Selected quad for the lemma: heart_n
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A95529
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Christmas in & out or, our Lord & Saviour Christs birth-day.
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Taylor, John, 1580-1653.
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1652
(1652)
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Wing T440; Thomason E1244_2; ESTC R209189
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10,013
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16
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CHRISTMAS IN OVT OR OUR LORD SAVIOUR Christs Birth-Day To the Reader Good Joshua once ordain'd a Holy-Day Because the Sun stood still in Gibeon And at his Prayers that the Moon did stay His course above the Vaile of Aialon And shal not Christians stil give thanks praise On th' yearly day our blest redeemer came Shall Powder Treasons and thanksgiving dayes Be still observed in Records of Fame Then let not Christs Birth-Day forgotten bee Remember him that doth remember thee Thine JOHN TAYLOR LONDON Printed by T. H. for Francis Coles and are to be sold at his shop in the Old-Bayly 1653. Christmas or Christs Day or Christs Birth-Day INimitation of my great and glorious Lord and Master Jesus Christ in love to them that hate me I am come to them that love me not My Almighty Master was is and ever will be GOD from whom nothing was is or ever shall be hid and hed d not onely know but commiserate the miseries of his enemies most miserable mankinde to whom he had often sent his Partriarks Prophets and other Messengers of Peace and prosperity and how they were and should be entertained in the world God knew before and all Histories of the secred Volumes or other Books of Eclesiasticall Writings will testifie And as my good Master did know how coursely he should be dealt withall by misbelieving hard hearted Jewes yet he came on this Day from whom I have my name of CHRISTMAS or Christs Day Even so I come this 25. of December though I know I shall be hardly welcome to a great many yet I am sure that as many as love my Master will rejoyce to see this Day But as my sirname of Mas there is much exceptions taken by some that understand not what Mas or Christmas meaneth I have heard Learned men say that the word Mas doth signifie some heavy or ponderous thing as Massa is a Wedge of Gold or Iron or any thing that is pressed or made into a lump of any thick matter of Dough or Curds Cheese or such like but my sirname of Mas is mistaken for my name is Christi missi or Christ sent as being sent from God to us this Day Christ had his Mission he came not before he was sent as himselfe said to his Disciples He that believes in you believes in me and he that believes in me believes in him that sent me Here it is plaine that my Master was sent and as he was sent so he sent his Apostles and they gave mission to the succeeding Ministery and they that were sent went and none were so bold to intrude into the Ministery without his Mission or Commission of being sent and so much concerning my name of Christmas But I am more properly called Christs Day for he himselfe did honour me with that Name and though all dayes are his for as he is God he is the Antient of Daies for whem the Jewes did speak of ABRAHAM Joh. 8 56 My Master sayd Before ABRAHAM was I am for ABRAMAM saw my Day and rejoyced in it and was glad He appointed me to be the peculiar Day of his blessed Birth he was promised in Paradice foretold and foreseen by the Patriarks and Prophets proclaimed by Angels with Glory be to God in the highest peace on Earth good will towards men Luk. 11. 14 A Song or Christmas Carroll of three parts to God to Earth to Men Glory Peace Good will a gracious Consort sung by celestall Spirits Angels and a multitude of heavenly Souldiers they sung and rejoyced all for our good and not for their owne Then let men sing Psalmes and Anthems in Churches and Hymns and Carols in our Houses let us give glory to God on high and he will give us peace below Faith is very clear sighted for ABRAHAM was more than two thousand yeares before Christ came in the flesh yet with the Eye of Eaith he saw Me he saw my Master and my Masters day and rejoyced in it and his rejoycing was approved of but the Jews which rejoyced not were reprehended The holy Patriark rejoyced and Christ allowed it and he did dislike the unbelieving Jews that rejuyced not The Jewes did not and do not observe it but all Christians did doe and will celebrate it and acknowledge it for no Christian will strike blot or scrape Christs Day out of the Kallender The Prophet Isaiah did write of Christs comming 600 years before he came in these words Behold a Virgin shall conceive and beare a Son and he shall call his name IMMANUELL or EMANUELL Esay 8. v. 14. And again in the 9. Chapter v. 6. For unto us a Child is borne and unto us a Son is given He is born and unto us a Son is given born of the blessed Virgin his Mother and given by Almighty God his Father a Child Natus a gift Datus Is borne Is given The Prophet saies not was borne and given but is which is ever in the present Tense Borne still in the heart soule and memory of every Christian He that Was and Is and Is to come Was borne a Child and is born a Child unto us Was given a Son and is given a Son unto us this Day of my Masters blessed Nativity In the second of S. Luke v. 10 11. Then the Angel said unto them be not afraid for behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people a Saviour is born on this Day Christs Day Christs Birth-day my day Christmas day The Angel appeared to the Shepheards and told them newes of a Lamb the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World a Lamb that was come to save all the sheep of Israel that were lost and lost everlastingly we should have been had not this blessed Lamb come and redeemed us And as he was a Lamb so likewise he was a Shepheard the true Shepheard the chiefe Shepheard 1 Pet. 5. 4. the good Shepheard Joh. 10 11. 14. so we read that his Birth and Birth-day was first made knowne unto Shepheards Indeed Shepheards were in odious and contemptible abhomination amongst the Idolatrous Egyptians Gen. 46. 32. So was and is my Master Christs Name and Birth-day to the misbelieving Jewes miscreant Turke and Sectarian Schismaticall out-side seeming Christians This day he that was prophecied of to come did come and he that was promised is come an Angell preached at his comming and Qaires and multitudes of blessed Spirits sung when our Saviour came who was is and ever will be not only a Saviour but salvation it selfe He was the Word and the Word was God and God was the Word Here God the Word was a Childe a Babe an Infant and here the Word was not able to speak a word Joh. 14. And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us we saw the glory thereof as the glory of the onely begotten Son of the Father full of Grace and Truth God sent his Son this day note
can hardly purchase a good meals meat besides thou art attended and waited on by a cutsed crew of Gamesters Cheaters Swearers Roarers and whim wham Gambolls me thinkes one of thy age should have left off thy Coltish tricks and prodigall expences Dost thou see any one that hath a care to live and thrive in the world to be so mad as to minde thee and thy Bables we are grown somewhat wiser in twelve yeares than our Fathers were in twice eight hundred There dwells my worshipfull good neighbour Sir Achitophel Pinchgut and M. Nabal an ancient Iustice of the Quorum it is neither they or my selfe that had ever come to have any estates if we had entertained thee or relieved Beggers I tell thee if we and a great many more had been as lavishly minded as thou wouldst have us to be we had then been as poore as thou or any of the rest of the vaggabond beggerly Varlets that are thy hangers on and so let them hang still or starve all 's one to me therefore without any more adoe avoid my house I have nothing for thee neither am I in the giving humour at this time I could have answered him with divine Commandments and Precepts with many humane Histories and Examples concerning good house-keeping and charitable Hospitality but every vertue in this Age of Vice is between two extremes as my Master was betwixt two Thieves as liberallity is in the middle but prodigality and covetousnesse are on each side of her alwayes ready to spoil and devour her All true Christians do know that what reliefe soever is given to the poore is lent unto my Lord and Master Christ and he hath is and will be bound to see it paid with Heavenly interest but he is a surety that few Usurers will accept of At my departure from this old Father Penny-wise his Sonne M. Pound foolish desired his crabbed Sire to bid me stay and dine with him at which the miserable Curmudgeon was even half mad with anger calling his Son spend-thrift and prodigall Jack-an-Apes saying that if he bad me to dinner that I with my followers would take the boldnesse to sup with him and lodge in his house till Twelftide was past and that I would draw more Guests to his house then he had a mind to bid welcome more Beggers to his gate then he had a mind to relieve Thus was poor Christmas used which made me and my men look blank upon the matter and without bidding him farewell I took a going welcome from him and wandring into the Countrey up and downe from house to house I found little or small comfort in any some would only smile upon me and because I should not pisse at their doors they would give me a cup of single slender lean small Beer or Ale which had the vertue to cause a man to make an Alphabet of faces for it would have warmed a mans heart like pangs of death in a frosty morning And as thinking or remembring former prosperities doe make adversities seem the more heavy So I call to minde the vigorous spirit of the Buttry Nappy Nut-browne Berry-browne Ale Abelendo whose infusion and inspiration was wont to have such Aleâ—borate operation to elevate exhillerate the vitals to put alementall Raptures and Enthusiasms in the most capitall Perricranion in such plenitude that the meanest and most illiterate Plow jogger could speedily play the Rhetorician and speak alequently as if he were mounted up in to the Aletitude This merry memory or sad remembrance of Ale caused me to ask the reason of this alteration to which question an honest Smith made this answer Alas Father Christmas quoth he our high and mighty Ale that would formerly knock down Hercules and trip up the heels of a Gyant is lately strook into a deep Consumption the strength of it being quite gone with a blow which it received from Westminster and there is a Tetter and Ringworme called Excise doth make it look thinner then it would otherwise do before these times every Brewer did keep two strong fellows to carry the Mault and one weake boy to pump the Water but now they have shifted or changed hands unluckily for the poore boy carries the Mault and the two strong knaves carry the Water Indeed to speake truth my best and freest welcome with some kind of Countrey Farmers I will describe one for all the rest in Devonshire and Cornwall where though both the Armies had been with them and given them severall visits insomuch that if the Cavaliers had taken their Horses thee other Party made bold with their Oxen if the one had their Sheep the other plaid sweep-stake so that according to the Countrey phrase great Crock and little Chock all was I go yet as soon as they spied me they saluted me with much love and reverend curtesie The Good-man with the Dame of the house and all the rest of the men were exceeding glad to see me and with all Countrey curtesie and solemnity I was had into the Parlour there I was placed at the upper end of the Table and my company about me we had good chear and free welcome and we were merry without Musick A ha quoth J this piece of the world is well mended our Dinner is better then our Breakfast this was as Christmas would have it here is neither too much cost nor too lâ—ede meat here is no surfeit on the one side or hunger on the other they are alwaies the best Feasts where the poor are reliev'd for the rich can help themselves After Dinner we arose from the Boord and fate by the fire where the Harth was imbrodered all over with roasted sted Apples piping hot expecting a bole of Ale for a cooler which presently was transformed into warm Lambs-wooll within an houre after we went to Church where a good old Minister spoke very Reverendly of my Master Christ and also he uttered many good speeches concerning Me exciting and exhorting the people to love and unity one with another and to extend their charities to the needy and distressed After Prayers we returned home where we discoursed merrily without either prophaneness or obscenity supper being ended we went to Cards some sung Carrols and merry Songs suitable to the times then the poor labouring Hinds and the Maid servants with the Plow-Boyes went nimbly to dancing the poore toyling wretches being all glad of my company because they had little or no sport at all till I came amongst them and therefore they leaped and skipped for joy singing a catch to the Tune of hey Le ts dance and sing and make good Cheare For Christmas comes but once a yeare Thus at active Games and Gambols of Hotcockles shooing the Wild Mare and the like harmless sports some part of the tedious night was spent and early in the morning we took our leaves of them thankfully and though we had been thirteen dayes well entertained yet the poor people were very unwilling to let me goe so I left them quite out of hope to have my company againe for a Twelve-months space that if I were not banished in my absence they should have my presence again the next 25. of December 1653. Glory be to God in the Highest Peace on Earth and to Men Good-will FINIS