteth his own way and then fretteth against God It is as if the dung-hill should blame the Sun from whence nothing can come but light as from a dung-hill an unsavoury smell which is the more sensible and offensive the clearer and more piercing that light is or as if a man through inconsideratenesse taking a fall should fret against the stone If God leaveth us to walke in our own wayes or recompenseth our wayes upon us we ought not to charge Him foolishly but to charge our selves with folly and if we have learnt so much we have learnt a short but a great lesson For it will make us continually to walk humbly with our God and a continued humilitie is a continued adoration of His Majestie and the ground-work of an holy life which is a continued prayer i Vera humilitas perpetua adoratio pia vita perpetua oratio 3. We may note again That these beames of the Sun in its circuit do passe through many pollutions and yet not polluted therewith but remaine pure and cleane The Sun worketh upon inferiour bodies and cherisheth them by light and influence yet is not wrought upon by them but keepeth its owne lustre and distance The Father maketh this use hereof How much more then saith he could the Sun of righteousnesse dwell with flesh and pitch His tabernacle with us k 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 1. 14. and yet not be polluted by us Howmuch more could that Son of righteousnesse communicate with man and take unto Him the infirmities of mankinde I mean such which accompany the whole nature As hungring thirsting wearinesse griefe paine and mortalitie yet without any touch or tincture of sinne from all these because what ever were the effects here-from were in Christ like the stirring of Chrystall water in a Chrystall glasse whereof we have no sedament no dregs in the bottom l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Tom. 5. Ser. 31. Chrys â— This shews us also who are heavenly and the beautie of a well ordered soul It thinks nothing in the world of sufficient worth to put it out of frame such a soul is instructed what it should be It should rule over things beneath and not be ruled by them like the Sunne it should be under the power of nothing beneath
ye may be accepted of the Lord that ye may live for ever with Him Oh it is good to strive here and not to faint It is for eternitie and for a crowne lasting so long and unlike other crownes still flourishing even to everlasting Gird up your loines That is put to all your strength and the Lord strengthen your hands to lay hold hereon and strengthen you the more the more feeble Age hath made you and the nearer you are to the putting it on Be as ye have been and be more abundant Eies h Job 29. 13 to the blinde feete to the lame that the blessing of them that are ready to perish may come down upon you as the Dew upon the grasse and your praiers may ascend as Incense coming up in remembrance before the Lord. But above all look to the root of all Faith Gods great work i John 6. 29. and gift restore that renew that the fruit k See the Book pag. 46 47. will be and be alwaies greene like a Watered garden which doth not fear the yeer of drought l Jer. 17. 8. Quicken the Mother-grace it will quicken you and every grace that ye cannot be unfruitfull ye cannot but adde one grace to another so building upwards stil towards heaven where we hope to see our Parents againe our yoak-fellows againe our children againe c. This is somewhat quickning but where we shall see our Lord Christ againe even as He is m John 3. 2. Lord what a joyfull vision will this be Thou knowest we know not nor know how to expresse it for it passeth all understanding Be abundant therefore in the work of the Lord in the labour of love work of faith patience of hope none of this can be in vaine in the Lord. In vaine more is understood then spoken An Abundant recompense there shall be pressing down running over For Temporalls eternalls for a sprinkling of mercy a weight of Glory for respecting His Christs here ye shall be ever with Christ and with His Christs hereafter where there shall be All peace and peace is all passing understanding where ye shall see the glory of His Inheritance and partake with the felicitie of His Chosen When all the Crannies of your right precious soules shall be filled with joy unspeakably glorious Our thoughts are too short to reach here much more short are our words Their scope is to set your hope before you and to make it precious in your eies that in this earthly Tabernacle ye may have your conversation in the highest heaven from thence looking for a Saviour Who shall change this corruptible body to make it like to His glorious body in that blessed Time which shall scatter away all afflictions and seale within you the happy assurance of immortalitie therewith cloathing a weake body and recompensing a few sorrowfull daies with everlasting peace In which hope say now and alwaies Lord encrease in us our faith and hope that in assurance of Gods love our consciences may be at peace and in the revelation of Gods glory our hearts may be filled with joy in the Lord. Yee see now the full scope of my words even to leade you to hopes on high for they will send your thoughts on high they will purge quicken stirre up they will elevate and advance the soule to a wonderfull height And now that my words have attained this end as I hope they have even to set your affections hearts heads hands all a work ye labour to be accepted of the Lord my words shall here end also so soone as I have onely mentioned the Apostles fare-well I commend you to God and the word of his Grace n and have subscribed my selfe Your worships in a double obligation EZEKIAS WOODVVARD THE PREFACE PREPARING THE EARE OF him or her who is a Childe in understanding My deare Childe HItherto thou hast been an hearer onely growing up as my papers fill'd and as an accession of yeers through Gods goodnesse gave some addition to thy growth and capacitie so did I to the strength weight of my Instructions I suppose thee now growne up and thy knowledge answerable to thy yeers for though a Childe is made a patterne yet we must not be like it in understanding When we were Children we did and we spake as children and all was comely but when we out-grew Childe-hood we out-grew Childishnesse a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex Strom. p. 51. We had need of Milke and not of Strong Meate for we were as Babes unskilfull in the Word of Righteousnesse but now our stature is increased it were a sname that we should be Dwarfes in the Inward man the man indeed They can have no Apologie or excuse for themselves who are growne up to full yeers yet have a Childes understanding b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost Tom. 4. quod nemo laedit c. I suppose thee then of full Age even such an one as I would have thee who by reason of use hast thy Senses exercised to discerne both good and evill c Heb. 5. 13. 14. Childehood and youth are the Parents seed-time when they must look to their dutie The after-Age is the season of fruit when Parents expect an harvest of their paines Children then must look to their dutie that Parent and Childe may rejoyce together But alas how many Parents are deceived here even they who have not neglected their seede-time They think upon the Instructions they have given the Intreaties they have used what my son and the sonne of my wombe and what the sonne of my vowes d Prov. 3 l. 2. These they think on but how many are quite lost how few or none take what may make for ease and delight that Children learne quickly so will the Horse the Mule the Asse and the Oxe put any of these to the Wheele they will quickly finde out the number of their Rounds and never after can be deceived in their Account e Charron of wisdome This is nature still and her field is fruitfull But no Earth there is that requires more labour and is longer before it yeelds fruit then Mans nature so decaied and wilde it is growne and so rightly compared to the Sluggards field as the person is to a Colt an Asse-Colt a wilde Asse-Colt The Philosopher reasons this case very pithily f Plut. de amore prolis pag. 157. He that plants a Vineyard quickly eates the Grape So in other graines some few Moneths bring them to our hands againe and the fruite of our labours to our Eie and Taste Oxen Horses Sheepe c. they quickly serve for our use and much service they doe in Lieu and recompense for a little cost But Mans education is full of labour and cost The increase is slow the fruite and comfort farre off not within Eieshot perhaps the Parent may kenne this comfort perhaps he may live to see it and to rejoyce perhaps also he
unmindfull of such a Master The dog hath led me a little beyond my mark but not out of my way my scope here is but this to shew that so we are degenerated so low are we falne the Beasts exceed man in their Naturals and men in their pure Naturalls make not that improvement of their senses for their Masters service their owne safety and mutuall comfort each with other as the Beasts doe no cause we should be proud of our Naturals And for Intellectuals being without that which the Apostle saith our speech should be seasoned with the Salt of Grace they may prove and ordinarily doe like Absoloms haire deadly So I remember a Knight that suffered upon Tower-hill acknowledged who had not returned his gifts to the glory of the Giver Nay more for wee hope better of him they make a man more miserable then the beasts that perish Achitophel is a sad example hereof so is Machevil who say the Italians so I learne out of Bishop Andrews rotted in â—pson Reason and speech they are the chiefe properties Ratio Orâ—tiâ— differencing man from a Beast Reason is the Crowne of a man his tongue his glory the same word in the sacred Tongue signifyes both But if man shall depose reason taking from it Hersoveraignty I mean in earthly matters then will a man be carryed like a horse that hath cast his rider and he will abuse his Tongue also vilifying that which should have honored him and in so doing he will liken himselfe to the most stinking place that we can passe by and to the most odious name that is named under the Sunne and so in the end will fall lower then a Beast can A Beast can fall no lower then the Earth nor doth it apprehend any evill till it feele the same and when it comes it is soone over and there 's an end Which remembers me of Pyrrhoes Hog that did eate his meate quietly in the Ship almost covered with waters when all the men there were halfe dead with feare But now reasonable Creatures are sometimes perplexed with unreasonable fears A mans apprehension may present evils that are not as impendent which may make his knees smite together and with all the apprehension of the time that is past and of that which to come may torment him too before he come to the place of his torment Bee not like the horse and mule then which have no understanding for then thy condition will bee much worse and lower then theirs in the latter end It may be I shall never call thee to an account nor live to see how thou hast thriven But consider this first what an Heathen o Plut. de fraterno amore spake it is very worthy a childs consideration We are charged that we doe ill to none much lesse to a parent but it is not enough for a child not to hurt his parents he must doe them all the good he can his whole deportment must be such such his words and deeds that thereby he may glad the heart of his parent else it is wicked and unjust Marke it for thus much it implyes It is not enough that the child doth not actually or positively give the parent cause of sorrow that were monstrous he or she must not privatively rob them of their comfort or stop them of their rejoycing even this were impious and unjust It is not enough not to grieve the parent not to give them matter of sorrow the childe that doth not more doth not his dutie he must give them matter of comfort and gladding of hearts This a childes dutie let a childe thinke of it and that an Heathen spake it from whom a lesson comes double to a Christian Consider again what the Lord saith It is a people of no understanding therefore He that made them will not have mercy on them p Esa 27. 12. Consider with that Scripture what the Apostle saith q 2 Thes 1. 8. In flaming fire taking vengeance of them that know not God c. If this and that be considered Thou wilt cry r Prov. 2. 3. after knowledge and lift up thy voyce forunderstanding wisdome is the principall thing therefore thou wilt get wisdome and with all thy gettings thou wilt get understanding Å¿ Prov. 4. 7. which only consolidates a man making him like armour of proofe or like a rocke for it fixeth the heart on Him in whom is everlasting strength Thou must consider also That an account must be given and the greater thy receits have been the greater thy accounts must be Line upon line and precept upon precept fills up the score apace A man looks to reape liberally where he sowes liberally And as God did bountifully reward the faithfull servant so did He severely punish the unfaithfull and negligent In the last place consider this and it sufficeth That a worthy name is called upon us even the name of Christ of whom the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named t Eph. 3. 15. A name which will honour us if we honour it which will highly exalt us if we exalt it And this we do when our conversation is honourable and as becommeth in heaven though amidst the things of the earth If there be a precise walking a good and suteable conversation worthy that name u The Scripture acknowledgeth them Christians or the anointed of the Lord who live Christian-like according to Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Nazian Oral 21. p 378 then the Christian is the honourable person as the fruitfull vine the best amongst the trees or as those which were very good x Jer. 24. 5. But if we defile y Read page 36. that name by an unworthy conversation then are we the basest of men like the barren vine z Ezech. 15. 4. fit for nothing but the fire or unsavoury salt very bad and to be cast out a Christians are the worse the better they should be the more sacred their name the more accursed their guilt c. Read Salv. de Gubâ—r l 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end and Li. 4. within two leaves of the end Christiani deteriores sunt c. Reatus impii est pium crimen It is a good conversation which commends a Christian and that only and which proves him so to be not miracles if a man could work them not revelations if a man could see them not signes and wonders if such a power were given from above It is the conversation which is all in all and justifies before men If I do not the works of my Father beleeve me not b John 10. 37. Our Lord said thus of Himself His work should testifie of Him c Luk. 7. 21. and be a foundation of their faith works are the standard by which we must be measured also whether we are in Christ and Christ in us If we do not the works of Christ such as He hath proposed for
our example It is a vain beliefe a conceit only To think we are Christians Our works tell the world what we are for those the world sees and heares and by them we either glorifie our Father in heaven or give cleare evidence that we have denied the Lord That bought us d 2 Pet. 2. 1. Redeeming from a vain conversation e 1 Pet. 1. 18. Chrysostome speaks usefully to this point where he speaks concerning the title of Lukes f Tom. 5. second Treatise Thus he speaks It will not profit though we could say In thy name we have prophesied cast out divels cleansed Lepers wrought miracles c. neither this nor that commended the Apostles but their Acts their Doings And these are To be chaste modest temperate meeke gentle kinde pitifull To bridle our anger to subdue our passions to mortifie our affections In a word to exercise all grace This is Action this Doing this tells us we are Christians in deed living Christians And it takes of that great objection which is put in our way saith the same Father and it is of infinite use when we stirre up our people to follow Paul as he followed Christ we say unto them ye must imitate Peter ye must follow Paul ye must be like Iohn and ye must doe as Saint Iames did What even so just to that Coppy will our people say We cannot it is not possible we should there is no strength in us to do as they did They made the lame to go They raised the dead cleansed the lepers so they did we cannot do so we cannot follow them Say not so replyes the Father say not that we perswade to impossibilities things above all strength we tell you not That you must restore the sick worke miracles c. If so you could do it would do you no good it could give you no boldnesse before the Lord in that day A miracle doth not bring unto Heaven but a conversation heaven-ward Imitate the conversation of the Apostles and ye shall have no lesse then the Apostles did receive Follow peace with all men and holinesse go about doing good abounding in the worke of faith in the labour of love in the patience of hope g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Nazianz. Orat 3 p. 77. So the Apostles did do so and ye shall have an Apostles reward For signes and wonders made not the Apostles happy but a pure life The summe is and this our great lesson we have a worthy name our conversation must be answerable we must live act do worthily We must by a good conversation build up our selves and others If we answer our name we will to our power do worthily in Ephrata and be famous in Bethlehem h Ruth 4. 11. I conclude with a short prayer and a short exposition on the same It is Hierom's prayer for his friend and his exposition upon it too i Hier epist l. 1. ep 35. p. 47. My prayer and heartie desire is That the Lord would in that day acknowledge the childe amongst those his children who are very good k Ier. 24. 5. That 's the prayer his exposition this The Lord loveth those who are upright in their way who are hot that is who are burning and shining lights who are seething hot fervent in prayer zealous of good works such He loves in such He rules with such He dwells and delights And He turns not away from those that are cold sinners of the Gentiles publicans notorious sinners key cold dead in trespasses and sinnes from such cold wretches such we were all He turnes not away But there are middling persons of a middle temper halting betwixt two or like a cake halfe baked neither good nor bad neither hot nor cold such the Lord hates He speweth them out that is they are an abomination His eyes can be no more towards such then ours towards our vomit which our overcharged stomacks have cast up and now our eye doth loath x Bright on Revel cap. 3. 15. 16. Mediocritas hic est pessima Nihil in te mediocre esse contentus sum totum summum totum perfectum desidiero Hier. Lib. 2. Epist 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pag. 187. My prayer is thou maist be very good upright in thy wayes hot fervent in prayer zealous of good workes else better thou wert cold key cold for a middle Temper as it is most deadly so it is most abominable Thus as a learned man writeth to his great friend I could have written unto thee things more pleasing nothing more profitable But what I have or shall write nothing will profit unlesse the feare of God awes the heart and inclines it unlesse He teacheth inwardly words cannot outwardly Waxe takes an easie impression from Iron Iron not so but very hardly an Adamant takes no impression at all by all our force because of its hardnesse so Nazianzen Epist 130. And such hearts we have understand but so much and it will humble thee it will hide pride from thine eyes and then thy eare is prepared and heart too And so much as a preparative to the eare but the Lord bore it and to incline thy heart to understanding but the Lord open it This is all the parent can doe and his maine duty at this point even to spread this peremptory bent of nature as was a Preface to the first part said before the Lord whose worke it is to turne the heart and to open the eare to instruction which now followes THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. GOds Goodnesse in framing us in the wombe in bringing us thence ascribed to His hand though yet the sore pain of childe birth no whit lesse engageth the Childe to the Mother how great that engagement is to pag. 5. duty to the Father enforced by a pressing-speech out of Luther and from two very great examples who brake that sacred bond and were remarkably punished to page 9. Gods patience in sparing and reprieving us His goodnesse in ranking us in the highest forme of His Creatures here below how that engageth and teacheth to page 13. His mercy in giving us all our parts or members and proportion in all a great engagement A recognition thereof and use therefrom to page 20. CHAP. II. OVr frame of spirit how depraved A glasse to look our selves in What seeds of corruption within us how it humbleth those that can look into it to p. 24. How to bottom our corruptions where its strong hold how we may fathom the depth of miserie The law of the leper to pag. 28. The love of the Father and the obedience of the sonne how figured out unto us to page 30. CHAP. III. BAptisme Outward Inward The secret work of the Spirit to page 31. We must not pry into this His secret if that work be not wrought Luthers counsell is to be followed Gods will holy and just Man willeth his own destruction to page 34. at this point reade the first part
understanding make it thy greatest ambition and account it thy chiefe honour the top and height of thy preferment for so much the word doth import so labour so contend to be accepted of Him Acceptance with the Lord is the height of a Christians preferment as it will be the Crown of his rejoycing and is the ambition of my Heart concerning thee the very butt and scope where-to tend all my endeavours § 3. Consider again as the riches of His goodnesse so the wonderfull worke of His hands He that gave thee a being might have given a being only and no more or He might have given thee life and stay'd there Thou mightest have been such a creature which now takes the bone from thy hand and licks the dish and gathers the crums that fall from thy table thereby to sustaine life and when that life is gone which serves but for salt to keep the body sweet is laid in the ditch such thou mightest have been for in reference to our owne demerits so vile as a dogge have the most excellent of sinfull men accounted themselves And it was the lowest expression of humilitie and abasing amongst the Hebrews and so low did the sense of their vilenesse depresse the excellent and honourable of the earth Such a creature thou might'st have been or a croaking Frog or a loathsome Toad It is amongst Austins Confessions Thou might'st Lord have made me even such an one or a worme or a flea or a sâ—ie which now thou canst fillip and crush to death at pleasure So thy Lord might have dealt with thee and have done thee no wrong at all He might have given thee the stamp and outward impresse of a reasonable creature and yet have wounded thee in thy crown I mean He might have strucken thee in thy reason and understanding-part the dignitie excellency crown of the outward-man So He might have done thou wast in His hands as the clay in the Potters yet so He did not deale with thee But according to His goodnesse He vouchsafed more grace more honour He stamp'd upon thee an excellent image and then admitted thee not into the lower ranke of His creatures which lick the dust and feed upon it No He hath made thee but a little lower then the Angels and hath crowned thee as we read one was in the wombe with this honour That thou should'st be Lady-Princesse over the creatures before mention'd even over all the works of His hands And God said unto them c. Thus Gen. 1. 26. 28. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost Hom. 10. in Gen. 1. Chron. 17. 17. honourably hath the Lord dealt with thee so as though thou art the meanest of many yet may'st thou take the words of Him whom God exalted and speake them out to His praise For they are proper and fit well because so He hath exalted thee Thou hast regarded me according to the estate of a man of high degree ô Lord God Oh that I could advance and elevate thy thoughts now according to the excellency that God hath stampt upon thee That as thy stature is erect and up-wards thy minde also that yet more excellent part might not be low and downwards groveling to the earth as if thou couldest finde rest In imo c. Lact. lib. 1. cap. 1. Lib. 3. cap. 12. 26. 27. Boet. lib. 5. Mel. 5. unto thy soule That chiefe good in the bottom and underneath where the worme creepeth and the serpent eateth dust This is the great mistake The Lord discover it to our hearts It is the veyle spread over us the Lord pull it off for nothing more evidenceth the wonderfull deordination and disorder which is brought upon mans nature then this which I am speaking doth Man abhors misery yet he loves it in the cause thereof he desires happinesse but he seeks it in the place and in the things much inferiour to and below himselfe Look up man as one said it is not there it is higher Thy very stature tells thee That thou seekest for is not under thy foot a Thy stature is erect and upward thy eye can behold the things above whensoever now thou shalt minde earthly things and fix upon them then thou makest thy self like the beasts that perish c. Read this in the 9. Hom. of S. Basil Mex 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. Let the beast look thither-ward and fix there who cannot look nor rise an inch higher We dishonour our parentage if being born men we do by an evill and beast-like conversation match our selves as with beasts not considering our honour and dignity It s farre worse to be like a beast in conversation then to be born a Beast b Pejus est comparari jumento quà m nasci jumentum this is no fault but a great fault that And such an one is he who seeks nothing nor savours nothing but earth contrary to his nature and Image stampt upon him Assuredly there can be no consideration so effectuall to raise our thoughts and send them upwards and so fix them on high thereto seek our chiefest good as is the consideration of that Image and superscription which God hath stampt upon us and appears unto us even through the outward man thinke we thereof and it will raise the spirit to the place whence it came unlesse we have that spirit of infirmity we read of c Luke 13. 11. which bows us together so that we can in no wise lift up our selves That was an infirmity the greatest that can be thought of as now it is the commonest in the world and from that uncleane spirit it is who is stronger then we and would lay us as low as himself is I know not what to say to it for this infirmitie like an epidemicall disease rageth every where and presseth sore clinging us together It is a spice of our peremptory nature before spoken of of that crookednesse which man cannot straighten To God let us look and on Him let us wait till He shall unto us as to the woman Thou Vers 12. art loosed from thy infirmity for till that time come noble and excellent creatures though we are the chief of Gods works yet on the dust we shall feed and fill ourselves as with the East-winde I meane with that which cannot satisfie For this we may be sure of that as nothing can fit and fill up that stampe which the seale hath made but the very seal which at the first stamp'd that impression or superscription so can nothing in the world no not all the world fit and fill up this image which God hath engraven upon us Capacem Dei non implet minus Deo but He that hath honoured us with such an engraving He and He onely can satisfie this Image The eye we know is not satisfied with seeing nor the eare with hearing These Ta Deus diligenti te quantum praecipis ostendis te sufficis ei Aug. Conf. l.
ever after From thence thou cam'st into the world a sinke a Sodome of all filth and impuritie Thou hast inherent in thy bowels secret seeds and imbred inclinations of all sinne The principles of Hazaels bloudy cruelties of Athaliahs treasons and Iâ—zebels lusts The wombe the seed of all the villanies that have been acted in the world which Saint Paul hath sum'd up together in his first chapter to the Romanes 1 Tim. 1. 2 Tim. 3. Thou hast within thee the spawn the somenter the formative vertue of all that hellish stuffe All those flouds of ungodlinesse have no other originall fountain from which they issue then this sinne thou art now taking a view off Thy Heart is the Treasury of all that wickednesse and if the Lord shall rip up the foundations of thy nature as He may and in mercy also then wilt thou know I do not speak parables But if thou canst not follow sinne to its first originall if thou could'st so do thou would'st feare it more and flie from it faster then Moses from the serpent for more active it is and hurtfull if thou hast not learnt so much yet then learne now and follow the streames they leade to the Spring-head Know then whatsoever vanitie ignorance or darknesse is in our minde whatsoever swarmes of foolish thoughts whatsoever insensiblenesse in our conscience whatsoever disabilitie or enmitie is in our Will whatsoever unfaithfulnesse o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—eb 2. 1. leaking or running out in our memory whatever leaven or corruption in doctrine or manners whatsoever bitternesse dissentions wars devouring words To conclude whatsoever we have found in our selves or observed from others to breake out of the mouth at the eye like the purging of a corps now the soule is out All this is but the issue of this body of sinne which thou carryest about thee All that hath no other originall fountain from which they issue then this sinne When we let our tongues and eyes and eares loose and at libertie keeping no watch over the one nor making no covenant with the other when I say we doe thus set the doores windows and all open we then commonly excuse our selves thus That though we speake merrily yet our minde is good And though our eyes wander yet our heart walkes not after our eyes p Job 31. 7. And though we let in vanitie by the eare as the wooll sucks in water yet we can keepe the inward man cleane and pure this is our excuse and we would be pardoned But the excuse is worse then the fault for we must know That the tongue the eare and the eye these doores and windows of the soule The feet and the fingers there is a q Prov. 6. 13. speaking with the one and a teaching with the other All these are but as a little Comentary upon the great Text of the heart they do but serve to make plaine so as he that runs may read what lewdnesse and frowardnesse lyes in that depth involved there in more hid darke and obscure characters Or to use a plainer metaphor and according to the sacred Scripture The heart is the treasury the ever going mint wherein our thoughts r Fabricatur Prov. 6. 14. hammer mischiefe Out of that aboundance the mouth so of the rest filleth and emptyeth it selfe If there be a little vanitie upon the tongue we must conclude there is much in the heart if the eyes be full of adultery then the measure of the heart * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is pressed down running over That vanitie which is shewed openly by the outward members is but like the money a rich man carryes in his purse to be laid forth upon all occasions compared Chrysost Tom. 6. Relâ—g p. 597. What wickednesse will they stick at in sâ—cret who pâ—oclâ—ime thâ—ir folly openly â—â— saith Isâ—â— Pelâ—sit lib. 2. p. 153. with that which is in the bag or chest there is the store The mouth is but as the cistern the heart is the well that fills it The aboundance is in the heart there is the treasury And this thou carryest about thee Nay it is within our earth more inwrapped within our nature then the Ivy within the wall as fast as with a band of Iron and Brasse And it is as was said the acting sinning brooding sinne the fountaine and inlet of all we can call evill The first matter of all our misery The tinder of lust disposing us to evill and causing an aversnesse to all good This is the treasury thus we have look'd into the aboundance that is in the heart of every mothers childe In all it doth not breake out alike God in mercy to mankinde and for preservation of society restraining the dominion and over-ruling it in some And some again having received more grace prevailing over the same with the wrestling of God strong wrestlings Å¿ Gen. 30. 8. But within us this aboundance is I meane this sinne dwels within the best of men The life thereof is prolong'd t Dan. 7. 12. though the dominion is taken away And its kingdome to allude to that place is partly strong and partly broken u Dan. 2. 42. And hence is that which ever hath and ever will make the people of God vile in their own eyes and to loath themselves witnesse their low and base account of themselves Dust * Gen. 19. 27. and ashes saith Abraham we may say that and more even what was said of a bloudy persecutor we are earth mingled with bloud and to the same fiercenesse we should proceed were we not renewed or restrained x Gen. 32. 10. Lesse then the least of Gods mercies said Iacob What am I a dog fit to lye under the table a dead y 1 Sam. 24. 14. dog fit for the ditch It was the lowest expression of humilitie and we know whose it was It is Thy z Lam. 3. 22. mercy we are not consum'd so the Church makes her acknowledgement when she was brought even to the dust of death Though the Church be smitten to the place of Dragons yet if it be above hell it is mercy so she accounts Nothing saith Paul not worthy to be accounted an Apostle a Cor. 15 9. And to mention but one neerer our own times a true b Antipapas Bright on Rev. 2. 13. Antipas a faithfull witnesse a holy-man yet thus vile and abased in his own eyes and feeling I am as dry as a stone a most miserable hard-hearted man an unthankfull sinner Thus subscribed he his letters Humble Iohn Bradford And this is the reason why I would have thee childe look back to the rock whence thou wast taken and stay thy thoughts there even to humble thee and to make thee see how vile thou art that thou mayst exalt Christ Certainly there is no such ground for humiliation that can be thought of Search then this nature of thine and search it to the bottome There is no quick
hand no further then to the outward water and dipping therewith It is the Baptisme made by fire and the holy Ghost which reacheth to the heart which cleanseth and purgeth indeed He or she who have received this washing who are purged from their old sinnes may glory in their fountain opened for sinne and for uncleannesse d Zech. 31. 1. and in their priviledges worthy to be gloried in as we read a great Emperour did more then in his Imperiall Crown e Aust de Civit. Dei l. 5. c. 26. for what greater glory is there then to be of the off-spring of God to receive the adoption of sonnes and daughters and to have that worthy name to be called upon us and such honour have all thy Saints And now we are come to a great secret The way how the Lord works and upon whom He works is more secret then is the winde which bloweth where it listeth c. and as indiscernable to sense as is the knitting of the bones in the wombe and covering of them with flesh What we cannot conceive pray that we may admore what we cannot understand pray we that we may experimentally finde and feel that though we cannot comprehend we may be comprehended The Lord knoweth who are his and it is a great secret yet His secret is with them that fear Him I mean not alwaies and with all that fear Him they know that they are His though yet all know it not nor some at all times and this they know as not by extraordinarie revelation so nor by prying into his secret Decree how there He hath disposed of them This will as by fixing our weake eye upon a strong object blinde us with light It is a ventrous and a bold coming unto God and most dangerous also for if we climbe up unto His Decree we shall fall into the gulfe of despair because we come unto Him without a Mediatour f Hic sine m dâ—ctore â—es agitur disputatur de Dei benâ—pâ—icito ac voluntale in quam sese Christus resert Luther Psal 22. In doubts of Predestination begin from the wounds of Christ p. 337. that is from the sense of Gods love in Christ we should rise to the grace of election in Him before the world was It was Luthers counsell and he found it of force against the devises of Satan g De praedestinatione diâ—putaturus incipe à Christi vulnâ—ribus statim Diabolus cum suis tentationibus recedet Mel. Ad. in Staupicii vita p. 20. The way to melt our hearts into a kinde repentance for sinne is to begin from the love of righteousnesse and of God all figured out in Baptisme as well as in the Supper And this also was Staupitius counsell to Luther whereby he made the practise of repentance ever sweet to him whereas before nothing in all the Scripture seemed so bitter h Vera est ea poenitentia quae ab amore justitiae Dei incipit dixit Staupitius Quae vox ita aliè in animo Luthâ—i insedit ut nihil dulcitos facrit deinceps ei poenitentia cum aâ—tea eidem in totâ Scripturâ nihil esset amarius Mel. Ad. ibid. vita Staup. But now suppose our case to be this and it is most likely to be so that we finde no work of the Spirit upon us no change wrought by His renewing grace we are as we were not cleansed from our old sinnes we have passed over this Iordan we have gone into this water and we are come out as unclean as before our hearts are not sprinkled We see a price paid for us and no lesse then the price of the blood of God yet we have not consecrated our selves to Him who hath so dearly bought us yet we have not accepted Him for our Lord though we are His purchase i Rom. 14. 9. and for this end He died and rose again but other Lords rule over us And though we be called by His name yet we walk in our own wayes serving divers lusts as if we were our own and not peculiarly His who bought us with a price If I say this be our case then Luthers counsell is observeable which is this To enter into our closet there to spread our selves before the Lord in humble confessions as followeth k Oportet nos esse tales scilicet verè poenitentes non possumus esse tales Quid hic faciemus Oportet ut cognito te tali non neges te talem sed in angulum vadas juxta consilium Christi in abscondito ores patrem tuum in coelis dicens sine fictione ecce optime Deus poe â—itendum mihi praecipis sed talis sum ego miser quod sentio me nolle neque posse quare â—â—is prostratus pedibus c. Concione de poenitentiâ An. 1518. Lord thou hast set a fountain open but to us it is sealed Thou hast bid us wash and be cleane we cannot we are no more able to wash our selves then we can take out the seeming spots in the Moon Thou hast said When will it be c. we say it will never be no not when the Rocks flie in pieces and the earth shall be no more but then it shall be when thou giving that thou commandest art pleased to make us as thou wilt the heavens and the earth all new Thou hast commanded us to come unto Christ that we might live we cannot come no more then Lazarus could by his own power cast off his grave-clothes and turn up the mould from over his head and stand up from the dead We are bound up in unbelief as within gates of brasse and barres of iron Thou hast said Turn ye every one from his evill way we say we cannot turn r Lay down thy heart under the Word yeeld it to the Spirit who is as it were the Artificer can frame it to a vessell of honour Mr. Reynolds on Psal 110. pa. 42. no more then we can turn that glorious creature which like a Gyant runnes his course so gyant-like we are and so furiously marehing on in our own wayes of sinne and death This is but part of our confession 2. We must acknowledge also that righteous is the Lord in commanding what is impossible for man to do Because the Lord did not make things so at first He gave us a great stock to deale and trade with but like unfaithfull stewards we have wasted the same and so have disinabled our selves Our inability was not primitive and created but consequent and contracted our strength was not taken from us but thrown from us This is the principall point of confession our inabilitie comes out of our own will Å¿ Read and observe with all diligence Mr. Dearings words on the third Chapter to the Hebrews ve 8. Lect. 15. Sentio me nolle neque posse I finde that I neither will nor can before D'S S. p. 215. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
c. To be feverish is not voluntary but my intemperance which causeth a fever is voluntary and for that I am deservedly blamed pained No man chuseth evill as evill Transl out of Clem. Alex. Stro. l. 1. p. 228. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sin is my voluntary act Loco laâ—d l. 2. p. 294. Cesset voluntas propria non erit infanus originally we will not be cleansed as Thâ—â— * Joh. 20. 25. so say we in effect not we cannot but we will not we 〈◊〉 deny the Lord that bought us we will not come unto 〈◊〉 that we may live so stiffe are our necks and so hard our hearts that we will not turn for though out of the very principles of Nature we cannot but desire happinesse and abhorre miserie yet such a deordination and disorder lieth upon our Nature that we are in love with eternall miserie in the causes and abhorre happinesse in the wayes that lead unto it our will is the next immediate cause of sinne it puts it self voluntarily into the fetters thereof Necessity is no plea when the will is the immediate cause of any action Mens hearts tell them they might rule their desires if they would For tell a man of any dish which he liketh that there is poyson in it and he will not meddle with it So tell him that death is in that sinne which he is about to commit and he will abstain if he beleeve it to be so if he beleeve it not it is his voluntary unbelief and Atheisme If there were no will there would be no hell as one saith And this is the confession which goes to the core of sinne and it must not be in word and in tongue but in deed and in truth for it is the truth And if we can thus spread our selves before the Lord if we can willingly and uprightly t Read our second Reinolds on Rom. 7. p. 262. own damnation as our proper inheritance to that the heart must be brought and it is the Lord that meekneth it so farre if we can willingly resigne our selves for nothing is left to man but duty and resignation of himself it is not u Oportet pium animum velle nescire Dei secre tum superse c. Impossible est cum periro qui Deo gloriam tribuit eum justificat in omni opere voluntate suâ Lut. Psalm 22. Christus faciet poenitentes quos jubet poenitere supplebit de suo quod dâ—est de nostro Lut. de Poenitent 1. Pet. 1 8. possible then that we should perish He will make supply of His strength what is wanting in ours He will give what he commands He will give clean waters He wil create peace He wil strengthen our hand to lay hold on rich and precious promises And then we cannot possibly be barren or unfruitfull in the knowledge of the Lord Iesus Christ we cannot but gird up the loins of our minde giving all diligence x 1. Pet. 1. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Snew me a man that ever learnt an ordinary Trade or lived upon it with ordinary diligence point me to a man that was bad yet laboured to be good or who was good yet took no pains to be better Chrysost in 1. Ep. Ad Tim. cap. 1. Hom. 1. About ordinary things very easie matters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we take extraordinarie paines but great and extraordinary things we think we may attain sleeping Chrysost 4. Tom. de Vita Monast cap. 7. ordinarie diligence will not get ordinary preferment much lesse will it a Crown The Scripture saith Giving all diligence waiting the sealing and testimony of the Spirit and walking in all the wayes of righteousnesse whereto the Apostle presseth at the end of everie Epistle for whom the Lord justifieth He sanctifieth and if we finde no fruits y For the certaintie of faith search your hearts if you have it praise the Lord. But if you feele not this faith then know that Predestination is too high a matter for you to be disputers of untill you have been better schollers in the School-house of Repentance and Justification I wade in Predestination in such sort as God hath opened it Though in God it be first yet to us it is last opened De electione judicandum est à posteriere c. Mr. Bradford to some friends who were too scrupulous in point of Election ascending up to Heaven to know when as they should have descended into themselves Mr. Fox p. 1505. and p. 1506. thereof we have cause to suspect that the Stock is dead if no glimpse from that shining light of our sanctification so as men may see our good works which justifie before men then we do ill to boast of a burning light which is our justification and more hid within Nor is it a point * Non est bonae solidaeque fidei siâ— omnia ad voluntat m Deireferâ—e ita adulari ad unumquemque dicendo Nihil fieri sine voluntate ejus ut non intell gamus aliquid esse in nobis ipsis of sound faith to put the weight of our salvation upon what shall be shall be nothing can be done without Gods will That 's true but this is Gods will too a 1. Thes 4. 3. even our sanctification and this belongs to us even subordinately to serve Gods providence with our own circumspect fore-sight care and labour knowing that His providence doth not alwayes work by miracle I do not blame them nay I commend them who say still If God will and referre all thither but I blame them much who say If God will He will perswade me He will convert me in the meane time they do just nothing A faire speech this to say If God will but a foule practise in the meane time to do our own will we must labour we must endeavour our utmost then say we If the Lord will if so we do not Gods will will be done upon us we shall never do His will To this purpose Chrysost very excellently in his first Tom. thirteenth Sermon towards the end And so much touching the inward Baptisme made by fire and the Holy Ghost The secret working of it in our hearts and what way we are to take in case we feele not that inward power Now I come to that in Baptisme which speaks to our Eye and Eare. We had our Sureties in Baptisme who stood and promised in our steeds which solemne custome and the fitnesse of it I leave to the discission of the Church whereunto we may see reason to yeeld z Mr. Hooker Eccles Pol. l. 5. Sect. 64 p 336. leaving that these two things are clearly figured out unto us in Baptisme a death unto sinne a life unto righteousnesse and both these in the death and resurrection a Rom. 6. 2 3. of Christ which are the two moulds wherein we are to be cast that we may come forth like Him and there is a virtue
return and to say as they doe who have better learned Christ We must know 1. That Satan is a devouring enemy still watching our destruction 2 As his name is such is he he will accuse us for those very sins he now tempteth us unto and will â—pbraid them to us unto the confusion of our faces 3 That we have no means to avoid his baits but by flying from them nor have we any other means to impale and insconce our selves against this Monster but in the Name of the Sonne of God the onely Name that terrifies him indeed being call'd upon and beleeved on in Truth And then by flying from and avoiding his baits those great Enchanters whereby he bewitcheth us beguiles and overcomes so many And here it is not impertinent to remember an usefull answer to a grave and weightie question proposed to an honest and learned v Isid Pelus lib. 2. ep 164. friend by way of wonder The question is this How it comes to passe That the divell now wounded in his head and spoyled by our great Captain and Prince of Salvation should yet prevaile so mightily in the world and carry so many captive as he doth and this daily which is not usuall with a spoyled enemy to do This is the question and the wonder His good friend answers And do you wonder at this saith he Truly I wonder not at all for what wonder is it that an ever diligent and watchfull enemy who neglects no time nor occasion should spoile a negligent people secure in their victory and now as souldiers drunke with prosperity snorting in their tents What wonder to sâ—e souldiers who can endure no x 2 Tim. 2. 3 4. hardnesse who will intangle themselves with affairs of this life who will sleepe in their trenches though the enemy be at their backs who neglect all necessary succours what wonder I say to see such fall even before a wounded enemy The Lion is strong the Serpent subtill and yet if the Lion be a sleep and the serpent chil'd with cold they may be overcome as easily as the weakest and simplest creatures It is an easier matter to encounter with twentie ships lying in harbour whose Mariners are a sleepe in their Cabbins or drinking in Taverns then with five prepared for the fight This was the observation of a great Commander y Hist of the World book 3. chap 11. sect 9. p. 117. and of great use here and no wonder in all this Nay rather this were to be wondred at and it were strange indeed if we doing none of those things which becommeth souldiers and conquerours they stand upon their guard and keepe watch still knowing that a wounded enemy biteth deadly and rageth furiously should be able to maintaine and make use of our victory against a mightie and now raging enemy who moveth every stone and imployeth all his Methods or Stratagems against us This were strange indeed Thus the Author answereth the question and takes of the wonder Now heare his counsell If you demand then what is to be done by us in this case I make further answer Because our adversary though he is falne and broke yet boasteth great things and is bold in his confidence and takes all his advantage from our neglects and carelesnesse a Nostris peccatis Barbaâ—i fortâ—s sunt Nostris vitiis superamur Hier lib 2 ep â— We must keepe our watch b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. we must labour we must endure hardnesse we must implore Gods help we must do whatsoever is to be done we must flye from the divell and unto that Name that strong-hold whereto the righteous flye and they are safe If thus we do not we betray our succours and the victory our Lord hath purchased we forfeit our own peace and our soules into the enemies hands And then we have nothing whereof to complain of the enemies strength but much whereof to accuse our own extreame folly and supine negligence This is his counsell and because it is very good we will heare the like from a latter divine a very devout Spaniard c Avâ—la's Spirit epist pag. 30. Be not negligent and secure having so watchfull and diligent an adversary for if thou be thou art instantly undone If they who watch best have enough to do to dâ—fend themselves what do you think will become of wretchlesse persons but that they should be entirely overcome We must then keep our watch and keep about us our armour and keep close to our strong-hold we must give all diligence to avoyd those great enchanters whereby our enemy bewitcheth us and overcometh so many These enchanters are 1. The glory pompe or lusts of the world from without 2. The lusts of our own flesh from within The one as he once shewed in the twinckling of an Eye so it passeth away in the like moment of time It is fitly called a fancy and as fitly translated pompe d Acts 25. 23. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for as a thought or fancy this pompe passeth away and by us even like castles and steeples on a pageant and so it is gone but the glory of the next life is the pleasures at His right hand for evermore 2. The lusts of the flesh are the great tempters All the hurt Satan and the world do us is by correspondence with our selves All things are so farre under us as we are above Te vince tibi mundus victus est our selves Satan for the most part boweth us to what the weaknesse of our nature doth encline he sails ever with the winde he fitteth such temptations as are most agreeable to our humours and desâ—res Our nature helps to act Satans part he doth buâ— set the bias stronger Nature hath a supply of wickednesse as a Serpent of poyson from it self thence a spring to feed it Great cause we should fear alwayes for alwayes we meet with snares and alwayes ready to be caught with them and the devill watcheth the occasion And great cause Semper imminet occasioni we should winde up our hearts to God that we may be wise in His wisedome strong in His strength Lastly in the day we were baptized we avouched e Deut. 26. 17 19. the Lord to be our God to walk in His wayes and to keep His Commandments And the Lord hath avouched us that day to be his peculiar people The Lord Christ hath obeyed and suffered to make our bonds of obedience the stronger not to abate us an ace of duty He hath vindicated His Law from the vain glosses of the Pharisâ—es from that which was said of old whence we have learnt That His Law puls out the verie core f See Hist of the world lib. 2. chap. 4. sect 7. p. 232. sect 11. p. 237. of sinne and that whereas mans Law doth but binde the hand and the tongue Gods Law binds the heart and orders the secret motions of the same The Philosophers
g Angusta est juslitia ad legem justum esse See Isid Pelâ—s lib. 2. â—p 138. Love constraines more under the Gospel then feare restrained under the Law Ibid could say It is but a narrow and scanty justice which extendeth no further then mans Law Few offenders there are which come within the Magistrates circuit and they that come are not all taken some and they not a few break out of the cob-webbe by force and some by favour But the Law of God is perfect and exceeding broad it reacheth to all persons and to the words and actions and thoughts too of all the sonnes of Adam not a syllable can passe not a thought stray not a desire swerve from the right way but it falleth within danger and is lyable to the penalties Thence it is that the greatest and hardest work of a Christian is least in sight which is the well-ordering of his heart And a good Christian begins his Repentance where his sinne begins in his thoughts which are the next issue of his heart God counts it an honour when we regard His All-seeing eye so much as that we will not take liberty to our selves in that which is offensive to Him no not in our hearts wherein no creature can hinder us It is an argument that we feare as we ought before the God of Heaven when we forbear the doing of that which if we should do it were not possible that man should understand or condemne it as h Lev. 19. 14. is the cursing of the deafe which the Deafe man heares not and the putting a stumbling block before the blinde which the blinde perceiveth not But the Lord heares and He sees for He made the Eare and the Eye and Him shalt thou feare for His eyes behold His eye-lids try the children of men i Psal 11. 4. And this is the Law which stands charged upon us and through Him by whom we can do all things we can keep the fame Law with our whole heart in an acceptable manner checking the first motions of sin discerning not beams onely but moats also light and flying imaginations and abasing our selves for them and by degrees casting them out as hot water the scum and as the stomack doth that which is noysome And because they presse upon the true Christian as Flies in Summer incumbring alwayes over powring him sometimes therefore is he moved to renew his interest daily in the perfect righteousnesse of His Saviour The deceitfulnesse of his heart still inciting and drawing back from God and His perfect Law and his readinesse to break covenant makes him the more watchfull over his heart and carefull to binde himself daily as with new cords To k Jude 2 â— build himself up in his most holy faith to pray in the holy Ghost and to keep himself in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Iesus Christ unto eternall life for it is a standing Rule That Gods commands are not the measure of our power but the Rule of our duty the summe of our debt the matter of our prayers the scope of our strife l Mousine Seâ— Hist of World B. 2. Ca. 4. Sect. 13. p. 240. But we must ever note this which is that there is in the heart of every true Christian a disposition answering every Iota and tittle of Gods m Salv. dâ— Eccles Cathol â— Law They have the same Spirit in their hearts which is in the Law so soone as that Spirit made a change in them they could not but then exceedingly love the Law and where love n Chrys in Rom. cap 4 â— Si amor est vincit omnia c. Chrysost de past bono Seâ—m 40. Haec omnia dura videbuntur â—i qui non amaâ— Christum Amemus Christum facile videbitur omne difficile Brevia putabimus universa quae long a sunt Nâ—si vim fecâ—ris coeâ—orum regna non capies Hier Ad Eustochium Ep. 17. l. 2. p. 207. Prima regula in cultu Dei ut ipsum diligamus non potest Deus verè dâ—ligi quin sequatur hunc affâ—ctum membra omnia omnes partes c. Cal in Dan. c 9. v. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys in c. 29. Gen. Hom. 55. is that great Commander there is diligence and activenesse in all the wayes of obedience joy also and peace in obeying For in case they are opposed and persecuted for their love and ready obedience they have gentlenesse goodnesse faith meeknesse all armour of proofe whereby they are made resolute and patient to beare according to their wise choice affliction rather then Job 36. 21. iniquity For this we must adde to the rest and note it God communicates His common gifts diversly and scatteringly this man hath the gift of tongues that man a gift of prophecie one man hath this another that he that is lowest cannot say but the Lord hath dispenfed unto him some grace and he that is highest cannot say he hath all But now for these graces which make a man well pleasing to God they are all freely bestowed these as one said love neighbour-hood M. G. are in a continuall conjunction They are freely bestowed and altogether as it were in one lumpe not scatteringly as the Sporaaes Islands in the Sea scattered here and there here a little eye of Land and there all Sea again Sponsa Christi â—â—ca est Testamenti c. Hâ—er ep 17. li. 2. p. 205. this man hath not faith and that man hope one hath not love and another patience But he that hath one he hath all and he that hath not all hath none These graces put or spring forth together though all may not have equall growth nor shew themselves alike operative It is certain he that hath a grounded hope hath a lively â—aith an unfained love he hath patience meeknesse gentlenesse or if any of these be missing there is weeping and mourning and hanging down the head for the lack of this grace as there was when there was a Tribe lacking in Israel o Judg. 21. 3. There is no chasme or gaping in the life of a true Christian It cannot be that he should be one while like firme land which cannot be moved and then again as weake as water or like the raging Sea which fometh out mire and dirt it cannot be that he should one while glory in the Name of Christ and another while defile pollute and dishonour that worthy Name by which he is called These gifts of the Spirit though many yet are called in the singular number a Fruit because they have but one root and do put forth like grapes in clusters and come or draw together like the rings in a Chaine It is a report concerning our Spice that all proceeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Galat. 5. 22. from one Tree one kinde is the root another the bark a third is the fruit inclosed within a fourth so they say but
proved an halter or how can that commend me which the Spirit hath concluded to be my q 1 Cor. 11. 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 26. shame A point of great impudency it is to fight with or go against and contrary not onely to our selves but to nature also saith Chrysostome upon those words Is it my pleated curled or cut haire that makes me think of my self above what is meet That is a very affrighting conceit for the Lord can make our head of haire to take the form sometimes of a great Snake sometimes of many little Serpents as some in Poland and Germanie have found and felt witnesse the bloudy drops their haire yeelded being pricked and the losse of their eyes if they cut it saith the learned professour of physick in Padua And methinks saith r Mr Bolton's foure last things p. 40. Mr Bolton from his hand I have it our monstrous fashionists both male and female the one for nourishing their horrid bushes of vanitie the other for their most unnaturall and cursed cutting their hair should every houre fear and tremble lest they should bring that same noisome horrible disease in the haire called the plica upon their own heads and amongst us in this kingdome †5 Is it the putting off the hat at a distance which lifts a man Å¿ Sic leve sic paâ—vum est animum quod 〈◊〉 avarum subruit aut resicit Hor. lib. 2. epist up or the vain applause of the ignorant multitude He must thank his money for that t O nummi vobis â—i dantur honores Juven It is ordinary with some to gaze upon a gilded post It was manners make a Man but now according to the old complaint Money u 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Pâ—ndâ—r â—â—th â—â—e 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eâ—rip orest 30. A rich man shall have many heralds †6. Is it knowledge that would puffe us up This were an empty conceit We know that as in vessels the more the liquour or matter of substance and worth comes in the more the Aire goes out it is the empty vessel that makes the noise so the more we truly and indeed know the more we are humbled in that we know All my knowledge and that all is but a little to that I know not All separated from Christ which the more it is the more it humbleth will not advance me above the devil nay in respect of my knowledge I am if a creature could be infinitely below him I hold no proportion with him none at all but in my pride that gives me some equalitie with that proud Lucifer and makes me like him In knowledge I am much inferiour The Devil knows more then all the knowing Men in the world and hath the experience of so many thousand yeares to help his knowledge and yet it helps him not but aggravates his judgement And indeed how can a man reasonable think but that that same gift suppose it knowledge separated from that which St. Paul did onely desire to know But that the same gift I say will prove unto him like Absaloms haire it will be his ruine which he hath used abused rather against God the Giver of the same so fighting against Him with his own weapons †7. Is it eminency of gifts or place that would make me think my self some body This were but an empty conceit neither For the higher any one is in place the lower he must be in point of office and service towards those that are under him At the best we are but Stewards and the more betrusted we are the greater will our account be and the more expected what we have gained And can it be reasonably supposed but that That mans reckoning will be very heavy who the more power was in his hand the more he put it forth in the oppressing the meek of the earth making them to groane under him which is but an exorbitancy of power or at the best but to exercise it as a jaylour t Vaum aliquem voluptate ac deliciis fl\â—ere gementibus undique aclamentantibus aliis hoc non est râ—gnâ— sed â—arâ—â—râ—â— esse custodem Vtop Tho. More turning the edge of it against the Lord and His servants And the higher God raised and honoured him the more he suppressed goodnesse and dishonoured God Turning his gifts so bountifully bestowed of nature liberall maintenance grace all against the Giver to the satisfying of his own lusts for judgement causing oppression and for righteousnesse a cry Is it likely I say but that mans reckoning will be very heavy v Isa 5 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at this point Again how unreasonable a conceit is it That our Lord Christ taking upon Him the form of a Servant for us and humbling Himself so low as the Crosse should yet with patience long endure a proud servant lifting up himself in the pride of his thoughts before an humble and for his sake an humbled Lord And how unreasonable also and altogether unbeseeming c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Châ—ysost defato orat 5. is it That Man poore silly man should in all things seek himselfe a Per vestigare Prov. 25. 27. hunt after his own repute his own glorie when as the Lord of Glorie coming down from Heaven to seek Man that was lost sought not his own Glorie b John 8. 50. Certainly this is an iniquitie which greatly provoketh and hath been and is accordingly punished for hence it is That the sword is upon the right eye and arme hence it is that a man proud of his knowledge is become blinde with light proud of his vertue is poyson'd with the Antidote Blown up with his Authoritie and height of his place and power findes his rise hath proved his downfall and his ladder his ruine Certainly for men to search their own glorie is not c Prov. 25. 17. glorie it tends rather to ruine examples whereof are written before us as in Capitall letters But of this before and anon after †8. Is it strength of Bodie or comelinesse of parts which is the beauty of the same Is it this or that which makes us think better of our selves then is meet This also is but a false valuation a vanitie d Prov. 21. 6. tossed to and fro If our strength lift up our heart it will be to our e Chron. 26. 16. destruction Which is to be considered so is this also That that is the f Lord Ver. Essayes 43. pag. 252. true comelinesse the best beauty which a picture cannot expresse yet no cause we should be proud thereof for the outward comelinesse as it is Gods work and hath His Stamp and Superscription we must prize it and put an honour upon it too but I must not be proud thereof what I dote upon will prove my sorrow and what I am proud of my snare For the most part as one notes it makes a Dissolute Youth and
people to feel their own weaknesse because they honoured not His strength If the faculties of thy soul bring in willingly and plentifully offerings unto God say with David when so much store with much freenesse was brought-in by the people to build the Temple Now k 1. Chron. 29 14 16. Lege Cal. Inst 2. 21. sect 11. our God we thank Thee for all things come of Thee and of Thine own hand have we given Thee All things come of Thee we give-back but what Thou gavest first Without Thee nothing we have and nothing we can do This acknowledgement befitteth us who have spent and cast away all our stock and do sit now at the receit of a free-mercie And this debasing of our selves so low that we can go no lower even to a l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Caâ— â—â—st 2. 5. 13 â— nothingnesse in our selves is farre from being a base thing This abasement if it be in truth and sinceritie is an excellent grace the very root of grace springing-up and so setting-out and adorning the whole man All the parts powers faculties of all But a root it is which groweth not in our own soil No As every good and perfect gift so this comes down from above God gives it and to such He gives it it is Avila's m Spir. ep pag. 201. note Who digge deep in their own dung taking up and rumating upon their faults and frailties amongst those poverties and miseries is this pretious jewell to be found for prying narrowly thereinto a man shall see cause enough not onely to be humbled but even confounded And then he that before could not live with any body no nor with himself in peace can now live with all the world keeping the unitie of the Spirit in that bond for he hath learned mercy and judgement and to walk humbly with his God And this humble walking is the very note and character of a good and holy man It was the mark whereby the Anchorite n Beda lib. 2 c. 2. reade our Jewell 3. Art pag. 186. would have his countreymen judge of Augustine Englands supposed saint If saith the Anchorite he be gentle and lowly of heart he carrieth the yoke of the Lord and offereth to you to carry the same But if he be disdainfull and proud so they found him then it is certain he is not of God you need not regard him Such a distinguishing qualitie Humilitie is O then be clothed with humilitie let it come within thee as water and like oyl into thy bones it will soften and mollifie thee It will make thee fruitfull like a garden watered from the clouds It will beautifie the whole outward man setting it and keeping it in good frame and order The eye will be low thy spâ—ech soft meek and gracious thy gate comly thy whole deportment as befitteth a Christian exalting the dignitie of that Name as pride doth folly for certain it is as was pointed at before The more true grace comes into the heart the more as it is in the filling of vessels the aierie and windie conceits go out The higher indeed and in truth the lower in our own appearance the viler in our own eyes and yet we are content to be more vile that God may be the more glorified The Trees of righteousnesse are just like that tree we reade of whose root was just so much beneath the earth as the top * Virgil. A Eâ— â— The higher in vertues the more lowly in minde c. Isid Pelusit lib. 2. ep 151. was in height above it The higher they grow up to perfection the deeper they take root downward in * â—umilitie considering they have nothing of their own but sinne and it were foolish and impious to be proud thereof I conclude this with that of the Wise man * Prov. 16. 19. Better it is to be of an humble spirit then to divide the spoile with the proud Better indeed for with such an on the high and loftie on doth dwell o Esay â—7 15. 1. 2. 66. So little for it is little which man can say or do to the plucking up this root of bitternesse which so defileth and the planting in the contrary grace that root of holinesse which so beautifyeth and adorneth §. 2. Our darling sinne The next sinne which we should be armed against I cannot presently name that belongs to every one 's owne heart to do for I meane that sinne which every man may more properly call his iniquitie p Psal 18. 23. not but that every sinne is properly ours and we must own it except that which the divell doth cast in and that we make ours also if we give it lodging or suffer our hearts to brood upon it as an hen upon eggs every sinne I say is ours for we have within us the root of all But this is ours more peculiarly our heart is more endeared unto it it is its beloved sinne and darling corruption as hardly parted with as a right eye or arme such mastery it hath in the soule so it besets our nature and so hotly chargeth the same And then most likely it is that sinne which one calls The great q Hist of the World B. 2. chap. 4. sect 13. pag. 239. Enchantresse of mankinde he means sensuall pleasure for the most are bewitched with it how have the strong falne by it It is that which makes the wise become fooles Nay it is folly in the Abstract r Gen. 34. 7. folly in Israel and as one of the fooles in Israel So we reade 2 Sam. 13. 13 where we read of one that would drink the poyson of this Sorceresses cup which being first presented infatuates a man unlesse the watch within be the stronger and gives him not so much time as to thinke Å¿ Omnis aciâ—s quasi vigilia cogitationis obruitur Aug. de civ 14. 16. what do I and so having put out the light of a man which is his reason and understanding like some murtherers I have read of she kills with embracings t Amplexu strangulant Philetae Senâ—ep or if not so but so it is she sends forth man that lordly creature to feed on husks among swine such emptie things or to give it the fayrest interpretation she sends forth man a wise and discerning creature when he is See Hist of the World B. 5. chap. 4. sect 10. pag. 532. himselfe to gather u Ibid. 2. Book 4. 6. garlands in the May-game of the world whose flowers wither while he doth discourse of their colour or is in gathering them It is likely could we take but so much time as to aske what do I what is the bait I am now swallowing That quiet and peace I am now forfeiting what is the shame I am now drawing on me we would resist and thrust it from us with as much earnestnesse as Paul did shake the viper from his hand and as we would a
sword nor dead in battell How then were they slain for it is not proper to say slain with famine with c Exanimantur metu Trâ—m A man that had his eyes covered to receive his death and uncovered again that he might reade his pardon was found stark dead upon the scaffold Char. chap. 16. p. 69. feare that surprised them before the battell and did the part of an executioner before the sword came Such an astonishing affection feare is if not fixt upon Him whom onely we should feare The like we may say of Love d Furori proximus â—â—or Tacit. Annal. lib. 11. Ioy Sorrow if not plac'd aright but immoderately set upon the Creature they will swallow us up as a ship in the quicksands In a word The excesse of our affections do cause the greatnesse of our afflictions But contrary when our affections are well ordered they are the winde of the soul carrying it so as it is neither becalmed that it moves not when it should nor yet tossed that it moves disorderly They are the very wings of the soul A prayer without them so we may say of any other performance is like a bird without wings If I cared for nothing said Melancton I should pray for nothing They are the * Fear is worse then the thing feared as is prooved by the communication of Cyrus and Tygranes Xenop Cyri. paed l. 3. p. 192. springs of all our services to God we are dry cold and dead without them They set the soule and heart on worke and then we seeke the Lord. David had prepared much for the house of his God and the reason was which himself gives Because I have set my affection to the house of my God We are as a dead Sea without our affections and as a raging Sea if they exceed the bounds And exceed they will if they are not held in order by His voyce who said to the Sea Be still c Joy and sorrow have a contrary working but being immoderate they drink and quasse up the spirits quickly and sometimes suddenly f Oratio sine malis avis sine alis g Si nihil curarem nihil oratem h 1. Chron. 22. 29. i 1. Chron. 28. 3. pâ—s meus affectus meus eò â—eror quocunque â—eror They are as it is said of the body like a curious instrument quickly out of tune and then we as quickly have lost the mean between too much and too little They are just like moyst elements as Aire and Water which have no bounds of their own to contain them in but those of the vessell that keeps them water is spilt and lost without something to hold it so it is with our affections if they be not bounded by the Spirit of wisdome and power And if so they will answer all Gods dealing to His children As He enlargeth so they are enlarged as He opens so they open if evills threaten the more feare fixeth where it should and then feareth no evill tidings h Feare hath torment when it is out of place but if placed right upon God it quieteth and calmeth the heart it makes a mane fearelesse his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord Psal 112. The more tokens of displeasure the more sorrow yet ordered not without hope not a sorrow swallowing up the heart in despaire but a godly sorrow putting on to obedience These well ordered affections put the soul into a sutable plyablenesse that they answer the Lord in all His calls to joy when He calls for it to mourn when He calls for that But this sweet harmony and temper in the affections is never but when the Lord sets them in tune and keeps them so when His spirit watcheth over ours which should be our prayer for then look how many affections so many graces Love is turned to a love of God Ioy to a delight in the best things feare to a feare of offending Him more then any creature sorrow to a sorrow for sinne And this is the main and chiefe help to bound and order our affections even to look up to the Lord that as He hath planted them in the soul He would order them so there that they may tend to Him and for Him Other rules and considerations there are which may help some thing to calme our affections as followeth 1. Let this be a standing rule Nothing deserves our sorrow but sinne and the losse of Gods favour by sinne It is seasonable at no time I speake of some exceeding that way for man must not have if it might be an Apathie he must not be without naturall affection like a stock moved at nothing no This is the commendation of a true Christian That he hath strong affections but through God he is mightie to command them It is I was saying seasonable at no time but at our prayers and with our instructions saith i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ad Colos Hom. 12. Chrysostome It is pitie that such a sweet and fruitfull affection should like water run-out to waste should be spilt upon that which cannot profit 2. Nothing commands our feare but God and if we keep to Him He will be our Sanctuary if it be removed from Him we shall feare every thing 3. We must use this world but as if we did not use it use it but enjoy God In the one is changeablenesse and vexation in God is no variousnesse nor shadow of changing The world and things of it are but the cisternes of comfort they quickly emptie and dry up God is an ever springing fountain 4. Many things will command our love and must have it but we must hold it under command and to its rule In God and for God we must equall nothing unto Him much lesse account of any thing above Him He will have no corrivall that which we equall with Him will prove our snare that which we honour above Him will be our shame and sorrow 5. There are some times when there will be some flushes of joy some exceeding that way as it is hard in any passion of the minde to keep just measure But there is never more need of watchfulnesse then at such times It was a fit season for the Father to be at his Sacrifice when his Children were at the Feast I have observed times of feasting and merriment strangely crossed to call back the heart which would soone forget if not loose it selfe and to teach man to feare at all times In such cases as these such thoughts as these may help to allay the over sweetnesse of our contents as thus to think Now I could sing for joy for we give no time for Calvish mirth others there are who at this very time do sigh for heavinesse of spirit and groane under heavy pressures k Hic nuptias ibi planctum c. Hier. 21. 22. lib. 2. â— pag. 247. As a member of the body my passion of joy must be moderated with my compassion l Remember my
our selves on things below If disgrace was not my sinne ambition If scarcitie was not my sinne the abuse of Gods good creatures vainly needlessely unthankfully And if pains or aches did'st thou not offend in sinfull pleasures d Lege Chrysost â— Psal 3. Thus shall we speak good of the affliction and submit yea and be thankfull That is a dutie of a Christian to be thankfull for afflictions for corrections It was good for me that I have been afflicted e Psal 119 71. if it was good for him then doubtlesse he spake good of it and was thankfull I remember saith Chrysostome f Hom. 10. in Coloss 3. a very pious and holy man was used to pray thus We give thee thanks O Lord Thanks was his first word for all thy mercies from the first day to this present day bestowed upon us Thy unworthy servants for those we know for those we know not c. for our tribulations and for our refreshments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. for our hell here and our Fatherly punishments as for our Heaven hence and our hope of rest He puts afflictions c. into the Catalogue or register of Gods mercies and in the first place Indeed it is no hard matter to open the mouth in way of thankfulnesse for the good things of this life as we call them but to be thankfull for the evills that is an hard task but yet the dayly work of a true Christian The Heathen Philosopher could say g Mar. Aur. Aâ—t medâ—â— 12. â— sect 2. p 197. A wise man should be fitted for all estates and conditions like Empedocles his Allegoricall Spheare or like a square body Throw it you cannot overthrow it cast it down if you can it will stand as upright as before losing nothing at all of its heighâ— h Lege â—p 168. Basâ—â—i And such a man saith he hath gained unto himself great rest and â—ase for he hath gâ—t his minde loose from outward intaâ—glements and that manifold luggage wherewith we are round about incumbred We may discern our selves as we do our metalls best by our falls or casting down if when we are thrown our sound is flat and dull murmuring-wise it argues a leaden spirit * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nâ—zâ—â—â—rz â—at 18. When there is a storm with cut he keeps his minde cleare within pag. 302. which sinks under trouble like lead into the watâ—rs But if our sound be silver-like cleare and pleasing it argues we are of better metall That is not silver which comes not clearer out of the fining pot nor is that gold which doth not shine in the fire i Prospeâ—itie doth best discover vice but adversitie doth best discover vâ—â—tue A good eye is for any colour though all colours are not equally lightsome A good eare for every sound though every sound hath not the same gratefulnesse Good teeth are for all meats that are wholesome though all be not alike toothsome so a sound understanding is fit for whatsoever shall happen though every thing which happens is not alike pleasing He that cannot receive evill as we call it from Gods hand as well as good shews that hâ— is of a crazed temper in the Inward man as an eye that seeks after green colours or as teeth after that which is tender which argueth saith the same Philosopher Sore eyes and unsound teeth k Mar. Aur. lib. 10. sect 37. p. 177 I have been long upon the point the longer that I might perswade to a contentednesse in every condition and that we might finde use and pick good out of all But it is the Lord who perswades the heart and He doth it else no condition will please seem it to others never so pleasing To possesse our souls in patience we lose them else is the readiest way to be eased and in time to be exalted The Lord teach thee the wisdome of His people and give thee content in present things understanding in all He subdue thy spirit He meeken thy heart He fashion and mould thy will to a patient submission unto His that it may be as conformable thereunto as the wax unto the seal All this God can do He onely And when He hath thus humbled the heart and thus meekned the spirit when he hath thus fashioned it then the work is done and nothing will be grievous It is a remarkable speech from Mr Bradford l Fox p. 1503. he hath many such but with that one I will conclude and shut up this Though my body be in an house out of which I cannot come when I will for he was in prison yet in that I have conformed my will to Gods will I finde herein libertie enough and for my lodging bedding seeding c. all above my worthinesse worthinesse quoth I alasse I am worthy of nothing but damnation So he wrote to his mother I must tell you also what he said to his friend He was in a strong hold neare the time of his enlargement when he was to passe to his crown but through the fire His friend told him that he would if it pleased intercede with the Queen for his life Do if you will said he if her Majestie will be pleased to give me my life I will thank her if my libertie I will thank her for that if neither of both I will thank her still If she will keep me here I can thank her here if she will send me hence to the stake I can thank her there also See what an humble man can do he can smart patiently he can suffer silently he can receive blows and return thanks No murmuring no repining no complaining in his mouth He hath committed his cause to God Learn how contented this man is and observe the patience of the Saints so I have done CHAP. V. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper The mysterie thereof Graces required in those who come to this Table In case these Graces be wanting what is to be done Of Mans worthinesse AND now Childe having made some discoverie unto thee of those our master sinnes and corruptions which most dishonour our outward man and disturb our inward peace And having supplied unto thee some provision for the better subduing thereof I shall now for thy better provision and preparation also put thee in minde of two extraordinary and solemne approaches both before the Lord and both in the face of the Lords congregation In the one the Sacrament of the Lords Supper we professe by faith to be one with Christ and by union with Him to partake of all His honour and glory In the other falsly by some called a Sacrament also they who were two are made one joyned together in so straight a band that nothing but death or that which is worse and more destroying then death can dissolve We must be well advised before we approach to either of these ordinances for it is for life It was well answered by one who was
of the Lord Iesus Christ under these signes to nourish and cheere me if I cannot Eagle-like flye up to heaven unto Him and on that carcasse fasten and fixe my faith thence to draw strength and refreshing The soul can presently be one with that it delights in be it profit be it pleasure and it should much convince and ashame us of our flatnesse herein a matter of such concernment And in case Tremenda mysteria we finde no such working then to withdraw our foot being now approaching towards those high and awfull mysteries For if our hearts can open towards the earth and unite with things there but are flat and heavy towards Heaven no working that way where the Treasure is the Lord of Glory then surely we are no fit guests for this table For certain it is That whensoever our soul shall feele its union with God in Christ all things below will seeme base unto it the soul cannot unite with them nor be servant unto them use them she may but she enjoyes God her union there parts unrivets and divorceth her from base unions and fellowships with things below And so much to the second Grace required in the Receiver 3. The third is Love Love to God who loved us first and gave His Sonne that we might not perish Love to to Christ who so dearely bought us a Love as strong as Death which stirres up all the powers of the Body and Soul to love Him again so as we can thinke nothing too much or too hard to do or suffer for Him who hath so abounded towards us The History of His passion is more largely set down then is the History of His Nativitie Resurrection or Ascension and for this reason it is That all the circumstances thereof are so largely set down That our hearts should be enlarged after Christ That we should have largenesse of affection to Him and these steeped as it were in His bloud and crucified to His crosse and buried in His grave And as Love to Him so love to our Brother for His sake * Amâ—cum in Christa inimicâ—â— proâ—ter Christum It cannot be doubted of in Him that tastes of this Love Feast he partakes of that there which is the cement that sodders and joynes us together e Sanguis Christi coagulum Christianorum as the graines in one Loafe or as the stones in an Arch one staying up another or to speake in the Scriptures expression as members of one Body nay which is yet neerer as members one of another we partake in one house at one table of one bread here is a neere Communion and that calls for as neere an union so the Apostle reasons 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. One God one Christ one Spirit one Baptisme one Supper one Faith And all this to make us one That we may keep the unitie of the Spirit in the bond of peace f Eph. 4 3. But above all The Sacrament of the Supper is ordained for Love But our love to our enemies our shewing the kindnesse of the Lord g 2 Sam. 9. 3. first part p. 71. that is returning good for evill This blessing them who curse us this is all the difficultie and the doubt And hard it is to corrupt nature I remember Salvian saith He that thinks he prayeth for his enemy may be much mistaken he speaks he doth not pray h Si pro adversario â—rare se câ—git lâ—quitur non prâ—catur lib. 2. pag. 70. And yet it is much to consider how farre a common and naturall light hath lead some here in this straight way of forgiving an enemy He was an implacable brother who said let me not live if I be not revenged of my brother The other brother answered And let not me live if I be not reconciled to my brother i Plut. dâ— Fratâ—rno amere And they were brothers too betwixt whom we read never any other contention was but who should dye for the other k Maâ— lib. 1. â—â— 37. So strong a naturall affection hath been and so able to endure wrongs and to right them with good which is our rule and contrary to former customes l Isid Pâ—lus lib. 3. epist 126. 1 Cor 4. 12. 13. â—â—ge Chrys ad Pop. Ant. 〈◊〉 Hom. 9. ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pluâ— de Frat. Am. wins the Crown or garland Grace is stronger then Nature it rivets and joynes men together like twin members eyes hands and feet or like twigs on the same root or stalke which stick alwayes together But especially if we suppose two persons communicating together at the Table of the Lord we must needs grant that in this Communion they see that which will reconcile implacablenesse it self for there they see a free offer of grace and peace not onely to an enemie once but to exmitie it self an infinite debt cancell'd a transgressour from the wombe an infinite transgressour since yet accepted to mercy This will beget again a love to God and to the most implacable enemy for Gods sake thoughts of this will swallow up the greatest injuries If our thoughts be upon the Ten thousand talents we cannot possibly think of requiring the hundred pence this Chrysostome m Vol. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Lege Chrysost in cap. 8. ad Rom. Hom. 14. p. 206 presseth very fully and usefully in his first sermon upon that parable or debtor We must remember alwayes that much love will follow as an effect from the cause where many sinnes are forgiven n Luke 7. 47. Matth. â—8 33 We cannot but think on the equitie of this speech and how inexcusable it must leave an implacable man I forgave thee all thy debt shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servants The summe is and our rule I must love my friend in Christ and my enemie for Christ Catechismes are large here and helps many and it is hard to meet with new meditations on so old a subject handled so fully and usefully by many but His good spirit leade thee by the hand who leades unto all truth It remains onely that I give some satisfaction to a question or two these they are But how if I finde not these graces Repentance faith charitie to be in me how then May I go to this Table or go I as a worthy Communicant A weighty Question this of high and universall concernment For he or she that eats and drinks unworthily are guilty of the Body and Bloud of the Lord o 1. Cor. 11. 27. The guilt of bloud lieth upon them Now the Lord ever puts a price upon bloud even upon the bloud of beasts upon the bloud of man much more upoÌ„ that bloud that was shed for man how great a price being the bloud of God and the price of souls So then we must be well advised what we do For if we spill mans bloud as God forbid we should for bloud cries yet if we
heart thou hast Doth not thy stone in thy heart It is in every ones heart more or lesse lye as a burdensome stone upon thee Thou wantest faith but doest thou not cry out Lord work it Lord encrease it in me Thou wantest love But doest thou not pray Lord spread abroad that Grace in my heart that it may abound and overcome all wrath iâ— placablenesse self-seeking self-pleasing all in me while I am my self being by nature the childe of wrath Hast thou wants I know thou hast and more then thou knowest of but come to Him who promiseth to supply all wants y Phil. 4. 19. No matter how many wants there be so thou art pressed and loaden with them so thou hast a true sense and feeling of them Bring all thy wants hither where is a fulnesse a full Treasury and that ordained I say again for supply of all wants Thou art unworthy thou knowest thou art yes and more unworthy then thou canst think thy self but art thou sensible thereof very sensible Blesse God that thou art so and now come come z Revel 22. 17. The Spirit and the Bride say Come And let him that heâ—reth say come And let him that is athirst come And whosoever will let him take the water of life freely Come then and feare not Come and welcome for though thou art no worthy guest yet thou art an invited guest why I will tell thee in Luthers words And for this very reason because thou art unworthy a Pâ—â—â—sus propâ—â—â—a quia indignus There is a great disproportion a wide difference betwixt Gods thoughts and mans thoughts Man may have high and glorious thoughts of himself and yet be nothing nay an abomination in Gods esteeme b Rev. 3. 17. So may he be low and vile in his own sight even to loathing and be high in Gods account even to a gracious acceptation c Rev. 29. Only then begge entreat cry for the spirit of the penitent who can gird themselves with sackcloth and wallow in dust and finde sweetnesse there even by putting their mouthes into the dust even thence fetching hope d â— am 3. 29. 1 Sam. 14. 4. In lifting up the eye to Christ there is hope none at all in looking downward Breath after Him cleave unto Him Breake through all difficulties as Ionathan did and make way to the rock if it be possible to perish at the fountain of Salvation or to thirst at the head-spring of Life there thirst there die But set thy face stedfastly looking to Christ through all through flesh and grace for grace is but a creature through all and thy salvation is sure This in way of answer which we may finde more at large in Luthers short Catechisme So much for thy provision and to stirre up thy preparation against thy approach to the Lords Table I conclude this as I finde a chapter concluded touching this very subject where I finde a short rule or consideration but of large use to direct us both before and after we have presented our selves at this Table f Mr Reynolds Medit. on the Lords Supper Chap. 12 â— How pure ought we to preserve those doores of the soul from filthinesse and intemperance at which so often the Prince of glory Himself will enter in The thought hereof is of high and soveraigne use before we come to this Table and it is of no lesse use after we have been there Certainly we will strive to preserve the doores of the soul those eyes and eares that mouth and that heart also pure from filthinesse and intemperance through which and into which we professe that the Prince of Glory Himself is entred in CHAP. VI. Of Wedlock how sacred that band how fundamentall to comfort I. Our well and orderly entrance into that honourable estate II. Our well ordering our selves therein according to the dignitie and honour thereof IT follows now that we make some provision also against the other solemne Ordinance wherein two are made one That is in the day of our marriage which day hath an influence into all the remaining dayes of our mortalitie For of all our civill affairs there is none more weighty important of greater consequence either for extreamest outward vexation and hearts grief or extraordinary sweet contentment and continuall peace then wedlock is it is as the last summe put at the foot of our reckoning whereby we may reade what all comes to As this proves we say it goes well with us or ill All our Temporalls comforts and crosses lie here as within a little map or table g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Eurip. orest p. 20. We must walk softly here and very considerately it being according to the old saying like a stratagem in warre we cannot erre and recall it We marry for life as was said nay for eternitie I shall note here for the more comfortable entrance into this estate 1. The headie proceeding of some young folk 2. The notorious abuse of the Minister 3. The cunning contrivance of some parents 4. And the consening crafty concealement of those who are more at libertie to dispose of themselves I mean widows and widowers These things I shall onely point at in the first place the better to make way unto that I principally intend 1. The proceeding herein of the younger folk is like themselves rash and headie as if what they did to day could be undone a moneth after And so they pay for their rashnesse and have time enough for repentance all their life after How oft have I known two green heads who could think of nothing but the present give their consents for the undoing of themselves But because their consent is nothing without a fourth person for we make no doubt but the maid or man-servant is the third person alwayes a pander Servi 〈◊〉 juvenum in these cases therefore they have agreed also witha Minister for so poore a reward as will pay his score at the ale-house some moneth after that he shall come in and witnesse their consent then which belongs to the office as he straineth it to put to the Churches seale as a sure witnesse that all is made firm The Parents quickly heare of it and we may be sure it wounds deep For now as it is most likely in such a proceeding neither their sorrow nor their wealth nor their counsell can possibly redeeme their childe from perpetuall thraldome A Minister I call this man who knit this couple and made them one and a minister he will be called whether we will or no be it so but in my construction it is in a large sense so an hang-man is a minister also and in this case he doth but the office of a very executioner yet which doth more debase him in a most unlegall way And such an one I saw once standing before an honourable Court for joyning by vertue of his much abused office two persons in condition very unequall
the foundation of a new house or familie now we know what care we take in laying the foundation They are now so joyning two that they make two one and this they can do by joyning hands but there is but One and He onely that can joyn hearts and keep them joyned That marries them to Himself and each to other making them that day and all their dayes of one heart in one house This is a great work and peculair to Him who is one God blessed for ever Therefore a main point of circumspection it is that they do nothing this day whereby to offend His eyes who gave them their childe all that is lovely and comfortable in their childe all the good they have or can expect Who makes a Vnitie and keeps a Vnitie in the bond of peace Certainly I am upon a great point of duty O how carefull should we be that we give no offence here And yet how is this care wanting May we not complain here as Chrysostome in his dayes c In Gen. 24. verse 67. Hom. 48. ◠Hom. 56 ◠Tom. 5. ser 18. How are marriages solemnized and in a manner how uncomely for Christians in such a manner with such preparations as if the purpose and intent were that the devill should be the chief guest called in thither and a blessing shut out I remember the same Fathers words in another place If the minstrells be within Christ is without or if He doth come in He turns them out d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In Coloss cap. 4. Hom. 12. ◠I will not say so lest I should strain the Fathers words for I cannot take his meaning so Musick is a science not to be despised and though it be not congruous for mourning yet it is for a feast I suppose there we are now And though we are so yet this I will say and all that have common reason will say so with me where such songs are as are usuall at such feasts there Christ is not that is certain He is excluded and let parents well consider what a guest they have shut forth such a one who hath done all for them from whom they expect all for hereafter And here now thou that art a parent shalt be judge in thine own case supposing it to be thus Thou hast no means whereby to preferre thy childe none at all thou couldest not give it so much as her wedding clothes But a friend thou hast who would do all for thee all to thy very hearts desire and more Tell us now wouldest thou forget this friend on the wedding day no sure that thou wouldest not who ever was forgot he should be remembred sure enough Thy engagement to the Lord Christ is much more and much stronger I cannot tell thee how much more but infinitely more that it is canst thou then forget to invite Christ to the wedding Certainly no if reason or civilitie can prevaile any thing nay before and above all or else it is nothing for He must be chief and Lord where He comes thou wilt as the same Father adviseth call Christ thither e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In ep ad Coloss Hom. ◠for certainly a marriage feast cannot be well ordered if it be not as once it was even thus And both Iesus was called and His Disciples to the marriage f John 2. 2. Object Suppose it so and the parents have quitted themselves well for things are done decently and in order But now here is a grave question for thus it will be said Great reason we see that we should invite Christ but how can we do it He is in Heaven and we are on earth He is a spirit we flesh That Answ is very true and it is fit ye should know it that ye may keep your distance and answerably addresse your selves And when ye have done so according to knowledge then observe an Analogie or congruitie in this businesse as thus would you know how you may invite Christ As thou doest thy much honoured friend before spoken of Thou doest solemnly entreat his company that day thy preparations are answerable to that respect thou bearest unto him such company such cheer such a cōmunion as is every way sutable After this manner invite Christ but remembring still both Christ and his Disciples they stand close together and can never be parted But if Christ come in our myrth must go out He marres Object 2 all our musick That is the common objection He is too strict and sowre a guest for such a time so it is said or so it is thought Why It is certain there is a Christian libertie Answ to be taken at this time even by Christ's own allowance If ever mirth be comely then at a wedding dinner if ever good cheer be in season and some exceeding that way both in mirth and cheer then at such a feast it is not properly a feast without it not a marriage feast I am sure And such a feast it is even by allowance from our great Master of that feast But now we must take this along with us 1. There is great cause that we should watch over our selves and over our affections now more specially because where God gives a libertie there man is prone to make an excesse 2. We must account that a mad mirth which grieves the Spirit of God 3. That to be a most unkinde requitall of the Lord where He hath made our table like a full pasture there to exalt the heart or to lift up the heel And all this we are apt to do therefore must we be the more circumspect and watchfull over our selves at such a time that things may be done decently and in order that all may shew forth Christian honestie prudence wisdome modestie And this because that day having an influence into all our following dayes may be so disposed and passed over that it may be a pledge of a blessing upon all the rest And this is according to Gods holy ordinance And so much Childe for thy better provision and preparation for this great and solemne businesse Of convenient entrance into this honourable estate wherein I have discovered the great abuses and disorders about it for thy better warning and the more to engage thee to thy duty which was twofold The well looking to thy self thy single cure and then looking up to God leaving the rest in their hands who are thy parents or deputed so to be What their charge is we have heard even their fivefold duty It follows now that I adde something touching our Christian-like managing this worthy and honourable estate as befitteth the honour of it whereon depends our comfortable living in it 2. We suppose now that affections at the first meeting II. §. are strongest like a spring-tide there are some certain flushes as I may say of Love and Ioy from the present enjoyment each of other Here then is required more wisdome then we have
will contemne disdaine and scorne others better then our selves and so bring not our selves onely into a snare but the whole City nay we shall be as those who set a City on fire who blow it up as with Gun-powder k Prov. 28. 9. Insâ—â—mmant â—â—ffâ—ant Tâ—em So much for prevention of snares from Riches in a generall way now somwhat more particularly Riches have many snares where there is fulnesse and plenty there is plenty of them But one daughter there is of plenty and fulnesse which like the herseleach still cryeth give give but is never satisfied This a great snare and fiâ—ly called the great inchantresse of mankinde we commonly call it Pleasure not so properly for saith one l Isid Pelusit l. 2. epist 240. How can we call that Pleasure which causeth so much sollicitude and carefulnesse madnesse saith the Author before we take it so much trouble and wearinesse in taking so short a satiety presently after and so much anxiety and perplexity of spirit anon or some while after If this be pleasure that hath so much sower and gall in it then we say well when we call it so The onely remedy against this Siren or Witch is to binde our selves as one was to the mast of his Ships m Hom. Odyss lib. 12. Resolution the morall of that fiction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Clem. Alex. Ad Gentes pag. 55. with the cords of strong resolution n Psal 17. Act. 11. 23. unto a constant walking onwards in the wayes of holinesse I am fully purposed saith David c. But for preventing this snare and fortifying our selves against it and to learne us to call it by its right name something hath beene spoken in its proper place which I will not recall here There are other snares in plenty so many that it is impossible to give severall remedies against them But yet to speak in a word and yet enough for prevention that our foot be not taken by them note wee There is one thing which God hath appointed as our watch-keeper and will hold us waking and well provided against them all if it doth its office and this is feare feare I say according to Godlinesse It is the most waking affection and most serviceable of any if it doth its office It is the house porter the bodies spiall and the soules too still keeping watch it is next to love the most commanding affection our keeper and r Siâ— modâ—ratus cibus nuaquam venter expletus plures quippe sunt quae cùm vino sint sobriae ciborum largitate sinâ— ebriae c. Hier. ad Hist ep 17. pag. 204. c. Lege epist 14. q Tenenti codicem somnus obrepat Ibid. p. 205. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The feare of God is a Catholike remedy c. Clem. Alex. Protrep p. 52. 86. Truths keeper also it is the best king in the world The great or little for it keeps both Tables I will say no more of it for I cannot say a little but let us observe what it will doe what good service to a man if it be right and we use it right Iude o Vers 12. the servant of Iesus Christ tels us of some who fed themselves without feare That is who fed themselves suspecting no snares at their Table or in their meate whereas according to the plenty there there are plenty of snares in both A feare now according to godlinesse will make us to prevent all So likewise there are some who goe to bed without feare as if there were no snares in sleeping nor in waking whereas in Bed wee shall finde many snares a feare according to godlinesse inables against these also There are some who rise again without feare who walk abroad without feare who converse with men and amidst the affaires of the world all this without feare as if there were no snares in all this whereas there is no lesse variety of snares then there is occasions or things in the world Feare according to godlinesse awakens a man he can look before him It armes him against all In a word feare helps to feed a man with food convenient for him It cloathes him as with a garment It armes him as with shield and buckler it keeps him in his walk and course as under watch and ward It guards the eye eare hand and foot that all may do their office and keep in order It aweth his very thoughts All this feare doth if it doth its office which is to keep the watch strong for this is certain If I feare death to be in the pot I will not taste of the pottage And thus soveraign it proves to be because it winds up the heart continually to God who promiseth to be a sanctuary to all such who feare before Him The Wise mans counsell is notable Be thou in the feare of the Lord all the day long r Prov. 23. 17. For it is a conclusion of experience A wise man feareth and departeth from evillâ— But the foole rageth and is confident Å¿ Prov. 14. 16. as if there were no snares in his way whence it commeth to passe that his foot is taken like a bird in a snare he is holden by it and cannot be delivered for this is a resolved case also Happy is the man that feareth alway But He that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischiefe t Prov. 28. 14. And so we have enough in one word for the prevention of all these snares which are ever strawed thickest in a full and plentifull state There are snares in wants also O give me not too little saith Augur but feed me with food convenient for me v Prov. 30. 8 9. lest poverty be a snare unto me lest I put forth my hand to that which is not mine and take the Name of my God in vaine such a snare there is in poverty Therefore to help thee here and not mention what hath been said though it would fit very well I will reason out this point with thee If God make thy family like a flocke of Sheep and thy pasture be bare if the Mouthes thou hast to feed be many and thy provision of Meale is now toward the bottome if thy charge be increased and thy meanes shortned if so I know here is a straight and a burden Want is a burden x 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrysost de Lazar Conc. 1. saith the Father grievous to be borne they will tell us so that feele it But yet as the same father elegantly saith Wee are all Stewards and we must all give an account what Sermone praecedent pag. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. shall the poore man give an account of who hath scarce any thing to give to his mouth The Father answers The rich Steward must accompt with his Master how bountifull he hath beene according to his Masters appointment And the poore Steward hee must be
there be more teares then words For then the instructed can discerne that there iâ— love in the instructâ—r It is notable unto this purpose which the Father k hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys Ad Colâ—s Hom. 12. our teares are never seasonable but in our prayers and in our instructions But this in passage only falling upon the point of Correction wherewith instruction is so necessarily joyned and with both meeknesse or teares that there may be good done It is part of the good wives commendation Shee looketh well to the wayes of her houshold l Vers 27. Shee keeps them in good order As shee doth her duty so shee lookes to it that they doe theirs as she is diligent so she will have them to be m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Alex. Str. lib. 1. pag 201. she will not suffer an idle person in her house such an one consumeth like a Canker It was Luthers n Minus â—ocâ—t ignavus fâ—r quam sâ—gniâ— minister observation it is of use in higher matters A sloathfull Theefe who hath not the slight of conveyance is not â—imble that way doth lesse hurt then doth a negligent servant And it agreeth well with that wee read Hee that is slothfull in his worke is brother to him that is a great waster o Prov. 18. 9. An idle person is the barrenest piece of earth in the world Remember alwayes that wicked and sloathfull stand together in the same line p Matt. 25. 26. Acts 20 31. So now in this great point of houswifry thou hast heard thy duty which engageth thy Tongue First that it be apt to teach to instruct to warne and that with teares Secondly Thy eyes that they looke well to the wayes of thy houshold that there bee no backe-way of consuming nor bad way of gathering Thirdly Thy hand that it be open and diligent working the thing that is good else wee cannot doe good to others for the present nor in quietnesse and rest depend on a providence for afterwards This is the summe of what was last said And now drawing to a conclusion I will put all together Children and Servants for there is no difference in point of â—are and instruction and so read over once more for that is not said enough which is not learnt enough The chiefe point of thy charge which is this It is not enough to bee vertuous thy selfe but thou must teach others so to be * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Chrys in Ephes Hom. 21. thou must lead others along with thee in the same good way both children and servants and all by thy owne example to walke holily before God Wee cannot else expect they should walke righteously with man If they be unfaithfull in the great matters they cannot be faithfull to thee in small so as thou canst orderly expect a blessing upon them or from their labours If thou sufferest them to steale from the Lords service especially on the Lords day to give unto thy service or their owne pleasures They are Sacriligious to their Master in heaven they cannot be trusty to their Master on earth Therefore here looke well to thy selfe and them Considering still that there is right government where Christs government is set up and maintained * See Chrysost in Gen. cap. 16 â— Where his service hath the prime and most honourable place both in the house and heart then things are done decently and in order Herein indeed is the beauty of society and nothing is more beautifull then a family thus ordered and then Persons so ordering This order in thy family shall gaine thee the commendations which they had whose Praise is in the Gospel that is praise indeed and worth the having it is the praise from God and goodmen And a family so ordered will be the Church in thy house which is the honourable title the Apostle gives to some families in a very bad time And this like a comely Nurcery sends forth hopefull plants to the City and Countrey Church and Common-wealth And as this Nurcery is maintained so are they supplyed for from this fountaine of society two in one house arise families and from them Common-wealths And now we have againe the blocke in our way though we have remooved it before I know well that a family may be so governed as we heard and as it should be It is required that these two in one house should bee one in one house with one soule with one mind with one heart serving the Lord. This blessing and gift from above for a good husband as a good prudent wife are both the gift of God and a speciall favour q Singulari modo Trem. Prov. 19. 14. Chap. 18. 22. my prayer is that thou maist receive But if not thou hast heard thy charge and withall how patient thou must bee under that want Thou must waite when God will give Repentance and use all meanes that may hasten the same as the Common adversary doth our destruction and never dispaireth of it while there is place for hope as the Father sweetly and elegantly shewing the duty of Ministers But it concernes all in these Chrysost de Lazar Conc. 1. â— cases wives especially that the unbeleeving husband may be wonne by the chaste conversation of the wife and so I leave thee now and thy charge in this supposed condition as I would have thee and them under thee found thee sweetly commanding in the Lord and they willingly obeying and in the Lord still I leave thee I say in thy family like a little Common wealth r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. A good housewife is an excellent ornament in an house she is a grace to her husband and her self In that house all rejoyce children in their mother husband in the wife the wife in children and husband all in God Clem. Alex. Pâ—d lib. 3. cap. 11 p. 183. revâ—rencing thy husband ruling thy Children commanding thy servants and all in and for the Lord which will finde thee worke enough to keepe thee waking in the season for it and to imploy the strength of thy parts and most pretious time and so both thy time and parts will be well spent in so behoovefull a service Now passe on to the last stage of our life which is Old-age CHAP. VII Old Age. Two periods thereof pressing to dutie both Comfort in death whence distilled AND now we are come like a ship from out of the maine Sea of the world which lyeth open to stormes and gusts and rideth at Anchor under the Leeside where the passengers may looke out and see their harbour Wee must now doe in the first place as Sea-faring men should doe in such cases they tell what they saw and what they felt even His wonders in the deepe and they declare these workes of the Lord with rejoycing Å¿ Psal 107. 22. So they who are brought safe to this port or stage of time
Old-Age must recount and record the Mercies of the Lord and what deliverances Hee hath wrought for them in their way thitherward This is the first thing to be done even to sacrifice the sacrifice of thankesgiving and to declare his works also with rejoycing And Child I began the Register of Gods Mercies towards thee where thou tookest thy beginning and first entrance into the world at thy Birth and Baptisme There I considered thy outward frame of Body and inward frame of minde where I left off then there I begin now to teach thee to recall to minde and record the mercies of God to thee ever since that time And though this recording of Mercies be proper to every person that is growne up to the yeares of understanding and not to every Age only but to every yeare and month and weeke and day therein yet this is a duty which seemes more to presse upon us the more and the faster yeares doe presse on And therefore though it doth concerne All in generall and every age and person in speciall yet being specially intended because that which is spoken to all is counted as spoken to none I shall bend my words to Thee whom I must suppose now stricken in yeares the Sun of thy day farre passed the Meridian and its shaddow gone downe many degrees towards the place where anon it must set Thou must then consider how wonderfully the Lord hath maintained thy life and preserved the same ever since thy comming into the world and that this consideration may presse the more thou must consider what this life is and that of so small a bottome the Lord should spinne out so long a thred Had he not drawne it out of his owne power as the Spider doth her web out of her owne bowels it had been at an end the second minute The maintaining the Radicall Moysture that Oyle which feeds the Lampe and light of thy life is as great a miracle as was the maintaining the Oyle in the Cruse of the poore widow But He did not maintaine this life only and at His owne proper cost But defended and protected thee also tooke thee under His Wings as the hen doth her chickens to shelter thee from those many dangers thy life hath been exposed to We cannot tell how many but this thou must know that there are principalities and Powers both in the plurall number to shew they are Legions and in the Abstract to shew they are armed with power as they are swelled with malice And to this their malice and power thou wast liable every moment of thy life and thou hadst felt both their malice and their power as quick and fierce against thee as Iob and others have done if the Lord had not charged them concerning thee Touch her not and how canst thou be sufficiently thankfull for this Againe consider how many dangers and casualties thou hast scaped from the Earth the severall creatures on it from the Water from the Fire from the Aire also how often have the Arrowes of Death come whisking by thee Tooke away those next thee and yet have missed thee perhaps thou hast seene some Deare yeares of time as thy forefathers have done When a thousand have falne at thy right hand and ten thousand at thy left When Gods Arrests have seized upon some walking talking and yet have spared thee And if not so yet consider thine owne body and the humours thereof They had every day overflowne and drowned thee as the waters the earth if God had not said unto them stay your proud Waves In a word if thou consider what thy life is and the dangers thou art subject to thou must acknowledge that the preservation thereof is as great a wonder as to see a sparke maintained alive amidst the waters So Chrysostome speakes of Noah t 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 5. ser 6. As great a wonder as to see a glasse that hath been in continuall use gone through many hands and hath had many knocks and fals to be kept for forty fifty sixty yeeres whole and unbroken As great a wonder as to see a Candle in a paper lanthorne in a strong windy night kept from being extinct when as we often see in many that a little cold comes but in at a little cranney and blowes their Candle out as Iob speakes Thus hath God kept thee and as it were in His hand carryed thee And in thy way how hath He crowned thee with His goodnesse and filled thy yeares with comforts so as they are more innumerable then are the Minutes of thy life Only thus thou must summe them up in the grosse That whatever comfort thou hast had in thy life time from Him thou receivedst it who puts in all the Sugar and delight we finde in or from the Creature as Ayre lights not without the Sunne nor wood heats without fire so neither can any condition comfort without God and with Him every condition is comfortable though seemingly never so discomfortable for He moderateth the discomfort it is like thou hast found it so so as we are not swallowed up of sorrow and He fashioneth the heart to that disconsolate condition and that condition to the heart so much it is very likly thou hast found also and it requires thy sad and serious consideration But more especially this thou must consider what have been the effects and fruits of all this goodnesse What thou hast returned to the Lord for all these All these what are these Nay it is not possible to reckon them up They that keepe a Register of Gods mercies some doe cannot set downe all the Receits of one Day much lesse of all their dayes so great is the summe of every particular day that we cannot reckon up the specialties thereof and call them by their names as God doth the Starres But put it to the Question and let thy heart make answer before him who tryeth the heart and searcheth the reines and will bring every secret thing to judgment The Oyle and radicall Balsome of thy life we spake of hath it been fuell to thy Thankfulnesse or hath it increased the fire of thy lusts Thou hast been preserved and delivered so long and so miraculously as thou hast heard and seene How hath Gods patience and longsuffering wrought upon thee Hath it brought thee nearer to repentance and so nearer to God Or hath thine heart been hardned thereby because sentence against an evill worke is not presently Eccles 8. 11. executed So as with that stubborne people whose sonnes and daughters naturally we are thou mayst say I have been delivered to doe more abominations v Ierem. 7. 10. Thou hast had mercies upon mercies they have been new unto thee every morning and for thy Sorrowes they have been mitigated too and so mixed that there was much mercy in them many ingredients of comfort to take of the sharpnesse and allay the bitter relish thereof What strong workings hast thou found
churlish dealing and answer This instructs us to sobrietie and watchfulnesse that the Lord may not have the same controversie against us when we come to our declining age Surely in vain have I kept this man this woman and all that they have so as nothing is missing of all that pertained unto them In vain have I lengthened out their dayes in vain have I fed them all their life and redeemed them from evill in vain have I preserved their inward and outward faculties both of soul and body all sound and entire for all this have they so and so churlishly requited me for all they have returned evill for good This is a reproof the hearing whereof we cannot endure And such a like reproof must he or she heare even such an one as will make their hearts like a stone within them if being preserved so and so long they have so unkindely requited the Lord if having so long a time of gathering and of exercising their talent they have gained nothing if having passed over so many yeares they have carelesly passed over also the observations which so many yeares would have yeelded very many For this we must still remember That the unthankfull man the better he is the worse he is That is the more good the Lord hath been to him the heavier his account will be and then the worse it will be with him Better the Lord had been a wildernesse unto him then that he should be a wildernesse to the Lord who had so watered him that he might be fruitfull That we may escape this great condemnation labour we to acquaint our selves betime with the Lord and to grow up more and more in the knowledge of Iesus Christ and the power of his grace for according to our increase and growth herein will our strength be for in Christ Iesus the decayes of age are repaired so as there shall be no more an infant of dayes nor an old man that hath not filled his dayes as Mr Calvine expoundeth the place e Esay 65. 20. Let us heare now how sadly Clemens of Alexandria complaineth at this point we will heare his counsell also for that is of use indeed but his complaint first which is this Ye have been infants then children then grown-men after grave-men but yet good men never Now reverence your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. ad gentes pag. 50. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Châ—ysost Tom. 6. in vet Test pag. 543. old-age this is the counsell give this honour unto it of being wise of doing vertuously give it as you would have others give you honour and due reverence You are hastening now towards your grave set your face the more stedfastly towards your countrey which is above Your feet are almost stumbling upon the dark mountains pluck them up now as a Traveller that hath slept out his time and yet hath farre to go and walk on the faster in the wayes of peace so redeeming the time Put that crown upon your gray head upon your declining age the Sun of the day is neare the setting that now at length now you are dying you may begin to live A man cannot be said to live truly till he lives godlily holily till then he is dead though he lives that the end of your life may be the beginning of your happinesse Oh! farre be it that ye should be delivered and delivered again and yet again that you should be spared and spared and yet to commit more abominations h Jer. 7. 10. far be it that ye should be i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ioâ—d pag. 40. Alex. as some have been by so much the more wicked the more kinde and gracious the Lord hath been You pity blinde men k 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Ibid. pag. 49. and deaf men because they cannot see the works of God which ye see nor heare the works of God which ye heare O pitie your selves for ye are both both blinde and deaf Ye have seen much ye have observed little ye have heard many things and those great things but ye understand not what ye heard Now heare and hearken now see and perceive now while it is called to day and know that there is a great deale of mercy l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. p. Ibid. 41. that yet the day is and is yet continued still every day to this present repeated a great mercy this provoke the Lord no longer grieve His good spirit no more lest He swear in His wrath as He will do if we continue to turn grace into wantonnesse m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Iâ—id While it is yet to day heare His voice and turn unto Him This is the counsell I will adde but this to it That He and He onely turns the heart who opened the eyes of Him that was born blinde and made a man every whit whole therefore the Church saith convert me and I shall be converted c. It is He who gives a seeing eye and an hearing earâ— even both these is a speciall mercy from the Lord and greatly to be begged for This then we must note for close hereof that as there may be a childe in n Noli annorum nos aestimare numero nec sapientiam canos reputes sed canos sapiâ—ntiam Hier. ad Paul 14. p. 180. yeares and a man in understanding so also may there be an old man in yeares and a childe in understanding For understanding comes not by yeares but by meditation in Gods law o Psal 119. 99. 100. Noli sidem pâ—nsaâ—e temporibus Ibid. I have more understanding then my teachers for thy testimonies are my meditation I understand more then the Ancients because I keep thy precepâ—â— A man may run out many yeares and more houres and yet be never the wiser by all that time because he hath not learnt from whom every good and perfect gift commeth even from the Father of lights He that worketh all our worke in us and for us before whom the Elders fell down and worshipped casting their crowns before His Throne acknowledging themselves to be in point of grace but Almes-men p Exuentes 〈◊〉 propriam bâ—nignitatem se beneficiarios ejus agnoscunt anâ—e cujus thronum coronas abjiciunt Brightman Rev. 4. 10. or sitting at the receit of a free mercy He it is that giveth wisdome not length of yeares nor number of dayes out of His mouth cometh knowledge q Prov. 2. 6. and understanding God iustructs unto discretion r Esay 28. 28. Job 38. 22. The Husbandman can neither sow nor reap c. without assistance and instruction from God much lesse can he sow righteousnesse and reap the same without speciall instruction from His mouth Who knoweth the heart therefore it is said Who teacheth like Himâ— And he that is old and stricken in yeares
yet hath learnt so much as hath been said That the Lord giveth wisdome that His word or law instructs to discretion This mans case is not to be despaired of though it be towards the last houre for while breath is within the nostrils for ought we know there is a doore of grace and mercy open But yet this is a very sad and lamentable case For the longer a man walks on in the wayes of ignorance the more unwilling and unable he will be to return and be reformed custome in sinning exercising still more and more tyranny his understanding will be more darkned his judgement more perverted his will more stubborn his memorie more stuffed with sensuall notion his affections will become more rebellious his thoughts more earthly his heart more hardened his conscience more seared And so much considering the season that gray hairs are mingled with the black no time for delay now when before it be long there shall be no more time We must account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation t 2. Pet. 3. 15. And let the conclusion hereof be an earnest prayer to the God of all grace that as His promise was unto His Church to v Joel 2. 25. restore the yeares that the locusts had eaten the Cankerworm and the Caterpiller So he would restore unto us the yeares which the ignorance of childehood the vanities of youth the negligence of age have consumed There is another period of this age the burden whereof is II. labour and sorrow Barzillai lived to those yeares full fourescore and what saith he I x 2. Sam. 19. cannot taste what I eat or what I drink a question in the sacred tongue is a strong affirmation I heare not the voice of singing wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden how long have I to live a question we should often put to our selves which would answer all solicitations from the world and flesh and put them to silence how long have I to live That is how very short is the remnant of my mortalitie yet a very little while y 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 10. 37. and I must hence what should I think of now but of my death and of my grave what are pleasures or earthly contentments unto me so feelingly spoke that old man The many decayes infirmities that accompany this age are fully set down by the preacher Eccles 12. Amongst those many one expression there is very full and significant as our English renders it verse 5. The grashopper shall be a burden In the Originall the words imply no more but the curvature of the back which with men of such yeares stands bent like a Grashopper and that makes an old mans gate the more burdensome The words may imply also according to the common construction that every thing even the lightest to an old man is burdensome If he creep up to his bed and down from it though to repaire his decayes yet even this is burdensome even delights to others to him are tiresome he takes no delight in the Grashopper nay it is a burden that is saith Tremellius that pleasant season of the yeer when we heare the Grashopper yeelds no pleasure to him none at all he hath quite lost his taste and relish now in those things which to others are pleasurable c. And yet if the grave meet us not in our way hitherto as commonly it doth before we come so farre and prevent our expectation it is larger in nothing then in the issue of this age and in the account we hope to give up at that time This is our greet folly For how bad stewards soever we have been of our fore-past time yet at this time we hope to lay our reckonings even and so to give up our account with joy Though we have turned from God all our dayes yet we have a sure and certain hope in our conceit that we shall turn unto Him and He will turn unto us at this time when indeed we are not able to turn our selves upon our bed And naturally for it is but Nature seeking its own preservation naturally I say and usually men do make fair offers essayes and promises this way at such a time as this when they see themselves dropping into the grave But we must note as one before us and for our use z B. Andrews on Psal 78. verse 34. that this time is the time when all Hypocrites Atheists tag and rag come in and seek Him For who is it that will not look out for a dwelling when he sees his old house dropping down upon his head Who will not cry out for mercy mercy when he seeth the doore shutting upon him and if he speaks not now he must hold his peace for ever Who will not desire that earnestly to live for ever with the Lord now that he sees he must die So true it is that this is the time when all even the worst of all do seek unto God and will turn unto Him But we must note also that this is not our time nor is it the time when God usually opens unto us 1. It is not our time to seek when we are not in case to seek any thing else It is not our time to turn to Him when we are not able to turne our selves in our bed not our time to rise earely to seek Him so we must if in an ordinary way we look to finde Him when we are not able to rise at all not our time to enquire after Him when breath faileth us and we are not able to speake three words together What ever our words are and â—ow pious soever whatever offers we make towards heaven it will be suspected to be slavish and extorted for feare of the Pale horse and that which follows It is not to be doubted but at such a pinch as this something we would say and something we would do which might do our selves good But what or how can we do to purpose when our strength is gone our spirits spent our senses appaled the shadow of death upon our eyes This time is not our time 2. Nor is it Gods time to heare In the Law the Lord forbad that torne flesh should be offered unto Him it was allotted for the dogs a Exod. 22. 31. Mal. 1. v. 13. But such a like sacrifice are our prayers and our praises at such a time as this as torne flesh broken divided and interrupted they must needs be when our heart within us is as Lead and our sighes beat as thick as a swift pulse The Lord ever refused the torne blind and the lame for a sacrifice It was not beseeming our Governour b Mal. 1. v. 8. a man like our selves In case to Him it was offered he would not accept of the same much lesse will God accept our torn divided sacrifice our refuse our Lees or dregs bottome dotage That which was dogs meat that
which our selves and friends are weary of We had a male in our flock that is we had strength of body and minde and then of that best or male we should have offered unto the Lord But now that our best or male is spent now that we have cast away our precious stock of time and parts upon the service of sinne and Satan how can we now thinke that our torne blinde and lame sacrifice can be accepted how can we think the Lord will accept a corrupt thing against which He hath denounced a curse c Mal. 1. 14. It is not the Lords time He heareth not those persons who d Prov. 28. 9. Prov. 1. turn away their care from hearing his Law we must heare God first if we look that God should heare us at the last If He cryeth and He cannot be heard We shall cry and we shall not be heard for the Lord hath spoken it more then once e Zach. 7. 13. Quid enim justius c. Sal. De Gob. lib. 3. pag. 86. Non aâ—divimus non audimur ibidem All our stretching and crying and howling will be in vain We should have stretched and inclined our eares and have lifted up our voice on high when Gods time and ours was I mean the ordinary time that he hath appointed to be called upon and we are commanded to seek Him in What time is that it is called the Day of Salvation the acceptable Day And when is that time The Apostle answers Now is the accepted time now is the Day of Salvation now this present time f 1 Cor. 6. 2. And it is but a day Time is all the yeare long but your sowing time and your reaping time both these have their seasons Time is all the day long but tide-time hath See first Part. pag. 71. its appointed houre and we observe it as the poore man the stirring of the water Now this present time while the male is in the flock while breath is and strength is while the season is of knocking and opening Now is the time when we must seeke Now the time when God usually opens There is a pretty fiction touching the shell-fish and the Serpent And because it instructs us touching a speciall point of practise we thus read it The Shell-fish and the Serpent sometime lived together and conversed the Shell-fish very harmelesly with the Serpent the Serpent very crookedly with the Shell-fish After many faire means and thereby prevailing nothing the Shell-fish watched his opportunitie and while the Serpent slept gave him a blow on the head which is deadly The Serpent feeling himself wounded to death began to stretch out himself it is the manner of all creatures so to do but most remarkable in the Serpent because he lyeth in a ring and goeth in folds or doubles The Shell-fish observing the Serpent so stretching out and straightning himselfe told him Thou shouldest have done so before Thou shouldest have walked even and straight with Me when we conversed together so it might have benefitted thee but now nothing at all This is a fiction but it tels us our folly in good eatnest and instructs us in a speciall point of wisdome we have this property of the Serpent we are content to walk crookedly all our life in the crooked wayes of sinne and Death our owne wayes and we doubt not but to make all straight and even when we dye But ordinarily it profiteth us not our Thoughts deceive us and that is a fruit of our folly Our wisdome is to set all straight and even before hand to put our soules in order and our feete in straight pathes while there is yet Time this hath been the wisdome of the Saints If we read the sacred Register we shall observe all along That they whose yeares are numbred to be many were fruitfull in their lives and faithfull in their Deaths their Old age was their crowne of glory for it was found in the way of righteousnesse And for that great and waighty worke Their setting their house in order Their making all straight and even This was not a worke to be done then when strength and heart and breath faileth but already done When they came to that point there was no more to be done but to close the eye and fall asleep quietly in the Lord. Remember Lord said that good King when death was in his eye Remember how I have walked in truth g 2 Kin. 20. 3. how I have done the thing which is good in thy sight He assureth and giveth large testimony touching the Time past I have I have It was not large promises concerning the time to come when it was threatned That time should be no more as the manner of the most is I will doe thus and thus hereafter if thou wilt be pleased to spare me now many have said so and so promised and recovered and falne backe strangely to commit greater abominations For that is a Time as the learned Knight noteth h Hist. of the world 2. B. Chap. 3. Sect. 4. pag. 212. When we remember God perforce and when we stand upon no condition with Him It was not what he would doe but what he had done Remember Lord how I have walked how I have done I have sought a good fight I have kept the faith i 2 Tim 4. 6 7. said Paul the Aged when the time of His departure was at hand That is not a time to fight when commonly the heart faints the head is light the backe pained the sides weakned that is the time to have the Crowne put on which we have so long striven after a Time to have our sanctification perfected which before we have heartily laboured in It is not the Time to fight but to overcome and to be more then conquerers I have fought that good fight I have kept the faith When when was Paul such a Champion so valiant for the Truth contending for the Faith and keeping it when was this when his bow abode in strength then he played the Soldier so fighting so contending And hence Pauls ground of confidence Henceforth there is laid up for me a crowne Thus touching the wisdome of the Saints They have understanding of the times And they know what they ought to doe k 1 Chron. 12. 32. that is they doe all in season Two lessons I shall draw hence for the Childs use and instruction and then anend First from hence I would give warning and put in a Caveat against some bold and presumptuous words and for ever hereafter prevent them We heare some and it is ordinary To wish for Death in a Passion before they have well thought of it and prepared for it if we may beleeve them they are well content to dye in a discontent They wish for that which they never before thought of in sobriety and good earnest Know they what they say doe they consider what death is and the consequence of the same when
agreeing to our earthy and compounded bodies therefore for our benefit and comfort sometimes for our punishment too it receives alteration from beneath or from above or from about it thence it is that most times the aire refresheth and sometimes poysoneth sometimes temperately cooling sometimes again with heate scorching Sometimes it candies the herbs and trees and hideth the waters as with a stone d Job 38. 30. and then who can stand before His cold e Psal 147. 17. who casteth forth His yee like morsels for so we must resolve the Lords f Job 38. 29. question out of whose wombe came the rce And if it be said who can stand before His cold how much more then who can stand before Him when He is angry for our God is a consuming fire 1. Here the winds have their circuit but where there treasure is we cannot tell I know what the Poets faigne and what the Philosopher of the greatest experience that our part of the world had doth write hereof But the sacred Scripture saith That the Lord causeth it to blow g Psal 127. 18. 104 3. He raiseth the stormy winde for He hath appointed them their work their circuit as He hath the treasures h Job 38. 22. for the snow and haile And we heare their sound and feele them too but the place whence they come we know not nor whither they will so secret is the way of the winde And as secret is the way of the spirit but more admirable in working it casteth down strong holds too it levells high and exalted things But I am too high This we may conceive The same wind which now shaketh the leafe and maketh the feather to move being charged against a mountaine would have turned it up from the foundation And the same strength that bloweth up the dust if it came against the earth would shake the bottoms of it And this should make us feare before Him that whatsoever He hath done whether it seeme great or little we should confesse His handy worke and according to His greatnesse so we should honour Him that whatsoever He hath commanded whether it seeme weightie or little all our obedience should be streight unto it These are Mr Dearings words i Heb. 1. vers 3. Lect. 2. Tranquillus dominus tranquillat omnia quietum afficere quiescere est Cal. I adde this All the winds without though never so raging and boisterous shake not the earth which is of ordinary use If a man have peace within no matter what troublesome blasts without they shall not remove him 2. Here likewise is the kingdome of the winged Creatures where they have more scope then the greatest Monarch on the earth and more aire-roome then the ship hath sea-roome when it rideth on the widest Ocean And more secure these creatures are then we for their provision though they sow not neither do they reape nor carry into their barn for your heavenly Father feedeth them And doth He so even the young râ—ven a forsaken creature thrice mentioned in the sacred Scripture the more firmly to establish us in a providence for the Naturalists say the old raven forsaketh her young till they be feathered but our heavenly Father feedeth them how much more then those who trust in Him and roule themselves upon Him for provision They are of more worth then the ravens How great should be the securitie of the Righteous that the Lord will provide He will take care for their provision as He doth for their protection Oh be thou saith Chrysostome as secure as the birds k Aves sine paâ—â—iâ—onio vivâ—at M. Faelix in sol p. 25. lin 19. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys ad Pop. Ant. Hom. 12. are that thy heavenly Father will feed thee too Here also I mean in the aerie regiment we see the great vessels of water rouling over our heads and it should be wonderfull in our eyes for we cannot understand the ballancing thereof He that upholdeth all things by His mighty power upholdeth the clouds and divideth a course for their rain making small the drops thereof so as they distill upon man abundantly and in a way of mercy He it is who maketh strong the bond of the cloud who gives it a retentive facultie whereby the water is bound up within it as with a swadling cloth for so we must resolve the Lords question Who l Job 36. 16. and 36 27. hath bound the waters in a garment Even thou ô Lord hast done it we know Thy Name and Thy Sonnes Name for thou art wonderfull m Prov. 30. 4. Isa 9. If the Lord should unloose this bond of the cloud this retentive facultie then would the water fall as through a floud-gate or from a spoute not breaking into drops but in one body with a resistlesse violence as sometimes our countrey-men have observed it when the violence of the waters fall hath laid the ridges of their land equall with the furrows But more ordinary the rain falls so amongst the Indians who call the falling thereof in that resistlesse manner The spoutes n Hist lib. 1. c. 7. § 6. So writeth Sr Walter Raleigh but the Scripture calleth it I think the great rain of His strength o Job 38. 6. And if it fall with such violence who then can abide the viols of Gods wrath Who can stand under the spoutes of His displeasure The wicked shall be driven before the tempest as the chaffe before the winde But to the matter in hand certain it is This clotheing the heavens with blacknesse and making sackcloth their covering p Esay 50. 3. This ballancing the clouds and binding the waters within them as within a garment thence making the water distill by drops all this must be taken notice of as the wonderous work of Him Who is perfect in knowledge q Job 37. 16. And upon the power of this Mighty Hand doth the faithfull soul stay it self Faith can never be at a stand for whether the Lord gives rain or restraineth it because of our back-slideing r Jer. 14. yet behold a glorious dependance faith limits not the holy One of Israel nor bindes Him to naturall meanes Å¿ Legâ— Bâ—â—sil Hex Hom. 5. p. 47. Who did make the earth to bring forth before He set the Sunne in the firmament or made it to rain and filled the valleys with water when there was neither winde nor cloud t 2. Kings 3. 3. Hence it is that the thunder is heard whereat the heart trembleth and is moved out of its place u Job 37. 1. but the heart soon setleth again when the noise ceaseth for it hath learnt the reason thereof And yet it posed the heathen and almost made him cease from his own wisdome when he heard it thunder but saw no cloud x Hor. carâ— 1. od 34. then it was the voice of the Lord sure and is it not the same voice though the cloud appeare
mourn as David for his sonne every day * 2 Sam. 13. 37. It is a bitter sorrow and it is accompanied with loathing y Ezech. 6. 9. 43. 20. 43. How these will stand together Godly sorrow I mean and spirituall joy is not to our purpose now But the greater our sorrow if it be godly the greater our joy The more sowre our sinnes the more sweet is Christ The more loathing of them as the alone and greatest evill the more prizing of Christ as the only and greatest good the choisest of ten thousands Whether we have this grace of repentance the tryall is easie for if we sorrow after a godly sort behold what carefulnesse it works what clearing of our selves what indignation 2 Cor. 7. 11. what feare what vehement desire what zeale what revenge Infallible marks these of repentance unto life It is now with the penitent as once it was and as ever it will be A sorrow to repentance is not a work of a day or two the hanging down the head like a bulrush for a day or an houre as the custome is Where there is a breaking the bands of our yoke there is a making to go upright z Levit. 26. 13. a constant walking with God as those that have now communion and fellowship with the Father and the Sonne And though this godly sorrow is more secret in the heart and there the work also of a true penitent is most in the well ordering thereof and in watching over the issues there-from yet is it not altogether undiscernable to the outward sense for as Mr. Dearing a Heb. 2. 11. noteth well There is no affection in us according to to the flesh but if it be great it will appeare in its work much more this which is of the Spirit of God If thou be sorrowfull it will make thy face sad b Deprendas animi tormenta latentis in aegro Corpore Juven Salyr 9. if joy be within it maketh thy countenance merry if thou have a flattering heart all the members of thy body will streight serve so vile a thing if hatred be within thee thy body will shew it forth in all manner of cursed doing and there is nothing that can possesse the minde but it leadeth the members in obedience of it How much more if the Spirit of God have replenished our mindes with these affections of godly sorrow and spirituall joy And so much to the first requisite 2. The second is Faith the hand of the soul which the Lord createth and strengthneth to lay hold on eternall life by Iesus Christ In the Sacrament of the Lords Supper we see a full Redemption wrought and a full price paid in His body broken and bloud poured forth In the bread and wine he that Qui dividit perdit devides destroyes the Sacrament we have a full and compleat nourishment all that the soul can desire But now as the mouth is opened so are we filled As the heart is enlarged so do we receive If the mouth be shut and the principle of life be wanting no matter what dainties are set before us or what put in Therefore we must consider our Interest in the Covenant and whether we can lay hold on a promise for life reconciliation and peace For the bloud of Christ and His Body serve not for the nourishment of any in whom they have not been as the seed of regeneration both in pardon of sin and change of the heart in which conversion standeth we must remember Sacraments convert none but strengthen the converted To the fainting spirit they are meanes to convey power they encrease strength c Isa 40. 29. The Sacraments are as the breasts of the Church from which the living childe doth suck and is satisfied with consolations from which the thirsty soul doth milke out and is delighted with the abundance of her glory d Isa 66. But it is the living childe that draweth comfort here and the instrument by which he draweth is Faith which is Gods gift as is Repentance He gives both So then we must examine how provided we come hither else we come to a well of living water but having nothing to draw or we are like a vessell east into the Ocean which hath no mouth or if any it is stopt The outward man can do its part it discerneth tasteth digesteth the outward signes But now what inward principle hath my inward man and what help hath it from all this in the beholding tasting enjoying the spirituall part Christ and the influence of His Grace issuing therefrom This is all the Question and point to be examined what Faith I have whose work is the same about the spirituall part as is the work of the outward man about the outward And yet had we all Faith I mean justifying faith we could not receive all that is offered here and though we have a weake faith if true we shall receive sufficient Our hearts as one noteth cannot comprehend all the wisdome of God in the wind that bloweth how He raiseth it up or maketh it fall again how can we understand this wisdome of our uniting unto Iâ—sus Christ only this we true members can say God hath given us faith in which we may believe it and out of which such joy shineth in our mindes as crucifieth the world unto us how farre our reason is from seeing it it skilleth not it is sufficient if we can beleeve it We beleeve in the Lord our God yet we know not what is his countenance we beleeve and apprehend by hope His glory yet neither eye can see it nor care can heare it We beleeve and see immortalitie yet our heart cannot comprehend the heighth the breadth the length the depth We beleeve the resurrection of the dead yet we cannot understand such excellent wisdome how life is renewed in the dispersed and scattered bones and ashes We beleeve our Saviour Christ is man and we have seen Him and felt Him yet how He was man born of a virgin all men in the world have no wisdome to declare Even so we beleeve that our Saviour Christ and we be one He of us and we of Him He the head we the body really substantially truly joyned together not by joynts and sinewes but by His spirit of which we have all received And this unitie I cannot conceive nor utter till I know God even as He is and His hely spirit which hath wrought this blessing But yet though thus secret and undiscernable this work of faith is we may take some evidence of the life and operation thereof by those things that our understanding part doth here in matters below and of another and much inferiour nature As thus My minde by the velocitie and speed of my apprehension can be many miles off upon the naming of the things I love Then surely my heart is dull and slow and wants the principle of a new creature if by so lively representations