singing her owne obsequies but because her skinne the root of her feathers and her flesh and entrals the organs of her musick were black he rejected her as an uncleane creature not worthy to teach the world The Ostrich likewise was esteemed profane and never admitted into Gods holy Temple because notwithstanding all his great and glorious furniture of feathers he cannot lift his dull and drossie body above the ground The Moone shineth but because it doth not heat it is not suffered to shine by day It is the property of good to shrowd and cover it selfe God the chiefest good though he filleth heaven and earth with his glory yet he will not be seene Christ though he was perfect God and equall to his Father yet nothing was ordinarily seene in him but a poore homely man Who ever saw the soul of a man his onely jewell as he is a man Christ said to his Apostles Yee are the light of the world And againe Let your light so Math. 5. 4 Ver. 16. shine before men that they may see your good works and glorifie your Father which is in Heaven It must be light and therefore a true light not a counterfeit and seeming light it must be your light every mans owne light it must be a light by which men may see not onely the good light it selfe but also our good works by the light and it must shine onely to the end that our heavenly Father may be glorified All light is commonly said to be derived from the Sun and the cause of all our shining must be alwayes referred and attributed to God And truly when a man for example giveth almes kindled onely with an intention that his neighbour seeing him may glorifie his Father which is in Heaven his intention is cleane and sufficiently good but he must be a man of proofe that giveth place to such intentions for he lieth wide open to the ticklings of vaine-glory and hypocrisie But I feele a scruple Good example is highly vertuous and in some sort worthy of reward especially in persons of eminent quality because good example is more seene more admired and goes with more credit and authority in them and therefore doth more edifie in respect of the high conceit wee have of their wisedome and knowledge Now the hypocrite teacheth as forcibly by example as the sound and throughly vertuous man For we learne in the great Theater of example by what wee outwardly see and the hypocrite is as outwardly faire as the sincere Christian It seemeth now that an hypocrite doth please God in playing the hypocrite Not so because his intention is crooked for he doth not intend to bring an encrease of good to others but of glory to himselfe If good by chance break in upon his action it falleth besides his intention and it belongeth to Gods providence as to it 's proper fountain which crusheth good out of evill As likewise the prodigall man when hee giveth prodigally to the poore doth not intend to fulfill the law of God but to satisfie his owne wilde lust of giving St. John Baptist was a lamp burning and shining Which moved St. Bernard to say Ardere parum lucere vanum lucere ardere perfectum It is S. Bern. in Serm. de nativ S. Io. Bapt. a small thing to burne only a vaine thing to shine onely a perfect thing to both shine and burne Nothing is more naturally proper to the fire then to burne and in the instant in which it first burns it gives light Which is the cause of those golden words in Synesius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the nature Synes Contra Androm of God to do good as of the fire to heat or burne and of the light to give light CHAP. 17. ANd certainly if we search with a curious and piercing eye into the manners of men we shall quickly finde that false Prophets and Deceivers are commonly more queint more various and more polished in their tongues and publike behaviour then God's true and faithfull Messengers who conforme themselves to the simplicity of the Gospel And if we looke neere the matter God prefigured these deceitfull creatures in the creation for hee hath an admirable way of teaching even by every creature it being the property of a cruell beast called the Hyaena to faine the voyce of a man But when the silly Shepheard commeth to his call he ceases to be a man teares him presently and preys upon him Each Testament hath a most fit example Ioab said to Amasa the head of Absolons Army Art thou in health my Brother Could danger lurk under the faire name of 2 Sam. 20. 9. Brother or could death hide it selfe under health a perfection of life They could and did For Ioab making forward to kisse him killed him and robbed him both of health and life whom hee had even now saluted with Art thou in health my Brother Surely he did not think of Cain when hee call'd him Brother Judas came to Christ and saying God save thee Master kissed him Hee talks of God and of Salvation Math. 26. 49. God save thee Hee confesses Christ to be his Master Hee kisses too And yet in the same act gives him up into the busie hands of his most deadly enemies Wherefore St. Ambrose one that had a practicall knowledge of the great difference of Spirits which hee had seene in their actions disswading us from the company and conversation of these faith-Impostors saith Nec vos moveat quod formam praetendere videntur S. Ambr. humanam nam et si foris homo cernitur intus bestia fremit let it not move you that they beare outwardly the likenesse and similitude of men for without a man appeareth but within a beast rageth And that which St. Hierome saith of a quiet Sea is of the same colour with the conceit of St. Ambrose Intùs inclusum est periculum intùs est hostis the danger is shut up within within is the S. Hier. ep ad Heliodor Enemy like a rock watching under a calme water St. Cyprian adviseth us to betake our selves presently to our feet and fly from them Simus ab eis tam seperati quà m sunt illi de Ecclesia profugi Let us fly as farre S. Cypr. in ep 3. lib. 1. from them as they have flowne from the purity of the Church and that 's a great way St. Cyprian in the same place exhorteth us very seriously not to deale with them not to eat with them not to speake with them O the foule corruption of our Times O for some zealous power that may reforme the abuses mine eyes have seene It is one of the first endeavours of the Papists in England which they exercise towards the society of men to gaine the good wills of Ministers For if they purchase the Ministers good will and good word they clip the wings of the Law hold him fast that hath a great stroke in matters concerning them
is drawne strait to the bone through all his body His eyes fix constantly upon one thing as if there hee saw the dreadfull sentence of his eternity Two black circles lay seige to his eyes on every side and it seemeth that for feare they are sunke inwards as if they would turn presently and looke upon the deformity of the soule Hearke with what a lamentable accent he grones I remember I have heard some that soon after came to this point sing and laugh heartily Poore man how little all his pleasures have profited him Such a rich purchase the favour of such a noble man such and such a merry meeting what doe they help in this agonie his freinds are present yet of themselves they are miserable comforters they may looke sorrowfully speake mornefully cast themselves upon their knees and pray for him but they cannot doe the deed they cannot helpe him humane power stands amaz'd and can do nothing You do you heare what thinke you now of going abroad and being merry your old companions are at the doore Looke to your goods and your selves your house is on fire not a word And the little life which as yet keeps weak possession is so dull'd and over clouded with the pangs of Death that hee cannot raise from the fog of his body one clean thought towards God or Heaven Hee is ready now to leave every thing but his sinnes lands house friends gay clothes the gold in the box and jewels in the Cabinet and all See see he is going hee stands upon the threshold Death lurkes in yonder corner and aimes at the heart and though it move so fast Death will not misse his marke Hee has beene an Archer ever since the world began There flew the arrow Here is a change indeed His Soul is gon but it would not be seene Not only because it could not but also because it was so black Now dismisse the Physitian and pray him to goe and invent a preservative against the poyson of Death Close up the dead mans eyes hee will see no more Shut his mouth hee has left gaping for aire all is past hee will never give an other crosse word Now cast the beggerly wretch an old sheete and throw him out to the wormes or after three days hee will poyson us and then we shall bee like him It is a true speech of saint Hierom with which hee puts the latter stamp upon the soft heart of Paulinus to whom hee writes Facile contemnit omnia qui se semper cogitat esse moriturum Hee doth easily contemne Hier. ep ad Paul and with a violent hand throw under him all things who thinkes he stands alwayes with one foote in his grave O my soule heare me let me talke to thee in a familiar way The corporall eye this eye of man seeth nothing but figure or fashion and colour no man ever saw a man onely the figure or fashion and colour of a man and these are outward and superficiall things which onely flatter the eye And S. Paul saith worthily The fashion of this World passeth away The man dyeth the lid is 1 Cor. 7. 31 drawn over the eye the fashion or figure disappeareth is not seene The Hous-keeper hath changed his lodging the windows are shut Call him at the doores of his eares tell him that his wife and children are in danger of their lives and that they call to him for help the windows remain shut stil Here is the mind which hath wisdom There is nothing in this great World for a mortall man to love or settle upon Hee that will Reve. 7. 9 love ought to love wisely he that will love wisely ought to love good Good is not good if it be not permanent this World passeth away Nihil tam utile est quod in traÌ„situ prosit saith Seneca nothing is so compleately Sen. â—p 2. profitable as to profit when it only passeth And verily this world hath bin alwayes a Passenger for it hath passed from age to age through so many hundred generations by them and from them to us Adam liv'd a while to eat an Apple and to teach his posterity to sinne and to dye and the world passed by him Caine liv'd a while to kill his honest brother Abel and to bury him in the sands as if God could not have found him or the winde have discovered what was done and afterwards to be haunted with frightfull apparitions and to be the first vagabond and the world passed by him Noah liv'd a while to see a great floud and the whole world sinke under water to see the weary birds drop amongst the waves and men stifled on the tops of Trees and Mountaines and the world passed by him David liv'd a while to be caught with a vaine representation and to commit adultery to command murther and afterwards to lament and call himselfe sinner and when he had done so the world shuff'd him off and passed by him Salomon liv'd a while to sit like a man upon his royall throne as it were guarded with Lyons and to love counterfeit pictures in the faces of strange women and while he was looking Babies in their eyes the world stole away and passed by King Salomon and all his glory Iudas liv'd awhile to handle a purse and as an old Author writes to kill his Father to marry his Mother to betray his Master and to hang himselfe and the world turn'd round as wel as he and passed by the Traytor The Jews liv'd a-while to crucifie him who had chosen them for his onely people out of all the world and quickly after the world weary of them passed by them and their Common-wealth The old Romanes liv'd awhile to worship wood and stones to talk a little of Iupiter Apollo Venus Mercury and to gaze upon a great statue of Hercules and cry hee was a mighty man and while they stood gazing and looking another way the world passed by them and their great Empire The Papists live awhile to keepe time with dropping Beads or rather to lose it to cloath images and keepe them warme and to tell most wonderfull stories of Miracles which God never thought of but as he fore-saw and found them in their fancies and in the midst of a story before it is made a compleat lye the world passes by them and turnes them into a story The Jesuits live a-while to be call'd Religious men and holy Fathers to frame a face to be very good and godly in the out-side to vex and disquiet Princes to slander all those whom they cannot or gaine or recover to their faction and the world at length finding them to be dissemblers dissembles with them also and looking friendly upon them passes by them The painted wall tumbles and then Woe to you Hypocrites Wee live a-while a little little while to put our cloathes on and off to shew our selves abroad to be hurried up and downe in Coaches and to be
us from it hee would quickly thinke Had I my body and life againe whither would I not goe What would I not undergoe to shun this wofull extremity I would lye weeping upon the cold stones all covered with dust and ashes if it might be suffered a million of yeares for my sinnes I would begge my bread of hard-hearted people in a new world from one end of it to the other I would spend as many life 's in trembling feare and fearfull trembling if I had them as there bee lifes in living creatures I would doe any thing Now my soule doe not grieve that Hell is provided for sinners for such griefe stands so farre under the lowest degree of vertue that it is a sinne but give two teares at least from the eyes of thy body because thou hast sinned against thy good God Such teares are Pearles and rich ones and will in time make thee a rich man The holy Fathers call these teares the jewels of Heaven and the wine of Angels And as the world was a gallant world and there were such creatures and such doings as we now see before I was any thing so it will unlesse God please in the meane time to cut off all by his glorious and second comming remaine a very gallant world and there will againe be such creatures and such doings when I shall lye quietly under ground corrupt and putrifie and by little and little fall away to a few wretched bones and these shall remaine to mocke at what I have beene And he that is now so trim and so much talk'd of shall not be so much as remembred in the world his generation shall forget him and people will speake and behave themselves as if he had never beene CHAP. V. REader beware the Papists are crafty and profound in craft And they will object to relieve their cause one of these two things or both I have beene long trained in the knowledge of their wayes That I owe them thankes for many devout observations Something I have learned of them and I thanke them for it yet little if experience stand aside but what I might have learned in England My friends know that when I was a boy at Eton Colledge I began to scribble matters of devotion And I have seene much unworthinesse in them beyond the Seas not to be imitated which I could not have learned in England But the knowledge which they worke by shall lye dead in me Their other prop will be that my writings come not from the spirit of devotion but of oratorie I am short in these revelations that point at something in me who am nothing Reader thou hast the language of my spirit but I must digge farther into this veine of Meditation or Consideration Consideration 1. THe reasonable soule though now of composition is composed of three faculties the Understanding the Will the Memory All faculties being active have one most proper act or exercise to which they are most and most easily inclinable if not restrained The most proper act or operation of the Understanding is to see or know Truth Of the Will to will and love good Of the Memory to lay up and keepe in it selfe as in a Treasury all profitable occurrences By the sinne of Adam the Understanding is dazled in the sight or knowledge of Truth By the sinne of Adam the Will becomes chill and colde in the willing and loving of good so colde that it wants a fire And from the sin of Adam the Memore hath learn'd an ill tricke of treasuring up evill where it shall be sure to be found againe and of casting aside good where it may be lost with a great deale more ease then it was found Where one part is wounded and one well one part may succour and cherish the other the part well the wounded part In the soule all parts are wounded And therefore there is great neede of Grace and supernaturall helps that strengthened by them wee may recover health and partes deperditas the parts we have lost Lord assist my contemplation with thy Grace Wherefore the holy Apostle speaking of those who in all their adventures were guided onely by the weake directions of nature sayes they became Rom. 1. 21. vaine in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkned First vaine and then more darke Saint Hieromes Translation speaketh after this manner in Genesis The Gen. 1. 2. earth was vaine and voide and darknesse was upon the face of the deepe What the Eye is in the body the Understanding is in the soule The Eye is the naturall guide of the body the Understanding is the naturall guide of the soule For when we beleeve as well as desire the things we doe not understand even then also we take a naturall direction from the Understanding which he holds a convenience of such things in respect of the motives with beliefe and desire though not with Understanding The Eye sees the outward shape of a thing the Understanding sees both outwardly and inwardly as being advanced more neerely in its degree and therefore also in its making to God The Eye discernes one thing from another the Understanding conceives as much The Eye judges of colours the Understanding judges of white and blacke of good and evill The Eye cannot see perfectly many things at once and such a one is the understanding For the more a power be it spirituall or corporall being finite is spread and divided in its operation the lesse power it hath in every particular The eye sees other things but I cannot turne it inward to see it selfe the Eye of the soule lookes forward but in the body it shall never obtaine a sight of it selfe in its owne essence Indeed the Understanding is a kinde of Eye and the Eye is a kinde of Understanding Such an excellent sweetnesse of agreement there is betwixt the soule and the body which moved to the marriage and union betwixt them Now this Understanding this Eye of the soule is not altogether blinded by the great mischance of originall sinne For omnia naturalia sunt integra as Dionysius sayes of Dionys Areop the fallen Angels all the naturall parts are sound How from being broken not from being bruised This Eye then although darke so farre sees that it sees it selfe lesse able to see somewhat darke in the sight of naturall things and much more then somewhat darke in the sight of spirituall things I may stand betwixt both and clearely behold the different case of the soule before and after the fall of Adam in order to spirituall contemplation and practise if I looke upon the various condition of a man in health and sicknesse in order to the actions and operations of life The sicke man is weake and ill at ease his principall parts are in paine his head his heart He cannot use his minde seriously but his head akes he cannot looke stedfastly nor at all upon a shining object discourse is tedious to
are very quick at their worke they live altogether by catching and snatching The French History hath one who Reymond Lullius being full of vaine affection to a vertuous Lady she to cure his Fever uncovered one of her brests and there shewed him a Canker which had eaten deepe into her body and was extreamely hideous to the sight adding these words See vaine man what thou hast loved Hee recovering himselfe from the fall began to lament grievously how vaine he had beene in loving that which he did not perfectly know All fond people would speake in the same phrase if the cloud hanging before their eyes were dispersed What amongst beasts is more fierce then a Lyon And yet a Lyon is a Lamb in respect of a wicked woman What Vide Chry. homil 15. in Matth. tom 2. is more cruell then a Dragon And yet a wicked woman is more a Dragon then the Dragon it selfe What is more devouring then a Whale And yet a Whale is not a Whale compared with a wicked woman Many Lyons spared innocent Daniel in the Den and yet one Jezabel devoured holy Naboth The Dragons and all the great army of poysonous beasts feared S. John Baptist in the the Wildernesse But Herodias and her dancing daughter cut off his blessed head at a blow serv'd it up to Herods table buried it in his Palace that if it should talke againe as one writeth againe being at hand it might be quickly brought to the Axe The whale kept Jonas safe and secure in his belly But Dalilah betrayed Sampson into the hands of those that bored his eyes out I praise the chast and modest woman For it is the nature of contraries that the one is as good as the other bad Goe fond man and visit all the brave women of the last age the great gallants of the Court and City court them in their graves and consider with what a little handfull of bones the vaine people of those times were so exceedingly taken what painted Images of dirt they fighed for about what trifles of flesh and bloud they vainely spent their dearest houres and for what lumps of carrion their weake heads so often aked The Devill striveth to keepe our love at worke upon vaine things because by love onely we are united to Heaven Rule 4. BEare a strong hand over your passions They are mutinous subjects and live within the wals Man is composed of foure contrary elements But they came to this composition upon composition upon faire tearms of agreement But the passions stand yet in the full force of passions There are two great contraries in matters pertaining to morality good and evill The one we naturally desire to obtaine to avoid the other Good considered within the compasse of its owne nature kindles love the prime and master-passion If it be or seem absent it stirreth a desire of it selfe If we desire it and conceive it possible hope begins to grow big and we follow it If impossible despaire starts up if the good was great and good playes the mad-man But when wee fully enjoy it joy smileth in us On the other side if we make a discovery of evill we hate it If it be absent we put wings to our feet and flie from it If it shew it selfe as inevitable we feare it But if it arrest us being present we are chilled with griefe And then anger loves souldier is at hand ready to strike at every turne and to turne all into a tumult And anger fights on both sides for we are angry with the hinderances which occurre in our pursuit of the thing we love We love before wee hate because we hate nothing but as opposite to a thing we love But here is the block of danger when good appeareth in the forme of evill and evill in the shape of good or when one is apprehended as the other no man loving evill but guilded with a pretence of good For then we love evill hate good desire evill flie from good hope for evill feare good rejoyce in the purchasing of evill grieve in the atchievement of good Every thing runs a most unnaturall and disordinate course and all the little world of man is disturbed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solon apud Phil. Judaeum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the grave Solon The Sea fals rises beates against the rocks and is grievously troubled with the windes but if it be not angred with any loud breath or blustering it is very smooth plaine and gentle When the passions are subject to Reason and Grace the minde of man is the Common-wealth of Plato an even and well-governed State But if one wheele be out of order the rest stand waiting for little purpose all the passions will adhere to the passion then predominant It is recorded that Semiramis was an humble Petitioner to the great King Aelian de var. hist l 7. of the Assyrians whose concubine she was that she might take upō her the government of Asia and command the Kings servants but for the transitory space of five dayes It was granted She came forth adorned with a Princely robe and her first words were O wretch Go take the King kill him And by one venturous step she climbed to a settled state of Imperiall government Semiramis representeth passion Suffer it to enter into your house and it will keepe possession give it once the upper hand and it will claim the course of gift as a priviledge A passion is like fire which is pliable to good uses while we keepe it in the place and office of a necessary instrument but if it passe without a guide it will bring us to an ill passe the passion will turne to action and make a great spoyle of all things In all the uproare of passion keepe the minde calme Yea when anger beginneth to inflame you thrust off the passion by maine strength and compose your selfe in a sweete pleasantnes of minde and face And say inwardly Sweet God how mild art thou that sittest quietly in Heaven when thou seest thy divine Majesty most grievously abused here on earth God doth not require of you to become Stoicks to pull up passion by the roote and to remaine unsensible For passions doe give an edge to vertue and are the supporters of it God desireth onely that in anger Reason should direct and carry us through the croud And that anger should stay in his owne home in the inferiour part of the soule and not breake in upon the minde and that in all the stirring Reason should have her principall motion For if passion be first she will blinde Reason and then draw her into her faction change opinion alter judgement worke strangely upon the apprehension turne the discourse and make another man And as anger so love desire joy feare griefe and the rest are all to be wisely tempered Rule 5. KNow that when any thing is well and piously said or done in your presence God speakes to you And that
I am very wel contented with the sweete condition in which thy wisdome hath placed me Thou art wisdom it self other wisdome is not wisdom but as conformable to thy wisedome And I doe most humbly yeeld up my selse to comply with the ranke and quality in which I am by thy royall appointment And I remaine indifferent to have or to want to be sicke or in health to dye or to live As thou pleasest so be it And if I could learne thy farther and utmost pleasure I would goe through the world to effect it though I should labour to death in the performance An Act of the feare of God O Lord I feare thee because as thou hast made me of nothing so thou canst reduce me to nothing in one turne of an instant Which perhaps would be a greater losse of my selfe then to be lost in Hell Because then I should not be thy creature I should have no being no dependance of thee but should be lost branches tree roote and all It had beene better for Judas that he had never beene borne because then hee should never have tasted of life or being But when he was Judas which was better for him not to be or to be miserable thou onely knowest I feare thee because as thou art infinitely mercifull so thy justice is infinite And because sinne being but a temporall thing quickly committed and past over and sometimes as soone almost forgot as committed a meere flash is answered notwithstanding with eternall punishment as fighting against an eternall God And yet I feare thee not as a slave but as a sonne For I have more love towards thee then feare of thee though I much feare thee And also my hope weighs down my feare And though all this be true teach me to worke out my salvation with feare and trembling with a great feare which may cause trembling An Act of Praising God O God I doe praise thee for thy most infinite goodnesse thy most infinite power and for all thy most infinite attributes and perfections If thou hadst not beene what thou art I had never beene what I am Yet I praise thee for the first although the other had not followed and yet I praise thee because it followed I doe praise thee for all the benefits which have beene or shall be hereafter bestowed upon the humane nature of Christ and upon all thy Saints and Angels one of which is the continuance of glory Upon men women and children from the beginning of the world to the end of it and especially upon thy chosen vessels for all thy benefits upon ignorant persons who did not know thee and therefore could not love thee nor keepe thy commandements for all thy benefits upon wicked persons that would not and upon dumbe and unsensible creatures that could not praise thee And upon me a vile one Thy blessed name be blessed by thy selfe and by thy Angels and Saints for ever and by men women and children while they live and by all creatures till they cease to be creatures And let all the people say Amen We must be seriously carefull that these Acts in their exercise be true and goe to the bottome of the heart not faigned and superficiall Rule 7. WHen any thing comes to you by way of speciall blessing or gift kneele downe in some private place and receive it as immediately from the hands of God saying O God This is not the gift of destiny or chance of men or Angels it is thy gift onely it passes from thee to me by creatures appointed for the just execution of thy good pleasure upon whom in this respect I beg a blessing If thou hadst not first ordained it for me it could not have thus passed from hand to hand and at last beene reached to me From thee therefore I take it O thou sunne sea fountain spring treasure of all goodnesse O thou good and gracious giver of all good gifts and graces O thou good and perfect giver of every good and perfect gift Catch all occasions to speake of God and praise him and stretch out the discourse as farre as you can And be heartily glad when you heare the holy name of God glorified or his goodnesse mercie justice or other excellencies magnified Yea out of the Devils temptations raise occasions to praise God which is a most short and compendiarie way to divert him as when the Devill hammereth evill words and actions into your minde as he doth especially when you are angry to bee used at any times turne upon him and say Blessed be God that keepeth my feete from falling Hallowed be his name who threw downe proud Lucifer from the gates of Heaven And alwayes reserve a time wherein to blesse God privately for the gifts which others do praise in you And being dispraised rejoyce Rule 8. HAve alwayes some pious and short sayings floating upon thy memory at the end of thy tongue and in thy heart like Arrowes in a Quiver which thou mayst at every turne dart into the lap of thy beloved and use upon every call of occasion As at the sight or hearing of anothers misery This very stroke might have bruised me as it hath my neighbour why was not I the man I might have beene as easily found out amongst the crowde as he But I am Gods favorite And I should bee more wicked then he that is most wicked if God should with-draw his grace favour and helpes from me At the sight of a blinde man Lord I see thee daily in thy creatures O thou that art the eye of thy selfe and that lookest through the clouds upon the world I can looke up to thee At the sight of a lame man I might have beene like this poore imperfect creature but now I will bestirre my selfe and goe readily to thy house and there say and not saintly but heartily O Lord O God O Lord God thou art the giver and preserver of all things When thou lookest up to Heaven say That way lies my Countrey wherein God shines out upon his Saints and Angels to whom they now sing with heavenly musicke and most melodious harmony mee thinkes I heare their voices What good power will draw the curtaines of Heaven that I may likewise see their glory And when downe to the earth I doe or can walke daily over the loathsome carcasses and rotten bones of thousands that have beene gallant men and women and beene carried up and downe in coaches and when I have done all I must die This way lieth hell O the confusion that is there O the darknesse In sorrow How can I be troubled when God and his Angels rejoyce continually In joy I will rejoyce in the Lord againe I say I will rejoyce At other times My tongue and lips which have concurred to speake against thee shall now joyne their forces but what to doe to speake of the marvellous things which thou hast done in our dayes and in the ages before us My hands that have
have done CHAP. VIII HEre I will give certaine formes of Christian duties which in some part belong to me in regard of my former wandrings and which I will not fit onely to my selfe that others may use them upon emergent occasions That God may be glorified and in conformity to his most holy Will the sacred measure of all goodnesse I most heartily forgive all people that have trespassed against me whēsoever wheresoever or howsoever Now I look better upon them I behold my own self in every one of them or another me very like my selfe sent hither into the world the same way upon the same businesse and sweating here in the Vineyard as I doe for the same or like paiment here I doe not meane the Papists and perhaps pleasing God better upon earth by some hidden vertues and to be seated more close to him in Heaven then my selfe Shall I be displeased with any with whom God is pleased to be well pleased Indeed we must be friends for wee hope to live together in one house for ever And more I behold the Image of God in them and our onely Saviour Christ Jesus in the humane nature which he tooke and married to his Divinity and cleerely in the body which he put upon him For his sake I will imitate Saint Stephen the boldest because the first of Martyrs who being oppressed with a showre not of hard words or the like but of stones kneeled downe and cried with a loud voyce His body Acts. 7. 60. was as low as Earth but his voice as high as Heaven and he sent it thither with a good will for he cried with a loud voice and yet he cried not for the help of others helpe helpe or for his owne wrongs but as his wrongs were their sinnes and hee kneeled downe before he was beate down and although they might have beate him from his standing yet they could not beate him from his kneeling before they had beate him from his life nor with most hard stones beate downe his prayer which then was his and now is mine Lord lay not this sinne to their charge One thing I know they were both Gods whips and the instruments of his triall in respect of me And blessed be God in all Eternity that fitted and prepared to my hands so rich so ample and such fine-weav'd occasions of patience and humility I blesse not God for the sinne that it was committed but for his good intention towards me supposing the commission of evill and for the good which he wrought by evill when it was committed O the blindnesse of anger It is impossible to goe or stand or spet or so much as looke handsomely in the troubled judgement of the angry person Anger thinks that we poyson the air when we breath and so is afraid of catching the Plague and that every thing we looke upon we infect with the eyes of a Basiliske and that what we touch is stung by a Scorpion and therefore the part touched must be cut off and that where wee smell thence we have extracted the sweetnesse And the minde of an angry person saith S. Chrysostome is a market-place S. Chrys tom 4. hom 24. full of tumult where is a continuall clamour of goers and commers this man calling that chiding one asking another answering a fifth murmuring a sixth hallowing one here singing one there lamenting and all with different voices the loud crying of Camels the rude braying of Asses a confused noise of all sorts of workemen incessantly knocking on every side with their severall instruments Here is noise enough to make a man lose the right use of his hearing Go my soule to the Philosophers that knew neither Christ nor his Father as we know them to Plato and to his Socrates Aske Cicero if this be the minde of a vertuous man The Stoicks would have thought such a man not a man but the Ship-wrack of a man It is the voice of the Psalmist Righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other Upon Psal 85. 10 which words Saint Austin discourseth S. Aug. super illud Psalmi Justitia Pax. as he uses to doe most excellently and me thinkes he speakes to me Duae sunt amicae Justitia Pax tu forte unam vis alteram non facis Righteousnesse and Peace are deare and neare-united friends you perhaps would have one without the other Which can never be for they are as unseparable as their friendship you shall not finde them parted they are alwayes kissing together You desire the sweets of Righteousnesse but you have no minde to Righteousnesse that is sweet The one is to be done the other to be enjoyed If you will enjoy Peace you must doe righteousnesse Why then Lord I begge of thee not Peace without righteousnesse but the Peace of Righteousnesse that while they kisse together in me I may be kissing too but what thy sacred feete nailed to the Crosse and bleeding for me Under which I cast all my wrongs great and small And for the persons if my wishes were as efficacious as the first words of God in the creation Let there be Light after which immediately Gen. 1. 3. appeared that most gallant creature all in white in the next instant they should all shine in glory with God and his Angels CHAP. IX NOw let me looke inward and search the many turnings and windings of my heart for sores that cannot be salv'd except they be salv'd as well abroad as at home and with different plaisters sores that ake in two places at once They are knowne by this name injuries done to my neighbours And they are like the Serpent which Plinie calleth Amphisbaena headed at both ends and at both ends they dispense their poyson for they not onely wound me with guilt but also in the same blow my neighbours with hurt dammage and losse of some good thing to which they have a just title unjustly taken from them Every good action is tutored by some vertue and the lawfull change of the dominion which every one hath over his owne lawfully made his owne must bee regulated and informed by Justice It is the Doctrine of Saint Austin Non dimittitur S. Aug. peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum The sinne is not pardoned except the thing taken away be restored there being a greater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and foulenesse of injustice in the keeping and retaining then in the taking away of my neighbours goods the act of retaining them being indeed a continuall taking of them and accompanied with much more deliberation and consequently a most deliberate negation or deniall of sorrow for having taken them and an implicit or close and secret will or love of the same and the like wicked action and verily an utter exclusion of repentance upon this ground Repentance by which we are grieved for the commission of one sinne or more if it include not virtually a sorrow for all our sinnes committed is not
is the great directour of the Church and enemie to the devill in his oppositions of it hee still had a blow at the Holy Ghost first in Theodoret who denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son and now in the Grecians But we shall heare more of him anon CHAP. 7. VVHat mervaile now if greene in Age and shallow in experience I gave up my soule into the black hands of errour The causes of my closing with the Church of Rome were three First a consideration of the great sinnes of this Kingdome and especially of that open scandalous and horrible sinne of Drunkennesse which my soule hateth And I weakly argued from a blemish of manners in particular persons to a generall and over-spreading corruption of Faith My thoughts represented a drunkard to me sometimes in this manner What is a Drunkard but a beast like a man or something lower then a beast When he is in his fit no sense will performe his fit office Spectacles in all figures appeare to him hee thinks hee sees more shapes then God ever made A cloud settles in his eyes and the whole body being overflowne they seeme to float in the floud The earth seemes to him to nod and hee nods againe to it trees to walk in the fields houses to rise from their places and leape into the Aire as if they would tumble upon his head and crush him to a Cake and therefore he makes hast to avoid the danger The Sea seemes to rore in his cares and the Guns to goe off and he strives to rore as loud as they The Beere begins to work for he foames at the mouth Hee speaks as if the greater part of his tongue were under water His tongue labours upon his words and the same word often repeated is a sentence You may discover a foole in every part of his face Hee goes like like what nothing is vile enough to suit in comparison with him except I should say like himselfe or like another drunken man And at every slip he is faine to throw his wandring hand upon any thing to stay him with his body and face upwards as God made him Vmbras saepe S. Ambr. lib. de Elia jejunio cap. 16. transiliunt sicut foveas saith S. Ambrose Comming to a shadow of a post or other thing in his way hee leapes taking it for a ditch Canes si viderint leones arbitrantur Idem ibid. fugiunt sayes the same Father if he sees a dogge he thinks it to be a Lyon and runs with all possible hast till hee falls into a puddle where hee lyes wallowing and bathing his swinish body like a hogge in the mire And after all this being restored to himselfe he forgets because hee knew not perfectly what hee was and next day returnes againe to his vomit And thus he reeles from the Inn or Tavern to his house morning and evening night and day till after all his reeling not being able to goe hee is carried out of his House not into the Taverne alas hee cannot call for what hee wants but into his Grave Where being layd and his mouth stopt with dirt hee ceases to reele till at last hee shall reele body and soule into hell where notwithstanding all his former plenty variety of drinks hee shall never be so gracious as to obtaine a small drop of water to coole his tongue Then if it be true as it is very likely which many teach that the devils in hell shall mock the troubled imagination of the damned person with the counterfeit imitation of his sinnes the devils will reele in all formes before him to his eternall confusion In vain doth S. Paul cry out to this wretch Be not drunk with wine wherein is excesse but be filled with the spirit For the same vessell Eph. 5. 18. cannot be filled with wine and with the spirit at the same time In vaine doth hee tell him that wee should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Sobriè 2 Tit. 12. saith S. Bernard nobis justè proximis pie autem Deo Soberly in our selves righteously S. Bern. in Serm. sup Ecce nos reliquimus omnia or justly towards our neighbours and godly towards God alwayes remembring that we are in this present world and that it is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the present point of Time and but one instant that we enjoy at once And somtimes in this manner my thoughts shewed me a drunken man Hee is a most deformed creature one that lookes like the picture of a devill one who stands knocking at hell-gate and yet it is not able to speak a plaine word and call for mercy one that could stand and goe but now lyes all along in his owne filthinesse one that is loathed by the Court and all the Citizens of Heaven one that for the time doth not beleeve that there is a God or that Christ died for the sinnes of the world one that may be lawfully thought a man of little wit and lesse grace one who is the Ow◠of all that see him and the scorne and abomination even of his drunken companions one who if he should then dye would certainly be a companion of devils in hell fit◠for ever one that is ready to commit adultery murder treason to stab or hang himselfe to pull God out of Heaven or doe any thing that is not good And if it be a firme ground that putting our selves into the occasions of such and such sins we are as guilty of them as if wee had committed them although we did not formally and explicitely intend them how many great sins hath one act of drunkennesse to answer for Drunkennesse is most hatefull to God because it putteth out the light of Reason by which man is distinguished from a beast and all better lights with it and throwes a man beneath Gods creation and therefore drunkennesse is more or lesse grievous as it more or lesse impeacheth the light and sight of Reason Natura paucis contenta Nature is contented with a little quam si superfluis urgere velis saith Boetius which if you shall urge and load with superfluous Boet. things you will destroy And one over-chargeth his stomack and vainely casteth away that for want of which or the like another daily crieth in the streets with a lamentable voyce Good Sir for Gods sake pitty these poore fatherlesse children ready to starve one is hungry and another is drunken And the great end of the 1 Cor. 11. 21. Creator was to supply necessity and the necessity of every creature And Sobriety and Temperance are faire vertues which even the Glutton and Drunkard doe praise and magnifie If wee turne aside into the Church-yard wee shall finde it a dry time there There are no merry meetings under ground no musick no dancing no songs no jesting company Every body sleepes there and therefore there is no noise at all Perhaps indeed as men passe
and for us all MEDITATION III. ANd the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his Gen. 2. 7. nostrhils the breath of life and man became a living soule For when the Angels enriched with such absolute gifts and dowries of nature by occasion of their shining and beautifull nature had lost and lost beyond recovery the fairest beauty under Heaven which is Grace God turning his Omnipotencie to the Creation of man made as if he feared the like inconvenience all that is visible in Him of Earth of base and foule earth Which lest it should continually provoke a loathing he hath changed into a more fine substance covered all over with a fair and fashionable skinne but with a condition of returning at a word and halfe a call from Heaven unto Earth and into Earth That although he might afterwards be lifted up in the scale of his soule hee might be depressed againe presently on the other side by the waight and heavinesse of his body and so might lay the deep and low foundation of humility requisite to the high and stately building of vertue If now God should turn a man busie in the commission of some haynous crime into his first earth that presently in steed of the man should appeare to us an Image of clay like the man and with the mans cloathes on standing in the posture in which the man stood when he was wholly tooke up in committing that high sinne against God Should we not all abominate so vile a man of clay lifting himselfe against the great God of Heaven and Earth And God breathed upon his face rather then upon any other part of his body because all the senses of man doe flourish in his face and because agreeably to his own ordinance in the face the operations of the soule should be most apparent as the signes of feare griefe joy and the like wherefore one calls the eyes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most exact and accurate images of the Damascenus in vita Isidori minde But stay I grant that God in the beginning first rais'd all things by a strange lift out of nothing And I confesse it is true not that which Pythagoras his Schollers had so often in their mouthes Ipse dixit and no farther but ipse dixit facta sunt as the Prophet David singeth God spake the word and all this gallant world rose presently out of nothing as if sencelesse nothing had heard his voyce and obeyed him And I am sufficiently convinced that God brought our first Father from cōmon earth that we cannot touch without defiling our fingers to earth of a finer making call'd flesh But how are we made by him wee come a naturall way into the world And it is not seene that God hath any extraordinary hand in the work Truly neither are the influences of the Sunne and Starres apparent to us in our composition yet are they necessary to it Sol homo generant hominem sayes Aristotle The Sunne and a Arist man betwixt them beget a child The reasonable soule is created by God in the body at the time when the little body now shapen is in a fit temper to entertaine it For the soule is so noble and excellent both in her substance and operations that shee cannot proceed originally from any inferiour cause nor be but by creation And if God should stay his hand when the body is fitly dressed and disposed for the soule the child would be borne but the meanest part of a man And doubtlesse God useth Parents like inferiour officers even in the framing of the Body For if the Parents were the true Authors and master builders of the body they should be endued naturally with a full and perfect knowledge of that which they make They should fully and perfectly know how all things are ordered and fitted in the building They should know in particular how many strings veins sinewes bones are dispensed through all the body in what secret Cabinet the braine is locked up in what posture the heart lyeth and what due motion it keepes what kinde of Cookery the stomack uses which way the rivers of the bloud turne and at what turning they meet what it is that gives to the eyes the principality of seeing to the eares of hearing to the nose of smelling to the mouth of censuring all that passes by the taste and to the skin and flesh the office of touching Nor is this all But also when the body is taken up and borded by a sicknesse or when a member withers or is cut off truly if the Parents were the only Authors of the body they might even by the same Art by which they first framed it restore it againe to it selfe As the maker of a clock or builder of a house if any parts be out of order can bring them home to their fit place and gather all againe to uniformity So that every man naturally should be so farre skill'd in Physick and Surgerie and have such an advantage of power that his Art should never faile him even in the extraordinary practice of either To this may be added that the joyning together of the soule and body which in a manner is the conjunction of Heaven and Earth of an Angell and a beast could not be compassed by any but a workman of an infinite power For by what limited art can a spirit be linked to flesh with so close a tye as to fill up one substance one person They are too much different things the one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Gregory Nazianzen speaks a ray of the S. Greg. Naz Divinity the other a vile thing extracted from a dunghill Nor is there any shew of semblance or proportion betwixt them And therfore to make these two ends meet is a work which requires the hand and the onely hand of the Master Workman The Divines give three speciall reasons why God joyned a body to a soule First moved by his infinite goodnesse because he desired to admit a body as well as a spirit to the participation of himselfe and all creatures being spirituall or corporall a body could never have beene partaker of blessednesse had it not beene joyned to a spirit Secondly for the more generall exercise of vertue in the service of God for a soule could not have acted many vertues without the aide of a body as the vertues of temperance and chastity For the Devils are not delighted with the sinnes contrary to these vertues but for our guilt Thirdly the perfection of the universe For as there are creatures only spirits as Angels and creatures onely bodily as beasts and trees so it was a great perfection that there should also be creatures both spirits and bodies By which it is evident that God placed man in a middle condition betwixt Angels and beasts to the end he might rise even in this life with Elias to the sublime and superiour state of
Angels not descend with Nabuchodonosor to that inferiour and low rank of beasts And by the more frequent operations of the spirit in high things we become more spirituall and indeed Angelicall By the more frequent exercise of the body and the bodily powers in the acts of sensuality we become more bodily and bestiall MEDITATION 4. ANd God gave us a being so perfect in all points and lineaments that lest we should fondly spend our whole lifes in admiration of our selves and at the looking-glasse hee wrought his owne image in us that guided byit as by a finger pointing upwards wee might not rest in the work but look up presently to the workman The image consisteth in this God is one the soule is one God is one in Essence and three in persons the Father the Sonne and the holy Ghost The soule is one in Essence and three in faculties the understanding the will the memory The Father is the first person and begets the Son the understanding is the first faculty and begets the will I meane the acts of willing by the representation of something which it sheweth amiable The Holy Ghost is the third person and proceeds from the Father and the Son the memory is the third faculty and is put into action and being in a manner joyntly by the understanding and will But here is a strange businesse The Sonne the second person came downe into the world and yet stay'd in Heaven The will the second faculty and she onely goes as it were out of the soule into outward action that we may see the soule of a man in the execution of his will and yet remaines in the soule God is a spirit the soule is a spirit God is all in all the world and all in every part of the world The soule is all in all the body and all in every part of the body Phidias a famous Graver desiring to leave in Athens a perpetuall memorie of himselfe and an everlasting monument of his Art made a curious image of Minerva the matter being pretious Jvorie and in her buckler upon which in a faire diversitie hee cut the battails of the Amazons and Giants hee couched his owne picture with such a rare singularity of Art that it could not any way be defaced without an utter dissolutioÌ„ of the Bucklar This did God before Phidias was ever heard of or his fore-fathers through many generations in the soule of man the image of God though not his likenesse remaining in the soule as long as the soule remaineth even in the damned To this image God hath annexed a desire of him which in the world lifts up our hearts to God in Hell begets and maintaines the most grievous paine of losse And to shew that this desire of God is the greatest and best of all desires nothing which any other desire longs after will satisfie the gaping heart but onely the object of this great desire Ad imaginem Dei facta anima rationalis saith S Ber. Ser. de divinis S. Bernard caeteris omnibus occupari potest repleri non potest capax enim Dei quicquid minus Deo est non replebit The reasonable soule being made after the image of God may be held back and stay'd a little dallying with other things but it can never be fully pleas'd and fill'd with them for the thing that is capable of God cannot be filled with any thing that is lesse then God The heart is carved into the forme of a Triangle and a Triangle having three angles or corners cannot be filled with a round thing as the world is For put the world being sphaericall or circular into the triangle of the heart and still the three angles will be empty and wait for a thing which is most perfectly one and three And that wee might know with what fervour of charity and heat of zeale God endeavoureth that we should be like to him he became like to us For although God cannot properly be said like to us as God as a man is not said like to his picture but the picture to him yet as man he may And therefore as hee formed us with conformity to his image in the Creation so hee formed himselfe according to our image and likenesse in his Incarnation So much he seeketh to perfect likenesse betwixt us in all parts that there may be the more firme ground for love to build upon when commonly similitude allureth to love and likenesse is a speciall cause of liking It is the phrase of S. Paul who saith of Christ that he was made in the likenesse of man 2 Phil. 7. MEDITATION V. ANd woman being made not as man of earth but of man and made in Paradise was not taken out of the head that she might stand over her husband nor out of the feet that she might be kickt and trod upon nor out of any fore-part that shee might be encouraged to go before her husband nor yet out of a hinder part lest her place should be thought amongst the servants farre behind her husband but out of the side that shee might remaine in some kinde of equality with him And from his heart side and a place very neere the heart that his love towards her might be hearty And from under his left arme that he might hold her with his left arme close to his heart and fight for her with his best arme as he would fight to defend his heart It is one of the great blessings which the Prophet pronounceth to him that feareth the Lord. Thy wife shall be as a fruitfull vine by the sides of thine house The vine branch may Psal 128. 3 be gently bended any way and being cut it often bleeds to death And the wife is a vine by the sides of the house her place is not on the floore of the house nor on the roofe shee must never be on the top of the house But there is a difference the woman must be a Vine by the insides of the House But now begins a Tragedy It is not without a secret that the Devill in his first exploit borrowed the shape of a serpent of which Moyses Now the serpent was more Gen. 3. 1. subtill then any beast of the field The knowledge of the Angels is more cleare compared with the knowledge of the Devils and moreover is joyned with Charity but the knowledge of the Devils is not joyned with Charity Justice or other vertues and therefore degenerateth into craft according to that of Plato 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plat. in Mâ—â—â—xâ—â—◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Knowledge not linked with justice and other vertues is not wisedome but craft And the serpent is crafty For if he can passe his head his long traine being lesse and lesse will easily follow Hee will winde and turne any way He flatters outwardly with gawdy scales but inwardly he is poyson Hee watches for you in the greene grasse even amongst the flowers Wee see that
knowledge and practice which otherwise should never either have beene practised or knowne no patience of the best proofe but occasioned by an injury no injury guiltlesse of sinne the cleannest exercise of our Charity towards our neighbour supposes in our neighbour the want of a thing requisite and all want of that generation is the poore childe of sinne the most high and most elevated praxis or exercise of our charity towards God then flames out when we seale our beliefe with our blood in martyrdome no martyrdom but usherd with persecution no persecution free from sinne If we are not sorry that he sinn'd we are not sorry that millions of millions of soules shall now be lost eternally lost never to be found again which if Adam had stood upright had certainely shone with God in Heaven as long as hee And if we are sorry that he sinn'd wee are sorry that Christ joyn'd our flesh and soule to his Divinity expressed his true love to us by dying for us was seene by us here in the world and will feast even the corporall eye in Heaven with the most delightfull sight of his blessed body for ever And howsoever some think otherwise if Adam had not sinned Christ had not tooke our nature for he was not so much delighted with humane nature as hee was desirous to die for mankinde And if wee are not sorry that he sinn'd wee are not sorry that one sinne was the cause of all sinnes and all sinnes the cause of all punishments and that one punishment is behind and waits for us in another world with which all other punishments put together and made one punishment are in no kinde comparable and that I and my neighbours and he that is abroad and perhaps now little thinks of such a businesse are all ignorant how we shall dye now we are borne how wee shall end our lifes now wee are alive now wee are put on how we shall get off and when the Ax is laid to the root which way the Tree shall fall and what shall become of us everlastingly Be wee sorry or not sorry Adam sinned It being done God's will be done And yet because it was but his permissive will his will of sufferance and hee suffers many things against his will not of necessity but because he will I will be sorry that Adam sinn'd that is offended God God made the soule of man as upright as his body and clothed it with the white garment of originall Justice God being the fountaine of all power grace and sufficiencie could have hindred the fall but because he was not his neighbour nor obliged by any law for who should give a law to the first Law-giver and to demonstrate the full extent of his dominion over his creatures he would not and having left man in the hand of his owne counsell and set within the reach of his hand fire and water and man having wilfully plaid foule God strived to make the best of an ill game and therefore hee drew from the fall of Adam besides the former benefits a more ample demonstration of his power wisedome justice providence and chiefly of his charity the triall of reason the triumphs of vertue in all kindes and the greater splendour of his Church It is as plaine as if it were wrot by the finger of God with the Sun-beames which St. Austin saith speaking of God Non sineret malum nisi ex malo sciret Aug. de corrept et grat cap. 10. dicere bonum He would not suffer ill if he did not well know how to strain good out of ill and sweetnesse out of sowernesse O sweet God I have committed a great deale of sower evill come in thy goodnesse and draw good and sweetnesse out of it the good of Glory to thee and the sweetnesse of peace to mee both here and hereafter Thou hast held my hand in all my actions as well evill as good as a Master the hand of his Scholler whom he teacheth to write and in evill actions I have pulled thy hand thy power after mine to evill which was onely evill to me because I onely intended it in good actions thou didst alwayes pull hold and over-rule my hand and truly speaking it was thy good for I of my selfe cannot write one faire letter And I know thou hast not suffered me to run so farre into evill but thou canst turne all to good An infinite wisedome joyn'd with an infinite goodnesse can joyne good in company with evill be it as evill as it can be MEDITATION VII ANd if now I clip away an odd end of ensuing time a little remnant of black and white of nights and dayes a small and contemptible number of evenings and mornings wee strong people that now can move and set to work our armes and leggs and bodies at our pleasure wee that look so high and big withall shall not be what now we are For now we live and pleasing thoughts passe through our heads We runne we ride we stay we sit downe we eat and drink and laugh We rise up and laugh againe and so dance then rest a while and drink and talk and laugh aloud then mingle words of complement and actions of curtesie to shew part of our breeding then muse and think of gathering wealth and what merry dayes we shall enjoy But the time will suddenly be here and it stands now at the dore and is comming in when every one of us from the King God blesse his Majesty to the Beggar God sweeten his Misery shall fall and break in two peeces a soule and a body And the soule be given up into the hands of new Companions that we never saw and be carried either upward or downward in a mourning weed or in a robe of joy to an everlasting day or a perpetuall night which we know there are but wee never saw to be nor heard described by any that saw them And when the body shall bee left behind being now no more a living body no more the busie body it was but a dumb deafe blind blockish unsensible carcasse and now after all the great doings not able to stirre in the least part or to answer to very meane and easie questions as how doe you are you hungry is it day or night and be cast out for carrion it begins to stink away with it for most loathsome carrion either to the wormes or to the birds or to the fishes or to the beasts And when the holy Prophecie of Esay will be fulfilled The mirth of tabrets ceaseth the noise of them that rejoyce endeth the joy Es 24. 8. 9. of the harpe ceaseth They shall not drink wine with a song Nor yet without a song And there shall be no joy but the joy of Heaven no mirth or noise of them that rejoyce no singing but in Heaven O wretched Caine that built the first Citie upon earth because he was banished from Heaven Ille primus in terra fundamentum
And where the Papists have great meanes they are very free to Ministers in their entertainments and send their Coaches for them and their wifes But when they have beene merry and are gone their good name which they left behind them hath not as good entertainment as they For the Papists say and I have heard them These Ministers are the veriest Epicures meere belly-gods if we fill their bellies we shall be sure to have them our friends when the bag is full the Pipe will goe to our tune a long time after Modo ferveat olla if the pot seeth and there be warme meat providing for dinner what care they whether there bee a God or no If wee licker them throughly with strong Beere and good sparkling Canary and call them to ride and hunt with us they will talke familiarly with our Priests and heare them jest at their Religion and at the Professours and Defenders of it and as freely jest as they and yet will honestly keepe counsell they are not Christians but Atheists And thence the Papists fetch as they think a strong argument against our Religion And whilest these Ministers frequent their houses with a pretence of converting them for so they tell ignorant people that groane under the scandall they subvert them utterly Truly a Minister and a daily Guest of the Papists enquired when this Book which I intended for the service of God and the detestation of Popery came into the light that said he I may sit by the fire-side and laugh at it and I beleeve he will if he can spare so much time from drinking The Lord forgive him and teach him to be practicall in the practicable things in which this Book is doctrinall But why should I be opposed in my reasonable proceedings against the Adulteresse of Rome by my own Mothers owne children and so often by so many of them or why should entertainments or private ends be more deare to them then Gods truth Let every man observe what great Christmasses they keepe and how they abound in dancing and revelling striving thereby to make the hearts of the Country people which are soone taken with such baits their owne lest they should at any time either accuse them or beare witnesse against them And in their houses many if not the greater part of their servants were lately Protestants O Lord whither doe they pull us one by one I know where having one of a Family they made the number up five presently and the Father had bin but a while before a Church-warden and these are all Attendants upon a rich Papist I would their devotion did not blaze so much and so often like an Ignis Fatuus lead poore Travellers out of their way It is my opinion grounded upon experience In every day of the year O pitty Some and more then we dreame of in this little corner of the world are drawne with queint devices with smooth tearms of Art with trim speaking and eloquent behaviour from us from our owne body by them to them O weak people to be thus drawne weake in life or understanding or at least weak in resolution selling Christ for a messe of pottage or for thirty pence at most If the Papists goe on there will be quickly I say not few but fewer sound hearts in England Take notice of this all good people Existimemus If we have no zeale we have no religion no Church and zeal is like fire if it be it burnes Wee carry our selves perinde quasi nihil accideret grave saith St. Chrysostome S. Chrysost hom 1 adversus Iudaeos cùm membra nostra putrescunt as if no harm did happen to us when our own limbs drop away in corruption from our bodies But I turne to the matter in hand CHAP. 18. THe Teachers of the Arian Heresie by which Christ was throwne downe from Heaven to the degree of a meere creature were the most affable and most insiunating people that lived in those dayes How subtill were they both in the propagation of their faith and the carriage of their manners they shewed the poore plaine people three corners of their handkerchers saying Here are three and these three are not one how then can three persons be one God And they did not juggle onely with the simple sort For they deluded six hundred Bishops by a cunning Ruff lib. 10 Eccl. hist cap. 21. proposall whether they would worship Christ or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who because they were not skill'd in the Greek language answered they would worship Christ and not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little thinking they denied Christ to be consubstantiall with his Father And how cunningly did they scrue themselves into the favour of great-ones moving one by another as Constantine by his â—â—ster Constantia What did they not attempt against holy Athanasius they suborned a false woman to accuse him of rape they brought in the arme of a dead man with an intention to soyle him with murther and sorcerie they would have pulled him limb from limb in the midst of an honourable Assembly In very truth no people were ever so like these heretikes in their practises as the Popish Priests and Jesuits of these days I have heard from themselves that one Jesuit sat singing in a Coblers shop with his apron before him to hide himselfe from the Officers that pursued him another councerfeited himselfe to be drunk and acted it rarely that he might put a trick upon a Constable and that a third dancing with a Lady heard her Confession sin after sin as he met her because he wanted better opportunity These are but pranks yet the good Fishermen would not have done so What black sin will they not fix upon him that is their enemy though a friend to Christ But here I cannot stay Yet note God hath layd a curse upon dissemblers that if you neerly follow their lifes and actions with your eyes you shall clearely perceive them often tripping and plainely discovering the foule disorder of their hearts in crooked proceedings that doe not favour of Evangelicall doctrine or Apostolicall gravity It is the prophecie of Esay The waters of Nimrim shall be dried up Some Esay 15. 6. English it the Panthers waters shall be dried up The Panther say the best writers of naturall History being exceedingly spotted doth seek out secret fountains wherein to wash and rub it selfe thinking by this meanes to put off the foule badge and corse livery of nature and the colour of its coat which it likes not But the Panthers waters shall one day be dryed up No figge-leaves good sonne of Adam no painted veyle of sincerity no long cloak of dissembled holinesse If you are found naked you must appeare so before a great Assembly made great by all the great Assemblies that ever were I am a plaine man and I must speak plainly because I do not judge rashly the judgement of experience is certain The good Bishop of Rome who lived when
much approved in the Councell of Chalcedon Conc. Chalc. As when the body of man suffereth the soule indeed knoweth that and what the body suffereth but in it self remayneth impassible So Christ suffering in whom the Godhead was the Godhead in him could not suffer with him If as in God there are three persons and one nature and three persons in one nature so in Christ we consider two natures in one person and lay them out to their proper acts all is easily perceived Excellently Cyril of Alexandria alleaged in the first generall Councell Cyr. Alex. in Conc. Ephes 1. of Ephesus Factus est homo remansit Deus servi formam accepit sed liber ut filius gloriam accepit gloriae Dominus in omnes accepit potestatem rex simul cum Deo rerum omnium He was made man but he continued God he took the forme of a servant but he remayned free as a sonne he received glory but was the Lord of glory hee received power over all but was King together with God of all things With what a ready finger the holy Evangelists touch every particular string in the dolorous discourse of our Saviours Passion They were not ordinary men drawn every way with carnall desires but extraordinary persons carried aloft upon the wings of a divine spirit For in the relation of those things which manifested the glory of Christ and pertained to the demonstration of his God-head they do not stay they give a naked declaration and passe to that which followeth But in the cloudy matters of his disgrace and especially in the Funerall Song of his Passion they are copious and full of matter Which if they had vainly affected the glory of the World they neither should nor would have done Thus evidently shewing they did not glory in any thing but with Saint Paul in the crosse of our Lord Iesus Christ Saint Luke opening the glory of Christs Nativitie openeth and shutteth all as it were with one action And suddenly Luk. 2. 13 14. there was with the Angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace good will towards men That strange comming of the Wisemen or Eastern Princes Saint Matthew comes as quickly over And fell down and worshipped him And Mat. 2. 11. when they had opened their treasures they presented unto him Gifts Gold Frankincense and Myrrhe In blazing the Transfiguration of Christ they put it off without any blazing figure without a transfiguration of words as willing onely to insinuate that Christ opened a chink of Heaven and gave a little glympse of his glory before his Passion to prepare and confirme his Disciples And forced at last upon his Ascension it fals from them in short Hee was received Mar 16. 19 up into Heaven All which they might have amplified by the help of their infused knowledge which virtually contained the inferiour art of speaking with glorious descriptions But in the dolefull Historie of his Passion wee have a large discourse of apprehending binding judging buffeting whipping scorning reviling condemning wounding killing and if any thing slip under the rehearsall it is to be a scarff over the face and to shew the griefe could not be expressed and moreover to stirre mens thoughts to expresse more in themselves to which wee may referre that of Saint Luke And many other things blasphemously spake they against him These blessed Evangelists Luk. 22 65 proved themselves to be the true Disciples of Christ For Saint Matthew saith From that time forth began Iesus to shew unto Mat. 16 21 his Disciples how that he must goe to Hierusalem and suffer many things of the Elders and chiefe Priests and Scribes and be killed and be raised again the third day The Resurrection had but a very little roome and it should have had no roome had it not fitly served to sweeten the relation of his sufferings Hee did not much stirre his head in his passion without a Record without a Chronicle Saint Iohn saith hee bowed his head And thus doth the flower when it John 19. 30 beginneth to wither Hee bowed his head and gave up the ghost He bowed his head Stay there it is too soone to give up the ghost Father of Heaven wilt thou suffer this O all yee creatures help help your Creatour But they stir not because he hath bowed his head the most high and most majesticall part of his body Did hee bow his head Hee the great God of Heaven and of the World betrayed by his owne Disciple crucified by his owne people led by him to the knowledge of him when all the World was given into their own hands and brought by a strange and a strong hand out of Egypt the house of bondage the black figure of this World into the Land of Canaan the Land which flowed with milk and honey the beautifull Embleme of Heaven Did hee bow his head no instruments but his own creatures being used to his destruction when the weighty sins of the whole world were laid upon his guiltlesse back and when he could in one quick instant have turned all the World to a vain and foolish nothing And shall one of us dirty creatures frowne and be troubled lift up the head speak rashly and kick against the thorn moved by every small and easie occasion Shall we murmure and trouble all with the smoake and fames of angry words As thus for the deceits of the Devill are wonderfull If that Miscreant that shape of a man had not put my honour upon the hooke I had not beene troubled Such another man is not extant me thinks hee has not the face of an honest man The carriage of his body is most ridiculous God forgive me if I think amisse my heart gives mee hee never says his prayers Pray God he believe in Christ This makes the Devil sport What are we How soone we take fire how quickly we give fire how long we keep fire In what mists or rather fogs wee lose our selves Why did God send some of us now living into the World and not rather create us in glory if he did not mean we should passe through a field of thornes into a garden of flowers through the Temple of Vertue into the Temple of Honour by pain to pleasure MEDIT. 3. HE gave up the ghost They say men that die give up the ghost Did Christ die It cannot be Yes and more He died willingly like a meeke Lambe sobbing out his life For hee gave up the ghost it was not taken from him And therefore a good man hath not feared to say that Christ held his life by mayn strength some little while beyond the date of nature that it might not seem to bee taken from him by force of armes Greater love hath no man then this that a man lay downe his life for his friends Joh. 15. 13. Life is the last of all our possessions in this
Judas out of Christs company then follow as one of his Disciples and make the number full With admiration heare his doctrine and be witnesse to his miracles Look upon him in his Transfiguration and admire the beautifull glimmerings of his Godhead Cast thy garments in the way and throw boughes before him strip thy selfe of all and submit both them and thy selfe to Christ Be present in the Chamber wait upon him at the great Supper and communicate in spirit with him and the Disciples And kneeling hold the Towell and Water in the washing of the poore Fisher-mens feet Follow into the Garden and conceive that as Adam and wee were made slaves in a Garden So Christ his Father having promised was took and arrested for the payment of the ransome in a Garden Chide the three Disciples for sleeping and say fie fie can you not watch one houre with your Saviour and then look with a pittifull eye upon him and wipe the sweat of bloud from his browes and cry Alas poore Saviour Go after him when almost all the Disciples flie Goe with him from Pilat to Herod and considering that hee speaks not to Herod even urged by a question Call to mind that Herod had killed his voyce Iohn the Baptist who said of himselfe I am the voyce of one crying in the wildernesse and think his voyce being gone how could he speak And from Herod back againe to Pilat Behold his purple robe his reed his crowne of thrones and ponder what gay robes indeed rich Scepters and crownes of gold and jewells that is robes scepters and crownes of glory and immortality he hath purchased for us Watch with him all the night and feare it will never be day he is so tormented And suppose that thou seest hearest feelest what he saw heard felt and that thou smellest and tastest the sweetnesse of his patience Accompany him the next day and help to carry his heavy crosse to mount Calvary And there as if thou hadst beene frozen hitherto thaw into teares Run with all thy might into his armes held out at their full length to receive thee whilest he hangeth as he did with his back towards the ungratefull Citie Ierusalem Think profoundly that he hath suffered his feet to be nail'd together to demonstrate that both the Jew and Gentile goe now in one path Waigh the matter Because sinne entreth by the senses therefore his Head in which the senses most flourish is crowned with searching thorns O mervailous what King is he or of what Country that weares a crowne of thornes Surely the King of all afflicted people wheresoever they dwell Because the hands and feet are the outward instruments of sin therefore his hands and feet are nail'd to the Crosse for satisfaction Because the heart is the inward Fountaine of ill thoughts therefore his tender heart is pierced for thee And hence learne if thou hast sinned more grievously in any part of thy body or faculty of thy soule with a speciall diligence to estrange that part or faculty from pleasure Wonder that the Thiefe confessed Christ on the Crosse when even the Apostles either doubted or altogether lost their Faith of his Divinity Here unburden thy heart of all the injuries ever offered to thee with a valiant purpose never to speak of them againe Lay downe all thy sinnes at the foot of the Crosse whither the bloud droppeth with a firme confidence never to heare of them againe and say from a good heart with S. Austen Ille solus diffidat qui tantum peccare potest quantum Deus bonus S. Aug. lib. de vera falsa poenitentia c 5. est Let him onely be diffident who can sinne so much as God is good See him as farre as thou canst for weeping shaking and dying and mervaile that thy owne heart shakes not and dye with him by a most exact mortification Looke pale like him when hee was dead with sorrow for thy sinnes Behold him layed in the Sepulcher and though the Jewes hide him and binde him downe with a great stone and a strong chaine over it fastned in both ends to a rock as old History mentioneth and though the foolish Souldiers watch there in Armour yet doubt not but thou shalt see him again even in his body let him not shake thee off by dying Come running and having out-runne thy company finde white Angels in the Grave and pray that by thy Grave thou may'st passe to Angels Be with him even upon the mountaine where hee ascended and there kneele before him mark how his wounds are closed and be glad they are heal'd againe kisse the very print of his feet in the ground looke upon his face talk to him pray for a blessing upon thy selfe and the world confesse thy faults uncover thy weaknesse and say Lord I am very tender in this part begg the divine help then as it were dye for love and ascend with him crying O Lord leave me not hitherto I have followed thee now take me with thee to thy Kingdome and after this give thy selfe gently up into heaven and there see and heare those things which neither eye hath seene nor eare hath heard and especially the things which concerne the entertainment of Christ RULE 8. THat you may proceed with more cheerefulnesse both in your speculations and in the part of practicall performance If you desire to know whether you now be in the grace and favour of God know it by this which is more easie to be knowne whether God be I dare not say in grace I hope I may say in favour with you If he be he can stirre and turne you as he pleaseth and it is your daily care to give him full content and satisfaction If you love God he loveth you for his love is alwayes the first Mover and it commeth from his love of you that you love him Indeed God loveth his Enemies as we likewise ought to doe but his enemies doe not love him neither doth he love his enemies intimately and familiarly as hee doth his friends For there is little commerce little communication which is both the exercise and recreation of love betwixt God and his enemies You love God truly if prompted by the love of him you preferre him and his law in all cases in all causes and when you rightly fit and order the acts of your election not giving place to creatures or sins which as they are sinnes are not creatures before God and in a manner deifie them It would be strange above ordinary and extraordinary that God should command me to love him and stirred by this love to keepe his commandements and moreover to give thanks continually for the spirituall good which by his grace he worketh in me and yet I should never be able to know when I or others did love God though perhaps it might prove a knot in respect of others And certainly he that loveth God truly is highly in his favour For the true love of God
the water hid a great part of him gives the Devill very foule tearmes and provokes him twenty times over to come if he durst But coward he durst not come I will not tell all I will keepe some for a deare yeare and a rainy day Yet you may gather from these premisses I could not but see that hypocrisie and malice in their full growth dwelt even here as well as abroad and that here the purity was not to be found the idea of which I bore in my minde Wherefore it was my owne first motion and I left them and became a Frier the Friers professing more strictnesse A man may impute these changes either to variablenesse and inconstancie or to the stirring of good and able motives and to Gods providence that would carry me out of one roome into another and shew me all the inward Chambers of the Church of Rome Take heed judge not But if you do I submit my neck lay what waight upon me you please if you offend not God For I deserve both your judgement and your scorne CHAP. II. THe Monks have one story amongst them and they make it a Pulpit-story A very devout Monke walking one day alone in a wood and I thinke they lose themselves in this wood when they relate the story by chance heard a Nightingale sing and while shee did variously descant upon her song he laid hold upon it as a hand from Heaven by which he was lifted up to Gods eminencie and to the picture and perfection of the Nightingale in him and there he stayed in contemplation catcht from his senses till many yeares were past and all the Monkes of his time dead in the Monastery in which he lived All which time seemed to him very short and to bee merrily passed in hearing the Nightingale Yet say the Monkes this Musitian could not be a Nightingale though his heavenly meditation was indeed begun and sung to some while by a Nightingale But the Monk admiring an excellencie in the creature and being quickly filled with it in the brooke went forward towards the spring and rose to that from which it was taken in the Creatour and there he was easily sung asleepe where he rested a hundred yeares like S. Iohn upon the soft brest of our Saviour This passage is not much unlike the miracle of the Seaven Sleepers that slept in a Cave not as other men doe from the beginning of night to the beginning of day but from the beginning of one age to the beginning of another But as all their stories have their imployment so this both tickleth and serveth to many uses but above all to give us a resemblance of the profound meditation with which God pleased himselfe before the the world It is a high matter Yet I should desire in this and other things to give more satisfaction then a story comes to of a man in a wood that could not finde his way out againe In lieu of their sweete story take a word from me without encroaching upon a secret which God hath reserved to himselfe CHAP. III. THere was a Time if I may say so when there was no Time no world none of all these pretty things we daily see nor yet the light by which we see them no men and women like our selves no living creatures no aire earth sea no Infidell no Jew no Christian no Hell no Heaven no Divels no Angels no God I cannot say For God alone had being before the world as God onely now also hath firme and true being For all other things that be be not of themselves but gaine their being onely by participation from God Et aspexi saith Saint Austin caetera infra te S. Aug. l. 7. Confess c. 11. vidi nec omnino esse nec omnino non esse esse quidem quia abs te sunt non esse autem quia id quod es non-sunt id enim vere est quod incommuntabiliter manet And I beheld the things that are under thee and I saw them neither to have a true being nor altogether to want a being I saw they had a being because they are from thee and I saw they had no being because they are not that which thou art For that truely is which hath a being without change If one of us should wish now prompted by curiosity to have beene before the world it would be an idle wish and with as little ground and foundation of likelyhood to have beene effected as the world then had in effect For no place no little corner had beene wherein to have beene no aire to have received and restored again in breath nothing to have appeared or play'd with the smallest glimmering before the eyes What God did before he built the world although Saint Austin saith wittily he was busie in making Hell for vaine and curious Inquisitours hee meaneth such as will not bee quieted with any reasonable satisfaction yet he well knowes who knowes in what the divine happinesse resteth and how absolute God is of himselfe and free from all necessary connexion with creatures All that which God now does besides the actuall government of the world and the acts consequent to it he did before we know and beleeve that he does now contemplate himselfe For in the contemplation of himselfe For in the contemplation of himselfe consisteth his blessednesse Therefore we may safely know and securely beleeve that he stood still in all eternity in himselfe taking a full view of himselfe and his owne perfections which are himselfe He now sees in themselves to be what before he saw in himselfe would bee Nor was he ever idle before the world otherwise then the Blessed shall be ever after the world And if the Beatificall vision that is the sight of God from which floweth Blessednesse doth so fully and plentifully satisfie the Blessed in Heaven that they cannot turne aside the busied eyes of their understanding the transitory space of one minute from that they see even though they should be enticed and tempted to look aside with all possible delights and therefore most ardently love for the most amiable excellencies discovered in it was not God ever well busied who ever had and hath an infinitely more searching and perfect sight of himselfe then all the Blessed either shall or can ever have together The divine perfections as they have many other so they have also this prerogative that alwayes seene they both are and seeme still most faire and as they lose nought of their substance so they never bate any thing of their beauty Now whereas not onely the perfections of all creatures that are but also of all that are possible are in God and that in a most eminent and boundlesse manner how can it stand that God did not finde matter in himselfe for perpetuall exercise especially since that nothing is come new to him by creatures but their actuall dependance upon him the stile of Creatour and the Government all that which is
It followes The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule By which he shewes that Vers 7. the knowledge we gather from creatures is imperfect and blurred with spots because the perfections of earthly things are alwayes mingled with imperfections and are much imperfect compar'd with heavenly And therefore the knowledge of God by creatures did not convert the soules of the old Philosophers because they still wanting the sight of the perfections figured brought all to the rule of sense and would not give a necessary step from what they saw to the better things which could not be seene But the Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soule It is the memorable saying of Saint Austin that Socrates a morall Philosopher long before Christ had some S. Just Apolog 1. respect to Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as being in part knowne of him And doubtlesse he points at his knowledge of God in creatures but it was in part he knew him by halfes and therefore the knowledge of halfe God could not save all Socrates and if not all Socrates no part of Socrates It is my part so to contemplate the creature that I doe not stick in it nor stumble at the imperfection of it but ascend from the creature towards or to the Creatour Towards the Creatour as thus I behold a worme crawling upon the ground what sayes he I may say nothing He sayes as much as I can say He sayes I am a little long thing without any difference or beauty of parts I creep all the day long I eate dirt and that is all my cheere I beare no Image of God but only a small print of his foot-step and therefore I know I was not made for him but for men that follow him in his foot-steps and they looke another way and tread upon me and there I dye and cease to be Gods living creature O man use me as thou pleasest I am thine but let me I pray thee be an occasion to thee of doing God some little service Blesse him at least for my creation and for thy owne more perfect and thanke him heartily that he would give the little worme to creep Had I a tongue as thou hast let me tell thee I would blesse him both for thee and me Had I been made looking upwards how happy should I have beene both here and hereafter To God as thus when I looke upon the Sunne I will comment upon it after this manner The Sunne is one God is one The Sunne enlightens all the World God fils all the Word and all inward light is either of Nature Faith or Grace and this is a threefold excellencie comming onely from the blessed Trinity The Sunne warmes powerfully God comforts efficaciously The Sunne melts the Snow hardens the earth the one is pure the other uncleane God workes diversly upon the just and unjust melting the one and in a good sense hardning the other The Sunne shines equally upon all creatures but some creatures being more clear receive his beams more perfectly God excepts no creature from his protection and ordinary providence but some being apt and disposed to receive more beauties and helps from him The Sunne is not defaced by spreading his beames upon the mire God is not debased by stooping to his work in these inferiour things The Sun is hindered from shining upon us by mists and clouds which rise from the earth The clouds of our sinnes rising from our earthly corruptions keepe off the beames of Gods grace from us The Sunne sets but rises againe God hides himselfe a while but he will not be long absent Heavinesse Ps 30. 5. may endure for a night but joy commeth in the morning And would I require a more exact visible Image of God He that cannot reade can reade in Gods great booke of creatures if he has eyes where the hand is faire and every letter a great one Away with these brazen stony and woodden Images of God Be they silver ones away with them The Sunne is an Image of God of Gods owne making and a more compleat Image of God then the wit or Art of man can frame set in a high place over all the World and to be seene by all almost every day imitating God also in the spreading and distribution of his goodnesse and yet no kinde of law will give us leave to worship and adore the Sunne O but God never appeared in that likenesse Shall I worship a Dove or the Image of a Dove because the holy Ghost appeared in the likenesse of a Dove It exceedingly behoves me to looke about me above me under me before me behinde me on each side of me within me O that I could beate it into my heart Every where I shall finde the wonderfull workes of God wonderfull because not knowne not knowne either in themselves or in that they signifie It is proper to God to ordaine not onely that words may signifie things but also that one thing may signifie another a thing in the World a thing in Heaven or elsewhere a thing present a thing to come The best of us hath but one life to live and that being once ended he shall never see Gods creatures in this order and after this fashion againe Is this a World wherein to be idle and to complaine so often we know not how to spend our time I am amaz'd at my selfe at all people If God should say to me Goe to the end of the World till you can finde no more land or sea that you may be sav'd and goe bare foote and goe upon thornes would I not goe And yet I now stand idle when his creatures come home to me and are with me wheresoever I am Lord teach my hands and my heart to work Consideration 9. WE are sent hither by the way of Father and Mother being neither wholly intellectuall as Angels nor altogether sensible as beasts but a mixt and compounded thing under the name of reasonable creatures By Reason we perceive with a searching eye what we commonly see heare or otherwise conceive and in some hard things not plaine to the first view of reason we step from confuse to cleare a minus noto ad magis notum from a lesse perfect to a more exact knowledge by discourse The Angels have lesse occasion of discourse then we because their naturall knowledge is in it selfe so marvellously plaine and moreover is illustrated with such variety of supernaturall lights whereof some are constant to them some come when they are sent that it representeth many things to them in a faire character and in the lumpe which we are forced to bring together and home to our knowledge by discourse The beasts have no ground fuell or instrument of discourse For their knowledge is darke and besides that it is alone can passe no way but by the common doores of the senses And thus for the defect of sound knowledge not knowing the true depth of any thing
to speake with a Jusuite at his chamber in London found him earnest in his study behinde a curtaine After the discussion of their businesse the Jesuit stepped hastily downe to give order concerning the entertainment of his friend And in the interim the Frier looked behinde the the curtaine and found before his chair a written book The title of the Chapter which then lay open was By what motives to stirre a widow or other free person to give her estate into the hands of the Church and how afterwards to dispose of her The Frier by whom I was informed named to me a principall man of his Order who then had one of these bookes lying by him Whatsoever the Scribes and Pharises practised I doe not read that they commended the art of devouring widowes houses to writing for the information of their posterity THe fortune of the booke as it was related to me is this The Jesuits dare not print it lest it should at any time slip besides their hands into the world And the Jesuits that are sober natur'd and seriously given are never suffered to heare of this booke it is onely permitted to practical men and at such a time after their entrance into the Order but not before I had formerly heard of this booke and that it was full of damnable conveyances My Reader may see with halfe an eye that I relate things briefely and plainely and that I build upon the testimonies which they give one of another being a sure way The learning of bookes plowes not halfe so deepe Another Frier struck both the Jesuits and the Monks in one turning of his tongue with these words The Jesuits are the daily plotters and actours of businesses which we can never answer And were not the Monks ashamed to give out the other day that a mad man of their Order wrought miracles These Friers have a sleight by which they confirme their young ones They have printed under a picture of Saint Francis Saint Francis obtained of God by his prayers that whosoever dieth in his Order and hath the benefit of confession shall insallibly goe to Heaven The Monks have made the like promise under the picture of Saint Benet But let them unloose this knot without cutting it If their confession come from a penitent heart it will bring them alone to Heaven in the opinion of the Romanists if it come not from such a bruised heart Heaven is denyed to it by all their Doctors The Jesuits are a little more solid They have a picture wherein are printed at large the Prophecies of many Jewish Rabbines foretelling that God would send a religious and learned company of men into the World in the decaying and old age of it as I imagine for the elects sake Now I began to turne my thoughts a seeking againe because I had not yet found what I looked for And therefore I pretended the want of health and loth to continue a begging Frier upon these tearmes freely begged leave to depart CHAP. VII I Was now even cloyed and surfeited with these vanities And I meditated upon a conversion to the Church of England But although I staggered having drunke deepe of the poysoned Cups of Babylon yet my whole heart was never converted neither did I ever apply my selfe with an open profession to the Church of England before this happy time And still my heart gaped for more knowledge of their wayes Wherefore I was commended to an uncloister'd Monk in Paris with whom I lived a while as a stranger and enjoyed the great benefit of a faire Library This Monk communicated with the Church of Rome but inclined very much to the Greeke Church Yet his two Monks for they were all his family inclined every way as they went being seldome sober In Paris I found the fault of Doway that many schollers lived by theft and that men threw themselves into danger of their lives who stirred abroad in the black of night as well neare the Colledges as elsewhere These are not good orders of Universities neither is this a promising and hopefull education of Priests In this Towne I lay at watch for a better occasion You shall have more hereafter Now onely one farewell to the Friers They have many Rules of a strange out-landish nature and condition He that will be rul'd by reason may judge of this Rule A Frier is licensed by his Rule to touch and receive money with his Garment his sleeve or the lappet of his coate but not with his hand He is utterly forbid to touch it with any part of his flesh I see there may be an equivocation committed as well in manners as in words And I saw this Rule kept by a Frier who received a French crowne into a paper In the defiance of this and all other Rules of the like profession I give to him who is pleased to take with his bare hand and heart Rules directory in a Christian life and founded either in themselves or in their grounds upon the received principles of Gods holy word Rule 1. REmember alwayes that God is alwayes with you about you in you and in every part of you and of all his creatures and that when you goe from one place to another you leave God behinde you and yet he goes with you and yet you finde him where you come because he was there before you came And that although not alwayes the same yet some Angels and Devils are alwayes by you watching over you and carefully observing your behaviour yea and oftentimes beholding your heart in outward actions And let your thoughts and tongue bee alwayes running and repeating Shall I commit an act of high treason against so great a King so just and severe a Judge so good so pure a God and in his presence It is he whom Joseph meant when hee said How can I doe this great wickednesse and sinne against God How sweet is God that sendeth his first and most perfect creatures his holy Angels downe from Heaven with an injunction of stooping and attending to the meane and homely affaires of men The Angels are daily conversant with us and yet are never discharged from the glorious vision of God to whom they are united being present with them wheresoever they are such a pretious mixture and composition of good things ought the life of man to be it must be compounded of holy practise and heavenly contemplation The Devill standeth ready to dash out our braines to destroy the body and to devoure the soule to disturbe the peace of nature to confound the elements to mingle Heaven and Earth to trouble all wishing earnestly and earnestly entreating that God would turne away his milde face his gentle eyes and say Goe my Executioner revenge my cause upon the World And yet God will not O the delicacie of the Divine sweetnesse Learne the nature of the Devill In one thing especially the fall of the Angels was like the fall of man For as man was more
when you see or heare of the miseries of other people God presents them to your eyes or eares as warnings to you and as copious Theames of his praise And that when your faults are objected against you even by furious and angry persons the objection commeth by way of permission from God intending your benefit And that which is more strange God many times speakes to you by your selfe as when you instruct others Yea by dumbe and unsensible creatures And therefore heare diligently what they say which you may fitly doe in this manner When you see a Lion looke up to the preserver the Lion of the tribe of Judah and downe to the destroyer the roaring Lion with an earnest and urging desire to follow the one and to flie from the other And thinke of the royall mercie and most noble sweetnesse of God couched under the terrour of his Majesty of which they plentifully share even when his justice rideth in triumph that lie prostrate before him by humility When you see a Beare cast your inward eye upon the Beares which devoured the undutifull children because their parents had not performed the very first and most common office of Beares and licked their young into forme Seeing a Hog looke downe upon the prodigal childe a very child lying all along by the trough amongst his fellow swine and take into your minde the base abjection of a sinner wallowing in the filth and mire of his owne lust and carnall desires When you heare a Cocke the bird of day and usher of the morning crowe take Saint Peter by the hand and goe out or in and weepe bitterly When you see a bird say in the private study of your heart It is God that giveth meat pullis corvorum invocantibus eum to the young of the crew calling upon him feeding the little gaping Crowes forsaken of their mother as borne white and which therefore shee doth not thinke to be of her colour with the dew of Heaven When you see a stirring and painefull Ant goe sluggard to the Ant and learne spirituall husbandry When you see a Lilly thinke of him who is the Lilly of the vallies and presently inferre that Gods grace is not confined to a narrow circle and tyde to a certaine sort of persons but open to all suppliants and if it growes any where chiefely it s most usuall place is in the Valleys Seeing all this faire wardrobe and furniture of creatures say heartily What will not he give us in our Countrey who heapeth upon us such plenty in our banishment How faire are the roomes of Heaven within if the outward parts are so gay and so richly deckt with starres We are removed a great way from Heaven and are very nigh to Hell we play as it were upon the tyles on the top of the house and if here we are blest sure if we land in Heaven wee shall make the land Sea and swimme in blessednesse If a haire doth not perish from our head the whole man shall be kept as a choyce peece Times ergo ne pereas saith Saint Austin to a timorous and diffident S. Aug. hom 14. tom 10. person cujus capillus non peribit Sisictua custodiantur superflua in quanta seeuritate est anima tua Non perit capillus quem cum tondetur non sentis peribit anima per quam sentis Doe you feare therefore lest you should perish one of whose haires shall not perish If your superfluous things are kept so warily in what a sweete security is your soule Your haire perishewth not which being cut off when you are pold you feele not what hath passed and shall your soule perish by which you feele When you take a staffe in your hand say Thy rod and Psal 23. 4. thy staffe they comfort me the one serving for correction the other for direction Think at the sight of Bread upon your Table Through how many hands and fortunes hath God brought this good Bread safe to me It was Corne then sowed it dyed lived againe grew was greene washed with the raine brushed with the wind dryed with the Sunne then turned colour it lay abroad many a cold night was reaped threshed winnowed ground into meale and bolted kneaded and made into very good Bread and baked and all for me a sinner Such is the state of a righteous man And when thou art in company others wandering with other discourses let thy reason travell by it selfe and make strange discoveries in the view of some one standing by thee O man who framed that faire Globe of thy head the stupendious fountaine of all thy senses Who decked thy head with haire and a face wherein all parts conspire and meete in a beautifull proportion moving love and admiration Who drew a faire skin over thy flesh Who provided for every sense its proper object delightfull spectacles for the eyes pleasant sounds for the eares flowers for the smelling faculty dainties for the taste and soft things to please the touching power Who made the little bals of the eyes that rich and curious peece of worke to keepe watch and sentinell for the safety of the body and spread curtaines over them to shut out every shadow and shew of danger The eyes are little but see great things Who formed the eares to be the faithfull scouts of the soule and to lye out and lissen on both sides of the fort Who taught the tongue to speak so perfectly that all speech can never sufficiently expresse the excellencie of speaking Who gave a law to the stomacke to send nourishment to every part in a measure fit for the part to which it comes Who ranked the bones in order Who gave strength to the sinewes and confined the wandring bloud to the veines Who fitted the armes and hands for outward action Who shaped the feet to uphold the frame and maintaine it with the face looking towards our Countrey He growes upwards towards Heaven and he is going thither while earth lies under his feete God blesse him in his journey O the wisedome of him that sits upon the Throne in Heaven I will furnish you farther in this kinde afterwards Rule 6. EXercise these Acts as devotion or occasion shall call An Act of Faith Comming into the world as into a strange Countrey and finding people for the most part to beleeve as their Countrey and friends beleeve and as other vaine tyes hold them I doe shake off all these idle obligations in imitation of the Primitive Church and of all holy men in succeeding Ages I firmely beleeve that the Scripture is the word of God and that all things revealed in it are true And I beleeve that as God made the world for himselfe and his glory So and more eminently he directeth his Church to himselfe and his glory That is therefore the pure Church of Christ which casteth all the glory upon God which leaneth and relieth wholly upon the most pretious merits and passion of Christ
Priest came to me having in his company one habited like an English Minister and the maine point of his businesse broke out in these words See how God provides for his Church you have left us and here is one comming to us from that for the love of which you forsooke us And thus speaking he pointed to the Minister The Gentleman is now beneficed with us and therefore you shall not know his name though you are acquainted with his fault because God hath hid many of my faults from those that know my name Yet I like not that he so much savoureth of the Popish practise as to stigmatize me with the brand of insufficiencie in matter of learning wheresoever he commeth For if he were come quite home to us hee would be one heart and soule with me and draw the practise of his life more neare to his parts both of nature and learning in both which whatsoever I am he is not unable though both he and the Priest were of a most horrid life Let Men and Angels heare me If any member of the Church of Rome or England can make it plaine to the reason of competent and fit Judges that from the day wherein I first gave my necke into the yoke of the Papists to this houre I have committed any scandalous action scandalous in the judgement of the Church of England and moreover have not lived a wary sober and recluse life I will restore againe the little I have received from the Church of England and begge my bread all the dayes of my life Let them goe to my lodging-places in the City and to my Parish in the Countrey they are well knowne and when they come home againe convince me either of immodesty intemperancie idlenesse or other such crime and I will turne begger in the very day of my conviction And yet I know that the Church of Rome will set mee out and Reader remember my Prophecie in the forme of a foolish madde ignorant shallow and odiously wicked creature And I am all this but they know it not And even now I play the foole for in the defence of my selfe I commend my selfe But I trust my intention is rather to defend the honour of the Church from which I did once cut my selfe and to which God hath joyned mee againe I have heard it spoke in the corners of their Colledges that they presently write the lives of persons who revolt from them and put them and their actions in a strange habit I shall be joyfull to reade my life that I may weepe for my sinnes and blesse God for my deliverances but if it be not written truely he will write it that best knowes it If they come with falshoods I shall more and more detest them and their Religion and beleeve that all their good purposes in the service of God are but Velleities Wils and no Wils Wils which would but will not I desire peace if it may be granted with good conditions I was bound to satisfie good people and stop the mouths of the evill To many hath beene denied the use of a sword but no man ever was prohibited to use a buckler because a bucklar is ordained only for defence and in our defence we kill and yet are not thought to commit murder CHAP. III. GGD hath brought me home with a mighty hand Had I sailed from Rome one day sooner as my purpose was I had certainely beene carried away by the Turkish Gallyes which swept away all they met the day before I passed I was dangerously sicke in my journey towards England at Ligorne but God restored me The Ship in where I was ranne a whole night laid all a long upon one of her sides And another time began to sinke downright I fell into the hands of theeves by the Sea-shore that would have killed mee and all in my journey towards England And after all this and much more I am a convert to the Church of England in a time which needs a man of a bold heart and a good courage like my selfe to resist the craft encroaching and intrusion of Popery Let a great Papist remember his ordinary saying that he beleeved God would worke some great worke by me And I have great hope that the Church wil be pleased to look upon me and fixe me where I may best be seene and most be heard I am not of their minde that move and sue and labour in the atchievement of that which ought to bee cast upon them The Lord knowes that although the Church of Rome accuseth mee of ambitious thoughts a small being in a fit place is the top of all Con. Aqusgr can 134 The Councel of Aix my wishes A Councell said Meminisse oportet quia columba est in divinis Scripturis Ecclesia appellata quae non unguibus lacerat sed alis pie perculit We ought all to remember that the Church is stiled in holy Scripture an innocent Dove for her gentlenesse which chides rather then teares and having chid is friends again presently and receives with all gentlenesse Yet I am bold to say that it would be a noble worke to provide for the present reliefe and entertainment of Shollers who shall afterwards desert the Church of Rome and cleave to us The Church of Rome doth exceedingly bragge of her charity in that part when it is certaine their common aime if not their chiefe aime is the strength and benefit of their private body wherein they are all as one that they may stand the faster I owe my prayers and in a manner my selfe to many great personages The Lord pay them againe what I received of them in that money which goes in Heaven And persons of ordinary condition refreshed me above their condition Let him for whose sake they were so pious reward them I would the Levite had beene as earnest as the Samaritane CHAP. IIII. ANd being come to the Arke I desire not to settle onely upon the top of the Arke but to come into it and be pliable in all points If I have committed an errour in this booke I shall presently correct it after the least whisper of admonishment which may have beene easily committed because I have not used other books borne with a desire of haste but was contented with part of my owne papers and certaine extractions out of the Popish Libraries I beleeve as the Church of England beleeves knowing what shee beleeves The Greek and Latin editions have in the 8. chapter of Genesis The Crow went out and returned not But the English agreeing with the Hebrew hath And he sent forth a Raven which went forth to and fro untill the waters were dried up from off the earth For he went out and now and then returned to the top of the Arke flew to and fro as Birds are wont And though the Dove also went out of the Arke yet because she could not finde cleane footing shee returned and He put forth his hand and took her and
discomforted they would not be angry that I desired to subsist and to preach the good Gospell of Christ But I will not preach this doctrine till I am call'd CHAP. V. ANd now I thanke the Papists for my unconquerable resolution growing from the grossenesse of their scandals Josephs Brethren were very malicious against him they sold him to slavery the Scene beganne to bee tragicall God came to act his part turned the wheele and made all this malice and misery end in the great benefit not onely of the malicious and undeserving Brethren but of Joseph himselfe his old Father and the whole Kingdome of Egypt Judas sold his Master his Master and the Master of all things for thirty pence the money would goe but a little way he had an ill bargaine When his part was done God entred upon the Stage and by the execrable perfidiousnesse of the Traitour Judas brought about the redemption of mankinde the salvation of the whole world and in effect all the shining that is and ever shall be made by glorious soules and bodies in Heaven I doe not except the soule and body of our Mediatour and Advocate Christ Jesus who though he did not redeeme himselfe because he was not in captivity yet came to be betraied and to redeeme his Betrayer if he would have bin redeemed By this law a prudent Mr. of a family turnes the rough nature of an angry Dog to the benefit and peace of himselfe and his family and a wise Physitian the eager thirst of a bloud-thirsty horseleach to the health of a sick person although indeed these unreasonable creatures of themselves aime at nothing but to satiate their owne wilde natures Saint Austin speaking of evill men saith Ne igitur putes gratis malos esse in hoc mundo nihil boni ex illis metere Deum quia omnis malus aut ideo vivit ut corrigatur aut ideo vivit ut per illum bonus exerceatur Doe not therefore thinke that evill men are suffered to be evill in this world for no good purpose and that God reapes no benefit by them For every evill man either therefore lives that in time he may decline from evill and incline to good or therefore lives that the good man may be exercised and farthered in the practise of goodnesse by him otherwise he should no live There is a course of things within the generall course of this world pertaining to the order to which God brings all straggling chances in the last act of the play which if we did examine as they come and beget experience we should enlighten and enrich the understanding with heavenly matters exceedingly We behold how admirably at this day moved by the sinfull occasion of Heresie and Superstition the Church doth watch and pray and we know that a multitude of soules now crowned in Heaven hath learned to avoid sinne by observing others punished for sinne which could not in justice have beene punished if it had not beene committed and how murderes doe open the gate of Heaven for Martyrs and that the bloud of Martyrs hath beene the seed of the Church for if they had not died bodily many had not lived spiritually And to goe as high as may be Good comes to God by the worst of evils the good of glory by sinne For to speake with Cassiodore Materia est gloriae principalis delinquentis reatus quia nisi culparum Cassio Var. 3. 46. occasiones emergerent locum pietas non haberet The guilt of a Delinquent person is a principall matter that nourisheth glory For if there were no sinne there would be no place for the exercise of mercie which supposeth misery which misery supposeth sinne And though I gather good from the evill of the Church of Rome yet the evill of the Church is to me a sound argument against the Church That rule of Mat 7. 16. Christ Yee shall know them by their fruits is as true a marke as a signe from Heaven For as the Church of Rome was first known by her workes so now likewise shee is knowne by her workes and the workes of her age not being of the same birth and education with the workes of her youth shew her to bee different from her selfe when workes doe alwayes answer in some proportion to Faith and the Tree cannot be good if the fruit be generally evill And as Saint Justine writeth to the Grecians S. Justin Cohort ad Graec. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the solid fruit of pious workes gives testimony to the true Religion I came from the last Popish Colledge of which I was a member as I did from all others fairely and respectfully on both sides Their testimony of me is yet in my hands made strong and authenticall with their owne Seale I will give it here word for word Thomas Fitzherbertus societatis Jesu Collegii Anglorum de urbe Rector OMnibus in quorum manus praesentes venerint salutem in Domino sempiternam Fidem facimus atque his literis attestamur latorem praesentium Reverendum Patrem Franciscum Dakerum for this was the last name by which I was knowne amongst them Anglum Sacerdotem esse nec ullo impedimento Canonico prohiberi quo minus sacrosanctum Missae Sacrificium ubique celebrare possit Cum vero etiam in hoc nostro Collegio sedis Apostolicae Alumnus fuerit modo absolutis studiis in Angliam ad lucrandas Deo animas proficiscatur nos quo illum affectu nobiscum morantem complexi sumus eodem discedentem paterne prosequimur omnibus ad quos in itinere devenerit quantum valemus in Domino commendamus In quorum fidem caet Romae ex Collegio Anglorum die 9. Septemb. 1635. Thomas Fitzherbertus manu propria Those with whose understandings this will suite are able to understand it without a translation The Faculties annexed by the Pope to the exercise of my Priestly function were these I have them under their owne hands Ordinariae Facultates Alumnorum Collegii Anglicani 1. FAcultas absolvendi ab omnibus casibus Censuris in Bulla Caenae Domini reservatis in Regnis Angliae Scotiae Hiberniae 2. Vt possint illis quos reconciliaverint dare Apostolicam benedictionem cum plenaria Indulgentia prima vice Catholicis vero congregatis ad Concionem vel ad sacrum in Festis solennioribus Apostolicam benedictionem sine plenaria Indulgentia 3. Vt possint dispensare cum illis qui contraxerint cum tertio vel quarto gradu in foro conscientiae tantum 4. Vt possint commutare vota simplicia exceptis votis Castitatis Religionis in aliud opus pium cum causa 5. Vt possint benedicere vestes alia omnia quae pertinent ad Sacrificium praeter ea quae requirunt Chrisma 6 Vt possint restituere jus petendi debitum conjugale quando ex aliqua causa omissum est 7 Vt possint dare facultatem Catholicis legendi libros controversiarum a Catholicis
scriptos in vulgari lingua 8. Quando non possunt ferre Breviarium vel recitare officium sine probabili periculo suppleant aliquot Psalmos dicendo vel alias orationes quas sciunt memoriter 9. Si aliis Facultatibus indiguerint vel dubia circa horum usum occurrerint remittant ad Reverendum Dominum Archipresbyterum Angliae ut illis satisfaciat prout ipsi in Domino visum fuerit eique in omnibus obedire teneantur quod etiam se facturos promittant priusquamhae vel aliae Facultates â—s concedantur The Grants of giving Indulgences are either ordinary or extraordinary The ordinary are ordinarily knowne the extraordinary are these their Coppie is yet with me Formulae Extraordinariae Indulgentiarum pro utriusque sexus fidelibus qui penes se habuerint aliquam Coronam Rosarium parvam crucem aut imaginem benedictam caet 1. VT quicunque semel saltem in hebdomada officium divinum ordinarium aut Beatae Virginis aut Defunctorum aut septem Psalmos Paenitentiales aut Graduales aut coronam Domini aut Beatae Virginis aut tertiam partem Rosarii recitare aut Doctrinam Christianam docere aut infirmos alicujus Hospitalis vel detentos in carcere visitare aut pauperibus Christi subvenire consueverit vere paenitens ac confessus sacerdoti ab ordinario approbato sanctissimum Eucharistiae sacramentum sumpserit in aliquo ex diebus infra scriptis nempe Nativitatis Domini Epiphaniae Ascensionis Domini Pentecostes cum duobus sequentibus Corporis Christi Nativitatis Sancti Joan. Bapt. Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri Pauli Assumptionis beatae Mariae semper Virginis omnium sanctorum dedicationis propriae Ecclesiae Patroni vel tituli Ecclesiae atque ea die pie ad Deum preces effuderit pro Haeresium ac schismatum exterminatione pro fidei Catholicae propagatione ChristianoruÌ„ principum concordia atque aliis sanctae Matris Ecclesiae necessitatibus in singulis diebus ejusmodi plenariam omnium peccatorum Indulgentiam consequatur 2. Vt quicunque in prima Dominica Quadragesimae Quadragesimale jejunium salubriter celebrans vere paenitens confessus sacraque communione refectus ut supra oraverit itidem Plenariam 3. Vt quisquis vere paenitens ac si potuerit ut supra confessus sacra communione refectus alioqui saltem contritus in mortis articulo nomen Jesu ore si potuerit sin minus corde devote invocaverit similier plenariam Let the Ministers of England those I meane who dwell at home and not in Tavernes who burne with zeale not smoak with Tobacco and who steere not towards preferment but towards Heaven judge whether the man ought not to be cherished countenanced and exposed in the light and frequencie of people that hath shaken off with great loathing these wretched abuses and the Patrons of them But I poore man for so is the fortune of these times like him in the Comick Poet Vivus vidensque pereo live and while I live perish and perish in darknesse and yet see my selfe perish but am not seene to perish for then sure I should not perish But it cannot be thus long And therefore O all yee Schollers beyond the Seas under whose profession there lie secret thoughts of returning to the Church of England be cheerefull For howsoever the clouds have shadowed me the Sunne will shine out upon you The Church of God hath ever beene subject to outward alterations And you shall be received and clasped round about with the armes of true zeale and charity Gods children in England will acknowledge his children flying from Babylon And every good soule will have a sense of what you feele and a sight of what you want before you can name it They that are great shall be the greatest in godlinesse and in all their greatnesse shall thinke themselves as little as you And the golden age will come againe And therefore once more I say it be of good comfort And for me I hope I shall now sing with the Prophet I will not dye but live and declare the workes of the Lord. CHAP. VI. O What a sweetnesse of heart it was to me when I first entred into the Protestant Churches after my conversion to heare the people answer and see them lissen in divine Service O the poore Countrey people amongst the Papists who not understanding their Service and seldome hearing Sermons live more like beasts then men I have seene of the Galiegos and heard of some Countrey people in Italy who they confessed did not much differ from beasts but in the outward shape And the case of all people in Rome is to be lamented whose ordinary phrase is Come let us goe and heare Musick and the Cardinals boyes sing at such a Church This is to please the sense not God I saw such a representation of Hell and Heaven in a Cardinals Palace and the parts of Saints and Devils so performed with singing and Musicke and the soules in so great a number comming out of the world into Purgatory that it was wonderfull Shewes of this nature are often seene in their Churches Aristotle sayes well Omnis cognitio nostra a sensu initium habet All the knowledge we gather from below begins at the sense And these Scribes and Pharisees doe foole the senses of their people exceedingly I have an old manuscript wrought excellently with gold and painting In which booke there is a prayer with this inscription Oratio venerabilis Bedae Presbyteri de septem verbis Christi in eruce pendentis quam orationem quicunque quotidie devote dixerit nec Diabolus nec malus homo ei nocere poterit nec sine confessione morietur per tringinta dies ante obitum suum videbit gloriosam Virginem Mariam in auxilium sibi praeparatam The prayer of venerable Bede Priest of the seven words or speeches of Christ hanging upon the Crosse which prayer whosoever shall say devoutly every day upon his knees neither the Devill nor any evill man shall ever hurt him neither shall he die without confession and three hundred dayes before his death hee shall see the glorious Virgin Mary in a readinesse to succour him At the Busse in Holland in the Church of S. Peter they have pictured a Bishop in a glasse-window On one side of him hangs Christ upon the Crosse with his wounds bleeding On the otherside stands the Virgin Mary with her breasts running The Bishop in the middle is made with a divided countenance and these words are drawne in a long roll from his mouth quo me vertam nescio I know not to which of these two to turne my selfe either to the bloud of Christ or to the milke of the Virgin Mary And was not this an ignorant Bishop and was his flock like to thrive They lead their people strangely by the eares also They send letters very commonly to their Colledges which are read in the Refectories and recreations as their letters of newes are and
prayers If I am altogether unable my spirituall satisfaction shall be the more ample If for an injury in matter of goods no temporall satisfaction be required my satisfaction shall have two feete or two wings and I will satisfie both for the wrong and the curtesie with love prayers and Christian observance Indeed I will be singularly carefull to restore my selfe to God in watching fasting prayer and all that is mine or placed under my care and any way subordinate to mee every thing in its proper way And to make even with my neighbours wheresoever the least shadow or semblance of obligation shall appeare It is the good counsell of Saint Gregory Quales vires habuisti ad mundum S. Greg. tales habeas ad artificem mundi With the strength and courage with which you did pursue the world when you were of the world looking now above the world you must apply your selfe to the Creatour of the world in whom you may see the world without the vanity of the world And Lord give strength and age to the good thou hast begot in me CHAP. X. ANd I am most heartily sorry that I I vile wretch the child of a weake Woman a base clod of earth that having got to live and be a little warme hath learn'd to to goe and speake and to put on cloaths and as soone as it could sinne to sinne have so greatly so grieviously offended a God infinitely more faire then the Sunne in all his glory infinitely more pure then the pure Angels that having stood fast when their companions fell not for want of strength to stand but with a desire to fall because with a will to quit their standing and rise above the firme place where they stood were presently confirmed in all their admirable endowments of Nature and Grace and also beautified with a new and that a compleate and everlasting purity infinitely more good then he that is most good under him I have more to say infinitely more faire pure and good then God with all his art and ability can make a creature By whom the Sunne was taught to runne and commanded not to rest with a promise that hee should never be weary whose powerfull voice the dull and senselesse yet obedient stones borrow eares to heare By whose indulgence the little worme without feete creepe joyfully and the small flies are carried strangely above ground and make very pretty sport in the Sun-shine The first and originall cause of all the Good that ever was is shall be or can be and after all this and infinitely more then I or all the Angels of Heaven can utter my last end O good Prophet and great King lend me thy words and thy heart I have sinned against the Lord. 2 Sam. 12. 13. CHAP. XI DIonysius Areopagita Saint Pauls Scholler and his onely convert at Athens to whom he imparted the knowledge of the third Heaven describes the God of Heaven Dionys Areâ—p de divin nom c. 1 as well as he can 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is a supersubstantiall substance an understanding not to be understood a word never to be spokeÌ„ Against what a sublime and high thing have I offended in a most high manner Against a substance above substance I have opposed a substance of no substance Against an understanding that for its excellencie cannot be understood I have opposed an understanding that for its weaknesse cannot understand And against a word that can never be spoken I have spok words which having spoke I can never speake how bad they were and which I most heartily wish had never beene spoken John Damascen sayes Johan Damasc lit 3. de fide orthodox c. 24 In deo quid est dicere impossibible est In God to say what he is is a thing impossible I have done I cannot say what against I cannot say whom Onely this I can say Father I have sinned against Heaven and Luke 15. 5. 18. 19. before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy sonne make me as one of thy hired servants Because we have Fathers in the world from whom we come and we come from God I can looke up to him and say Father And because by sinne I have forfeited all the joyes of Heaven I can say I have sinned against Heaven and because I cannot sinne or be where God is not I can say and before thee And because I that did once love God with the love of a sonne for himselfe flew wretchedly out of his house both from his children and his servants and now hoping to come into favour againe must stand aloofe off with beginners that first enter into his service and have all their minde upon their wages I can say And am no more worthy to be called thy sonne make mee as one of thy hired servants If God should appeare to me in the meanest robe of his beauty But I speake vainely for his fairenesse is one of the Attributes which equally bestowes it selfe upon all the other all being equally good equally faire But if he should appeare to me in a robe agreeable with our eyes he would be so faire that aided with a gentle gale of his Grace I could not possibly hold from running immediately with all swiftnesse and with all humblenesse into his most delightfull imbraces For it is most true of God which Tully speakes out of Plato concerning Philosophy if it could be seene mirabiles amores excitaret sui The sight of him would stirre up in the beholders a most wonderfull love of him not onely in respect of his beauty but also in regard of the secret conveniencie and agreement betwixt the soule and its last end O Lord what have I done CHAP. XII I and what am I a little creature compos'd of a weak sickly body and a soule and there is all I. A body not taken out of the substance of Heaven lest I should seeme more heavenly then I am nor out of any shining starre lest I should take a starre for my heavenly Father nor from bright fire lest I should be too fiery nor yet from the goodly mines of gold lest my minde should be altogether upon gold nor compacted of precious jewels lest I should thinke my selfe a precious jewell but of earth a dirty filthy foule thing that we and all the beasts of the field go upon and which I wipe carefully every day from my shooes O man of earth bee not so rough wipe it off gently remember thy Creation and part of it perhaps was once part of as tall a body as thine owne And for my soule it was made of nothing and if God should step aside and forsake it one posting minute of time it would presently give backe and fall to nothing and nothing can be so vile as nothing Conservatio say the Philosophers est continuata generatio Conservation is a continued generation and therefore where the continuance of generation is interrupted conservation ceaseth The fire in
away into fruitlesse scum which remaineth here and there on the top of the water to obey all tides and to be tossed and tumbled with every winde Invention can assigne no other cause of all this but sinne All the punishments that ever were are or shall be inflicted upon men All the evils which ever did doe now or shall hereafter fall heavie upon Creatures be they sensible or unsensible appointed for mans use draw life breath strength sinewes and all their force from the foule sinnes and superstitions of the world Pause here a little and give place to a pious meditation If Almighty God did so rigorously punish those adulterate Cities of Palestine with Sodome the chiefe head of them that besides the present punishment of a sudden overthrow by fire and brimstone from Heaven as if justice could not stand quiet in such grievous crimes the Countrey which once was a second Paradise another garden of the world now at this day lies so pitifully desolate that nothing is to be seene but black and sutty ground ashes and stones halfe burnt there remaining in the middle a great Lake called by a scornefull name mare mortuum the dead Sea from which a darke smoke continually rises most pernicious to man and every living creature where are no trees but such as are hypocritically fruitfull Apples indeed hang openly and which in the judgement of the eye are ripe but come to them enticed with their colour presse them with the least touch they scatter presently into vaine dust The substance of this we read even in Heathen Authors Solinus Cornelius Tacitus but especially Solinus c. 84. Corn. Tac l. 5. hist Joseph de bell Jud. l. 5. c. 5. and with a more free addition of circumstances in Josephus the Jew borne and bred up not farre from this unfortunate Countrey Behold here a wofull extremity It was a rainy morning with them and yet wondrous light The were burned to ashes before they could rise either from their beds or their sinnes And because they were such deserving sinners and yet were not quick in going to Hell Hell came to them in fire and brimstone Five great Cities and every part of them were all on fire together and it burnt so violently that all the Sea could not have quenched the flames And was not Gods Anger burning hot me thinkes now I heare the damned in Hell cry from all sides fire fire fire and yet no creature will ever be able to quench the least sparke of it O the goodnesse of God that holds me up over the great Dragons mouth and yet still out of his mouth though he does crave and whine and cry for me If I say God Almighty imprinted with an iron instrument these horrid markes of his anger on the hatefull forehead of one Countrey for the sinnes of some few people what O what will hee doe or in what strenge and new kind of anger will he expresse himselfe in the black day of judgement for the sinnes of the whole world Especially since that sinne is now growne exceedingly more diverse both in the species and in the particulars then it was in the infancie or childhood of the world In the day of judgement when the Devill questionlesse as Saint Basil observes will say something before the Bench to aggravate the matter Heare great Lord of Heaven and Hell I created not these people nor could I bring them from nothing Nor did I engrave my great signe and Image in their soules I did not take their nature I did not sweat bloud nor die for them I did not send Apostles and Preachers to signifie my will to them in a most powerfull manner or give grace to effect it I never wrought a miracle to bring waight to my sayings Nor did I promise them a Kingdome or eternall blessednesse but truely prepared for them a dark Dungeon where they shall lie and die with me eternally And yet behold mighty Judge my cursed crew of reprobates is the greatest by infinites whom though I much hate yet I much love their company And if we looke before Sodome God in his dreadfull anger drowned all the world for sinne both man and beast behaving himselfe in regard of mans beastly sins as if he scarce knew which was the man and which the beast Had we beene as we might have beene in the number of those poore lost wretches where had wee beene this day Distressed creatures they climed the trees they flew to the tops of the mountaines to save their lives Happy was he or she that stood highest But all in vaine The waters rose by some and by some they waiting with trembling expectation the Floud gat up as high as they the waves tooke them roaring as loud as they and their sinnes sunke them Part of them cleaved to boards plankes and other floating moveables for a while the drunkard to the barrell the covetous man to his chest of mony as very desirous to stay in the world and sinne againe but no creature of God was willing to save his enemy And every one that is like to Vlysses praised by Homer with this elogie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hee knew the Cities and manners of many people may quickly give us to understand how strangely the world in many places is defaced and wounded for sinne Vae laudabili vitae hominum saith Saint Austin si remota misericordia discutias eam Woe to the good lives of men if thou O Lord shalt discusse them without mercie We then with our bad lives how many woes shall we undergoe And the rather because it is most true which the same Saint Austin teacheth Multa laudata ab hominibus Deo teste damnantur S. Aug. lib. 3. Confess c. 9. cum saepe se aliter habent species facti aliter animus facientis Many things praised by men are condemned by God because oftentimes the outward barke and appearance of the deed doth not correspond and fall in with the minde of the Doer O Sinne it is a great vertue to hate thee A Toad is a very pretty thing in comparison of thee And now I remember a Toad is Gods good creature and if it could speake might truely say Lord such a one as I am I was made by thee And howosoever I looke blacke and cloudy that I move hate in passionate men yet thou lovest me Yea verily the loathed Serpent might say if it had mans tongue and understanding Although I creepe in the dirt lick the dust of the earth and draw a long ugly traine after me though under variety of colours and a spotted skinne I shroud poyson it being observed that the Serpent with the brightest scales hideth the most dangerous venome though my life is wedded to such a body as the Devill first abused to appeare in though men are so farre from yeelding me any helpe that they runne speedily from me yet I have the same maker as they and derive the worth of my being
from as high a descent as they doe and as they are sinfull I am more perfect and exceedingly more beautifull in the sight of God and all his Angels I doe not marvell now that the holy Psalmist spoke so heartily when he said Iniquitatem odio habui abominatus Ps 119. sum I hated iniquity and my soule had it in abomination Go sinne the Viper shall take place in our bosomes before thee For the Viper that eateth through the tender wombe of the mother never saw the mother before that blinde act of cruelty so that the Viper is onely cruell before he is borne and before he ever saw a gentle creature or this blessed light to which his mother brought him But the sinner sees God in his creatures And the Viper doth but defeate the body to bring a temporall death thou the soule to bring a death drawne out and lengthened with eternity CHAP. XVI TO sinne is to turne our backs with great contempt towards God Towards God standing in the midst of all his Angels and holding up Heaven with one hand and earth with another and to turne our faces and imbraces with great fondnesse to a vile Creature O that a true sight of this like a good Angell might alwayes appeare to us before we sinne As the proud man and woman turne from God the boundlesse treasure of all excellencie and sit brooding and swelling as upon empty shels upon the fraile and contemptible goods of minde body fortune The angry man and woman turne from God the sweetnesse of Heaven and Earth and side with their owne turbulent passions The Glutton and Drunkard turne from God to whom the eyes of all things doe looke up for their meate and drinke in due season and performe their devotions to their fat bodies and bellies quorum Deus venter est whose Phil. 3. 19. God is their belly Which Saint Paul spoke as it appeareth by the verse immediatly precedent even weeping The lascivious man and woman turne from God the Fountain of all true and solid comfort and take in exchange the pleasure of Beasts The covetous man and woman turne from God without whom the rich are very poore and dance about the golden Calfe making an Idoll of their money For Covetousnesse Coloss 3. 5. is Idolatry The envious man and woman turne from God from whom come both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not inward only but all outward gifts and stick to a repining at Gods liberality in others The sloathfull man and woman turn from God whose providence is in continuall action exercise and give flesh bones head heart and all to the pillow Judas had thirty pence for Christ but we have little or nought for him All the good gifts of the holy Ghost are struck to the heart by sinne S. John beheld in his Revelation a great red Dragon having seven heads and seven Rev. 12. 3. crownes upon his heads And againe a woman Rev. 17. 3. sitting upon a Scarlet-coloured beast having seven heads The seven heads are the seven deadly sinnes which the great red Dragon the Devill begetteth upon the woman the sinfull soule wherewith he resisteth and putteth to flight the seven choice gifts of the holy Ghost I remember the woman whom our Saviour dispossessed of seven Devils and the Leaper that by the Prophets appointment was dipped seven times in the river Jordane The Devill over-commeth the gift of feare The feare of the Lord is the brginning of wisdome with pride and presumption which utterly expell the feare of God With anger he smothereth the gift of knowledge For blinded with anger we judge not according to knowledge With envie he stifleth the gift of piety or godlinesse For by envie we bandy with our thoughts words and actions against our neighbours With lust and luxury he destroyeth the gift of wisedome by which we are made brutishly foolish With covetousnesse hee confoundeth the gift of counsell by which we are violently drawne from all good counsell in the pursuite of base but sweete lucre Covetousnesse being the roote of all evill With Gluttony and Drunkennesse he killeth the gift of understanding by which we are besotted and left altogether unfit to know or understand And with sloth he vanquisheth the gift of Fortitude by which we are made weake and infirme and benummed with feare and sorrow in the search of good things Here is a battell wherein the weake over-come the strong and all because the strong are fallen into the mischievous hands of a most barbarous Traitor a Traitor to God and his owne soule To sinne is to betray Christ and give him over to death and destruction that the sinne that is Barabas the murderer may live Here is a businesse O Lord And to sinne is to banish the holy Ghost with all his gifts to bid him goe go seeke a lodging amongst the rogues beggers And being unwilling to go as he is love it selfe and therefore struggling to stay to thrust him out of the soule by the head and shoulders as desirous in our anger to break a limbe of him if he had one O that we could remember at these times that we are the Devils officers And when sinne is not the privation of Grace because it comes where it is not it the more dimmeth and defaceth nature Sinne is the death and buriall of the soule which onely God can raise againe For as the body dyeth and falleth to the ground when the soule forsaketh it so the soule dyeth and falleth under the ground to Hell-gate when it is forsaken by God O Christian saith Saint Austin non sunt in te charitatis viscera si luges corpus a quo recessit anima animam vero a qua recessit Deus non luges O Christian there are no bowels of charity in thee if thou mournest for a body from which the soule is gone and doest not mourne for the wretched and forlorne estate of a soule from which God is departed One sinne is a greater evill greater above expression then all the evils of punishment that can be inflicted upon us by God himselfe in this world or in the world to come A greater evill beyond all measure then Hell-fire which shall never be quenched One sinne O what have I done many thousand times over It is the truth and nothing but the truth And therfore it is said of the sinne of evill speaking The death thereof is an evill death the grave Ecclesiasticus 28. 21. were better then it The words will beare another sense utilis potius infernus quam illa Hell were more profitable then it And this is proved as easily as written or spokē For the evils of punishment bereave us only of limited and finite goods as sicknesse depriveth us of health death of life But sinne depriveth us of God the onely Good that is infinite And the privation is alwayes by so much the more grievous by how much the good is more good of which
he carries about him into my owne selfe and given him the closet of my owne heart to lodge in Sinne changed the Angels of Heaven from a pure white to a most foule blacke And thus it had altered me I know that some of Gods people had they seene me would have said What ere the matter is you are wonderfully changed And then I might well have answered Truly I am not well I am vexed with a continuall fit of a deadly sicknesse And I am so weakened by it that I cannot distinguish betwixt good and bad I have exchanged God for vile things hypocrisie and superstition which I have preferred before God For he that of two things laid before him chuseth one esteemes that to be the greater good which he taketh and preferreth before the other I know not what I doe For I wound God altogether with his own weapons with the same gifts which I received of him with a condition to serve him having turned all his gifts into the sharp weapons of sinne I wound him with his owne concurse his power by which he doth assist me in all actions agreeable to my nature so that I force God to strike himselfe in very deed with his owne hand as if I dealt with a childe and set God against himselfe as it were causing division in the best and highest unity But now being recovered of the disease my understanding is more cleare and more discerning and knowing God here my Faith and Hope give me a kinde of security that I shall know him more distinctly hereafter and see him face to face Man desiring to know labours to know and because knowledge is honey-sweete the more he knowes the more he labours to know and the more he knowes to labour for knowledge And in his labouring to know one chiefe part of the knowledge he gaines is that although he still labours to know and still knowes and although hee should live a thousand yeeres and still know still amongst the things which may be knowne they would be more which he knowes not then which he knowes And so still it would be though he should live in the world for ever But God did not plant the naturall passion of desire in the reasonable soule with an intention that it should alwayes lie gaping but that it should at length be satisfied when it should close at last with its last end The like effect followes in pursuing other objects of desire If God should have made after his conquest of one another world for Alexander when he had done there he would have beene weeping againe while indeed hee would not have wept for another world but implicitely for God who onecould have filled his boundlesse desire The desire of man is in a manner infinite because it desires one thing after another into infinite And it can never be satisfied in this manner because the things desired come not altogether but ever one after another as the day commeth but successively houre after houre not altogether And therfore it must follow it will follow and it cannot but follow that it must be satisfied with a thing actually infinite which shal alwaies feed and yet alwayes fill the soule with knowledge riches pleasure every good thing ut semper quidem Deus doceat saith S. Irenaeus homo autem semper discat quae sunt a Deo That God may alwayes teach and man may always learn every degree of light opening to the soule a more ample and more cleare sight of God in himselfe or in his creatures Desire and Love tend to union we desire to have and we love to enjoy And therefore the powers desiring and loving strive to bring home the thing beloved where desire ceases and love remaines And thus also in the acts of knowledge For alhough after our manner of knowing in this world because our knowledge is imperfect it is not required that the thing knowne or understood should be joyned to the understanding by which we know but this is contented with a species or picture of it yet when we know and see clearely God and the understanding come face to face they meete in a close union together The Understanding being the first faculty must as it were first touch the divine Essence I must not here imagine that the union of the blessed soule with God is like the conjunction of Christs humanity with his divinity whence resulteth one person which we call Christ but she shall be joyned to him as a child to the mothers brest where indeed it sucks and takes hold with the mouth but the mother holds it fast in her armes supporting it that it cannot fall either to the ground or from the brest And whereas these two faces are very different the Understanding be it Angelicall or Humane and the Essence of God because God cannot stoop in his Essence though he doth in his power and other Attributes the created understanding as being very low is lifted up to the divine Essence that is strengthened with a light which we call the light of glory And this is a true Comment upon the Prophet David In thy light shall we see light It was excellently Psal 36. 9. done of the Father of lights in the creation of the world in the first place to produce light For as it was the first perfect creature so it shall be the last I meane the light of glory He begins with light he goes on with light look else and he ends with light And why so because God is light and because he ever was and is and ever wil be light The soule shall see in God a most exact Unity branched into a Trinity a most perfect Trinity gathered together in an Unity the most excellent independencie or rather priority of the Father because neither doth the Son or holy Ghost in any proper sense depend the most excellent generation of the Son the most excellent procession of the holy Ghost whereof one is not the other and yet they are not three most excellent but one most excellent O Mystery of Mysteries How the Angels in every degree depend upon God and differ one from another How because he could not make a creature as perfect as himselfe he goes in some kinde as farre as he can gives them as much of him as he is able imparting to them unchangeablenesse and eternity though not from everlasting yet for ever and ever How fitly the chosen of God fill up the number of the fallen Angels every one enjoying a different degree of blessednesse their workes and meanes of their salvation having beene different and because of every one it might be said Non erat similis illi qui conservaret legem Excelsi Hee had not his like in keeping the law of the most High because nature differing in all the meanes and courses did answerably differ And whereas in the world she saw God in his creatures she shall now see the creatures in God which she saw
which she saw not and which humane eye never saw which shall afford her satisfaction though not perfect her blessednesse according to S. Austin He that sees thee O God and thy workes in thee non propter illa beatior sed propter te solum is not more happy for seeing them in thee but for seeing thee onely She shall see as much as God hath set apart for her blessednesse and though she differ from others in her extension of sight she shall not desire to share equally with them because it is one of her perfections and indeed part of her blessednesse to rest perfectly upon the will of God from whence flowes a blessed peace From this beatificall vision or sight of Gods face shall flame out a most ardent love of God Wee behold in the world but certaine emblems of Gods mercie justice power and the like which are out of God and in creatures and yet the reflection sets us on fire with the love of God How then shall we burne in love towards him when we shall see all we see in God though not all in God in whom all is God Verily this love will have a Property above all loves For the lover of God in Heaven cannot but love him For having once seene him he cannot but look upon him and looking upon him he cannot but love him Many objects in this meane world meane in respect of Heaven at the first sight stirre us to love Looking we love and loving we looke and the more we look the more we love and the more we love the more we looke and we cannot tell for the time whether we looke more or love more Call away the soule that lookes upon God offer her a thousand worlds for the present and ten thousand hereafter Bring all the cunning enticements that the Devill can thinke of or that God can give him leave to forge make here an assurance of all that God can give besides himselfe bring Gods owne hand to it Go to her againe speak aloud tell her of another Heaven where although God is not to be enjoyed yet there are Angels to be seene and delights without number to minister pleasures that cannot be numbred Speake words as faire as the soule you speake to And cry with the Devill All Matt. 4. 9. these things will I give thee not over one world O poore O barren temptation but over as many worlds as God can make if thou wilt turne aside from God but a little a very little or winke out but one moment She will not she cannot not that she will not because she cannot or that she cannot because she will not but shee neither will nor can Nothing but Gods holy will can move her to turn aside or wink and that shee knowes is constant to her Happinesse O the basenesse of this world O the beastlinesse of our lusts and carnall desires O the vilenesse of our pride and filthy bravery How foule how sorbid how beggerly they are set in comparison with the fight of God in Heaven What poore things are they to take in exchange for eternall blessednesse Go go presently and sell your part of Heaven your part in God for these base things O the vanities of earthly Courts and kingdomes Give us God him him only him and let all go For in God we shall have riches without care honour without feare beauty without fading joy without sorrow content without vexation all good things not one after one but altogether and without the defects annexed to them in this imperfect world The Husband that loves the Wife of his bosome the Mother that loves the child of her wombe the children that love their Parents whose living Images they are the friend that loves his friend for whom he would endanger his life though he hath but one they may frame a conceit of the tender love of God to the soule and of the soule to God but they cannot entirely and comprehensively conceive it For upon earth we may love one man or woman most yet we may love others though not as the persons we love most and our love of others may have no respect to the person we love most and so our love may bee divided We cannot love two most 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Plato speakes there is but one best in all kindes one best one best-beloved But in Heaven our love shall settle with all the force it can make upon God where onely one is to bee loved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Saint Justin for Gods most perfect unity requires the perfection of a Monarchy It is the most perfect government where is one supreme Governour and therefore one God And though in Heaven we love Saints and Angels yet that love is a naturall branch of the love of God We love them because we love God we love them in God wee love God in them we love God for himselfe and we love them altogether for God But where a Trinity of persons is the Giver in the highest gift of all and the end of all other gifts there must appeare a trinity of gifts the sight of God the love of God and a rejoycing in God According to the good we receive and the intimacie of its connexion with us so natur'd is our joy It must then be the greatest joy when we shall perfectly enjoy the greatest good But what if the greatest good be all good shall we have all joy yes I write it with great joy all joy the sight of all all love all joy not that can be given or that can bee received but that we can receive Quicquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur whatsoever is received is received according to the capacity of the receiver And though perhaps some one or some few shall receive all that can be given to such a creature for God now gives himselfe out most freely yet they shall not receive all because no finite can receive an infinite nor all that a more perfect creature could receive It will be no small part of the soules joy that Gods will is done in his Saints in his Angels in the saved in the damned The righteous Psal 58. 10 saith the Psalmist shall rejoyce when he seeth the vengeance There cannot bee a knowledge and possession of God without great joy And will it not afford matter of great comfort to the soule to see in God the dangers of this world both spirituall and temporall which strengthened with a hand from Heaven she fairely passed When she thinkes being now in full security With such a plot the Devill assaulted me at such a time had not God beene in the combate with me on my side I had beene lost Had I runne such a course that runne in my head at such an houre I had runne head-long to Hell Had God call'd for me and for an account at such a day by land by sea when the sea roard the winds blew the rocks watcht